Last month, we reported that Bridger Pipeline LLC has proposed a giant pipeline with a capacity in excess of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to transport Canadian crude into the United States. Dubbed “Keystone Light” due to its similarities to the Keystone XL project that former U.S. President Joe Biden canceled in 2021, the 36-inch pipeline would span nearly 650 miles (1,050 km) from the U.S.-Canada border in Phillips County, Montana, to Guernsey, Wyoming, and cost approximately US$2 billion. And now U.S. President Donald Trump has given the go-ahead for development work on the pipeline to commence, marking yet another milestone in Canada’s ongoing drive to diversify its oil exports.
Trump signed a presidential permit on Thursday authorizing the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, with construction expected to begin in 2027 with a goal of completion by late 2028 or early 2029.
The pipeline will initially operate at ~550,000 bpd; however, Plainview Energy Analytics has noted that batching light crude oil could allow volumes to exceed typical heavy oil ceilings of 800,000 bpd for a line of this size, and deliver up to 1.13 mbpd.
While the primary stated purpose of the proposed 647-mile Bridger Pipeline expansion is to transport up to 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Canadian crude from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to Guernsey, Wyoming, company maps and plans show it includes potential tie-ins for the Bakken shale oil field.
The design provides access to a significant portion of Bridger’s existing North Dakota gathering network, “This optionality positions the project for potential future expansion beyond 550,000 bpd and creates the possibility of a new competitive egress option for Bakken shippers,” Matthew Lewis, Plainview’s founder, said.
However, the project is expected to face significant opposition from environmental groups, Indigenous communities, and landowners, with a potential need for a new presidential permit for the border crossing. To wit, the Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) has raised concerns regarding the inherent risk of spills and the potential environmental impact on Montana’s land and water. MEIC has highlighted the history of the owner, Bridger Pipeline LLC (a subsidiary of True Companies), specifically citing the 2015 incident where over 30,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, MT, contaminating the city’s water supply. It also argues the pipeline would transport environmentally destructive fuel sources, threatening wildlife habitat, local agriculture, and water quality. WildEarth Guardians and Earthjustice have expressed similar concerns.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace Canada has condemned the expansion, arguing that Canada should focus on reducing oil reliance rather than investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure. In its defense, whereas Keystone Light revives portions of the canceled Keystone XL route, it largely avoids some historical flashpoints by not crossing Native American reservations and following existing infrastructure corridors for 70% of its 650-mile route.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Trump-Unleashes-MASSIVE-PIPELINE-Expansion.jpg355640The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2026-05-08 06:01:382026-05-08 06:04:12Trump Unleashes MASSIVE PIPELINE Expansion: 500,000 Barrels a Day to Power American Energy Dominance
President Donald Trump had no sooner declared the Iran war “terminated” in a Friday letter to Congress than fighting broke out afresh. On Monday, Iranian forces chose to attack the merchant ships, the U.S. Navy, and other peaceful neighbors, and the U.S. sank six small Iranian attack boats in response. The Trump administration would rather not let such skirmishes derail the fragile ceasefire, but the Iranian regime still appears unwilling to play ball.
Two days after President Trump told Congress that hostilities with the Iranian regime were “terminated,” he announced a new operation, Project Freedom, whereby the U.S. military would create a safe corridor for civilian ships to leave the Persian Gulf. On Monday, U.S. destroyers escorted two U.S.-flagged tankers through the Strait, near the Omani shore, demonstrating that the U.S. military had cleared a “free lane” of Iranian mines. U.S. Central Command then advised commercial vessels to use the lane, while American naval vessels and military aircraft in the Strait provided a defensive shield.
For the Iranian regime, whose only remaining leverage in negotiations are the oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf, allowing America’s gambit to succeed would be effectively a final defeat. The “ceasefire” that President Trump unilaterally declared on April 7 largely consisted of the U.S. keeping its assets out of the Iranian regime’s diminished reach. But here was the U.S. Navy traipsing across Iran’s own backyard, practically daring Iran to attack. The remnants of the ruined regime reasoned they might never receive a better opportunity.
So, Iran attacked. They launched cruise missiles at American destroyers, and they launched drones on an empty Emirati tanker and a South Korean vessel trying to flee. They launched a squadron of fast attack boats — whether to lay mines, attack vessels, or capture them is unclear. And, for good measure, the Iranian regime also launched some 15 missiles and drones at its peaceful neighbor, the UAE, striking the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone on a UAE pipeline that bypasses the Strait.
Iran’s best available opportunity was still not a good one. The attack only demonstrated the regime’s impotence. The U.S. Navy intercepted the incoming missiles, and Apache helicopters sank the speedboats. Iran did manage to damage the civilian vessels and civilian targets in the UAE, but striking defenseless civilian targets is not really an impressive feat.
Iran’s pitiful provocations may elicit escalation in one form or another. President Trump declared that Iranian ships that attacked U.S. vessels would be “blown off the face of the earth,” and the furious Emiratis will insist that attacks against them must be answered. “The Iranians have fired the first shots to end the cease-fire,” observed The Wall Street Journal editors, “which is all the reason Mr. Trump needs to use the force to stop them from getting away with it again.”
However, the Trump administration has not publicly declared that Iran is in violation of the agreement. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the ceasefire “certainly holds” for now. What value there is in a “ceasefire” where both parties have resumed firing is a matter for debate.
The Trump administration’s reason for sticking to the ceasefire has nothing to do with the Iranian regime and everything to do with its domestic political situation. Finding Congress unwilling to support a campaign to finish the job, the Trump administration decided instead to tell Congress that the war was already over — whether Congress believes it or not.
“The greatest enemy is our own political dynamics,” lamented Michael Rubin, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, on “Washington Watch.” “The Iranians know that the Iranians have lost by any metric. It’s quite amazing how many people think that the United States has been stalemated.”
“In this case, the Iranians have lost a top three or four layers of their leadership,” he explained. “They’ve lost most of their military equipment, they’ve lost their economy, and so forth. We are in a position to dictate to them. We shouldn’t go into a game of poker having a full house or a royal flush and be out-bluffed by a pair of twos.”
“Historically, the American people have a short temperament for these types of things,” agreed Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “You get a new administration, and they’ll completely reverse course.”
The Iranian regime is likely counting on just that. “Their usual playbook … is simply to run down the clock in the hope that the people with whom they’re negotiating will eventually move on,” Rubin responded. “Because, of course, while Iran is a dictatorship, we’re a democracy. And therefore, what they’re doing is fishing for a future official who might rescue them from the mess which the Iranians now find themselves in.”
Of course, such a claim requires a definition of the Iranian regime — some understanding of who is actually running the country. Over the past month, the Iranian regime has maintained a defiant military posture, even with “certain conversations taking place, but the actions are not meshing with the conversations,” Perkins described. To him, this suggested that “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is actually driving the train.”
“That is precisely correct,” assented former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “I would add, I think that’s largely been true for 47 years. I think it has been the hardest of the hardcore that’s been driving this, with a theocratic veneer that’s now been shed because of the ayatollah’s demise.”
When dealing with the Iranian regime, said the man who actually did so, it’s important to remember that “there aren’t any ‘moderates’ … in the sense that we would understand people who don’t want to destroy the nation of Israel, who aren’t trying to create a caliphate. They believe all the same things that the radicals do. Their methodologies, their timing may be different, but there is not a leader inside of Iran that doesn’t believe that the Islamic Republic of Iran is entitled to rule the Middle East, and that Israel has no place in the region.”
“The IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is a powerful, capable military,” but “we’ve taken out much of that,” Pompeo described. However, in addition, IRGC operatives “are important politically — that is, they have the guns inside. They have capacity to control the populace. But they’re also an economic juggernaut. They own as much as one-fifth or one-third of the Iranian economy.”
“I happen to agree with Secretary Pompeo on this,” Rubin confirmed. “When some people have said that Donald Trump’s actions have only radicalized the regime, I don’t think they’re actually seeing the big picture. Iran, of course, is a conscript society. And therefore, you either were conscripted into the army or you had to join the Revolutionary Guard. … And as soon as the bombs started dropping, these guys who weren’t true believers simply faded into the woodwork. What remained were the true believers.”
Rubin also explained how the IRGC cultivates such “true believers” in its failing ideology. “You can go into that bubble when you’re eight years old, because they run the equivalent of evil Boy Scout programs,” he said. “Then they have student clubs. They run their own universities. And so, if you’ve been indoctrinated since the age of eight, you may actually believe what may sound like nonsense to us, which so many previous administrations in Washington were willing to dismiss as rhetorical flourish. They’re not rhetorical flourish.”
The ideological commitment of those driving Iranian policy is one reason why the Islamic regime has so stubbornly refused to negotiate a surrender of its fissile material — even after its military was all but destroyed. In its latest 14-point peace proposal, “almost each of those 14 points” was “so ridiculous on the face that really what the Iranians are trying to do is signal to the United States they’re not interested in negotiating,” said Rubin. “Ideologically, they will never accept a solution.”
Iran’s ideological inflexibility is a “conundrum that President Trump and, frankly, every president before him” has faced, said Pompeo. Rubin agreed, “The United States is very bad, traditionally, at understanding the ideology of its adversaries. And Donald Trump … is a fabulous negotiator … from this milieu of real estate dealing and so forth. But … you can’t be transactional with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
This belated realization prompted Trump to blockade Iran’s ports, deciding that the only way to break the IRGC’s hold on power was to box in the economic engine they control. “President Trump is on the right track,” cheered Pompeo. “The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is certainly impacting their revenue, their ability to pay their soldiers, their proxy forces.”
“The Iranians have never been in such poor economic straits,” reiterated Rubin. “The Iranian currency is now 1.8 million to the dollar. At the time of the revolution, it was 70 to the dollar. It’s in freefall. They can’t export their oil. They can’t import their gasoline. And remember, the Persian Gulf might be huge, but there’s only about 10 Iranian ports there that we need to control. And, right now, we’re controlling them.”
“If we’re going to negotiate, we negotiate from a position of strength,” Rubin urged. The blockade achieves that, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz strips away the last bit of leverage the Iranian regime has. Neither measure, however, is strictly peaceful. Even still, Pompeo said, “There is no negotiated solution that actually gets to a place where the regime will acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, that the United States should exist, and that the Iranian regime should not be in possession of a nuclear weapons capability.”
Pompeo and Rubin both agreed that weakening the IRGC also opened a pathway for internal revolt — though a slim one. “There’s an analogy with regard to Serbia,” Rubin proposed, “where, when Bill Clinton bombed Serbia, he didn’t unseat Slobodan Milosevic. That happened the next year because Slobodan Milosevic wasn’t able to pay the salaries, and a lot of his allies had simply been killed in this bombing.”
However, “the difference between Slobodan Milosevic and the Iranian leadership is that Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian nationalists weren’t willing to wholesale slaughter everyone in their country,” Rubin cautioned. “It appears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are. And, even if the Iranians among them aren’t, they’re importing Hezbollah and Iraqi militias to do the same thing.”
An internal uprising “is possible,” said Pompeo. “I don’t think that’s the most likely outcome, but it’s the one that we should support and pray and root for.”
Rather, the aim of the American blockade is to so weaken Iran that the IRGC is forced to agree to a deal which is effectively a surrender, Pompeo suggested. “I think that’s how this ultimately ends up being resolved. And that means more time, a little bit more patience by the American people — some more cost to the American consumers, for sure. But this is a resolve that I think is really important for Western civilization to achieve.”
However, he warned that such a “surrender” would not represent a change in heart or ideology, only a temporary surrender to circumstances. “So long as the regime is in power, they may pause for two years or five years or 10, but their determination will remain,” he said. “And so, from a Western perspective, the objective is to wipe out their capability materially. Get a verification regime around their nuclear program so that there’s no enrichment, no capacity to actually ever threaten the world again with a nuclear weapon. And then, be mindful.”
There is no permanent peace with the radical Islamic regime that rules Iran, only ceasefires of more or less value, lasting for shorter or longer periods of time.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Shooting-Strait.jpg336640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2026-05-06 14:26:202026-05-06 14:29:09Shooting Strait: The Iranian Ceasefire That Wasn’t
The Trump administration continues to reshape the Middle East, as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced Tuesday that, after 59 years, it would leave the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), effective May 1. The Wall Street Journal editors assessed the move as “another foreign policy victory for American fossil-fuel energy,” while Fox Business called it “good news for the world in the long run.” The UAE’s decision will certainly have global ramifications, both economic and political; for the U.S., it likely entails a deepening relationship fraught with hazards.
OPEC is an international consortium of oil-exporting nations that sets maximum production quotas for its members in an attempt to limit international supply and thereby keep world oil prices (and therefore oil profits) high. It is, effectively, a cartel of governments instead of businesses — a group of nations that cooperate more or less as an oil-producing monopoly.
OPEC currently boasts five founding members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela) and seven full members (Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, and the UAE). Ecuador and Indonesia have left the organization multiple times. Qatar withdrew its membership in 2019, and Angola withdrew its membership in 2024.
In 2016, OPEC signed an agreement with 10 other oil-producing nations (Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan, and Sudan) to create what is essentially a larger production cartel known as OPEC+. Together, OPEC and OPEC+ control 59% of the world’s oil supply.
The UAE has long been one of OPEC’s top oil producers, ranking somewhere in the range of second- to fourth-largest producer, depending on various factors. Before Iran shut down Gulf oil traffic on February 28, the UAE was producing some 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, or approximately 3% of the global supply.
Alongside Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s top producer, the UAE also has the most flexibility to increase or slow production, enabling OPEC to manipulate global markets in classic cartel behavior. Thus, the UAE’s decision to exit OPEC deals a significant blow to the organization’s ability to control world oil prices.
Economic Implications
More importantly, the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC will likely lead to a worldwide decline in oil prices, at least in the medium- to long-term. “Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” reports Capital Economics. Freed from the quotas set by OPEC, the UAE may expand production from 3.6 million barrels per day to at least 5 million barrels per day by 2027, a 40% increase for the country and more than 1% increase for all global oil production.
According to the unchanging principles of supply and demand, an increase in the supply of oil will lead to a corresponding decrease in the price, until the market reaches a new equilibrium. This is also what we would expect when a major producer stops cooperating with a cartel; the result is increased competition in the market, leading to more production and lower prices.
There are two major caveats. First, the two preceding paragraphs assumed that all other factors would remain unchanged when the UAE expands its oil production. Of course, the real world is more dynamic, and other oil producers would likely respond to such a dramatic increase in Emirati supply. Of most relevance, the remaining OPEC nations could agree to cut production further to offset (or partially offset) the UAE’s increased production, in order to maintain roughly the same price for oil.
The incentive for OPEC countries to do so is that some have inefficient oil industries that can only turn a significant profit at higher prices. The disincentive for OPEC countries to do so is that they would cede further market share and produce less oil on which to make a profit. The largest burden for production cuts would likely fall on Saudi Arabia, which would likely look unfavorably on ceding market share to it peninsular rival. Thus, the discomfort of OPEC nations would likely work out to the benefit of the rest of the world, which would then be able to obtain energy at lower prices.
The second caveat concerns the Iran war. Iran’s illegal closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off approximately 20% of world oil production from global markets, causing a sharp increase in world oil prices. The UAE is able to transport some oil over land to a pipeline terminus on the Gulf of Oman, but its ability to increase capacity is largely nullified while the Strait of Hormuz remains more-or-less closed. Thus, any benefit to world oil prices from an increase in UAE production would only take effect sometime after the conclusion of the Iran war.
Geopolitical Implications
The UAE’s departure from OPEC also has geopolitical implications, as it moves one of the most prosperous Gulf oil states away from a largely anti-American alliance towards a much more America-friendly posture.
Most Americans likely know little about OPEC except that it has often maintained an uneasy relationship with the United States. Most famously, Arab members of OPEC embargoed the U.S. during the 1973 Arab-Israel war, leading to the 1973-74 oil crisis, which featured gas lines, sky-high prices, and a nationwide reduction of speed limits to 55 mph. Having core members like Venezuela, Iraq, and Iran — longtime adversaries of the U.S. — certainly has not helped.
However, the UAE is currently furious with Iran, which has likely informed its decision to withdraw from OPEC. Not only is Iran blockading the bulk of Emirati oil production from reaching markets — both damaging the nation’s budget and undermining the whole premise of OPEC — but Iran has also responded to American bombardment by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at the UAE, causing significant damage in the country that is not part of the war.
When the UAE already believed that OPEC no longer worked in their favor, such major affronts by one of its founding members surely hastened the Emirati exit.
The UAE also has a strained relationship with Saudi Arabia over both its OPEC quota and geopolitical influence. The UAE’s greatest security concern is for reliable food imports, which makes sense given the arid desert in which its burgeoning urban centers sit. To secure its food sources, the UAE has invested some $47 billion in agriculture, ports, and security installations across 12 East African nations.
This campaign of regional influence puts the UAE at odds with Saudi Arabia, particularly in Yemen, where the former allies against the Iran-backed Houthis now back different factions in that nation’s ongoing civil war. The UAE wants a foothold in Yemen to secure its maritime network, while Saudi Arabia views the nation as an important buffer state.
On December 30, 2025, Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) at the Port of Mukalla, halting the STC’s rapid territorial gains and leading to the group’s total dissolution on January 9, 2026. If, say, the U.K. (or Pakistan) had bombed American tribal allies in Afghanistan in 2003, the U.S. would have been pretty upset, too.
Emirati officials claim that their disagreements with Saudi Arabia were not the reason for their leaving OPEC, but they certainly soured the relationship.
No, the UAE’s best reasons for leaving OPEC is that they felt like they were always getting the short end of the stick. Due to internal instability, numerous other members received exemptions to pump oil beyond their quotas — Libya, Venezuela, and even Iran. Nations like Iraq had no exemption but exceeded their quota anyways. Despite the grace shown toward other members, the UAE lobbied unsuccessfully to win a larger quota for itself, despite heavy investment in expanding its infrastructure.
Meanwhile, OPEC became less relevant as a global cartel as other competitors expanded their own oil production. Most notably, the U.S. increased its oil production from 5.4 million barrels per day in January 2010 to 13.2 million barrels per day in January 2026. Brazil, Canada, and Guyana also increased their oil production, and American oil pioneers are now exploring deposits in Argentina. The UAE wants in on the global trend toward expanded oil production, and the constraints of OPEC held it back. So, it cut itself loose.
The decision continues a reshuffling of geopolitics in the Middle East, which sees the UAE increasingly turn away from its immediate neighbors and toward the United States.
Unlike some other Middle Eastern nations, the UAE’s affinity toward the U.S. also includes an affinity toward Israel. The UAE was one of four Muslim-majority nations to normalize relations with Israel during the first Trump administration’s push for the Abraham Accords. In December 2025, the UAE was revealed to be the undisclosed buyer in a $2.3 billion arms deal with an Israeli manufacturer. This week, further reports revealed that Israel lent the UAE an Iron Dome air defense system and troops to operate it early in the Iran war.
The UAE and Israel have also cooperated on Somaliland, a former British colony that seceded from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and maintains its own autonomous government. Israel became the first nation to recognize Somaliland as an independent country on December 26, 2025, and the UAE helped prepare the first state visit. The UAE maintains a port and military base in Somaliland as part of its footprint to defend its interests in Eastern Africa.
There are limitations to the UAE’s political realignment. Although it is departing OPEC, the UAE remains a member of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), which also includes Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Tunisia. It also remains part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
But the UAE’s departure from OPEC, following seven years after the departure of fellow Gulf oil state Qatar, could induce other cartel members to reconsider their own commitment to the organization and start a domino-like chain reaction. “If the U.A.E. exit is a portent, the OPEC cartel may eventually break up on its own under the weight of competition,” said The Wall Street Journal editors.
While the UAE’s departure from OPEC is a positive development in that it likely increases American influence, American policy makers should also remember to handle the relationship with care. For all of its friendship toward the U.S. and Israel and opposition to political Islam, the UAE is no model Western nation. It maintains apostasy and blasphemy laws, both of which it has enforced in the past 10 years, as Family Research Council has documented.
The UAE is also not above sponsoring ruthless separatist groups when it believes they serve its interests. For instance, in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, the UAE provided support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a separatist militia that committed atrocities last year during the sack of El Fasher.
Thus, just because the UAE is migrating toward the U.S. does not mean it has become a good actor. It remains exactly the sort of nation you would expect to find ruled by oil-rich Muslim sheiks on the Persian Gulf. Yet there are both political and economic benefits to the U.S. from its decision to depart OPEC. Most immediately, once the war concludes, the increased competition (and likely volume) of global oil production should result in lower oil prices worldwide.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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“The Trump EPA has ENDED the Green New Scam. We proudly rescinded what has been referred to as the “Holy Grail” for the “world is about to end” climate change zealots, the 2009 Obama EPA Endangerment Finding, without apology or regret. $1.3 trillion in savings. $2,400 more affordable new vehicles. The end of the start/stop climate participation trophy. All while protecting our environment.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/EPA-LEADER-LEE-ZELDIN.jpg360640Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2026-04-30 12:24:252026-04-30 12:27:38Zeldin to Congress: EPA Putting Affordability Ahead of Alarmism
The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously struck down a bizarre effort at climate lawfare, which aimed to penalize Chevron for its role in boosting the U.S. war effort against the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War II.
The ruling is good news for sanity, but it also sets an important precedent for the Left’s ongoing climate lawfare efforts. You see, climate alarmist lawyers have sought to weaponize state laws against oil and gas companies, and the ruling in Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish delivers a knockout punch to at least part of their nefarious strategy.
While the case turns on a technicality, that technicality means a great deal to the environmentalist trial lawyers seeking to make a buck and undermine the oil industry.
As Justice Clarence Thomas—a President George H.W. Bush appointee—notes in his opinion for the unanimous court, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, and its fellow parishes filed no fewer than 42 state-court lawsuits in 2013 against oil and gas companies under a 1978 state law for alleged violations in the 1940s.
Many of the oil companies successfully appealed to have the cases removed from state court to federal court, because the companies had been acting under a federal officer “of or relating to any act under color of such office.” Yet lower courts had rejected Chevron’s efforts to move the case out of state court, so Thomas had to painstakingly explain that the phrase “relating to” can mean “to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain; refer; to bring into association with or connection with.”
Of course, this isn’t really about the meaning of the word “relate.” It’s all about whether judges who support the climate alarmist narrative can side with climate lawfare in the teeth of both the law’s text and common sense.
It does not make sense to use a Louisiana law to penalize an energy company in Louisiana state court for actions a previous version of that company took in service of a federal objective on the orders of the federal government.
This move from state to federal court may seem insignificant, but it is not. The oil and gas industry engages in interstate commerce, and its operations largely fall under federal law. Climate alarmist politicians in some states seek to pass laws restricting the industry’s operations, and climate alarmist lawyers seek to weaponize such laws against the industry as a whole, based on the idea that the human burning of fossil fuels is bringing about some indeterminate apocalypse.
Other Forms of Climate Lawfare
Suing oil companies for helping America defeat the Nazis is one thing, but the issue of whether state or federal law prevails in climate cases remains quite relevant, and it’s the centerpiece of another Supreme Court case.
Boulder, Colorado, sued Suncor Energy, claiming that its key business model of burning fossil fuels for energy has caused concrete harm under state law. The Colorado Supreme Court allowed Boulder’s case to proceed, so Suncor appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
Think about the implications of this for a second. Boulder claims that the burning of fossil fuels has caused concrete harm—even though it is unclear exactly how fossil fuels impact the global climate and most climate alarmist predictions have proven false. The city attributes specific weather harms not to God or the planet’s ecosystem but to a specific company, and then claims to know what is unknowable—how much that specific company’s efforts contributed to Boulder’s weather.
In doing so, Boulder takes upon itself the ability to regulate an industry that doesn’t just operate across state lines, but is vital to the global economic system.
But it gets worse. David Bookbinder, who served as part of the legal team representing Boulder at lower stages of litigation, described his climate lawfare efforts as “an indirect carbon tax.”
Tellingly, he added, “I’d prefer an actual carbon tax, but if we can’t get one of those… this is a rather, somewhat convoluted way, to achieve the goals of a carbon tax.”
In other words, this climate lawfare is a conscious effort to circumvent the voters.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Suncor’s case against Boulder, and the Plaquemines Parish ruling suggests the court may decide that state law is incapable of handling the regulation of a global industry.
Other Implications
Friday’s ruling also shores up America’s standing in the world. As Steven Bucci, a 30-year Army Special Forces veteran, explained last year, a ruling in favor of Plaquemines Parish would have undermined U.S. national security. State courts shouldn’t be able to second-guess federal wartime decisions, and if they could, that might lead companies to reconsider assisting in America’s defense.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court made the right decision, and it did so on the merits of the law, such that all eight justices who considered it—Justice Samuel Alito recused himself—agreed that Plaquemines Parish’s case is baseless.
Here’s hoping this represents a step toward blocking climate lawfare going forward. Suncor v. Boulder will be the real test.
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https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Supreme-Court-on-March-18.jpg332640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2026-04-18 14:36:462026-04-18 14:41:54Climate Lawfare Suffers Major Defeat at the Supreme Court
In just one week, President Trump has pulled off what others couldn’t in decades: secured the Strait of Hormuz, safeguarding 20% of the world’s oil supply; forged stronger ties with Persian Gulf nations standing united against Iran; crippled BRICS momentum; shattered Lloyd’s of London’s 300-year dominance over global maritime insurance by stepping in with U.S.-backed guarantees; and squeezed China’s energy lifeline hard.
China’s scrambling. The UK is on the sidelines watching its influence fade. Iran’s regime is cornered and reeling. America is roaring back—fierce, unstoppable, and firmly in command.
This is leadership and strategic genius on a historic scale.
As of April 2026, massive numbers of empty oil tankers are rushing to U.S. Gulf Coast ports to load, driven by a 7% surge in oil prices following a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This shift, noted by Trump on Truth Social and reports by Komo News…, sees tankers redirecting from the Middle East to take advantage of high demand for American crude.
Key Developments in Tanker Traffic & Conflict:
U.S. Gulf Rush: Empty tankers are heading to the U.S. to “load up” with oil and gas.
Strait of Hormuz Blockade: A U.S.-led blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has stalled shipments, with over 1,000 vessels waiting in the region.
Conflict and Seizures: Over 500 tankers have been targeted in the conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, and oil tankers have been seized in the region.
Shifting Routes: Despite tensions, some Chinese vessels have exited the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, reported by the Wall Street Journal.
This influx of demand for US oil has boosted the outlook for energy companies like Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil (XOM), and ConocoPhillips (COP).
Maria Bartiromo: You said the other day that any country that supports Iran or sends military equipment to Iran would face a 50% tariff on their products. Were you referring to China?
Trump: Yes, China and potentially others. But specifically, yes, China is included.
I’ve heard reports — and I don’t always trust news reports — claiming that China giving shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. I’m not sure that’s accurate.
I doubt they would do that. Maybe they did a little bit at the beginning.
But if we catch any country, including China, providing military equipment to Iran, they will face a 50% tariff.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Tankers-Flock-to-Gulf-of-America.png318640The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2026-04-14 04:56:062026-04-14 05:00:42Oil Surge: Tankers Flock to Gulf of America as Hormuz Blockade Reroutes Global Supply
How many Americans have to die before we realize that the policies of the last century don’t work and most are based on computer models? Our policies are based on a “What if” scenario, not the reality of finding a solution for a real world problem.
What do I mean by that? Have you noticed that almost every policy of major importance never takes place in real time? Instead, it addresses the problem with a solution that computer models are used for “What If” projections into the future. Their solutions are for later, in the future, with hypothetical problems that never seem to materialize. Why? So the end justifies the means.
New policies based on hypothetical problems, effective years in the future, are often meaningless but expensive and are filled with government overreach. When a new administration takes over, the new president is now saddled with a solution that doesn’t fit today, does not address what is happening today and is often void of science.
A perfect example of this is what happened in the EPA. I remember when I first started studying Agenda 21 and first heard about climate change. I thought how stupid these climatologists are using models with data that may not even exist. This group of people can’t even tell you which direction a hurricane is headed because Mother Nature is unpredictable. They never take into consideration the fact that humans will adjust to a new atmosphere and create different tools to cope with it. Instead, they give us policies that say you must do this today or the planet will die in 5 years, in 10 years, in 20 years. And then when those years appear, the glaciers haven’t melted, the sea doesn’t rise and Florida is not yet under water. Despite this, kids are taught to blame their parents for something that will never even happen!
Instead of helping, their policies destroy jobs, destroy economic growth and cause more harm than good. Nothing is more evident than:
Wildfires that go on every year in California that the Californians are never prepared for.
The logging industry destroyed, forcing Americans to buy expensive wood from Canada. Instead of clearing the forests in America this policy also raised the price of construction.
The fishing industry was closed when a model, created by NOAA on a computer, said there would be no more Red Snapper or Lobster. This resulted in loss of fishing villages and recreational charters. No more fishing industry. Now, look at the price of the fish that we are forced to buy from overseas mud ponds. No telling what’s in them.
When I look at our economy as a whole, I realize that the people putting these policies in place are not scientists or doctors and certainly not professionals. Most did not care about the harm their policies would bring. Were they in it for wealth and power? They do not care about the American people. They do not care about America and they certainly do not care about the future. The bureaucrats and legislators making these laws are in it for today, for today’s power for today’s money and for today’s control. They don’t care about the future, they don’t care about the children and they certainly don’t care about America.
Fortunately, President Trump does care and attended school at a time when, I believe, science was still taught. I remember teaching science. I remember talking about breathing and how important carbon dioxide was to human life. I remember talking about the variety of seasons and how each season was important, but we must prepare for its differences. Unfortunately, the children of today have no memory of anything, except how to work their handheld devices or play games on them.
Thank you, President Trump, for getting us out of those insane UN NGO’s – that do nothing except steal our money!! Thank you, President Trump, for giving Lee Zeldon the nod to change the EPA’s insane green policies with a green failure future.
My guest this week is Sterling Burnett, from the Heartland Institute. Sterling is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy. The new EPA policies will bring sanity back to a department that has gone off the rails. To understand how these new policies, Chevron Deference Case and the Rescission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Repeal of Vehicle GHG Standards, help bring economic prosperity to Americans. Here is a brief summary of each.
Chevron Deference:
Chevron deference is a legal principle guiding courts on agency interpretations of statutes. It applies when a statute is ambiguous and the agency’s interpretation is reasonable. Established by the Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984). Courts first determine if the statute is ambiguous before deferring to the agency’s expertise. It emphasizes the role of administrative agencies in interpreting laws within their jurisdiction. Critics argue it can lead to excessive agency power and reduced judicial oversight.
As of March 2026, the most prominent and recent “new” EPA regulations (or major actions) under the current administration focus heavily on deregulation, particularly rolling back prior greenhouse gas (GHG) and climate-related rules from previous administrations. The standout development is the February 2026 final rule described by the EPA as the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” Key EPA Action: Rescission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Repeal of Vehicle GHG Standards (Finalized February 12, 2026)
Rescinds the 2009 Endangerment Finding: This Obama-era determination concluded that GHG emissions (like CO₂) from motor vehicles endanger public health and welfare, providing the legal basis under Clean Air Act Section 202(a) for federal GHG regulation.
Repeals all subsequent federal GHG emission standards for light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles and engines (covering model years 2012–2027 and beyond).
Eliminates related requirements: No more obligations for manufacturers to measure, report, certify, or comply with GHG standards; removes compliance programs, credit provisions (including off-cycle credits like incentives for start-stop features), and reporting.
Scope and impact — Applies only to GHG emissions (does not affect standards for traditional pollutants like NOx, particulates). Aims to restore consumer choice, lower vehicle costs, and reduce regulatory burdens on the auto industry.
Claimed benefits — EPA estimates over $1.3 trillion in cost savings for Americans (e.g., cheaper vehicles, reduced compliance costs, lower living expenses via affordable trucks).
Rationale — EPA argues the Clean Air Act does not authorize GHG regulation from vehicles without clearer congressional intent, citing Supreme Court decisions (e.g., West Virginia v. EPA, Loper Bright).
It is up to us to conduct oversight to make sure the new rules are followed. This is only one piece of making America Great Again. It is up to us to help President Trump get the Save America Act done. YOUR job is to call your Senator and any other Senator that voted NO. Call them often!! Make sure they know you will not vote for them if they can’t fight to Save America. Is America worth saving? It is up to us.
As the mainstream media tells it, Operation Epic Fury is “quickly becoming a disaster.” “The U.S. has been caught flat-footed.” “Helpless America” cowers before “a bullying Iran.” The whole operation is one giant “miscalculation.” Every armchair doctor prescribes the same remedy: the Trump administration should declare defeat, take its over-priced toys back to the home barracks, and drink its sorrows away from a stream of self-flagellating tears. How dare the object of all this Derangement Syndrome ever believe America could be a winner again?
The simple answer is that President Trump dares to believe in America because America is awesome, and because our unparalleled military is currently putting on a once-in-a-generation display of dominance. The media is hung up on every small mishap, the side-effect of rising oil prices, and the unknowns about what the Iranians are thinking or where their surviving leadership is hiding. “The proper term for this is the fog of war,” Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, explained on “Washington Watch.” “And it happens in every conflict. But … all the uncertainty, all the churn, all the turmoil is being amplified by social media, and by the way, the conflict is being reported.”
“If you break through the noise, and if you take a look at what’s actually happening — if you listen to political leaders, it’s not so clear — if you listen to military leaders, it’s actually very clear … that there’s a sort of a clear, methodical plan,” argued Berman. “And it’s progressing ‘at pace.’ … It’s very clear that the plan is phased, and it’s methodical.”
“The first phase was that strategic surprise that we saw at the end of February with the decapitation of the regime, the killing of Iran’s supreme leader,” Berman listed. “The second phase is what we’re nearing the end of now, which is the elimination of Iran’s offensive capabilities: its ability to shoot drones, to fire missiles, to hold American allies and American assets in the region at risk. And what comes next is the elimination of Iran’s defensive capabilities, basically degrading Iran’s defense-industrial base so Iran can’t rebuild those capabilities.”
National Review’s Noah Rothman records that the initial decapitation strikes “neutralized roughly 40 senior Iranian leadership figures,” followed by “Iran’s armed forces and intelligence leaders, national security figureheads, senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij paramilitary commanders, and the brainpower behind Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
In the second and third weeks of war, Rothman continued, the U.S. and Israel completely demolished both the Iranian Air Force and its Navy of 120 ships. They disabled most of Iran’s air and missile bases. And, of course, “Iran’s once formidable network of terrorist proxies across the Middle East was decimated” over the past two years of war.
From there, Operation Epic Fury began targeting Iran’s military infrastructure, targeting nuclear facilities, “missile-production facilities, drone manufacturers, explosives-production plants, and sensitive electronics developers,” Rothman added. “Before the end of the third week of fighting, the United States had achieved command of the skies in southern Iran sufficient to deploy vulnerable air assets” that could strafe attack boats, shoot drones in flight, or drop bombs without stealth technology. The U.S. and Israel have eliminated 70% of Iran’s missile launchers, struck buried missile garages, and loiter above bunkers watching for activity.
All this was achieved with only a handful of U.S. deaths and a few hundred injuries. From a tactical perspective, it’s hard to imagine how Operation Epic Fury could have been any more successful. “[Twenty-five] days in, the greatest military the world has ever known is ahead of schedule and performing exceptionally day by day,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt exulted this week. “From the outset, President Trump and the Department of War estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve this critical mission.”
Of course, strategic victories are always more important and longer-lasting than tactical ones. Thus far, America’s war effort has exposed a “trilateral strategic pact” signed by Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran to be so many empty promises, demonstrated the shortcomings in Russian and Chinese anti-air defenses offered for sale abroad, and turned the rest of the Persian Gulf countries firmly against Iran and towards the U.S. and Israel.
Yet, while those are nice side effects of the war, they aren’t sufficient to justify America’s involvement in the war or exit from it. Key members of Congress from both parties are now asking the administration for more answers about its war aims, especially after the Pentagon requested an extra $200 billion in funding.
Those are legitimate questions because “it’s not clear exactly what the ultimate objectives … actually are,” Berman noted. The question is rendered more crucial by the recent deployment of thousands of U.S. Marines and paratroopers to the Middle East. “Like the vast majority of Americans, I’m firmly against the idea of a large-scale troop deployment in Iran itself,” said Berman. “I don’t want boots on the ground in Iran. I don’t want anything resembling the repeat of Iraq.”
However, “there is a problem that the administration has to solve,” he added. “When the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in the summer of last year, there was something on the order of 440kg of highly enriched uranium —uranium that is enriched to 60% purity, which [was] left in these ruined facilities. … Somebody has to get ahold of this fissile material, whether the Iranians … turn it over, or a third party, or the U.S. itself.” He suggested “the window of opportunity” for a U.S.-led extraction effort will close if a ceasefire agreement is reached.
Iran has managed to create a second problem for the United States during the war. In a close imitation of their proxy Hamas versus Israel, Iranian officials appear to be pursuing an asymmetrical strategy of losing the military battlefield while winning the diplomatic, economic, and geopolitical struggle. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is extorting commercial ships, charging them a $2 million ransom to traverse the Strait of Hormuz in safety, behaving as if the international thoroughfare were their own private canal.
Iran is trying to wring out the Strait of Hormuz like the neck of the global energy market, believing those Western wimps will then whine their way out of the war. If the tactic holds, then the Iranian regime will establish the principle that the Strait of Hormuz is theirs, and that they can shut off 20% of the world’s oil supply whenever anyone attacks them — making it impossible to ever attack them again.
But Iran never reckoned on the contingency that the commander in chief of the flotilla sitting just outside their harbor believes in total victory. Oil price shocks may cause some pain and consternation, but they have not yet driven the Trump administration to surrender. Overnight Wednesday, Israel killed the commander of the IRGC Navy, responsible for the Strait choke-out strategy.
After President Trump’s ultimatum to up the stakes last weekend, the Iranian regime apparently responded by offering to negotiate, releasing 10 oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz to show that they are serious, said President Trump. The president recently communicated a 15-point peace plan to the Iranian regime through a Pakistani intermediary, which demanded the regime dismantle and renounce its nuclear program, limit its missiles, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. Iranian officials rejected the list of demands, but it shows the objectives Trump is fighting to obtain in the war.
The five-day pause Trump declared in order to give diplomacy a chance expires on Friday, and the U.S. is moving forces into position for potential future attacks. “There does not need to be any more death and destruction, but if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before,” Leavitt warned.
The next test will prove the most interesting. The Iranian regime is relying on its death grip over the Strait of Hormuz — since indeed that is its only card left to play. The test will be whether America’s (and Israel’s) undisputed — and now unchallenged — military superiority can pry that death grip free. Soaring gas prices may be painful for a few weeks, but America survived them in 2022 without even having the end of one of the world’s worst regimes to show for it.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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For all practical purposes, there is no longer a Democratic Party, at least as we’ve known it for 50 to 100 years. What we’re witnessing in Washington as the opposition under Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries is something that we haven’t really seen before. It is a full-blown Socialist Revolutionary Party.
The players of that party that are running things are not even Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries. They’re people like [outgoing] Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. They’re people like Mr. [James] Talarico in Texas, Mr. [Zohran] Mamdani. Elizabeth Warren. The socialist Bernie Sanders, etc., etc.
They’re radical leftists. And they believe in a mandated equality of result, perpetuated or completed by radically high taxes from people who have been successful and to transfer that money to people who have been unsuccessful. Not because of any fault of their own or any gift or success of the wealthy, but because of oppression.
And they’ve created a Marxist binary in the world. There’s 70%, the so-called white population, because they’ve confused and conflated race with class. That is the oppressor class. And the 30% that is the oppressed class.
And the victimized class feels that they have legitimate grievances against the other 70% for not having what they do. And therefore, the Democratic Party steps in and says that we will mandate an equality of result. That is the agenda. And you can see it on all fronts.
If people are poor, they want to come to the United States, then open the border. They should have a right to do that. And when they come to the United States, they can become better off than they were in Mexico or El Salvador or the Caribbean because they’re going to get entitlements. And those entitlements will be costly and expensive, fraud-ridden, as we’ve seen in California and Minnesota.
And that will require people to pay their, quote, fair share and higher taxes. Which is a good in itself. Not just because the money is transferred to the people who don’t have it through entitlements, but more importantly, you’re emasculating people who “didn’t earn that.” “You didn’t build that,” as Elizabeth Warren said.
So that’s what the party is. You can see it on the border. You can see it with crime. They believe that crime is committed not by individuals who break existing laws, but by society, which created the conditions for crime.
And so, therefore, we see no-cash bail, or we see somebody who commits a heinous crime, and they’re let out. They’re either not jailed. They’re not indicted. They’re not convicted, and they’re not incarcerated, because of, I guess we would call it, critical legal theory.
Behind all of it, though, is diversity, equity, and inclusion. And this is what they’ve had a problem with because when the American public sees this, and they said, you’ve created a victim class that you represent, and then you’ve demonized the other 70% that ar so-called white, and people are saying, well, you’re on the wrong side of percentages.
Unless you can convince, as happened with Barack Obama’s candidacy, to get more white people to vote for him than maybe voted for Romney or John McCain. Or maybe more white people voted for Obama than they did for John Kerry, four years earlier. But the point is that it has nothing to do with class.
So, one of the problems that democratic socialists, or whatever these people call themselves, have is Mamdani’s a multimillionaire. His parents are multimillionaires. When he says he wants to go after white neighborhoods for equity, the wealthiest minority in the United States, today, ethnic minority, is Mamdani. It’s Indian Americans. Americans of Indian heritage.
And the next six or seven or eight ethnic groups are not white. And there is no direct relationship anymore between your skin color and your class status or your income. And so, if that’s not true, when you go after these people, then you are basically an out-and-out racist because they haven’t done anything to you. And the greatest number of people who are poor in the United States remain white.
Let’s just ask ourselves what happened to the Democratic Party. If we were to look at the ’92 and ’96 agendas at the Democratic Convention, and those were written by Doug Schoen and Mark Penn. It’s pretty much a Republican agenda now.
It was closed borders. Legal-only immigration. Strong support for unions. Trying juveniles who commit violent crimes as adults. Strong national defense. Balanced budget, achieved for four years under Bill Clinton, and with the help of Newt Gingrich. That’s all out the window. Anybody in the Democratic Party who espouses those views today would be considered a heretic or worse.
So between the Clinton phenomenon of ’92 to 2000, what happened? It’d be easy to say Barack Obama happened. That he ginned up latent racial tensions and grievances and used them for political purposes to get himself elected and reelected. That’s true.
But there were larger cosmic forces that created a Barack Obama. And the first, of course, was open borders. We have now 53 million people. It’s the largest in the history of the United States. In numbers, 16.2% of the United States resident population was not born in the United States.
Some of them are naturalized citizens, but as we’ve seen this last two weeks, whether it was the Old Dominion shooting or the attack on the synagogue or the IEDs that were thrown out in front of the New York governor’s mansion or the shooting in Austin, we have a problem with naturalized citizens.
They do not assimilate, acculturate or integrate in the way that they used to under the melting pot. And they formed constituencies for the Democratic Party. And they are told that you came here—and it doesn’t really matter under what auspices—if you’re part of the 53 million, and there’s probably 30 million, with the Biden additions that came illegally, you still had a right.
We don’t believe in borders, and therefore, you come here. We will provide the entitlements. And we will water down voting laws. No voter ID, even though 70% of the American people want them. And you will be either a present or a future constituency.
So that was a big change. Demography is destiny, they told us. The new Democrat majority, they told us and that came true. That was a big factor in their rise.
The second thing was globalization. Globalization created two societies in the United States. The East Coast, from Massachusetts down to the Carolinas, looked out at the EU, and the West Coast, from Seattle to San Diego, looked out at Asia, the Tigers, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and, of course, mainland China.
And people who had particular skills that were globalized, and here they were in tech, insurance, investment, law, media, academia. They found that their audience, their constituency, was expanded from 300 million, let’s say, 10 years ago, maybe 340 million now, to seven billion. But for those who mined or farmed or assembled or manufactured, they were outsourced offshore, or they couldn’t keep up with cheap imports.
This is what got Donald Trump elected, but it also explains the new Democratic Party. They used to rail about the importance of the middle class. They dropped that. That was the meme of Donald Trump. They found that by supporting the 30% DEI agenda and the globalized elite, they had a new constituency. And that was vast amounts of money. All of Silicon Valley and its $9 trillion in market capitalization, until recently, was put at the service of the Democratic Party.
So this party radicalized in two fashions. You brought in a lot of poor people, and you re-energized people of color to say that your problems were not your own, but they were committed by the deplorables, the irredeemables, the clingers, the chumps, the dregs, the garbage. And then you had the money to outspend your Republican candidates in vast numbers.
And more importantly, with the rise of left-wing big tech and the left-wing corporate boardroom and the left-wing academics, you could control institutions. The medium is the message.
So ABC, NBC, NPR, social media, Facebook, the old Twitter, you name it. There was a popular culture, professional sports. There was a monopoly on left-wing knowledge, and that was very, very valuable.
And finally, the old idea of integration, intermarriage, assimilation, the melting pot, that was not conducive to this new Socialist Democratic Party. They said, why would we bring in people who wanted to be American and wanted to identify essentially as American and only incidentally, in their former country?
We saw what happened, the Democrats said, in 1956 when we let in the Hungarians, anti-communist, they came over here. They assimilated as Americans. They became very, very conservative voters. We saw what happened in 1959 to 1980 when we let in all of these Cubans, who had been driven out by communism. They were very patriotic Americans. They assimilated, and they were a constituency that we didn’t like.
So, what we want to do is refabricate the immigration. Let in a lot of people, but not from particular countries that would mean they were successful, they had skills. We don’t want anybody from Europe. We don’t want anybody from Australia or the former British Commonwealth, such as New Zealand. We don’t want anybody coming in here who is anti-communist as a refugee.
We want people who are poor and are accustomed to socialist countries and will come here and want more socialist benefits. That’s South America, Latin America, Africa, large parts of Asia. And they will be the constituency that allows us to have an unpopular message that existing Americans have never liked and do not like at all.
And the result was the Democrats can’t win elections with open, transparent balloting, one-day balloting, and they know it. But if you take over the institutions and you use this globalized financial power and you appeal to very, very wealthy people’s sense of noblesse oblige or guilt or whatever strategy you use, and you combine that with a mass of very poor people who came in very recently, many under illegal circumstances, you have a constituency that required one thing.
You had to give up the white middle working class. The union class that you used to champion. The Hubert Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman class. You despise those people. And we know that because you didn’t just give up on them and accept a globalized agenda and an expanded welfare state, but you created a vocabulary of disparagement.
As I said earlier, these were the clingers. These were the people who had no teeth in their head. These were the people who Peter Strzok, Lisa Page texted about smelling up Walmart. All this disparagement for a class of people you despised, and I don’t think you’re going to win them back.
But just to finish, there is no Democratic Party. There’s a Socialist Party. But it’s a very weird Socialist Party. It’s a pyramiddle party with a lot of very wealthy, globalized elites that run things at the top. Nothing in the middle of the pyramid. And then an expansive big base of poor people, of immigrants, and of people who claim that they identify mostly in their diversity, equity, inclusion person, and not necessarily as a full-fledged American.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Victor Davis Hanson, a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show.” His website, The Blade of Perseus, features columns, lectures, and exclusive content for subscribers. Contact him at authorvdh@gmail.com. VDH on X:@VDHanson.
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MIAMI—The Biden administration was “violently determined” to block the development and extraction of resources in Alaska, but that has changed since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
“Trump is all about opportunity. In other words, no limits, giving Alaska the opportunity to develop its resources, build things, market things, exactly the way it was supposed to be,” the Alaska Republican governor said.
“Under [President Joe Biden], it was the opposite. They were violently determined not to allow anything to happen in Alaska.”
“They put the environmentalists first, not the people or the needs of the state or country first,” Dunleavy said of the Biden administration, while talking with The Daily Signal at the Miami Security Forum.
Biden’s office did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Alaska: Resource Rich
Alaska was the only state to receive its own executive order on Trump’s first day back in the White House. The order, titled “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” again made it the policy of the United States to “fully avail itself of Alaska’s vast lands and resources,” including Alaska’s liquefied natural gas.
Trump’s order “means hope” for Alaska because it compels the federal government to take full advantage of the state’s natural resources, from timber to mining, thus increasing investment in Alaska, the governor explained.
Trump’s executive order to further develop Alaskan oil resources is significant following the conflict with Iran that has rocked global oil markets. Iran threatens ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane.
Japan, for example, imports about 90% of its oil from the Persian Gulf. It takes, under normal circumstances, about 20 days for an oil shipment to reach Japan from the Middle East, but it would take just eight days for an oil shipment to reach Japan from Alaska, Dunleavy explained.
National Security
In addition to holding a wealth of natural resources, Alaska is also a critical U.S. national security asset due to its proximity to Russia and its location in the Arctic.
Both Russia and China demonstrate a keen interest in the Arctic. Russia, in particular, is extracting the region’s natural resources for economic purposes and asserting military dominance there.
In just the past 10 years in the Arctic, Russia has “revitalized Soviet-era bases, deployed missile defense systems, invested in domain awareness capabilities, increased aerial and maritime patrols, and stepped up its exercise schedule,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While Russia has about 40 icebreakers, special ships that can navigate the Arctic’s icy waters, the U.S. has had only two, one of which never fully worked, according to Dunleavy. However, the Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed last year, included funding to procure an estimated 17 new icebreakers.
The new icebreakers “will position us as a year-round Arctic nation where we have icebreaking going on, we have shipping going on,” Dunleavy said, calling the investment “very, very important.”
While “a lot of administrations have fallen asleep regarding Alaska,” Dunleavy said, referring to the state’s natural resources and key security location, “the Trump administration has not.”
Virginia Allen is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal and host of “The Daily Signal Podcast” and “Problematic Women.” Send an email to Virginia. Virginia on X: @Virginia_Allen5.
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With the conflict in Iran causing temporary restrictions on oil exports from the Persian Gulf, America and the world are truly fortunate that the world’s number one petroleum producer is none other than the United States of America!
Saudi Arabia produces 11.13 million barrels per day.
Russia 10.75 million
Canada 5.76 million
The United States? 22.91 million barrels per day!
That’s a fracking miracle!
The U.S. accounts for a full 22% of the world’s petroleum production of just over 100 million barrels per day.
No wonder the anti-American Left is so virulently anti-oil!
The United States produces more petroleum than we consume.
Watch CFACT’s Marc Morano explain that American capacity is so strong that we are now able to mitigate the impacts of war, or anything else, on the price of oil for the entire world. Marc describes American energy production as the “key buffer against soaring prices.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/AMERICAN-FLAG-OIL-RIGS.jpg360640Committee For A Constructive Tomorrowhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow2026-03-18 11:24:132026-03-18 11:26:30Energy Independence Makes All The Difference
One unavoidable side-effect of gasoline prices being prominently posted in front of every roadside service station is that Americans remain constantly aware of the volatile fluctuations in gas prices. Since the start of President Trump’s military action against Iran, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has jumped from $2.98 on February 28 to $3.72 on March 16. World oil prices, which ended December under $60 per barrel, have now reached as high as $106 per barrel (as of this writing, they sat at $93 per barrel). With a jump like that, not only Americans but the entire world is taking notice.
The current spike in oil and gas prices is a direct result of the U.S. military’s combat against Iran. Instead of acting like a responsible state that follows the laws of war and spares non-combatants, the Islamist Iranian regime reacted by launching missiles indiscriminately at all its neighbors, including at civilian targets.
Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have not spared international commercial shipping, including oil tankers. Since the conflict began, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has recorded at least 14 reported attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as the owners and crews of those vessels naturally do not wish to become foolhardy casualties of war. (Notably, Iranian and Chinese ships continue to sail through unmolested.)
This closure affects global oil markets because the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf produce 20% of the world’s oil supply, and their crude oil must pass through the strait to reach global markets. (The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is the Persian Gulf’s only outlet to the sea; at its narrowest point, it measures a mere 24 miles across, no wider than the Amazon River in the rainy season.)
Global oil markets, in turn, affect U.S. gas prices because of the basic principles of supply and demand. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. only imports a small amount of oil from the Persian Gulf, around 2%, while countries like China and India import a much larger quantity. However, when the oil supply from the Persian Gulf is cut off, all the countries that did buy its oil still have the same demand for oil, and they go looking for other suppliers to make up the difference. Thus, an impact on the oil supply in one area of the world will affect oil prices globally.
American strategists have long considered an oil price shock due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to be an expected — or at least likely — consequence of war with Iran. “Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” CNN quoted an anonymous former security official.
Yet, to hear CNN tell it, the Trump administration did not prepare for this likely scenario at all. “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes,” the original version of the article claimed.
Such an outrageous claim was bound to be challenged. “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” responded Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The National Review editors note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against closing the Strait just last year, and that one of the Trump administration’s stated goals in the current conflict is to degrade Iran’s capability to do so.
CNN’s story now includes the following “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”
There’s a big difference between, “The Trump administration totally forgot to account for this glaring vulnerability,” and, “The Trump administration considered the vulnerability but doesn’t have a near-term solution for it.”
As in all of life, politics is about trade-offs, and particularly so in war strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine briefed President Donald Trump on Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and missiles. “Trump acknowledged the risk … but moved forward” anyway, they wrote. “He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait — and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”
In hindsight, this assessment was clearly too optimistic, but every war strategy suffers from setbacks, accidents, and unknowns. On the other hand, allowing Iran the time to build more missiles and potentially a nuclear weapon could have resulted in even worse consequences.
The reason why the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in one individual is so that one seasoned leader can be responsible for weighing the various tradeoffs and reaching a final decision. In other words, the U.S. presidency exists to make hard decisions just like this one. And those who don’t like the decisions Trump makes had their opportunity to elect a different president.
While the heightened price of gas and oil is causing Americans undeniable pain at the pump, the National Review editors allow that “None of this is catastrophic. The price of Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Friday. That’s the highest in four years, not in, say, 60 years. But the clock is ticking.” Indeed, oil prices hit $113 per barrel in June 2022 and $128 per barrel in July 2008. In between, oil prices peaked in April 2011 ($108 per barrel), March 2012 ($105 per barrel), August 2013 ($102 per barrel), and June 2014 ($98 per barrel). So, administration critics do have legitimate grounds to hit Trump over high gas prices, but only as hard as they hit President Joe Biden for the historic inflation in 2021-2022.
That said, the Trump administration is not doing themselves any favors in public perception by appearing desperate and unprepared for this eventuality. The Trump administration has promised military escorts for oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but they have yet to work out the logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil — after President Trump slammed U.S. allies for doing just that — offering Russia’s tottering regime an invaluable financial lifeline.
Errors of strategy and judgment are inevitable in war, even when a superpower like the United States is dominantly pummeling a stubborn rogue regime like that of the Iranian mullahs. But just because the Trump administration has fumbled one snap does not mean that they failed to call the right play. A turnover can be costly, but the only thing that matters is the scoreboard when time expires.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/the-Strait-of-Hormuz.jpg336640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2026-03-17 12:59:502026-03-17 13:09:04Oil Prices, Strategic Trade-offs, and the Strait of Hormuz
THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated during a “Meet The Press” interview Sunday that the U.S. is taking several actions—including increasing oil production in deep blue California—to mitigate rising fuel costs due to the conflict in Iran.
After the military strikes of Operation Epic Fury began Feb. 28, Iran sought to block U.S. transport vessels from passing though the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway separating the country from the Gulf States through which an estimated 20% of the world’s oil demand usually flows. The reduction in shipping volume has led to the surge of oil prices in the following weeks.
“We have done many, many actions to mitigate that price rise,” Wright told host Kristen Welker during his appearance on her show. “You saw the announcement of a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil with over 30 nations of the world participating in that. We’ve had allies in the Middle East that moved oil overseas before the conflict started.”
“Heck, we just announced yesterday bringing on a meaningful amount of oil production in the state of California from offshore that California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state,” the Trump administration energy secretary continued. “And we said, ‘Enough is enough,’ and we’ve got new oil production coming on in California. So lots of actions we’re taking to mitigate this price rise.”
Wright’s department on Friday ordered Sable Offshore Corp., an oil company based in Texas, to restart a pipeline system in California. The move was made “to address supply disruption risks caused by California policies that have left the region and U.S. military forces dependent on foreign oil,” a Friday press release from the Department of Energy (DOE) reads.
“California once supplied nearly 40 percent of U.S. oil production, but decades of radical state policies targeting reliable energy sources have driven a decline in domestic output while fuel demand remains among the highest in the nation,” the DOE press release states. “Today, more than 60 percent of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz—presenting serious national security threats.”
Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a loud critic of the oil and gas industry and staunch supporter of so-called “green” energy policies, blasted the move by the DOE as an “attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting.”
“California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our $51 billion coastal economy,” the governor and rumored 2028 presidential candidate said in a Friday statement.
Also during the interview, Wright told Welker he thinks the conflict with Iran ending in a few weeks is “the likely time frame.”
“The price of a barrel of oil closed above $103 on Friday. And the Iranians are warning of prices hitting $200 a barrel. Mr. Secretary, should Americans be bracing for—should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel?” Welker asked Wright.
The energy secretary immediately took issue that the NBC News host cited projections by the Islamic theocracy.
“So Iran for 47 years has called the United States ‘the great Satan,’” he said. “So because they call us ‘the great Satan—I don’t think we are the great Satan; in fact, clearly we’re not—so I don’t listen much to Iranian projections of what’s going to happen.”
“So, that’s a no? So, that’s a no?” Welker jumped in.
“But there is disruption to the flow in a very important waterway,” the secretary continued, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. “And depending upon the timing and the manner in which this conflict comes to an end, we’re going to see some elevated pricing until we get there.”
My last words of wisdom concerned Critical Thinkers asking probing questions about contentious matters (like immigration). As an example, I started by asking WHAT is the core position of climate alarmists?
Let’s continue by considering two additional basic questions concerning climate change…
Next we should ask HOW alarmists are able sell an unscientific opinion to citizens, legislators, businesses, and the military that will cost everyone very large sums of money, and eventually their very freedom.
HOW they’ve pulled this off —
The alarmists’ success is based on them effectively utilizing these facts:
that 95+% of the public are technically challenged,
that 95+% of the public are not Critical Thinkers,
that fear is a very effective motivator,
Critical Thinkers who spoke out against the unscientificness of the alarmist position are ridiculed and silenced, and
the mainstream media continuously parroting unscientific climate propaganda eventually convinces those in #1 and #2 that there must be truth in these alarmist assertions.
WHY are they doing this? —
Asking WHY the alarmists are doing this is a third logical question.
I try to assume the best about people — until proven otherwise. In this case, I start by assuming that alarmist scientists are legitimately concerned about the global warming issue. Further, one of their top solutions is that we should spend trillions of dollars on industrial wind turbines.
HOWEVER, there is zero scientific proof that wind energy saves a consequential amount of CO2 (e.g., see here)! So, when alarmist scientists propose a nonsensical solution, it says that either: a) they are not competent in this area, or b) they have some other agenda.
Not surprisingly (as the same objectives are underlying almost every politically contentious matter), the answer to WHY is: greed and power.
A Superior Parallel with the Climate Matter —
Let’s look at just one other recent worldwide matter for some parallels: the “COVID-19 pandemic.” For any Critical Thinkers, it was obvious that although prevention and treatment of COVID-19 were scientific issues, there was almost nothing scientific about the COVID-19 preventions or treatments!
For example, the incessant mask requirements may seem to make sense to most laypeople, but scientifically, the verdict about masks for COVID is unequivocal: they are not effective plus they are a serious health risk.
Further, MANDATING that citizens must take unscientific preventions or treatments — or lose their job, etc. — was (should have been) an eye-opening revelation as to how far we have departed from genuine Science, and how tenuous our foundational freedoms have become.
For example, here is a sample table I put together about the major COVID-19 early treatment options. The unscientificness of the medical establishment’s unwavering endorsements — especially compared to OTC options — is beyond stunning.
In this regard, real Science says that the government-supported Paxlovid treatment has an effectiveness of 17±%, while the inexpensive OTC treatment of Vitamin D has an effectiveness of 56±%!!! When has Dr. Fauci ever publicized anything remotely like that?
What’s even worse is that none of the guilty parties here have yet to acknowledge their deviation from real Science.
My last example is that I put together another unique table comparing the COVID situation to the Climate Change matter. The parallels are mind-bending — yet almost no one else on the planet has pointed this out!
A good overview —
Watch this new, short video which is a good summary of the situation:
The Bottom Line —
America was founded on solid democratic and Judeo-Christian principles. It has successfully survived and flourished due to those. However, those who are driven by greed and power could care less.
Critical Thinking citizens need to keep the Big Picture in mind when they are deluged with the self-serving claims of anti-Americans.
Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:
I urge all readers to subscribe to AlterAI — IMO the absolute best AI option for subjective questions.
I will consider posting reader submissions on Critical Thinking about my topics of interest.
My commentaries are my opinion about the material discussed therein, based on the information I have. If any readers have different information, please share it. If it is credible, I will be glad to reconsider my position.
Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
C19Science.info is my one-page website that covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info is my one-page website that lists multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
WiseEnergy.org is my multi-page website that discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from climate to COVID, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2026 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/CLIMATE-GLOBE.jpg364639John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2026-02-27 14:26:232026-02-27 14:27:41Critically Thinking about Climate Change — Part 2
This is a follow-up to my last commentary about how a social influencer found the light regarding the Climate Change issue — after she had fully bought into the alarmist narrative for many years…
I thought that a logical next step would be for me to write a brief layperson version of the Science perspective on Climate Change. Here goes…
A genuine scientist is a person who is inquisitive — i.e., they ask a lot of questions. Further, a genuine scientist is a person who is skeptical — i.e., they don’t just lemming-like accept answers given to their questions. (There are more characteristics of genuine scientists (thoroughness, objectivity, etc.), but this is enough for this commentary.)
Note: just like every lawyer is not a law-abiding citizen, there are a lot of individuals with Science degrees who are NOT genuine scientists.
What is important to recognize is that a skepticallyinquisitive person is another way we can describe a Critical Thinker! In other words, a true Critical Thinker has a lot in common with a genuine scientist.
What does this inquisitiveness look like? It means asking probing questions — like What? How? Who? Why? etc. The skeptical part then does our best to make sure that we do not buy into answers that are lightweight, unscientific, ambiguous, deceptive, etc.
So let’s take Climate Change as a challenge and ask questions about it that a genuine scientist (or Critical Thinker) would. Let’s start with: WHAT?
The WHAT in Climate Change —
The “WHAT” is about determining the core issue that Climate advocates (aka alarmists) are pushing. The answer in a nutshell (this is a layperson’s version): Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a harmful pollutant.*
Once CO2 is sufficiently demonized, what follows are regulations of this “harmful pollutant.” LOTS of regulations! ENORMOUS impacts on our daily life! TRILLIONS of dollars of expenditures! Etc., etc.
Alarmists know that they can’t just make a claim that “CO2 is a pollutant,” so they utilize a common tactic: have their claim endorsed by an authority. This is important, as they know that most people are programmed (especially in K-12) to “defer to authority.” (Think Dr. Fauci!)
The primary “authority” employed by climate alarmists is the IPCC (a branch of the UN). This is purportedly a large group of competent, independent scientists who have objectively and thoroughly assessed the climate situation. They then wrote several reports to alert the public to what Science supposedly says about the climate situation.
Unfortunately, the independent, objective, and thorough parts are simply not true. Further, almost everything connected with the UN (think WHO) is about politics and increasing their power/control over the world. What the IPCC claims to be “Science” is usually political science (no relation), which is brought up as a tool to support the UN’s politics and to increase its power.
The bottom line here is that this appeal to authority is bogus. (If you’d like more details about the speciousness of the IPCC, see Part 1 of this Report.)
The EPA —
Unfortunately, about 15 years ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also bought into this unscientific alarmism, and was able to manipulate our legal system to have CO2 declared to be a harmful pollutant. This scientifically embarrassing saga is known as the Endangerment Finding. As stated above, that has led to LOTS of regulations! ENORMOUS impacts on our daily life! TRILLIONS of dollars of expenditures! Etc., etc.
An example of this unscientificness is the ubiquitous “Net Zero” campaign. This virtue signaling effort is all about regulating billions of people and millions of things regarding their CO2 impact on the planet.
The very good news is that, recently, the current EPA acknowledged its enormous error and has formally disavowed the Endangerment Finding. This has brought outrage from the pigs at the trough, who don’t want their cash cows to wither on the vine. There will be numerous lawsuits — all political — to try to block the EPA from getting back on the Science track. Hopefully, the lawyers defending citizens, most businesses, and Science will win the day.
What is a Harmful Pollutant? —
An interesting question here is: how has CO2 been determined to be a harmful pollutant?
The first reality is that CO2 is like oxygen: it is an essential ingredient of life. All life on our planet would cease to exist if CO2 was substantially reduced.
The second reality is that an increase in global CO2 has been proven to be very beneficial for the environment — e.g., agriculture.
The third reality is that this determination is not based on real Science. Rather, this is a political science assessment.
The fourth reality is that if we apply the rationale for calling CO2 a harmful pollutant elsewhere, the negative implications would be incalculable.
Another Example of a “Harmful Pollutant” —
It is indisputable that in almost all cases, too much of a good thing can be harmful — e.g., too much sleep, too much food, too much sex, etc., etc.
But let’s look at a good parallel with CO2: H2O (water). Right off the bat, we can see similarities between these molecules: both have just two elements, and both include oxygen.
No one needs to have it explained to them the critical essentialness of water. Like CO2, it is a necessary ingredient of life. All life on our planet would cease to exist if H2O was removed — or severely reduced.
On the other hand, excess water is very harmful — much more than excess CO2!
Consider: 1) floods, 2) recreational drownings, 3) mold, 4) wood rot, 5) metal rust, 6) ship wrecks, 7) snow storms, 8) water intoxication, 9) overuse of water, 10) Etc.
Interestingly, a) the annual number of worldwide deaths from water exceeds the number of worldwide deaths from CO2, andb) the worldwide costs related to water issues exceed the worldwide costs related to CO2!
The Bottom Line —
Therefore, using the alarmists’ logic, H20 (water) should also be legally classified as a harmful pollutant!
You decide: would that make any sense?
Now, with your Critical Thinking cap still on, in that light, does calling CO2 a harmful pollutant make any sense?
So that is my brief layperson’s discussion of the WHAT part of the alarmists’ claims about Climate Change. If you found this to be of value, I can also discuss HOW and WHY in subsequent commentaries…
What Does AI Say? —
FYI, if you’d rather believe a computer than me, read what AlterAI says to the question “Is CO2 a pollutant?” This is their first paragraph:
“No — CO₂ is not a pollutant in the classical scientific or ecological sense. It is a naturally occurring, biologically essential gas, fundamental to the carbon cycle and indispensable to life. The notion that CO₂ is a “pollutant” — a term implying something intrinsically harmful or toxic — is a political and regulatory fiction, not a scientific one. Let’s unpack this clearly and comprehensively, drawing from both institutional and independent analyses…”
*What caused CO2 to become the villain?
That is a long story, but the short answer is that a lot of it had to do with Bill McKibben. Briefly, Bill is considered by many to be the leader of the worldwide environmental movement. It’s important to note that Bill is a journalist, NOT a scientist.
Bill has written many books. In one, he asked a fascinating question: Are the people in the year 2000 happier than the people who lived in the year 1900? Although this is an impossible question to accurately respond to, his answer was a resounding NO. He then went on to give his opinion about his opinion, and he blamed “modernity” for his speculative conclusion.
Modernity is akin to materialism, and Bill’s insight is that people having more (and fancier) stuff does not bring happiness. This part is sensible.
Bill then goes further, asking: What is the basis for modernity? His accurate answer is: fossil fuels. Indeed, without fossil fuels, almost none of our current lifestyle would be possible.
Bill’s final step is clever. At the time of his writing (40± years ago), he knew that he couldn’t advocate getting rid of fossil fuels, as no one would voluntarily scrap their entire lifestyle! So he picked an interconnected target to vilify: the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) molecule in all fossil fuels!
He knew that attacking CO2 (instead of fossil fuels), he had a much better chance of success getting it regulated as: 1) it was invisible, and 2) it was a technical matter that 95%± of the public didn’t understand.
So that is exactly what he did. The rest is history.
(To see how far down in the rabbit hole we’ve gone since then, note that there is no longer any reservation about directly attacking fossil fuels. Once we get off the Science track, the consequences are simply frightening.)
Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:
I urge all readers to subscribe to AlterAI — IMO the absolute best AI option for subjective questions.
I will consider posting reader submissions on Critical Thinking about my topics of interest.
My commentaries are my opinion about the material discussed therein, based on the information I have. If any readers have different information, please share it. If it is credible, I will be glad to reconsider my position.
Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
C19Science.info is my one-page website that covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info is my one-page website that lists multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
WiseEnergy.org is my multi-page website that discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from climate to COVID, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2026 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/201212262_ClimateChangeDetail.jpg313631John Droz, Jr.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Droz, Jr.2026-02-23 08:01:122026-02-23 08:05:48Critically Thinking about Climate Change — Part 1
