Since 1950, American farmers increased per-acre corn yields by an incredible 500% – and other crop yields by smaller but still amazing amounts, while using less land, water, fuel, fertilizers and pesticides. Their exports helped slash global hunger and malnutrition. Farmers in Brazil, India and other countries worldwide have likewise enjoyed record harvests in recent years. Their success has many “roots.”

Hybrid seeds combine valuable traits from different plants. Biotech seeds protect crops against insects and viruses and reduce water and pesticide demand. Nitrogen fertilizers (synthesized from natural gas) join phosphorus and potassium in supercharging soils. School and online programs offer libraries of agricultural success tools. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) further spurs plant growth. 

Long-lasting herbicides control weeds that would otherwise steal moisture and nutrients from crops, while enabling farmers to utilize no-till farming that avoids breaking up soils, reduces erosion, further retains soil moisture and preserves vital soil organisms. Israeli-developed drip irrigation delivers water without the evaporation characteristic of other irrigation methods. 

Modern high-tech tractors use GPS systems, sensors, cameras and other equipment to steer precise courses across fields, while constantly measuring soil composition, and injecting just the right kinds and amounts of fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, along with seeds, to ensure optimal harvests.

Imagine the bounteous crops for humanity if all these technologies could spread across the globe. 

Instead, this planet-saving, life-saving progress is under assault – by well-meaning or ideologically driven, ill-advised or ill-intended ... but all well-funded ... organizations that demand natural gas bans, “more Earth friendly” agriculture and a return to “traditional farming lifestyles.” 

Their hatred of biotech crops is intense and well-documented, but they also despise hybrid seeds. They want modern herbicides and insecticides banned, in favor of “natural” alternatives that are often toxic to bees, animals and people – and may actually be synthetic (eg, neurotoxic pyrethrins). They demand “natural” fertilizers, which often provide a tiny fraction of nutrients that modern synthetic fertilizers do. 

They want to teach only “traditional” (aka subsistence) farming, especially in Africa. They prefer to call it “food sovereignty” – which they claim is the “right” to “culturally appropriate” food produced through “ecologically sound and sustainable methods,” in accord with AgroEcology policies. In other words, millions more people (ruling elites and their kids?) doing back-breaking stoop labor, dawn to dusk. 

Tractors? What’s wrong with horses, oxen or human labor? At least get rid of gasoline and diesel tractors and trucks, in favor of electric models. Never mind that EV tractors and combines would require several tons of battery modules, and still wouldn’t be able to do a full day’s work without hours-long recharges.

Keep oil and gas locked in the ground; we don’t need petrochemical products, especially synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Or tractor tires, paint, windows, GPS/computer housings, and more. 

Have these illiterati looked at their own clothing, food, homes, offices or world? Synthetic fabrics, cosmetics, cell phone and computer housings, pharmaceuticals, tapes and adhesives, protective gear, eyeglasses, car bodies, detergents, wind turbine nacelle covers and blades, medical devices, car bodies – practically everything around them and in their lives exists because of oil, gas and petrochemicals. 

But we can just use biofuels to replace feed stocks for products we really need, they proclaim. Right. 

Banishing oil, gas, petrochemicals and internal-combustion engines would certainly mean no more ethanol as a gasoline additive. That alone would eliminate the need to grow corn on 36,000,000 acres (equivalent to Iowa), and that land could be used for food crops or wildlife habitat. Except it won’t be. 

Organic farms have significantly lower crop yields per acre and require far more land than conventional agriculture. Worse, ending oil and gas production means tens of millions of acres would have to be planted with biofuel crops, to provide feed stocks for thousands of now-petrochemical products. 

That means vastly more tractors or human labor – and more water, fertilizers and pesticides – to cultivate and harvest sugar and oilseed crops (and algae). And then all those simple biofuel molecules would have to be transformed into much more complex hydrocarbons to provide the necessary feed stocks. That would require even more energy, from even more wind turbines and solar panels – on top of doubling or tripling our existing electricity needs, to transform the U.S. and global economies to all-electric systems, and repeatedly recharge the grid-balancing and power backup batteries those systems would require.

Or perhaps Team Biden plans to simply import all those petrochemicals and/or products – as it seems to be planning with regard to wind turbines, solar panels, battery modules, transformers and other “green” energy equipment. America will not be able to produce any of it, because Team Biden and its allies oppose miningand drilling in the USA (even for raw materials essential for their utopian “renewable” energy transformation – and we won’t even have affordable, reliable electricity to operate factories. 

How can these “best and brightest” decision-makers and advisors be so ignorant, inept and clueless – so unable to connect even two or three dots? They’re destroying our planet, habitats and wildlife, to “Save the Earth” from a computer-modeled “climate crisis” that President Biden absurdly insists is “a greater threat than nuclear war.” 

They base critical policies that deeply affect lives and livelihoods everywhere on childish beliefs in Santa Claus and Harry Potter. They think we can banish today’s energy and agricultural resources and technologies – and amazing replacements will just be there ... via some mystical, mythical process called Materials Acquisition for Government-mandated Infrastructure Change (MAGIC). 

Some of them know this cannot possibly happen, but promote the policies anyway. They seem to believe they can mandate that “common folks” will just have to live austerely, under nineteenth or early twentieth century living standards, in 700-square-foot apartments, using electricity when it’s available (not when they need it), and subsisting on bug burgers and larvae milk. 

They think Africa would be “the perfect laboratory” for testing new foods, like “crackers, muffins, meat loaves and sausages” made from lake flies. If all that fails, they’ll just impose forced rationing.  

Others would go even further. Obama science advisor John Holdren advocated “de-development of the [United States and other over-developed countries] and semi-development of the under-developed countries, to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between.”

Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once said, “in order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” Environmental Defense scientist Charles Wurster said “People are the cause of all the problems.... We need to get rid of some of them, and [banning DDT] is as good a way as any.” 

Banishing fossil fuels and modern agricultural practices and technologies go well beyond callous and imperious, even beyond eco-imperialism, eco-colonialism or eco-Apartheid. It is manslaughter on a global scale via energy, farming and climate policy. It is systemic, systematic racism. 

These ideas, and these policy proponents, are what should be banished from government, media and academic institutions. Not the wondrous technologies that make modern life possible.

"Bethany has always been an inspiration to so many," Gaines told The Post Millennial of the appearance with Hamilton, "but when she took a firm stance against the World Surf League's new guidelines that allowed males to compete against women, my admiration for her quadrupled. We need more courageous people like her to stand tall in their beliefs."

"The mission of Brave Books equips young children with the tools and spirit to fight the very real war being waged for the hearts and minds of the next generation," Gaines said. "I am honored to be a part of restoring sanity, common sense, and morals to a nation that needs these so desperately.” (read more)

At first, Winton believed the hysteria from the activists — until the scientists and the data convinced him otherwise:

When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.

My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.

That kind of balanced reporting — relating the facts and the arguments from both sides — eventually disappeared, at Reuters as well as at most other media outlets. Winton at first chalks this up to plain laziness:

But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.

Does laziness explain it? Perhaps on an individual basis, but the industry itself has sold out to the activists, Winton alleges. Reuters and other outlets began partnering with an activist group called Covering Climate Now (CCN) to “contextualize” its reporting on weather-related events. ABC, CBS, Bloomberg, AFP, and others have also partnered with CCN, and other news organizations have similar relationships with climate-change groups.

CCN and its partners claim to be fair in their approach, but Winton writes that they act much different in reality:

CCN may claim to be fair and balanced, but it not only won’t tolerate criticism, it brandishes the unethical ‘denier’ weapon with its nasty holocaust denier echoes. This seeks to demonise those who disagree with it by savaging personalities and denying a hearing, rather than using debate to establish its case.

CCN advises journalists to routinely add to stories about bad weather and flooding to suggest climate change is making these events more intense. This is not an established fact, as a simple routine check would show.

Even so, CCN isn’t a regulatory body, and it has no real authority or constituency among activists. Why have these media outlets decided to abandon proper journalistic practice and principles to instead use stealth methods to make claims unsupported by data and science? Winton believes that the industry has deliberately advanced climate hysteria to generate a sense of emergency that will allow the Left to gain what it could not get through reasoned argument and debate:

The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that. Letting capitalism run free was a certain way to ensure the end of the planet; smart Lefties should take charge and save us from ourselves.

“Smart Lefties” would necessarily include the people at the top of the news industry. Or at least that’s what they must believe.

This corruption of news reporting into narrative journalism has been apparent for years to climate-hysteria skeptics. Until recently, however, that revolution-by-evolution process hadn’t become apparent to most of the rest of the populace. Now, however, with all sorts of new data coming out about masks and natural immunity in the COVID pandemic, many more people have seen The Science® exposed as based entirely on political agenda. The mainstream-media refusal to cover new and conclusive meta-analyses of scientific studies that refute their three-year narratives in support of government emergency rule now demonstrates that corruption on a much broader scale.

The NTSB "early look" report is out and it makes very clear that the Ohio derailment was:

• Directly caused by stupidity
  
  and
  
  
• Entirely avoidable had anyone been able and willing to perform basic math been on board the train or at Norfolk-Southern, or the system in question was deliberately designed to withhold critical safety information.

In other words but for putting people in places of authority where they had absolutely no business being, to the point that their best and highest job offer ought to be pushing a broom on a floor, whether due to believing that 2 + 2 = 22 or some other sort of insanity it would have not happened.

The hotbox detectors were working.

Here is the short-form of the explanation, then we'll get into the details:

Train 32N was operating with a dynamic brake application as the train passed a wayside defect detector on the east side of Palestine, Ohio, at milepost (MP) 49.81.  The wayside defect detector, or hot bearing detector (HBD), transmitted a critical audible alarm message instructing the crew to slow and stop the train to inspect a hot axle. The train engineer increased the dynamic brake application to further slow and stop the train. During this deceleration, an automatic emergency brake application initiated, and train 32N came to a stop.

Ok, let's dissect this paragraph.

Dynamic braking is the use of the electric motor in a diesel-electric locomotive as a brake.  Instead of being coupled to the generator driven by the diesel engine to move the train forward it is instead connected to a big honking resistor (that's what that "bulging sideways thing" is on the engines; it is the housings and fans for those as, you might imagine, they produce a lot of heat when in use), the motor generates electricity from the train's movement which is intentionally dumped into the resistor.  The result is to slow the train instead of accelerating it, much like a Tesla does if you have it set to use regenerative braking.

This implies that the train was descending a mild grade and the dynamic was sufficient to control the train's speed.  That would be normal for a mild descent where there's no reason to use the service brakes; the dynamic incurs no wear on the braking components.  And, in fact, we know the train was in control speed-wise; it was operating within the speed limits for that section of track.

While the train was being slowed via the dynamic and almost-immediately after the hotbox detector (the last one) went off the emergency brakes -- air driven -- actuated.  This was almost certainly (not yet proved, but I'll bet we will eventually find that it was) caused by a violation of the integrity of the airline that powers the service brake system and runs the length of the train, quite-possibly because the fire in the axle truck burned through it.  When that happens the air pressure rapidly collapses in the line and the emergency brake system actuates.  The engineer in the cab can also command that and the data recorder should show this if in fact it was.  We will learn this in time.

Multiple cars derailed; the probable cause was:

NTSB investigators identified and examined the first railcar to derail, the 23rd railcar in the consist. Surveillance video from a local residence showed what appeared to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment. The wheel bearing and affected wheelset have been collected as evidence and will be examined by the NTSB.

The wheelset in question from publicly-released surveillance video was on fire.  That would be consistent with the airline burning through.  The axle bearing loses its location capability, it shifts, one or both wheels on that axle jump and/or destroy the integrity of the rail it is traveling on and once the first truck goes off it drags the others off due to the ridiculous amount of momentum in the whole.

This is the very-likely set of events, and what we already knew was likely to have been the direct cause of the derailment (as I commented on previously.)

But what we now know is that the progressive failure process was detected with plenty of time and reason to stop.

Specifically:

Train 32N passed three HBD systems on its trip before the derailment. At MP 79.9, the suspect bearing from the 23rd car had a recorded temperature of 38°F above ambient temperature. When train 32N passed the next HBD, at MP 69.01, the bearing’s recorded temperature was 103°F above ambient. The third HBD, at MP 49.81, recorded the suspect bearing’s temperature at 253°F above ambient.

NS has established the following HBD alarm thresholds (above ambient temperature) and criteria for bearings:
• Between 170°F and 200°F, warm bearing (non-critical); stop and inspect
• A difference between bearings on the same axle greater than or equal to 115°F (non-critical); stop and inspect
• Greater than 200°F (critical); set out railcar

At the first sensor the temperature was 38F above ambient.

10.89 miles later it was at 103F above ambient, just below the "stop and inspect" threshold for a differential reading.

19.2 miles later it was well over the critical temperature at 253F.

Shortly after that the train derailed.

Anyone with a brain in their head had to know that if you are at 38F over ambient and ten miles later you're more than 100F over ambient you will exceed the "stop and inspect threshold" well before you reach the next detector in 20 more miles, and if the failure is progressive, and most failures are, you will be well over the critical threshold and on the verge of a catastrophic failure by the time you get there.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know this -- you simply need to be competent to operate dangerous machinery with known margins which you must not exceed for said machinery to remain safe and know that there is a progressive failure showing up in the data.

That's exactly what happened and nothing more than basic arithmetic -- sixth grade material here folks -- was required for anyone and everyone who saw that data to know that continuing to operate that train was dangerous and quite likely to lead to a disastrous failure.

Therefore there are only two possibilities: The system did not alert anyone or the crew ignored it.

If the system didn't alert anyone then everyone involved in that design needs to be tried and thrown in prison for the rest of their miserable lives as such a trend is critical information and deliberately not disclosing it to the crew on board the train is beyond unconscionable.  For this Norfolk-Southern must pay.

If, on the other hand the crew knew and ignored it because safety limits were not yet breached despite the trend change then whoever made that call is incompetent to operate a broom, say much less a locomotive.

The bottom line is that there is no valid reason the crew did not have twenty miles of fair warning in which to stop and avert the derailment and did not do so.  We are now down to why did they not stop -- was the system programmed to deliberately withhold that information or did it provide it and the crew ignored it?

The entire point of a system like this is to detect incipient problems with plenty of time to take corrective action.  The equipment was functional but no equipment can do anything about HUMAN STUPIDITY whether in what the equipment communicates due to its design or what people do with the information if it is communicated.  Damn written policy and "limits" to Hades; if you as an operating engineer with two firing neurons in your head observe a condition that any reasonable person who has an IQ sufficient to be trusted with dangerous machinery is nearly certain to degrade beyond safe limits based on the data you have before you can get to the next confirmatory signaling device YOU STOP NOW AND FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON.

If we have people like this designing and operating our nuclear and chemical plants -- and you know damn well that we almost-certainly do -- it is merely a matter of time before one or more of our cities glow in the dark.

PRISON.
NOW.

And get rid of every single person in a safety-critical position who cannot do basic math in their head in 30 seconds in a situation like this, when you have PLENTY of warning, or who will not immediately, when such a situation exists, SHUT IT DOWN, along with anyone who puts together a system that deliberately withholds trend information that strongly suggests a failure will occur based on what it observes.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

Chicago and Illinois are in trouble. You know it. I know it. Your neighbors know it. Yet, somehow, it’s considered rude, bordering on sacrilege, to acknowledge in polite company. Best to sweep this inconvenient truth under the rug. To obscure it behind a façade of inspiring lakefront imagery.

But just open your eyes. Our problems are as ubiquitous as they are obvious. Rising crime, unsustainable debt, economic malaise, failing schools, dilapidated infrastructure, population loss. Each a fraying thread in a bleak tapestry of urban blight. 

There’s no need to rehash any of this in detail. Nor is it necessary to discuss “root causes.” We know them: decades of poor governance punctuated by recent years of incompetence and recklessness.

Our slow-motion train wreck is speeding towards its inevitable crash. Residents and businesses who can leave and haven’t, soon will; increasing the strain on city and state finances, leading to an accelerating deterioration of basic services, all while placing an unconscionable tax burden on those who remain. 

So what’s going on here? Beyond the inept leadership and its foreseeable consequences. What’s really going on? What are the implications of a literal “failed state” and - more confoundingly - why do residents not only tolerate these conditions, but continue voting for those who nurture them? 

Without question, the political class in Chicago and Illinois has flunked its most basic task. At its essence, the purpose of any government is to overcome collective action problems. To secure for its subjects what they are unable or unwilling to secure for themselves. But here, in a sardonic twist, rather than solving collective action problems, our city and state are meting out collective punishments. Worsening the size and scope of our already considerable challenges.

Consequently, our elected officials have broken the “Social Contract.” The implicit agreement between citizens and their government, under which individuals surrender some autonomy in return for the preservation of social order. Worthy heirs to the philosophical tradition of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, current city and state leaders are not.

Some might be so bold as to ask: “We have sacrificed our liberties and tax dollars in return for what exactly?” The answer is clear in its silence.

In classical political theory, a government’s breach of the social contract is grounds for its dismissal, as the breach undermines its legitimacy. Nevertheless, here, the powers in place only become more entrenched. Remarkably, we have willingly accepted the imposition of draconian terms under an anti-social contract. Victorious in a coup against common sense.

Again, the key question is “why?” Why support those whose grand bargain with the public has resulted in disarray? What has driven us into such delirium?

Our charted course is indicative of ideological decay. The disastrous effects of a once constructive worldview that degenerated on society’s fringe. Manipulated by pseudo-intellectuals and usurped by leftist elite, it has provided refuge to an unanchored body politic adrift in a seemingly endless sea of despair. Refuge in a seductive psychology, advancing under the guise of positivity. Alluring those gripped by grudge, outrage and guilt, yet finding equally receptive admirers amongst both naive and faux altruists. Alas, that refuge was but a mirage. The anchor came with shackles, trapping us beneath a rising tide of radical progressivism. 

Without a doubt, there are many intelligent, kind and caring individuals identifying as progressive. People who are good souls, striving to do good things. However, for all the potential good, the contemporary progressive movement increasingly fails to appreciate how the world really works; and that the second-order effects of implementing its priorities undermine its fanciful first-order intentions. Leaving chaos and devastation in their wake. 

Regrettably, much of what remains of the progressive movement’s initial merit has been co-opted by the masses for purposes antithetical to its origins. For most of its history, progressivism focused on protecting and expanding civil liberties, not functionally curtailing them while undermining socioeconomic stability.

Progressivism today is no longer an ideology seeking human improvement for its own sake, but is rooted in resentment. Pursuing retribution to right perceived wrongs - where only maligned groups benefit. As such, it is inherently divisive and ill-suited to addressing our urgent and shared needs.

Moreover, in a dark turn, progressivism has ditched its former optimism to embrace grievance and victimization as a means to cope with life's intrinsic obstacles. Instead of its adherents focusing on alleviating their own suffering (real or imagined), they channel their energy towards eradicating the sources of original sin: systemic “inequities.”

Rather than seek personal growth, the movement’s devotees seek to gain via the destruction of concocted harms: capitalism, the justice system, law enforcement, conventional energy, economic development, traditional education, history, identity, etc… 

When you oversimplify complexities down to systemic faults, tearing the system down without serious thought as to what will replace it has a certain, revolutionary appeal. An exciting, albeit futile cause for those in search of broader purpose or influence. After all, mustn't whatever comes after the fall be better than what preceded it?

No. 

Sadly, in attempting to shatter the foundations of functional society - of modern civilization itself - progressives fail to appreciate that they are undermining any prospects for improving the lives of those for whom they “fight,” including their own. We should aspire to be equally prosperous; not miserable. 

Historically, doctrines premised on victimization and grievance lead to eventual ruin. Often violent, total and irrecoverable. In this regard, is the dire condition of Chicago and Illinois that surprising? 

Whether intentional or not, today’s far-left progressive activists and politicians (along with their ascendant democratic socialist brethren) ¹ risk compounding their immense damage. 

Though the difficulties confronting us are vast and complicated, the framework for resolving them is straightforward. Given our fiscal constraints, the city and state literally cannot afford to provide adequate services, as mandatory expenses such as funding pension liabilities and servicing interest payments consume much of the budget. Failing to appreciate the costs of their policies, which have to be paid by someone, the progressive answer is simply to borrow and tax more. As if we haven’t tried… 

In reality, putting Chicago and Illinois on a sustainable path requires attracting more people and businesses to expand the revenue base, which in turn necessitates improving public safety and making this a more competitive and desirable place to live, visit and invest in. A fact far too many here forget is that there are 49 other states. If we’re among the least compelling because of our unwavering commitment to an extreme version of the progressive cause, what equity does that ultimately achieve, other than equitable misery? 

Progressive leaders and voters might benefit from reflecting on what’s more important: amassing power for power’s sake, or governing in a manner that improves the long-term outlook for their constituents. The former, they have mastered; the latter, they have mangled.

Unfortunately, a pivot to sensible policy-making seems far-fetched with the current cast of characters at the helm and their committed sympathizers across the city and state. Instead, we are left needlessly struggling under the constraints of a defunct ideology that is long on promises but short on practicality; more concerned with virtue signaling than achieving anything actually virtuous. An anti-social movement that is fitting for our anti-social contract.

The imperative for those of us left here who are inclined towards pragmatic and independent thinking is to convince our dogmatic friends that the most viable strategy for achieving their aims - of alleviating suffering and improving the opportunity set for all - is through growing the proverbial pie. Not by taking from their neighbors’ plates. 

Pro-public safety, pro-fiscal sanity, pro-business are all progressive. Meaning that such principles contribute to ensuring the necessary social and economic circumstances under which genuine advancement of the human condition is possible. Thus, dutifully upholding the social contract, rather than frivolously trying to engineer new social constructs, is far likelier to achieve the quintessential outcomes that the progressive movement understandably sought in the past. 

We all want to progress and prosper. To enjoy better living standards and secure a better future for our children. In that regard, there is common ground between fellow residents of different political and ideological stripes. The point of contention - and it’s a big one - is how to achieve it. 

Restoring our future is not an insurmountable challenge; only a hard one. One that requires reorienting public policy and discourse away from the empty illusions of a progressive promised land and towards rational governance based on real world facts and objectivity. An honest style of leadership that remedies our broken social contract by delivering benefits that are both tangible and durable. This is no small order. Let’s hope we are up to the challenge, as it’s no exaggeration to say that the future of the city and state are at stake.

-Stuart Loren (February 2023)

Three oil refinery fires at three different facilities on the same day… isn’t good.  Because it just seems to be too coincidental to be coincidental.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Three fires broke out on Thursday at different facilities in Mexico and the United States operated by state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex, leaving five missing and eight others injured as of Thursday evening. (read more)

Making tinfoil matters worse, I previously emphasized, “The U.S. and Canada are going to push every possible political pressure point in order to force Mexico to change energy policy.  The stakes are high. It is going to be remarkable to watch what happens as this battle takes place. Watch Mexico in 2023.” {LINK}  A few weeks later, with more data assembled, I added, “I’m not talking about little threats, or ordinary economic pressure points; watch closely how the U.S threats are established.  The ideologues around Joe Biden will seek to destroy AMLO if he does not go along with the energy change effort. {LINK}

The origin of the issue traces back to July of 2022, when Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador visited the White House {Go Deep}.  During a jaw dropping statement delivered publicly from the Oval Office, AMLO told Joe Biden he was not going to join the U.S. and Canada in shutting down oil use and refining capacity for low cost gasoline:

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  It has gone down for 30 days in a row.  (Laughs.)

PRESIDENT LÓPEZ OBRADOR:  (As interpreted.)  — of lowering — lowering prices, yes.  That’s it.

In the meantime, while we’re waiting for prices to go down, we have decided that it was necessary for us to allow Americans who live close to the borderline so that they could go and get their gasoline on the Mexican side at lower prices.

And right now, a lot of the drivers — a lot of the Americans — are going to Mexico, to the Mexican border, to get their gasoline.

However, we could increase our inventories immediately.  We are committed to guaranteeing twice as much supply of fuel.  That would be considerable support. 

Right now, a gallon of regular costs $4.78 average on this side of the border.  And in our territory, $3.12. 

Let me clarify something, and I also want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank you, Mr. President.  Most of this gasoline, we are producing it in the Pemex refinery that you allowed us to buy in Deer Park, Texas. (read more)

The nub of it is… Mexico was not going to permit gasoline prices to skyrocket as they have done in the U.S. due to the policies of Joe Biden.  This creates a problem.

The climate change and energy ideologues within the Biden administration are doing everything within their power to raise energy prices, specifically oil and gasoline.  This is part of the strategy to make the green new deal energy programs hold financial viability as an alternative.

Part of the policy is to drain the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, then limit -by regulation- current oil exploration (deny leases), and further block expansion of oil refineries in the U.S (cancel permits).

Mexican President AMLO was not playing that game.  He could see what the Biden administration was doing.  AMLO read his prepared statement in the oval office to put a hard no on his participation.  He was going to continue oil production and increased oil refinery development in order to keep gasoline prices low.   Again, this put AMLO on the wrong side of Team Windmill.

We warned that the stakes in this energy showdown were so severe nothing would be off the table of potential.

July 2022 – AMLO takes a stand.

Nov 2022 – An epic battle is looming.

Dec 2022 – Mexico unveils North American Leadership Summit Agenda

Dec 2022 – Team Windmill calls AMLO an “energy nationalist,” then threatens peso.

Continuing to apply the pressure, during the North American Leadership Summit, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted:

There has been a full court press toward Mexico to change their energy policy specifically around oil development and gasoline manufacturing.

Suddenly, against this backdrop, and with our warnings as a guidepost… THIS HAPPENS:

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Three fires broke out on Thursday at different facilities in Mexico and the United States operated by state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex, leaving five missing and eight others injured as of Thursday evening.

Five people were unaccounted for after a fire at a storage facility in the state of Veracruz that had sent three others to a hospital, the company said in a statement.

The cause of that fire, which had been put out, had not yet been determined, the company added.

Pemex confirmed in a later statement on Thursday evening that a separate fire at its Minatitlan refinery, also in Veracruz, was under control after injuring five people.

That fire had not interrupted the refinery’s operations, Pemex said, adding that “it is presumed that the possible cause of the fire was product runoff on a hot surface.”

A third fire was also reported Thursday by a community alert at a unit at Pemex’s Deer Park, Texas, oil refinery. It later updated with an all-clear notification. (more)

Now, who or what would hold the motive to see oil production and gasoline refining in Mexico targeted?

There were three separate fires in three different oil refineries owned by the same company, Pemex. All in one day.

What is going on???pic.twitter.com/4KJ55ARd49

— Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) February 24, 2023

But a related question begs for a more expansive response: Where will Victoria Nuland be after January? Nuland is one of Hillary Clinton’s protégés at the State Department, and she is also greatly admired by hardline Republicans. This suggests she would be easily approved by Congress as secretary of state or maybe even national-security adviser—which in turn suggests that her foreign-policy views deserve a closer look.

Nuland comes from what might be called the First Family of Military Interventionists. Her husband, Robert Kagan, is a leading neoconservative who co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1998 around a demand for “regime change” in Iraq. He is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an author, and a regular contributor to the op-ed pages of a number of national newspapers. He has already declared that he will be voting for Hillary Clinton in November, a shift away from the GOP that many have seen as a clever career-enhancing move for both him and his wife.

Robert’s brother, Fred, is with the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, and his sister-in-law, Kimberly, is the head of the Institute for the Study of War, which is largely funded by defense contractors. The Kagans work to encourage military action, both through their positions in government and by influencing the public debate through think-tank reports and op-eds. It is a family enterprise that mirrors the military-industrial complex as a whole, with think tanks coming up with reasons to increase military spending and providing “expert” support for the government officials who actually promote and implement the policies. Defense contractors, meanwhile, benefit from the largesse and kick back some money to the think tanks, which then develop new reasons to spend still more on military procurement.

The Kagans’ underlying belief is that the United States has both the power and the obligation to replace governments that are considered either uncooperative with Washington (the “Leader of the Free World”) or hostile to American interests. American interests are, of course, mutable, and they include values like democracy and the rule of law as well as practical considerations such as economic and political competition. Given the elasticity of the interests, many countries can be and are considered potential targets for Washington’s tender ministrations.

For what it’s worth, President Obama is reportedly an admirer of Robert Kagan’s books, which argue that the U.S. must maintain its military power to accommodate its “global responsibilities.” The persistence of neoconservative foreign-policy views in the Obama administration has often been remarked upon, though Democrats and Republicans embrace military interventionism for different reasons. The GOP sees it as an international leadership imperative driven by American “exceptionalism,” while the Dems romanticize “liberal intervention” as a sometimes-necessary evil undertaken most often for humanitarian reasons. But the result is the same, as no administration wants to be seen as weak when dealing with the outside world. George W. Bush’s catastrophic failures in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to bear fruit under a Democratic administration, while Obama has added a string of additional “boots on the ground” interventions in Libya, Syria, Yemen, the Philippines, and Somalia.

And Nuland herself, many will recall, was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013-14. Yanukovych, admittedly a corrupt autocrat, nevertheless assumed office after a free election. In spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev ostensibly had friendly relations, Nuland provided open support for the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, passing out cookies to protesters on the square and holding photo ops with a beaming Sen. John McCain.

Nuland started her rapid rise as an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Subsequently, she was serially promoted by secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, attaining her current position in September 2013. But it was her behavior in Ukraine that made her a media figure. It is hard to imagine that any U.S. administration would tolerate a similar attempt by a foreign nation to interfere in domestic politics, particularly if it were backed by a $5 billion budget, but Washington has long adhered to a double standard when evaluating its own behavior.

Nuland is most famous for using foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest in Ukraine that she and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had helped create. She even discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leader of Ukraine ought to be. “Yats is the guy” she said (referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk), while pondering how she would “glue this thing” as Pyatt simultaneously considered how to “midwife” it. Their insecure phone call was intercepted and leaked, possibly by the Russian intelligence service, though anyone equipped with a scanner could have done the job.

The inevitable replacement of the government in Kiev, actually a coup but sold to the media as a triumph for “democracy,” was only the prelude to a sharp break—and escalating conflict—with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine. The new regime in Kiev, as corrupt as its predecessor and supported by neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists, was consistently whitewashed in the Western media, and the conflict was depicted as “pro-democracy” forces resisting unprovoked “Russian aggression.”

Indeed, the real objective of interfering in Ukraine was, right from the start, to install a regime hostile to Moscow. Carl Gershman, the head of the taxpayer-funded NED, called Ukraine “the biggest prize” in the effort to topple Russian President Vladimir Putin, who “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” But Gershman and Nuland were playing with fire in their assessment, as Russia had vital interests at stake and is the only nation with the military capability to destroy the U.S.

And make no mistake about Nuland’s clear intention to expand the conflict and directly confront Moscow. In Senate testimony in May of 2014, she noted how the Obama administration was “providing support to other frontline states like Moldova and Georgia.”

Nuland and her neoconservative allies celebrated their “regime change” in Kiev oblivious to the fact that Putin would recognize the strategic threat to his own country and would react, particularly to protect the historic Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. Barack Obama responded predictably, initiating what soon became something like a new Cold War against Russia, risking escalation into a possible nuclear confrontation. It was a crisis that would not have existed but for Nuland and her allies.

Though there was no evidence that Putin had initiated the Ukraine crisis and much evidence to the contrary, the U.S. government propaganda machine rolled into action, claiming that Russia’s measures in Ukraine would be the first step in an invasion of Eastern Europe. Former Secretary of State Clinton dutifully compared Putin to Adolf Hitler. And Robert Kagan provided the argument for more intervention, producing a lengthy essay in The New Republic entitled “Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” in which he criticized President Obama for failing to maintain American dominance in the world. The New York Times revealed that the essay was apparently part of a joint project in which Nuland regularly edited her husband’s articles, even though this particular piece attacked the administration she worked for.

As the situation in Ukraine continued to deteriorate in 2014, Nuland exerted herself to scuttle several European attempts to arrange a ceasefire. When NATO Commander Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove was cited as being in favor of sending more weapons to the Ukrainian government to “raise the battlefield cost for Putin,” Nuland commented, “I’d strongly urge you to use the phrase ‘defensive systems’ that we would deliver to oppose Putin’s ‘offensive systems.’”

To return to the initial question of where Victoria Nuland is, the long answer would be that while she is not much in the news, she is continuing to provide support for policies that the White House apparently approves of. Late last month, she was again in Kiev. She criticized Russia for its lack of press freedom and its “puppets” in the Donbas region while telling a Ukrainian audience about a “strong U.S. commitment to stand with Ukraine as it stays on the path of a clean, democratic, European future. … We remain committed to retaining sanctions that apply to the situation in Crimea until Crimea is returned to Ukraine.” Before that, she was in Cyprus and France discussing “a range of regional and global issues with senior government officials.”

But one has to suspect that, at this point, she is mainly waiting to see what happens in November. And wondering where she might be going in January.

Yet that would be lights out for any hope of caging Washington’s imperial ambitions and reducing the massive and utterly unnecessary burden of current defense spending. The truth is, there are fewer greater menaces in the Imperial City today than Victoria Nuland.

Not only does she happen to be married to Bob Kagan, the leading neocon guru of global interventionism and regime change, but she earned her spurs as a key aide to Dick Cheney.

No matter. When the American public naively thought it elected the “peace” candidate in 2008, Nuland just changed her Jersey, joined Hillary’s team at State, and by 2013 was assistant secretary for European Affairs.

And that’s when Nuland’s rampage of everlasting shame began. She was the main architect of the coup in Kiev in February 2014 that overthrow the constitutionally elected government of the Ukraine, thereby commencing the whole sequence of confrontations with Russia and the full-throated demonization of Vladimir Putin that has followed.

Needless to say, overthrowing an elected government on Russia’s front doorstep had nothing to do with the safety and security of the American people. But it did rekindle ancient tensions between the nationalistic Ukrainians and neo-Nazis who seized power with Washington’s help and the Russian-speaking populations in the Donbas and Crimea, who felt suddenly imperiled and turned to Moscow for protection.

Indeed, the Kiev uprising would never have happened without huge amounts of covert aid and instigation from Washington. Nuland’s appearance at the Maidan Square demonstrations amounted to what would be an unthinkable violation of sovereignty anywhere else in the world. Accordingly, the coup was a straight out imperial grab designed to bring the Ukraine into NATO and to extend Washington’s hegemony to the entirely of the old Warsaw bloc geography.

Hillary’s favorite candidate for Secretary of State, therefore, almost single-handedly restarted the cold war and pulled the US and Europe into what has become a dragnet of costly economic sanctions that are completely pointless and unnecessary.