Tuna Casserole, Back-Alley Coat Hanger Abortions, Biden’s Aggressive Energy Plan, Killing Mark

"Don't tell me what you value; show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."
— Joe Biden

Hello, you beautiful people, how are you? I’m feeling a little frisky this morning. Hopefully, my frisk does not get me into too much trouble. I slept in; we got to bed at 10:00, but then I read until 11:00; I slept great, but 8 hours is not enough for this old vessel, but I’ll champion on. Today will be a great day.

Yesterday, I worked from home and walked to a lunch appointment with a long-time friend and client close to my house. I headed back home and worked on one of my many projects; my cousin arrived at about 5:00, my wife got home at 5:30, and we sat on the deck and enjoyed the evening. As we wondered where we might land for dinner, our neighbor Bill asked if we wanted to dine with him.

Bill was hosting a party, and two of the guests were sick, so my wife, Cousin, and I took PVHT on a walk and joined Bill and his nephews Scott and Ross for a magical dinner. We had pork loin, garlic mash potatoes, asparagus, and cupcakes. It was one of the best meals I had enjoyed in some time. We sat around the kitchen table and shared stories; I told a few jokes; it was a blast.

As we were sitting at the bar waiting for supper to begin, I pointed to a casserole dish on the stove, and Cousin said, “what is that?” I said, “tuna casserole.” Cousin did not eat fish and began gagging just a little. As a child, one of the staples in our house was Tuna Casserole; you take a can of tuna and a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup and put them in a Pyrex microwave for 5 minutes on high, and boom, you have a delicious meal for the family.  If you want to get silly, add some crushed potato chips to the top, and it’s a dish that hill-billy-ology would endorse.

Between email and my project work, I watched Twitter and found some interesting stuff; let me share what I found on the Twit yesterday; it’s rather interesting.  First, we go to the Pro-Choice Caucus and their need to update their language.  They gave a chart of harmful to our cause and helped our cause through wordsmithing. Here are the harmful to beneficial language changes.

Instead of saying choice, say decision.  Reducing abortion to safe, legal, and rare is now safe, legal, and accessible. Unwanted pregnancy is now an unexpected pregnancy. Back-alley coat hanger abortions are now referred to as criminalized health care.

To combat the rising energy costs, let’s see what the administration is doing to help lower your cost of energy. From our friends at one of the well-known news organizations in the world:

“Despite the record-high gas price in the U.S., the Biden administration has announced it is canceling the sale of a massive oil and gas lease location in Alaska that was pending before the Department of the Interior (DOI).

Biden’s DOI also canceled two leases under consideration in the Gulf of Mexico area.

On Wednesday, AAA reported the national average price of regular gas had reached a record high of $4.40.

At the end of March, the White House, while blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the rise in gas prices, bragged about Biden, “The first part of the President’s plan is to immediately increase supply by doing everything we can to encourage domestic production now.”

Yet on Wednesday, the DOI  killed the potential to drill for oil on over 1 million acres in the Cook Inlet in Alaska, informing CBS News that the cancellation stemmed from a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area” for the decision to “not move forward.” The DOI killed the two leases under consideration in the Gulf of Mexico area because of “conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales.”

“The Biden administration is poised to let the nationwide offshore drilling program expire next month without a new plan,” The Washington Post noted, adding, “Barring unexpected action, the current five-year offshore drilling program will lapse at the end of June. Interior cannot hold any new oil and gas lease sales until a replacement plan is completed.”

Because the federal government can take months to create a new offshore drilling plan, energy companies will likely have to wait until at least 2023 before they can gain access to new leases.

American Petroleum Institute senior vice president Frank Macchiarola called the Alaska cancellation “another example of the administration’s lack of commitment to oil and gas development in the U.S.,” adding, “The President has spoken about the need for additional supplies in the market, but his administration has failed to take action to match that rhetoric.”

“Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern – the administration talks about the need for more supply and acts to restrict it.  As geopolitical volatility and global energy prices continue to rise, we again urge the administration to end the uncertainty and immediately act on a new five-year program for federal offshore leasing,” he concluded.

In mid-March, speaking at a Senate hearing, West Virginia senator Joe Manchin (D) criticized the Biden administration, saying the oil and gas industry “needs signals from the administration that they will support oil and gas development and production.”

“Industry also needs signals from the administration that they will support oil and gas development and production,” Manchin stated. “That includes taking concrete steps, like working on a new five-year plan for the Gulf of Mexico since we know that the current plan expires at the end of June. The Administration’s failure to act on the five-year plan combined with the failure to appeal the vacated lease sale means that we’re almost certainly looking at no offshore lease sales until sometime next year, to say nothing about the failure to hold onshore sales.”

He slammed the Department of the Interior: “The fact is Gulf oil is the heaviest we produce, and our refineries are well-calibrated. It makes no sense that the Interior decided not to appeal a ruling throwing out the largest Gulf lease sale, particularly when that decision was made several days after Russia invaded Ukraine. We cannot take a short-sighted approach that pretends two years with lease sales will have no impact on our domestic oil and gas production just because the brunt of production impact from the lack of leasing hasn’t hit yet.”

Joe Rogan was talking about a friend that “employs people.” She has employees that call in and claim to need a mental health day. The owner’s answer is, “get to work; you don’t need a damn mental health day.” As an employer, I have given a few mental health days, I’m not proud of it, but I think today it is essential. I fear our society has become too soft.

Katie Porter from CA’s takes on the rising costs of everything from gas to corn. We see this jump in expenses; paying more at the grocery store, paying more at the pump, and paying more for housing is a reason for abortion. Using that logic, when inflation hits, what’s to stop you from killing your children? Hey Bob, where’s your son Mark?” Dave’s gas hit $7.00 a gallon, so we had to take him out.

The White House denies it, but the free smoke kits they handed out in major cities do, wait for it, include FREE CRACK pipes. They have the photos to prove it, but that is misinformation if you ask the White House. Pictures don’t lie; you and I are paying for crack pipes.

What is our ACLU preaching about these days? According to a recent tweet from the ACLU, “Abortion bans disapproprintly

-          harm black, ingenious, people of color

-          the LGBTQ community

-          immigrants

-          young people

-          those working to make ends meet

-          people with disabilities

I might suggest adding the word woman to the list, and I struggle to see how the LGBTQ community that does not make babies suffers from the bans. Also, when they say young people, are they including a fetus that has been aborted in the third trimester? Is that a young person?  

Pay attention; a lot is going on today, I just did an aggregation of the ridiculous news items I could find, and I think it is my job to share some of the more fringe but accurate data floating around.  

"Don't tell me what you value; show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."
— Joe Biden