Politics & Oil

So, the latest leak in what might be the leakiest government in the world has pro-choice demonstrators out on the streets screaming for the heads of our latest Supreme Court. How the vote will go is no longer the question. Mitch McConnell built this court for just this moment. He lied, cheated, connived and got what he was after. Now the question is, do the six conservatives on the court have the guts to vote against the American people because that’s what McConnell appointed them to do? If they follow his plan, they will certainly face the wrath of most Americans, who favor a woman’s right to choose by 61% to 37%.

But that’s not the end of the story. The end of the story won’t come until November when we have mid-term elections and all those Democrats and Independents that sometimes can’t be bothered to vote in mid-terms but still harbor a great deal of resentment over the court taking away their rights, flock to the polls and swamp the Trump anointed ticket.

Turning the courts Republican seemed to be the only thing the Trump administration had any talent for. They definitely screwed everything else up but they did know how to appoint friendly judges. The appointees didn’t have to have any qualifications except a love of Trump. They didn’t need to have a track record of judicial excellence, they didn’t even need law degrees, but they had to be willing to kiss Trump’s ass. Of course, Trump and his team were so incompetent that sometimes they missed. That became evident when many of the Trump appointed judges refused to back up his ludicrous claims of having the election stolen. They understood there was only one thief in the game and his name was Donald.

But now, with the big crook McConnell having successfully stuffed the Court, the question becomes was it all done in vain? Will the Court, by doing what they were put there to do, cause a rush to the poll by formerly sleeping voters.

Will the Democrats be able to convince those who would ordinarily pass on this election to get out and vote blue? No, you can’t vote for the court, but you can sure as hell can get enough Senators and Congressmen in office that no one can appoint any more conservative judges.

Will the public realize that to get their way they must vote for people who will do the job they want done? They haven’t in the past but now we seem to have a surge in interest among young voters who were previously too busy trying to get past the doorman of their favorite club to be bothered to show up the next morning at the polls.

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It started back in the fall when a court in the Netherlands issued a landmark ruling against Royal Dutch Shell, the oil giant that was already pledging to cut its carbon emissions to net zero by2050. The court told Shell it had to move faster.

This was followed by a Chevron shareholder meeting, at which a vote forced the company to increase its contribution to climate change even if it meant selling less gas.

An even bigger shareholder revolt happened during the winter at Exxon-Mobile where activists delivered a stunning rebuke to the company’s management for its handling of the carbon problem. Then the hedge fund Engine No.1 forced two new directors onto the board to prepare it for the time when we don’t burn oil at all. All this seems encouraging but it is far too long in coming. The world has known for decades that fossil fuels are driving climate change and the only way to stop this trend is to stop burning them. The development of technologies that use other sources of energy like wind and sun are going to allow us to stop burning fossil fuels, but it’s going to be a bitch’n fight.  The lords of the oil fields aren’t going to give up even the least bit of profit as they fight to the end. The battle cry of those that have already been committed to the further development of a resource that in time will have no market will be “Stranded Assets.”

The fossil fuel giants have seen this coming for a long time. This didn’t just drop out of the sky. They could have planned and prepared for it. They could have stopped drilling decades ago but they were unwilling to see even a small fraction of their profits go in exchange for a safe planet. They were willing to gamble the world for a few cents more in their already bulging pockets.

Now investment giants like Black Rock are getting involved, citing the destruction of the planet as well as fading profits.

The latest blow appears to be the sanctions placed on Russia by most of Europe and other parts of the world. Sure the Saudi’s can supply those who will no longer buy from Russia. So can we.  But with new routes needed and new supply chains needing to be built, the door is wide open for sun and wind as well as developing technologies like fission, the oil killer that should be on line in about five years. The nations of the world have decided that they would kind of like to save the planet and they will not give a rat’s ass about the fossil fuel companies that try to stand in their way.

It’s hard to imagine a civilized state twenty years from now that still maintains any investment in oil and gas. It will certainly serve them right.

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Coming into office, even with a bare majority in the Senate, the Democrats had visions of really getting something done, and they have, but not nearly as much as they foresaw.  Two things have stymied the Democratic agenda. The first is the outright betrayal of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and the second is the existence of the filibuster.

In the past few months, these two elements have shot down one important Democratic bill after another, starting with police and immigration reform and moving on to abortion rights, the reconciliation bill and any number of other attempts to make this a better country to live in. The Dems wanted to get rid of the filibuster the moment they stepped into power but they can’t get Manchin and Arizona Senator Kristin Sinema out of their hair.  Both these faux-Democratic phonies have constantly thwarted the Party’s goals from the moment the congress convened.

Now the Democrats are faced with another problem. The polls show the GOP leading in both House and Senate for the fall. That lead has shrunk in the last polling but it still exists. Does that mean that they should abandon their attempts to dump the filibuster? Will they need it in place to stop the idiot moves and anti-democratic legislation that would inevitably follow a Republican majority in either of both houses of congress? So now, even if they had the votes to get rid of the filibuster, which they don’t, the conundrum expands. They don’t want it, but they may need it, especially if the GOP pulls a majority in November. On the other hand they will have to get rid of it if they ever expect to accomplish anything for the rest of the Biden administration, especially if they win in November and again in 2024. Nothing is ever simple or straightforward. That’s politics.