"Tribute To Rush H. Limbaugh" (1:02:36) (opens in separate window)

enemies: state vs people

friday, may 24th, 2024

I didn’t declare war on the establishment; it declared war on me.

It declared war on me when it supported energy policies that could enrich Saudi Arabia and Russia and would cost me more money at the gas pump or on my power bill.

[FULL TITLE: "Enemies of the State vs. Enemies of the People."]

It declared war on me when it told me my ideas weren’t worthy of debate and discussion or that they were even so dangerous they couldn’t be shared publicly.

It declared war on me when it used the police powers of the FBI and CIA to first spy on a presidential candidate and then worked to undermine the administration of that candidate after he was elected.

It declared war on me when it told me my religious beliefs did not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

It declared war on me when it told me boys could compete against girls in high school sports and that they could shower together afterwards.

It declared war on me when it offered citizenship to illegal aliens and shipped American jobs to China.

It declared war on me when it mocked the usefulness of a wall on the Mexican border and simultaneously put up a razor-wire fence around the Capitol.

It declared war on me when it tried to defund the police so that millions of Americans would be left defenseless against mobs from antifa and Black Lives Matter.

It declared war on me when it said America was never great.

It declared war on me when it told my children they are not good enough because they are white.

It declared war on me when it said that defending the Constitution’s rules on federal elections is sedition.

It declared war on me when it told me that I was a domestic terrorist if I didn’t believe the government’s official pronouncements about elections, about free speech, and about right and wrong.

Let’s just say it plainly: The establishment declared war on me and on all conservative Americans when it decided that leftist orthodoxy was more important than the Constitution.

Don’t believe me? Fine, why should you believe a Trump supporter? You’ve been indoctrinated by the national media, Big Tech oligarchs, the Democratic Party, and academic elites to believe without questioning that people like me can’t be trusted. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Listen instead to John Brennan, the former CIA director under President Obama, who speaks authoritatively for the Deep State:

He said on MSNBC that “the members of the Biden team who have been nominated or have been appointed, are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we've seen overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”

This “guilt by labeling” is the antithesis of fair play or justice. It is a convenient mechanism for the ruling class to herd people into identity clusters so that individual rights can be supplanted by group responsibility. If this reminds you of China’s Cultural Revolution, you are not wrong. The ruling class wants you to conform, confirm and comply. If you step outside the lines, be prepared to be shamed, silenced and ostracized.

A shocking example was provided Wednesday when Douglass Mackey of Delray Beach, Fla., was arrested for creating memes that allegedly misled voters in 2016 to think they could vote by texting instead of by actually going to the polls. This is the equivalent of arresting Sacha Baron Cohen for exposing the gullibility of the rich and famous. The FBI offered no evidence that Mackey actually convinced anyone not to vote, but even if it did, so what? Would you rather live in a country where the FBI is hunting down pranksters — four years after the supposed transgression — or a country where voters are expected to be able to recognize a joke when they see one?

But nothing can be taken for granted any more. The people — and even their representatives and senators — are considered enemies of the state because they hold opinions that don’t meet the standards of Joe Biden or (this is even scarier!) Jake Tapper.

No wonder the people are starting to rise up and rebel against the plutocracy. It’s not “We the Oligarchs” who are the source of power in the Constitution, but “We the People,” yet the ruling establishment has forgotten that. If people like Donald Trump and Douglass Mackey are deemed to be “enemies of the state,” then those who would suppress them and their freedoms must be considered “enemies of the people.”

A house divided against itself cannot long stand, but if there is to be a truce it will not come from submission, but from a recognition that all people are created equal, that they all have certain inalienable rights, and that among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those words were worth fighting for once. Are they worth fighting for today?

I don’t know, but I do know this: If Americans can’t have liberty, we can’t have America either — at least not one that is distinguishable from China. The time has come to make a choice.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 6:15a on Friday, I went thru my BS finger stick routine to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee, took two 50mg Tramadol and a 300mg Gabapentin for Sciatica pain, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the cool garage and checked the day's list of any "stuff".

It was a cool 59° outside, so I fired-up the condo furnace for a quick heat-up, had some wonderful Kona Coffee, then scanned the news and weather sites, and tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show LIVE" (CS Show) from 6-9a, then the "Chris Plante Show LIVE" (CP Show) 9-12noon, and finally to the Rob Carson Show LIVE (RC Show) 12-3p.

I checked eMail in the Thunderbird program, this morning, and one (of hundreds) that I got was from the PA Dept of Revenue, for an outstanding $16.16 balance from 2023's State Income Estimated Taxes. From 2023? So I wrote them a check, printed an envelope in MS-Office's Word to the dept in Harrisburg, and will mail it well before June 2nd. No errands to do, so I lounged around until 11:30, got ready for the day, and did some more of the growing paperwork pile, just to keep ahead of it. Sherry would stop by after she gets finished filling-in for Daughter Holly, after 5p.

After lunch, I continued with the basement "Prepper Inventory" on-and-off, until just after 5, when Sherry arrived. We had some much-needed hugs and kisses, 2 nice hours together and I waved goodbye. We'll plan next week, over the weekend. After the evening news, such as it is, I watched the ongoing Motor Trend's "Mecum Auto Auction: Indianapolis 2024" until 11p, and unplugged.

Awake at 6a on Saturday, I rolled over and went back to sleep until 8:15, on an overcast, rainy, 60° morning. I fired-up the furnace to take the chill off the condo, made coffee, had breakfast and checked the HP desktop's news headlines on selected websites. By 1p, I'd gone back to doing some "Prep Inventory" in the basement and worked for almost 4hrs, with a few breaks. I'm not quite halfway done, but I'll keep chipping away at it. By 5p, I'd had enough, marked my place on the shelf inventory sheets, and came upstairs to watch some "Mecum Auto Auctions" on Motor Trend, thru the evening. I CAN'T BELIEVE THE FRICKING PRICES!!! Vehicles are priced 3x-4x-5x-PLUS, what they were just two short years ago. 90% of car collectors are being priced out of the market, with upper mid-range and high-end collectors doing fine. Stunning. I called it a day at midnight.

Up at 7:30a on Sunday, to a partly sunny, cool 62°, I fired-up the furnace, made coffee, fed the squirrels and Bluejays, and had a couple Marlboros in the garage. Bluejays, Cardinals, Blackbirds etc are also customers of "John's Diner". Heh. With nothing worthwhile on the TV or radio, I dialed-up some recent "CS Show Podcasts", while scanning the morning's news headlines. The partly sunny morning quickly became totally cloudy by 11, and I rechecked the AccuWeather forecast for today, as the skies darkened noticeably from low clouds. (Under radar's 3500ft scan limit, 99% of low clouds won't be seen and interactive maps will have to be BIGLY enlarged to see anything.)

I got the recycle and garbage bins ready to go out to the curb for morning p/u, did a load of laundry, watched the F-1 Grand Prix of Italy at Imola; I'd forgotten it was on at 9a, but F1-TV has replays, highlights, news, tech sessions etc going back several years, so all was well. Darned good race. I called Sherry and we made some plans for the coming week.

With Sunday being another NBC (Nothing But Crap) Night for TV, I streamed Motor Trend's "Full Custom Garage" previous season episodes until 12a, and unplugged.

Up at 6a on Monday, to an overcast, cool 59° morning. The EV garbage/recycle trucks were rolling thru the complex, and as noisy as they are, AREN'T electric trucks, no matter what the company claims. $5 says their couple of EV trucks are 'out of service', for a variety of reasons. Meh. I had coffee and a smoke in the garage, door opened to get some fresh air in, and then scanned the news headlines to get updated from last evening. Yes, the Iranian islamist(SPIT!) murderers are still dead. Good riddance and rot in hell, bastards. Lots and lots of bad news stories, on FNC, and elsewhere.

After a Fried Egg Sandwich for breakfast,I tuned into the "CS Show LIVE" from 6-9, and switched to the "CP Show LIVE" at 9. Uh oh, get ready for the next phony-baloney "plan-demic", just in time for the Nov 5th GE (General Election). I left for my usual Monday errands at points south, around 12:30p. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT! Traffic was backed-up over 60mins just to go a lousy 10-11 miles down south to Dallastown, by freaking PENNDot LINE PAINTING TRUCKS, in a 5-7 truck convoy. Arrrrrgh!

Finally back home by 3:30p, I unloaded, had some lunch, watched a TV news program on CNN, and got 2hrs+ on the LR couch. After some BBQ for dinner, I watched the news, then switched to History's "unXplained mysteries" for the rest of the evening, until 12:30a. Lights out.

Up at 7a, to a beautiful, blue sky, sunny, Summer-like 63° morning -- forecast to be a very warm 85° -- made coffee, had a smoke in the garage, fired-up the HP desktop, and scanned the news. I tuned into the "CS Show LIVE", halfway thru and got CS' engineer, "Fast Eddie", doing the show. He's good. The Monarch Coffee Co's "Rise & Shine" Kona Coffee was exceptionally good this morning -- as it is every morning -- and I seemingly couldn't get enough. The lawncare crews arrived at 9a, as I was sitting on the back patio, having a smoke and coffee. I took the 18" oscillating heater tower down to the basement until late Fall, and brought up the 40" oscillating cooling tower, for use this Summer in the garage.

I had some lunch, Sherry arrived at 1p, and we decided to get some errands done together: Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market, and Saubel's Market, for food, goodies and a few perennials. Nice day. Back pain was minimal, thanks to the 500mg Bayer Aspirin Caps; that seems to work better than the 50mg Tramadol opiate-narcotic, so I might quit those for a while. Sherry left around 5:30, I watched the early news, and History's "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch" until midnight, and bagged it for the day.

Up at 6:30a on Wednesday, to another blue sky, sunny, balmy, Summer-like 63° morning -- forecast to be 90°+ and humid -- I checked the AC setting (72°), made coffee, fired-up the HP desktop, and had a smoke in the garage. After tuning into the "CS Show LIVE", I did the morning's BSL/ "finger stick" test, had an Apple-Raisin Fritter from yesterday's trip to Flinchbaugh's, and got a handle on the day/week's at-hand to-do list. By 1p, it was already 85° and 51% humidity, and getting much warmer. By 2p, it was 91° and still climbing.

★ SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH! ★

* WHAT: SUDDEN, SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS, W/ LARGE HAIL, POPPING-UP WITHOUT WARNING, DUE TO ATMOSPHERIC OVERHEAT.
* WHERE: IN PENNSYLVANIA, THIS WARNING INCLUDES 29 COUNTIES IN CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA:
ADAMS, BEDFORD, BLAIR, CAMERON, CENTRE, CLINTON, COLUMBIA, CUMBERLAND, DAUPHIN, ELK, FRANKLIN, FULTON, HUNTINGDON, JUNIATA, LANCASTER, LEBANON, LYCOMING, MCKEAN, MIFFLIN, MONTOUR, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERRY, POTTER, SCHUYLKILL, SNYDER, SULLIVAN, TIOGA, UNION, AND YORK.
THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF ALTOONA, BEDFORD, BERWICK, BLOOMSBURG, BRADFORD, CARLISLE, CHAMBERSBURG, COUDERSPORT, DANVILLE, EMPORIUM, GETTYSBURG, HARRISBURG, HERSHEY, HUNTINGDON, LANCASTER, LAPORTE, LEBANON, LEWISBURG, LEWISTOWN, LOCK HAVEN, MANSFIELD, MCCONNELLSBURG, MIFFLINTOWN, MOUNT UNION, NEWPORT, POTTSVILLE, RENOVO, RIDGWAY, SELINSGROVE, SHAMOKIN, ST. MARYS, STATE COLLEGE, SUNBURY, WAYNESBORO, WELLSBORO, WILLIAMSPORT, AND YORK.
* WHEN: From 03:17pm EDT, May 22 2024 until 08:00pm EDT, May 22 2024.

After a late breakfast and heavy lunch, I hit the LR couch around 3:30 for an almost 3hr snooze. The t-storm warning passed and we didn't get a drop; north of us was a different story. I had a Chicken Salad Sandwich on Croissant, watched the evening FNC/NEWSMAX news shows, and tuned into Discovery's always-edgy "Ghost Adventures" until midnight. Lights out.

Up at 5:45a on Thursday, it was a very warm 69°, cloudy and more t-storms forecast for today -- hey, it's that time of year -- with some in progress moving north of us again. I had the last of the Monarch Coffee Co's "Rise & Shine", and got a bag of Monarch's "Farm Hand" ready to fill my old (1970s) Starbuck's container. After tuning into the "CS Show LIVE", I had coffee and a couple smokes in the warm and humid garage, with the 40" oscillating cooling tower fan. Makes a difference on a non-breezy day.

I scanned the morning news on several selected sites -- no good news there -- had more coffee and checked the day's to-do list. #1 on the list: check the CHCA community mailbox for a package from HP.com that's now MIA. After getting ready for the day, I checked the mailbox, and found the 2 missing HP Printer TriColor/Black Ink Cartridges, and notified HP that all was OK. After my morning's usual 19 Rx/OTC pill routine (17 at night), I took a 10mg Furosemide Diuretic, so I'd be inside for the rest of the day. I had a bowl of Panera's Creamy Tomato Soup and a Chef's Salad, for lunch, a smoke on the back patio, and grabbed a 2hr nap on the LR couch, as t-storms rolled thru the area.

The storms pretty much missed us, went north again, and we got zilch. I had some dinner, watched the evening news, and the NBC (Nothing But Crap) program line-up on TV tonite, except for NEWSMAX. I spent time on FR, closed down at 10:45, and called it 'Yankee Doodle'.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and it's a busy one. Monday is Memorial Day; on Tuesday my cleaning lady's in and I am doing my regular errands from Monday, since everything's closed for the holiday; I have a haircut on Thursday, and my rescheduled Therapeutic Massage from today. At least it's not Dr's app'ts and lab work.

What If Biden Wins in November? Pt 1.

No one can predict the future, of course, or if there will even be one. But all of us crystal ball gaze—if we live, it will be in today’s future. So, we make plans and contingencies based on our best guesses of what the short-term and long-term will bring. We do that individually, and we need to do it as a country.

The re-election of Joe Biden in November, as improbable and horrifying as the thought is to right-thinking Americans, is far from impossible. All the polls tell us that, currently, Mr. Trump has the edge, but that the election will probably be close. Of course, the polls tell us nothing about the amount of fraud and cheating the Democrats will do, and we know they WILL do it. Indeed, in one sense, the polls instruct Democrats on how much cheating they will need to do to win.

You see, folks, “the will of the people” means absolutely nothing to Leftists like Democrats. It meant nothing to Lenin, or Stalin, Hitler, Mao, or any other totalitarian dictator in history (or now). The Democrats couldn’t care less about “democracy,” or what the American people think or want. They care only about winning, about power, about control.

They are smarter than you, thus they need to have power! And if the American people are too stupid to give them power by fair and just means, then they will do everything necessary to obtain it by foul methods. In their minds, such is an absolute requirement, and stealing elections is justified, because, again, they must rule because they know better how to do it that the ignorant, mongoloid peasantry.

So, Trump’s current lead in the polls means absolutely nothing—except providing Democrats with information on how much fraud is required to win. This may be the last election in American history where “the will of the people” will actually mean something. We’ll see if it does in this election.

But to our question: what will happen to America if Biden wins? Again, I don’t know the future, but let me speculate and throw out a few possibilities. This column will consider the short-term effects (the next four years), while a subsequent article will consider some possible long-term consequences for America.

Short-term

It isn’t difficult to envisage what will happen in the next four years if Biden wins: he will continue to do what he is doing now, indeed probably speed things up because he’ll be a lame duck and not have to worry about facing the voters again. The country’s economic malaise will persist, as the Deep State UniParty will continues to expand its horrendous debt by wasting money on wars and useless globalist, Left-wing projects. All of this will put mounting strain on the working middle class and exacerbate poverty throughout the nation, especially as more illegals are allowed in, which will certainly occur.

Speaking of the illegal invasion, I can see no reason why Biden would halt this. He might be forced, by blue states and cities like Chicago, Denver, and New York, to decelerate the process some, but the Democrats want these people in the country in order to completely make over the United States. There are long-term consequences to that, which I will discuss in my next column. Biden will no doubt try to move as many of the illegals as possible to red states to attempt to turn them blue.

How soon the Democrats will be able to give the illegals amnesty and voting rights will depend on whether they can also control both houses of Congress. If they win both houses, watch for action on amnesty/voting, and possible attempts to abolish the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court. If the Republicans can control at least one Congressional House, the Democrats might not be able to accomplish all, or any, of that in the next four years. The race for Congressional control is every bit as crucial as the Presidential election.

a Biden victory in November further means continued encouragement for the godless, depraved Left to drag America into an immoral cesspool, finding new perversions, new filth to expose our children to, and more and more dissolute decadence to wallow in. Hollywood and big business will follow wherever they think the money and influence will be.

This is inevitable because, when an absolute moral standard is abandoned, there is no final stopping place, and new excitements must be created to titillate the degenerates bored with the old ones. The country, already a stinking toilet bowl under Biden, will only get worse. The Left’s control of the media and academia will persist, and both will carry on trying to destroy America and everything good about the country’s heritage.

In foreign affairs, Russia will probably eventually get most, or all, of what it wants in Ukraine. The UniParty will keep throwing money down this rat hole as long as they can, but it’s a waste. The Middle East, regardless of what happens in the current Israel-Hamas conflict, will remain a quagmire that no one can solve; Biden has no diplomatic ability whatsoever to concoct any kind of reasonable solution. By 2028, China will almost surely have taken Taiwan, despite token efforts by Biden to prevent it. I don’t see a World War on the horizon in the next four years, but I also will not predict it won’t happen; Biden’s incompetence is so monumental he could stumble the country into any kind of unimaginable catastrophe. I do know that America will consistently grow weaker under a pusillanimous Commander-in-Chief. In other words, nothing good will happen on the foreign stage.

It doesn’t take a genius to make these short-term predictions, and they could be multiplied. Just look at the last four years, and you have a preview of the next four.

I’ll consider where I think America is headed, long-term, in a subsequent column. (Next week)

Has Leftist Lawfare Created the Police State Yet?

Increasing numbers of worried Americans have been wondering over the last few years whether progressive Democrats have succeeded in creating a police state in America. From the Russia Hoax to the revelations of the Twitter Files release, to the coordinated attempts to quash scandalous and true Biden family stories, to the blatant display of dual justice, they’ve seen that the cabal of one political party, with its power bases in the government and the sycophant media, has succeeded in limiting or destroying political opponents while eliminating individual rights. Just how bad is it? Has that cabal suspended our American Constitution and Bill of Rights and created an authoritarian alternative? Are we there yet?

In his piece “Shock and Awe on the Campaign Trail,” Roger Kimball outlines the numerous and egregious illegalities and irregularities taking place in the legal assault on candidate Trump and asks, “Why are people not up in arms over these revelations?” Similarly, in his interview with Mike Davis, who founded the “Article III Project,” Steve Bannon says, “I don’t know why people are not more on fire with the ridiculousness, the obvious lawfare, which is working, because Trump is not on the campaign trail.”

These are important questions as we look at the nearly countless unprecedented actions involved in some 91 counts of alleged wrongdoing in federal and local indictments filed against the leading presidential candidate. From the eye-popping civil suit verdicts overseen by judges with serious conflicts of interest to attempts to keep Trump off the ballot in several states, to charges related to classified document handling, to the most recent gag order, these efforts have flown in the face of precedent, due process, and equal protection at nearly every turn. They have already achieved much of what they were intended to do: Greatly hamstring (draining time and financial resources) the leading threat to Democrat party/government power.

But why haven’t we seen more overt objection to this travesty, such as more poster-carrying, angry citizens outside of the Trump trial courtrooms, on campuses, at congressional hearings, and in the streets? Part of the answer to this question has to do with the intended target for the shock and awe. It isn’t Donald Trump. As Trump has correctly observed, he is just in the way. No, the primary targets of the shock and awe are people like you and me. And the left may well have hit their mark.

Could it be that the average non-leftist citizen now feels both powerless and terrified to object to any of these injustices? They see the brutal treatment meted out to President Trump, his associates, and his legal team, on the one hand, versus the reverence for a president whose family has inexplicably received millions of dollars from foreign sources and for violent protesters who have magically escaped jail time, or of crack-using, tax-dodging Biden family members.

Consider the brazenness and audacity of this administration, including its DOJ, over the last several years. Their targeted victims have purposely included some of the most credentialed, accomplished, prominent, well-connected, and well-heeled Americans, people such as cabinet members, generals, journalists, and even attorneys of those same victims. Other victims have been ordinary folk, such as people’s friends, family members, parents opposing sexualized curricula at their kids’ schools, or peaceful men and women holding up signs near an abortion clinic.

All of these people, both the prominent and the ordinary, have been subjected to SWAT raids, shackles and frog marches, subpoenas, lawsuits, IRS visits, prison, solitary confinement, and other humiliations. They have seen that anyone whose views or behavior are not to the liking of the Democrat/government/media cabal is a potential victim of the authoritarian state through censorship or lawfare, or both. The message to Joe Citizen is clear: “If we can take down these people, including a U.S. president and billionaire and anyone who supports him, just imagine what we can do to you.”

But that citizen doesn’t have to imagine that message. It is on clear display with the plight of those who wandered around the Capitol on January 6, with some who committed no violence, including seemingly being convicted for wearing a funny horned hat, sentenced to years of prison.

Many of these people have been incarcerated for years, some in solitary confinement, without even being charged, let alone tried, and without access either to medical care or the evidence that would likely exonerate them. Of course, the mainstream media does its part to justify such treatment with the mantra that January 6th represented a massive threat to American democracy.

In sum, it appears that the shock and awe are working. Americans are likely terrified that the extensive lawfare being waged against Trump and others can and will be directed at them if they act or perhaps even speak up incorrectly (e.g., opposing the leftist agenda in any way).

It is not coincidental that the left has accelerated the lawfare as the election looms closer and Biden’s numbers have worsened. Per Gallup, President Biden’s latest quarterly average approval rating hit a new all-time low of 38.7%—which ranks 277th out of 314 presidential quarters in Gallup records dating to 1945—the bottom 12% of all presidential quarters. Gallup points out that not only is Biden’s support weak among Republicans but among independents as well, and there is little indication that it will improve anytime soon. Progressive Democrats now see lawfare as their best chance to produce a result that American voters likely will not.

So, what happens when we follow this path to its end? It is likely that at least one of the kangaroo courts will convict Donald Trump for something criminal. They were giddy about hitting his finances for hundreds of millions of dollars of ridiculous verdicts, but they know that isn’t enough. They need him in jail, and it is more likely than not that they will put him there.

Our mainstream media will cheer. It will be a travesty and a very dark day for America, but don’t expect the left to treat it that way. Anyone who points that out and refuses to acknowledge Donald Trump as a “criminal” or even “felon” will likely be given the J6 treatment by the cabal.

What’s the telling difference between an isolated violation of liberty and a police state? The former is openly identified, condemned, and protested by both the public and the media. In the latter, the public already knows better than to speak up, and the media are complicit. Let us hope that the answer to Mr. Kimball’s question about why more people aren’t up in arms isn’t because we are already there.

What Is The Most Pernicious Example Of "Misinformation" Currently Circulating?

“Misinformation” — It has been one of the most-used buzzwords of the past few years. The “misinformation” label has been applied by advocates on both sides of the political divide in the attempt to discredit their opponents. Numerous assertions that have dominated the news cycle for months or even years have ultimately proven to be completely false, that is, “misinformation.” Examples of such assertions that have been established as “misinformation” include the assertion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election; the assertion that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant; and the assertion that the Covid virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan.

After the thorough discrediting of so many false narratives during these years, there remain plenty of narratives still out there that richly deserve the “misinformation” label. But of those, which is the very worst, the very most pernicious? Here is my candidate: the assertion that the cheapest way to generate electricity today is with wind and solar generators.

I recognize that there are many candidates for the title of the worst of all misinformation, and we are dealing here with a very crowded field. Numerous other endlessly-repeated false assertions contend for the title, many of them having very large real-world consequences. For example, other serious contenders for the title of “most pernicious misinformation” could include the assertion that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to human health and welfare; or the assertion that Israel is conducting a “genocide” against Palestinians. Undoubtedly, you have other candidates to add to the list.

So why do I say that the assertion of wind and solar being the cheapest ways to generate electricity is the very most pernicious of misinformation currently out there? Here are my three reasons: (1) the assertion is repeated endlessly and ubiquitously, (2) it is the basis for the misallocation of trillions of dollars of resources and for great impoverishment of billions of people around the world, and (3) it is false to the point of being preposterous, an insult to everyone’s intelligence, yet rarely challenged.

How ubiquitous is the assertion that wind and solar are the cheapest ways to generate electricity? Try Googling the question “What is the cheapest way to produce electricity?” You will get multiple pages of results advocating for wind and solar electricity, with almost no mention of the problems or costs of intermittency. A few examples of what turns up:

The top result from Galooli.com, March 13, 2022, “Which Renewable Energy is Cheapest? A Guide to Cost and Efficiency”: “According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook and other research projects, solar and wind energy have continued to occupy the top spots in terms of the cheapest renewable energy sources. Both energy sources cost significantly less than fossil fuel alternatives and continue to become more affordable every year.”
Next up, decarbonization.com, August 2, 2023, “Ranked: The Cheapest Sources of Electricity in the U.S.”: “According to Lazard’s 2023 analysis of unsubsidized LCOE in the U.S., both onshore wind and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies are more cost-effective than combined cycle natural gas power plants. In the case of onshore wind, this has been true since 2015.”
Next, carbonbrief.com, October 13, 2020, “Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA.”: “The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries. That is according to the International Energy Agency. . . .”

Keep going for dozens of these for page after page. Try to find in any of them a serious discussion of the costs of backup, storage, or transmission upgrades to try to make an electrical grid work with these intermittent generators. You won’t. And don’t think that the high-brow mainstream sources can be trusted for anything better. Here is the New York Times from August 17, 2023: “The cost of generating electricity from the sun and wind is falling fast and in many areas is now cheaper than gas, oil or coal.”

In the face of hundreds of different journalism outlets endlessly repeating in unison the mantra of cheap “renewable” electricity, it becomes difficult to blame the voters or the politicians for just nodding along with the crowd. Why do any mentally taxing independent thinking when everybody seems to be saying the same thing?

The problem is that the idea that wind and solar make the cheapest electricity is plain wrong. At least, it is plain wrong if the electricity you are talking about is the reliable sort that works whenever you want to turn on the switch. The idea that wind and solar are cheapest fails to take account of any of the ancillary costs necessary to make a fully-functioning grid: the entire system of backup facilities to provide the power when the wind is not blowing and the sun not shining; the transmission facilities to take the power from wherever is windy or sunny to anywhere else it may be needed on a moment’s notice; the batteries or other storage facilities to save up energy in anticipation of inevitable wind and solar droughts; and so forth. In short, the idea that wind and solar generation of electricity are the “cheapest” is classic misinformation, the endless repetition of an assertion that is clearly false and known to be false.

Meanwhile, among the people incapable of seeing through the fog of misinformation on this subject are our current President, and the Governors of New York and California. In the case of the states, they throw tens of billions of dollars of handouts and subsidies to develop wind and solar facilities (hundreds of billions of dollars in the case of the feds), never having the presence of mind to realize that none of that would be necessary of this method of generation were actually cheaper as claimed.

Between the vast mis-allocation of resources and the sheer preposterousness of the proposition in question, I think that this assertion of wind and solar electricity generation being “cheapest” definitely has the claim for the number one spot.