TODD: You know, we’ve been talking about the inflation, and just before the program began today, we learned that the cost of blackmail has gone up. According to Bloomberg and other media sources, Colonial Pipeline has paid these hackers who locked up their equipment five million bucks in ransom.
So we talked about staple foods going up and fuel prices going up and lumber through the roof. In this America, this Kamala Harris with a strong assist by Joe Biden’s dementia, we’re in this situation now where the costs of blackmail has gone up. I have just a prediction — and these are always dangerous to do, but I predict sometime in the next six months we’re gonna find out that Joe Biden’s dementia pressured the people at Colonial Pipeline to pay this money, or maybe even put taxpayer dollars into this.
Because they can’t avoid people panicking because they’ve made a habit of panicking people. Not a habit. They’ve made a tactic of panicking people. So consequently, people hear about this pipeline and get into the gas lines and are emptying out gas stations of all the available feel, and it makes perfect sense, because you had a year and a half of technocrats telling us that we’re in the balance, that this virus is gonna kill us all.
They let domestic terror groups run wild through the country, and unless you are Thomas Friedman at the New York Times, you knew they got to burn down American cities. So, of course people are gonna respond and go out want to buy things. This is a remarkable aspect of politics, that they take something like international relations, and they mystify it. They make it seem really complicated.
Look, global politics is complicated, but it also comes down to some basic human facts, like psychology. We are buying… What Biden would like us to do is go back to buying oil — our energy — countries that don’t like us and then don’t wish us well. If we really take a moment to assess how we’ve locked ourselves into, say, the Chinese Communist Party, there are a lot of Americans on a lot of medications that are highly addictive.
For some folks they are very helpful, and for other people not so helpful. China makes a strong percentage of these. Do you understand that if we got into a serious conflict with China, they could say, “Hey, we’re not gonna make that anymore. We’ve got all the facilities, we’ve got all the processes, but we’re not gonna do it.” We would have a calamitous event in the country if they chose to make that decision.
So when Donald Trump brought to the White House and to America this unpredictable nature, no one had him psychologically mapped. No one! Everybody has the Biden administration psychologically mapped. They don’t know who’s running things. Maybe they do; we don’t. But the response to this, which is no response, was just completely predictable — and imagine being our ally, Israel.
“Oh, we’re… We’re back to having to enter the back door to the White House?” which is, of course, what Obama did. Now, these decisions they make, it’s not that they’re stupid. They’re really not. In fact, here’s Rush proving beyond doubt that the left and now the party, they’re not dumb. They simply don’t have America’s interests at heart.
RUSH: All right, here’s Ariel Cohen, and this was published Sunday in the New York Post on the op-ed page. “Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in International Energy Security at The Heritage Foundation and the author of The Real World, a weekly column published in The Middle East Times.”
It begins this way: “As you go deeper into debt filling up your tank with $4 gas this weekend, look on the bright side — you’re helping to fund countries that hate you. From Russia to Iran to Venezuela, America’s adversaries are splurging on oil windfalls, while programs directed against Uncle Sam and his allies are funded by petroleum revenues.
“Big bucks are allowing the oil sultans and dictators to intimidate U.S. allies, buy politicians and academics, and purchase election outcomes. Oil prices are going up partly because of supply and speculation — but also because these countries can decide to punish the U.S. or limit our influence, particularly when they disagree with policies toward Iraq and Israel. The ironic thing about all this is that Americans in this country, thanks to the liberal Democrats and the Obama campaign, have been told for decades to hate US oil companies. They’re the big bogeyman.
“The revenues of the major oil producing countries have quadrupled in three years. Since 9/11, oil prices have more than quintupled. This year Europe and the US will spend approximately $2 trillion on imported oil, while the world will spend close to $3 trillion. This money recycles back to the U.S. and the West, often in the most legitimate ways. Sovereign Investment Funds have acquired large chunks of America’s financial flagships: Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Blackstone and the Carlyle Group.
“However, oil revenues may be used in much more sinister ways. Money can buy nuclear weapons programs, ballistic missile arsenals, and other arms. It can also pay for terrorist armies. Today’s attempt to overthrow the pro-American government in Lebanon is bankrolled by Iran. “Hezbollah is a wholly-owned Iranian subsidiary. Its chief has the official title of the ‘representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader’ in Lebanon. Iran paid for the 27,000 rockets Hezbollah has aimed at Israel. Iran also buys Hamas weapons and popularity in Gaza.
“Saudi princes have poured tens of millions into prestigious universities, from Georgetown and Harvard to Cambridge and Edinburgh. Former senior government officials and ambassadors are on the royal payroll influencing their colleagues in the diplomatic service. This is how the Saudi ‘peace plan’ calling for undermining Israel through a massive influx of Palestinian ‘refugees’ received U.S. support at the highest levels. This is how the Carter Center in Atlanta ended up taking millions in Gulf oil money. This is why Jimmy Carter looks like he’s shilling for the Iranian-Saudi client, Hamas.”
They have to be happy as they can be when they look at the presidential race in the United States of America and say, “We don’t have to give money to either side, ’cause whoever wins, America’s energy policy is going to only benefit us: the people who are trying to cut America down to size,” because it seems to them — OPEC, Chavez, the Saudis, whoever you want to mention; Putin, the Russians — they can look at our presidential campaign and they can see that whoever wins, America is going to become more and more and more dependent on foreign oil.
In fact if these presidential candidates get their way, the U.S. is going to actually punish itself without any help from abroad, by inflicting tremendous tax increases and regulations on American businesses that produce energy and thereby destroying the ability to create wealth on the part of American investors, corporations, and citizens.
So if you are the enemy of the United States, and you’re trying to punish us for whatever reason — you don’t like our policy with Israel, you don’t like us being in Iraq, you don’t like the fact that we kicked your butt in the Cold War and the Berlin Wall came down; whatever reason you hate us — you gotta be smiling big today, because you’re watching your greatest enemy and threat destroy itself.
TODD: I can’t express adequately how amazing it is to hear that and watch this. Donald Trump, President Trump, had us on a course to energy independence, and it has been immediately reversed by Joe Biden’s dementia.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
TODD: Yesterday in Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill, during a hearing on the weather, John Kerry testified. So, during this question period, Representative Mike McCaul from Texas, a Republican, asks John Kerry — and picture Kerry’s face as you hear this audio. He asked John Kerry, “How can you ensure that this quest we’re on, that slave labor coming out of China — where genocide is taking place as we speak — are never a part of the climate solution in the United States?”
KERRY: You’re absolutely correct, uh, Ranking Member McCall. You’re… Uh… It is a problem. (sputters) Xinjiang province not only produces some of the solar panels that we believe are being in some cases produced in forced labor by Uyghurs, but also, umm, uh, there are a significant amount of, umm, uhh, rare-earth minerals that’s used in the solar panels themselves.
TODD: Well, it’s good that it’s a significant problem. Breathtaking! Breathtaking! Imagine if President Trump had said, “Yeah, it’s a significant problem.” The world would have solicited half an inch on its axis with people jumping up and down in D.C. and on the mockingbird media. “It’s a problem.” So to people who may have relatives in these concentration cramps in China, Uyghurs in our country, in the United States, you know, I want you to know John Kerry recognizes that’s not optimal and it’s a problem.
He wants you to know that. So at least you know you’ve got his attention and he’s very… Well, I wouldn’t say concerned. He’s not… It’s not like it’s a concern. It’s a problem. These are completely optional devices that we don’t need. The lives of the Uyghurs, they’re… Well, I’m sure they don’t feel their lives are optional. But, I mean, in China under the Communist Party…
I mean, there’s a life, and then there’s a dollar for a kidney or more than that. That’s not the only bit out of this. Let’s get addicted to running our country’s energy with assets from the Chinese Communist Party committed to total war! (laughs) There’s this. This is Tuesday in a White House briefing. The energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, was asked about the Colonial Pipeline gas shortage.
So this is an unidentified reporter who said, “Obviously we have the acute issues with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. Looking more holistically in a macro view, how does this speed up efforts at DOE to move in a more renewable direction since this is going to have an impact on people at the pump?”
GRANHOLM: We obviously are all-in on making sure that we meet the president’s goals of getting to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and, uh, net zero carbon emissions by 2050. And, um, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly.
TODD: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! If you drive an electric car, this wouldn’t be affecting you except for the electricity that actually in some cases is converted petroleum energy! Except the wheels on the car! We haven’t yet figured out the electronic wheels on a car. I mean, as smart as Elon Musk is, he hasn’t yet figured out how to get an electronic force field to keep the car afloat above the asphalt that contains petroleum.
Furthermore, it’s the very rare electric train, electric barge or ship, that can generate enough energy capacity to bring the cars here. (Snort!) This is this fantasy! Now, I know this can seem really overwhelming and somewhat scary, but I do want us to take a moment and reflect on something. Yes, the prices for blackmail have gone up. Yes, apparently, according to Bloomberg, Colonial has paid five million bucks to ransomware.
Yes, that’s going to engender and encourage more attacks against our nation’s infrastructure. Yes, all those things are true, and it can seem overwhelming. But this is the time for us to reflect on the fact that the mayor of South Bend… Ha! Ha! The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is bringing all of his year — well, pardon me, all of his months — of experience with things like this to bear, if we’re keeping track.
That is the same mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who we caught on this program pulling into D.C. in gas-powered SUVs with oil-based wheels — pardon me, tires — getting out of the oil-powered SUVs, producing a bicycle with petroleum-product-based wheels so he could pedal his way into downtown D.C.
Into the capital, that is surrounded by a militarized fence for reasons of theater, which will loop us all back around. Why are we paying the Chinese Communist Party-approved company that is forcing slaves to produce these windmills to plant them into Martha’s Vineyard’s waters? Theater. And lobbying. And stupidity. And, my judgment, corruption.