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Jean-Pierre made the comment during the White House daily press briefing in response to Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, who asked why the Biden administration is "now considering shutting down the Line 5 pipeline from Canada to Michigan" while oil and gas prices continue to skyrocket. "So, Peter, that is inaccurate," Jean-Pierre fired back. "That is not right. So any reporting indicating that some decision has been made, again, is not accurate." "What’s inaccurate?" Doocy asked. "The reporting about us wanting to shut down the Line 5," Jean-Pierre responded. "I didn’t say ‘wanting,’" Doocy said. "I said, is...

Fox News reported, “The Biden administration is reportedly weighing the potential market consequences of shutting down an oil pipeline in Michigan. …” The pipeline, known as Line 5, is 30 inches in diameter and travels from Superior, Wisconsin, through both the Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan before ending in Sarnia, Ontario. According to Enbridge, which owns Line 5, closing the 645 mile-long pipeline would mean that Michigan would lose access to 756,000 gallons of propane a day, or 55% of the amount the company supplies to the state. Michigan's residential propane consumption is the nation's highest. About 315,000 homes...

The Obama administration was notable for its disregard of the rule of law in its avid pursuit of politically desirable outcomes. Law professor David Bernstein’s book on that subject, Lawless examined many such instances (see my review here) including the demand by Department of Education officials that colleges and universities scrap due process for accused male students in pursuit of high numbers of punishments for sexual assault. Now some of the schools that eagerly complied with the Department’s abuse of Title IX (the 1972 law that was written to keep schools that received federal funds from discriminating against women applicants)...

President Trump’s newly installed agency heads are starting to take a lead role unraveling a web of Obama-era regulations, acting alongside congressional Republicans and the president himself to roll back rules they claim hurt business or simply go too far. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was the latest to peel back red tape. On his first day of work, for which he arrived Teddy Roosevelt-style on horseback, Zinke ended a ban on lead bullets and fishing tackle on federal lands and water. The ban was imposed to protect animals from lead poisoning, but had been criticized by the National Rifle Association...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy explained in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday just how Congress is planning to roll back numerous egregious and harmful rules promulgated by the Obama administration: the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA was included in the "Contract With America Advancement Act of 1996" and allows Congress to review, and to cancel by majority rule, new federal regulations issued by federal agencies. There’s a window of 60 "legislative" days to disapprove, which explains some of the Trump administration’s haste in pushing to repeal them. Once passed by both houses, repeals then become...

The new U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement adds restrictions on already bureaucratic rules of engagement for American troops by making Afghan dwellings virtual safe havens for the enemy, combat veterans say. The rules of engagement place the burden on U.S. air and ground troops to confirm with certainty that a Taliban fighter is armed before they can fire — even if they are 100 percent sure the target is the enemy. In some cases, aerial gunships have been denied permission to fire even though they reported that targets on the move were armed. The proposed Bilateral Security Agreement announced Wednesday by Afghan

This campaign gets ever more surrealistic. For most of August and early September, Obama on the stump was complaining about the McCain campaign's "lying" and "lies"; yet last night on CNN Ed Rollins and David Gergen were lamenting the "new" McCain who had authorized an ad that said Obama had "lied" about his relations with Bill Ayers. Then Fightin' Joe Biden was on the stump, veins bulging, hands pumping, screaming that "John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him. In my neighborhood, you got something to say to...

If Barack Obama gets his way, the Oxford English Dictionary will have updated its definition of "distraction" by the end of the campaign: "Diversion of the mind, attention, etc., from any object or course that tends to advance the political interests of Barack Obama." After his blowout win in North Carolina last week, Obama turned to framing the rules of the general election ahead, warning in his victory speech of "efforts to distract us." The chief distracter happens to be the man standing between Obama and the White House, John McCain, who will "use the very same playbook that his...