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Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin (@GenBoykin). Venezuela is vulnerable. The White House in August imposed new economic sanctions on the country, and the oil glut caused by the coronavirus pandemic, meanwhile, is rendering Venezuela’s vast supply of recoverable oil near-worthless. “[N]o other country in the region will be as hard hit as Venezuela, which relies on oil sales for 85 percent of its government spending,” writes Andres Oppenheimer, a columnist for the Miami Herald. “Last year, Venezuela’s oil exports had already fallen to $9 billion, from $73 billion in 2011.”All these factors—U.S. sanctions on...

Hugo Chavez was one of the most evil socialist dictators ever. He took the richest country in Latin America, Venezuela, and turned it into a disaster of misery and poverty in only five years. How bad? The people had no food or toilet paper. And critics of Chavez were tortured and murdered. Isn't socialism wonderful? But it gets worse. Just like Fidel Castro, Chavez got filthy rich based on the misery of his own people. His family made billions. Then this evil dictator died of cancer. He turned the country over to his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro. Maduro ran the...

There was a time in America — and it wasn't even so long ago — that liberals cared a lot about working-class people. They may have been misguided in many of their policy solutions — e.g., raising the minimum wage — but at least their hearts were in the right place. Then a strange thing happened about a decade ago. Radical environmentalists took control of the Democratic Party. These leftists care more about the supposed rise of the oceans than the financial survival of the middle class. The industrial unions made a catastrophic decision to get in bed with these...

“For the duration of my appointment as Secretary if I am confirmed, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which The William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party….” — Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton in a letter to State Department Designated Agency Ethics Official James H. Thessin, January 5, 2009. Here at Judicial Watch, we were reminded of this pledge last week when Mrs. Clinton melted down in an exchange with a Sanders supporter who confronted her about Big Oil donations to...

Hillary Clinton owes Bernie Sanders’ campaign an apology, the campaign said Friday. Clinton on Thursday accused Sanders’ camp of “lying,” alleging that his campaign has been claiming Clinton accepts money from the fossil fuel industry — a statement she forcefully rejected when confronted by an environmental activist. “I think she probably owes the senator an apology for that because the senator is not lying about her record,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told MSNBC. “He’s talking about her record. He’s talking about her practices. She obviously doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t make it lying because you don’t like it.”...

If you still own shares in solar energy it’s probably a sign that you’ve been in the sun too long: the sector is tanking – and deservedly so – as reality dawns that this is a Potemkin industry, an Enron of a con-trick, whose survival depends not on the energy it generates but on the subsidies it squeezes from the taxpayer. Consider Exhibit A: the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the California desert. This $2.2 billion project, heavily backed with federal grants by the Obama administration, is absolutely brilliant at killing birds. According to some estimates it accounts for...

According to a March 11 Bloomberg article, the Russian government is considering changes in the tax regime for the Russian oil and gas industry in order to bolster government revenues. Should Vladimir Putin consider nationalizing this industry as one of the alternatives? Possibly—if the U.S. shale revolution represents a paradigm shift that will result in sub-$50-$60 crude prices and substantially lower natural gas prices well into the future. Should this be the case, without significant changes in its approach to generating revenue from this industry—which historically has funded ~50 percent of the government’s budget—it seems the Russian government could consign...

Take a look at this abstract from the journal Progress in Human Geography: ………………………………………………………………………Glaciers, Gender, and Science:A FEMINIST GLACIOLOGY: framework for global environmental change research Mark Carey, M Jackson, Alessandro Antonello, Jaclyn Rushing ABSTRACT Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging...

Just one day after the DOJ unveiled its had indicted Chesapeake Founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon on federal charges of conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases, moments ago the Oklahoma Police announced that he was found dead in a car accident, when while traveling in a 2013 Chevy Tahoe at a high rate of speed he crashed while driving on a two-lane highway and was engulfed in flames. FORMER CHESAPEAKE CEO MCCLENDON DEAD AFTER CAR ACCIDENT: CNBCOKLAHOMA CITY POLICE SAY AUBREY MCCLENDON DEADMCCLENDON WAS GOING FASTER THAN SPEED LIMIT: POLICEMCCLENDON WAS ALONE IN 2013 CHEVY...

Washington could become the first state in the nation to impose a direct tax on carbon emissions from fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas. A ballot measure before the state Legislature would create a carbon tax of $25 per metric ton of fossil fuel emissions burned in Washington, while reducing taxes. ...

UK Special Envoy to Yemen Alan Duncan Claims US Controlled by Jewish BankersPosted By Daniel Greenfield On October 15, 2014 @ 12:24 pm In The Point | 18 Comments Alan Duncan, the UK’s Special Envoy to Yemen and Oman, a former oil industry man and current MP, offered a calculated insult to the United States and a staple of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda as part of his unfortunate campaign against the Jewish State.After denouncing Israeli “Apartheid” despite having built his career working with an oil company that actually propped up Apartheid in South Africa, Duncan demanded that all candidates be...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Cruz-is-big-oil-s-new-crush-as-donors-cool-to-6843524.php

<p>Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says he favors equipping Syrian rebels with surface-to-air missiles, arguing it would shift the balance of power.</p> <p>Saudi Arabia is a key backer of rebels against President Bashar Assad. Foreign Minister Adel el-Jubeir was quoted as telling German weekly Der Spiegel in an interview published Saturday: "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground."</p>

Saudis, Russia Agree to Freeze Oil Output; Iran Still Resists by Reuters Feb 16 2016, 9:34 am ET Top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to freeze output levels but said the deal was contingent on other producers joining in - a major sticking point with Iran absent from the talks and determined to raise production. The Saudi, Russian, Qatari and Venezuelan oil ministers announced the proposal after a previously undisclosed meeting in Doha. It could become the first joint OPEC and non-OPEC deal in 15 years, aimed at tackling a growing oversupply of crude and helping...

"...Some of the last fireworks of the night came when Cruz attacked Trump's supposedly "very, very liberal" policies."Flexibility is a good thing, but you shouldn't be flexible on core principles," Cruz said. "I like Donald. He is an amazing entertainer. But his policies for most of his life..have been very, very liberal."Cruz continued:For most of his life, he has described himself as very pro-choice and as a supporter of partial-birth abortion. Right now today as a candidate, he supports federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. I disagree with him on that."You are the single biggest liar," Trump shot back. "You...

Wood Mackenzie's report, cited by the energy news service Platts, said about 3.4 million barrels' worth of oil a day was not profitable below $35 a barrel. According to the International Energy Agency, the world's supply is 97.07 million barrels a day. While today's oil prices are below this threshold, the report suggests the price at which US shale and other producers would be forced out of the market is lower than previously thought. As Platts writes, "For many producers, being cash negative is not enough of an incentive to shut down fields as restarting flow can be costly and...

Syria’s national wealth, infrastructure and institutions have been “almost obliterated” by the “catastrophic impact” of nearly five years of conflict, a new report has found. Fatalities caused by war, directly and indirectly, amount to 470,000, according to the Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR) – a far higher total than the figure of 250,000 used by the United Nations until it stopped collecting statistics 18 months ago. In all, 11.5% of the country’s population have been killed or injured since the crisis erupted in March 2011, the report estimates. The number of wounded is put at 1.9 million. Life expectancy...

News articles concerning the most influential political donors in America typically list the same names: The Koch brothers, George Soros, Sheldon Adelson and, lately, Tom Steyer. But as we reach the end of 2015, none of these billionaires has spent big in the 2016 contest, at least not at an individual candidate level. In their absence, a number of lesser known donors are shaping up to be major players in 2016. Here are five to watch: 1. The DeVos Family We're cheating by including a whole family in our list, but there is no way of separating out this high-spending...

No excerpt from Bloomberg allowed, story here.

The president has nominated attorney J. Mark McWatters for the bank board. However, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has said he's "in no hurry" to hold a hearing or a vote on the nomination. Other pending confirmations take precedence, he said.The last of the 2015 lobbying reports are in, and the top corporate spender turns out to have been the Boeing Company, at $21.9 million. Not coincidentally, the aerospace giant also outranks thousands of other firms in profiting from the subsidies doled out by the Export-Import Bank. Last year, Boeing benefitted...