Kerry taken to task
The mounting job losses from President Joe Biden's war on fossil fuel production took on a French Revolution tone last week when presidential climate envoy John Kerry proverbially told laid-off workers, "Let them eat cake," as French Queen Marie-Antoinette allegedly did to French peasants who had no bread.
When asked by a reporter what the fossil fuel workers should do, the former senator and secretary of state blamed job losses on "market forces" and said the workers should go make solar panels.
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said such an answer was an insult.
"John Kerry - worth hundreds of millions - telling blue-collar workers to just 'go to work to make the solar panels.' By the way, solar will pay on average $20K less than oil and gas jobs," Crenshaw tweeted. "John Kerry thinks you should just shut up and accept it. No."
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, agreed.
"John Kerry - who flies in private jets, owned a 76-foot yacht and several mansions - has the carbon footprint of a small nation," he tweeted. "Yet he tells energy workers to 'make solar panels' when the Biden administration kills their jobs."
Aliens for climate change?
We wonder if staffers for Biden administration National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy will suggest she steer clear of MSNBC host Joy Reid after their interview last week.
Reid was parroting the usual Democratic talking points about climate change being a "national security priority" and getting rid of fossil fuels and "rely[ing] on science" and doing things differently from the previous administration when she launched into bizarro world.
"Congratulations on your new job," she gushed. "It's very important for the planet. You know, I always feel like if aliens ever really exist and they come and attack us, it's because we destroyed the planet. That would be our punishment."
Reid perhaps didn't think that one out.
If we've destroyed the planet, are we even here? And if we've destroyed the planet, what use would it be to aliens?
If she does agree to come back, McCarthy likely will need to check with Biden's national aliens czar before joining in such a discussion.
Watch your wallets
Remember during the recent presidential campaign when Democratic candidate Joe Biden vowed no one in the middle class would pay more taxes under his administration? Indeed, he said no one making under $400,000 - which means lots and lots of rich folks - would pay more taxes.
"Nobody making under 400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised," the now-president said in a May 2020 CNBC interview. "Period. Bingo. Let's get people back to work. Let's get them to work."
Fact checkers during the campaign frequently cited the claim when Republicans said Biden's policies would lead to higher taxes.
Now that he's in office, his secretary of commerce nominee says, "Hold my beer."
Gina Raimondo, currently governor of Rhode Island, said in her Senate confirmation hearing that the administration would have to remain open to new taxation on middle-class families to fund climate change and infrastructure improvement.
Answering a question, she tossed out a sop to those who might be affected, saying she was "deeply in touch with how much increasing bills affect the average American family."
"Having said that, we do need to meet the climate change challenge, and we need funds for improved infrastructure - better roads, safer roads, safer bridges - which also creates jobs," she said. "So I would look to balance those interests and work as a piece of the president's team."
"Balance those interests" apparently is the new term for raising taxes. At least she didn't say "make investments."
Speciesism
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is suggesting all future insults should not include animals.
"Calling someone an animal as an insult reinforces the myth that humans are superior to other animals & justified in violating them," the animals rights organization tweeted recently.
As such, it said, instead of "chicken," "rat," "snake," "pig" and "sloth," insulters should use "coward," "snitch," "jerk," "repulsive" and "lazy."
Seems to us PETA is putting value judgments on the animals with the words it offers and that it would suggest the insults be eliminated, but that's just us.
And the folks at the organization may never have cracked a Bible, where, in Genesis, God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
Even if PETA defines "dominion" as stewardship, someone must be the steward, and it's difficult to be the steward to something to which you're not superior, doggone it.