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Sunday, July 5, 2026

Wind and Solar Finally Meet the Taxpayer’s Breaking Point

Wind and Solar Finally Meet the Taxpayer’s Breaking Point

David Manney

A family paying the electric bill doesn't care how noble a subsidy sounds in Washington. They care whether the lights stay on, the furnace runs, the air conditioner works, and the bill leaves enough money for groceries.

President Donald Trump's tax law set July 4, 2026, as the deadline ending federal tax credit subsidies for new wind and solar projects not already under construction. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright called the deadline the end of roughly 35 years of federal support for wind and solar, and he noted that in 2025 they comprised about 3% of total U.S. primary energy consumption. From Just the News:

The Working Families Tax Cuts, a signature piece of President Trump's tax legislation signed a year ago, set Saturday as the deadline for federal tax credit subsidies on any new solar or wind projects not currently under construction.

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright touted the subsidy deadline and criticized solar and wind energy projects in a video posted to social media Thursday.

"The wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine," Wright said. "They drive up the system costs and increase Americans' electricity prices."

From 2010 to 2023, solar and wind energy projects received more than $141 billion in government subsidies combined, according to an analysis by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The projects received more in government subsidies than any other energy source in the United States, the group reported.

"Beyond their direct costs, subsidies are causing artificially low or negative wholesale prices, scarcity prices during periods of high demand and low wind and solar generation, inefficient use of existing assets, and increased transmission costs," Brent Bennett, a researcher at the Texas foundation wrote.

The original argument for subsidies was patience. Give the industry help, let technology improve, then let the market decide. After decades of federal support, taxpayers were still being asked to finance energy sources that need backup, transmission buildouts, land, materials, and favorable rules to compete.

Patience became a policy shift; policy drift becomes a bill the public never really got to vote on.

The White House executive order signed July 7, 2025, said federal policy would rapidly eliminate market distortions and taxpayer costs tied to green energy subsidies. The order directed the Treasury Department to strictly enforce the termination of clean electricity production and investment tax credits under sections 45Y and 48E for wind and solar facilities.

It also directed the Interior Department to review policies that favor wind and solar over dispatchable energy sources.

A Just the News report placed the cost in plain sight. Wind and solar subsidies were estimated at more than $141 billion from 2010 to 2023, more than any other energy source. Before the cuts, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the two programs would increase the federal deficit by $308 billion from 2026 through 2035.

Those figures should settle the basic question. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to bankroll electricity that still struggles when demand peaks and weather refuses to cooperate. America needs power that can run steel mills, hospitals, data centers, farms, factories, and homes without asking families to pray for sunshine or a breeze.

Wind and solar have a role where they make sense. Let them compete; let investors risk their own money; let customers decide what they want to buy.

A market can handle that, but a rigged market can't keep asking the waitress, welder, truck driver, and retiree to carry favored industries on their backs while Washington calls the burden “progress.”

The next honest fight should include ethanol. The Renewable Fuel Standard isn't the same kind of tax credit, but it still uses federal power to force a market.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin finalized 2026 and 2027 Renewable Fuel Standard volumes at the highest levels in history. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the rule is expected to create a $3 billion to $4 billion increase in net farm income, while the EPA said it would maintain the 15 billion gallon conventional biofuel level for 2026 and 2027.

Today at the White House Great American Agriculture Celebration, President Trump announced that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized the historic Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) “Set 2” final rule. The final rule realigns the program with Congress’ original intent—increasing the use of homegrown American biofuels—putting American farmers first and promoting American energy independence. In the 20th year of the RFS program, “Set 2” establishes the renewable fuel volume requirements for 2026 and 2027 at the highest levels in program history. EPA’s final rule demonstrates the Trump administration’s ongoing commitment to America’s farmers and unleashing American energy by reducing America’s reliance on foreign oil, delivering long-term certainty and stability for America’s farmers and biofuel producers, and ultimately creating a path for rural economies to boom.

“President Trump promised a Golden Age of American agriculture. Once again, his administration is delivering. Overall, ‘Set 2’ creates a larger, more stable, and more reliable domestic market for U.S. crops, strengthening farm income and rural economies,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “For 20 years, this program has diversified our nation’s energy supply and advanced American energy independence. EPA is proud to deliver on this mission and to do so at historic levels.”

“Today’s announcement is truly historic for our nation’s farmers and energy producers. These numbers represent the highest levels of biofuels ever required to be blended into our fuel supply,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. “With President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s leadership, these historically high volumes are expected to create a $3 to $4 billion dollar increase in net farm income. The Renewable Fuel Standard Set 2 Rule will create a $31 billion dollar value for American corn and soybean oil for biofuel production in 2026, which is $2 billion more than in 2025. Our farmers are stepping up to grow American energy dominance.”

Under Administrator Zeldin’s leadership, the agency has been working tirelessly to further America’s energy independence and future, and these new requirements are another major step in that direction.

Farmers deserve respect; corn growers aren't villains; rural America has been battered by fuel prices, fertilizer costs, interest rates, and years of policy chaos. Respecting farmers doesn't require pretending every mandate is wise forever.

If Washington is finally willing to question subsidies for wind and solar, it should also question every energy mandate that hides costs inside fuel prices, compliance credits, and political favors.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said higher blending targets drove Renewable Identification Number prices close to record highs in 2026. It also forecast record-high production of fuel ethanol and renewable diesel because of high blend mandates, high gasoline and diesel prices, and rising production capacity.

America doesn't need an energy policy built around sacred cows. Wind, solar, ethanol, oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydropower should all face the same hard test: can they deliver reliable, affordable energy without turning taxpayers into unwilling investors?

Trump's July 4 deadline is a good start because it treats taxpayers like citizens with rights instead of wallets with legs.

Now keep going.

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/07/04/wind-and-solar-finally-meet-the-taxpayers-breaking-point-n4954653?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

The FBI’s Georgia Probe Asks the Question 2020 Critics Tried to Bury

The FBI’s Georgia Probe Asks the Question 2020 Critics Tried to Bury

David Manney

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

The FBI just put hundreds of people on a question much of Washington has spent five years trying to shame out of existence. If Georgia's 2020 presidential election was clean, a full review should prove it. If something went wrong, America needs to know that, too.

The bureau has directed 260 investigative analysts and staff operations specialists from field offices across the country to help review records tied to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga.

Each is expected to check about 708 records by July 17, and the work has been described inside the FBI as a “priority investigation.” From the Associated Press:

FBI agents in January seized hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of the city of Atlanta. A Fulton County spokesperson declined to comment citing a pending investigation. The contents of the memo were first reported by MS NOW.
President Donald Trump and his allies have made false claims that widespread election fraud cost him the 2020 election. Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were counted three times, including once by hand, and each count affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.
The Justice Department has previously said it is investigating “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County.”

President Donald Trump has long argued that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. His critics have spent just as long insisting the subject is closed, settled, buried, sealed, and morally off-limits.

They don't merely disagree; they often demand a loyalty oath: say there was no fraud, say it clearly, and say it before you're allowed back into polite conversation.

But questions don't become dangerous because someone powerful dislikes them. They become dangerous when the system refuses to answer them. The country was told Georgia counted the presidential vote three times, including once by hand, and each count showed Joe Biden ahead.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the 2020 hand audit reaffirmed the machine count and showed Biden leading Trump.

Those facts should be included; so should another fact: audits and recounts don't automatically answer every question about chain of custody, ballot handling, election procedures, memory cards, recordkeeping, or whether any illegal conduct occurred around the process.

A tally can confirm a number, while an investigation asks how the system operated around that number.

That's why the FBI's move matters. It doesn't prove fraud, doesn't overturn anything, and doesn't rewrite history by itself. It asks whether federal investigators believe there's enough unresolved material in Fulton County to justify a major manpower surge.

In a free country, that shouldn't terrify anyone who says the records are sound.

The court record from 2020 also deserves more honesty than the public usually gets. Many election lawsuits turned on timing, standing, certification, jurisdiction, or requested remedies.

Some claims were rejected because courts found them unsupportive. Other cases never became full public trials on every factual allegation. The popular claim that “the courts reviewed all the fraud evidence and settled everything” flattens a much messier record.

Trump critics will point to Georgia's recounts, audits, certification, and recertification. They have every right to do so; those are part of the record.

Trump supporters will point to unanswered questions, sudden resistance to deeper reviews, and the strange rage that erupts whenever anyone asks for another look.

They have every right to do that, too.

The healthiest answer is daylight, not slogans, gag rules, social punishment, or pretending that half the country should simply swallow doubts because institutional voices sound impatient.

Elections are the machinery of consent. If people believe the machinery is clean, they accept defeat more readily. If they believe questions are being buried, suspicion grows.

The answer isn't less scrutiny; it's more.

Fulton County has been at the center of America's 2020 argument for years. Now the FBI, led by Director Kash Patel, is putting hundreds of analysts on the records. The DOJ has already acknowledged an investigation into “irregularities” tied to the county's 2020 presidential election.

If the probe finds nothing, say so clearly and release as much as the law allows. If it finds misconduct, clearly name it and follow the evidence wherever it leads. Either result is better than a country where election questions are treated as heresy.

Our country can survive hard answers, but it can't survive a ruling class that tells people to stop asking.

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/07/02/the-fbis-georgia-probe-asks-the-question-2020-critics-tried-to-bury-n4954615?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Saturday, July 4, 2026

What One Secret Service Agent Was Really Doing (Googling) As Trump’s Would-Be Assassin Opened Fire

What One Secret Service Agent Was Really Doing (Googling) As Trump’s Would-Be Assassin Opened Fire

By Rusty Weiss

A new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general report reveals that a Secret Service counter-drone operator was actively Googling the location of the rooftop where would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was perched at the exact moment he opened fire on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Instead of quickly coordinating with officers on the scene, the operator resorted to an internet search while the gunman took aim from just 155 yards away, one of several catastrophic failures detailed in the blistering report.

Perhaps more alarming, local law enforcement had identified Crooks on the roof two minutes before the first shots rang out — yet the then-presidential candidate's protective detail was never alerted.

President Trump was the target at the Butler campaign rally where he was shot and wounded. The assassin's bullet would strike Trump's ear, leaving him bloodied. Corey Comperatore, a retired volunteer fire chief, was killed in the assassination attempt as he protected his wife and daughter, and two other men were seriously wounded.

Multiple agents were suspended without pay in connection with their response to the attempted assassination.

Trump Attempted Assassination Photos, Including One Showing a Streaking Bullet, Win Pulitzer Prize

The new DHS IG report, released on Thursday, shows the counter-drone operator was still Googling the location of the American Glass Research (AGR) building when Crooks opened fire.

You know, as opposed to asking someone about his location or where he had been spotted.

Local law enforcement at 6:09 p.m. called Secret Service and the Pennsylvania State Police communications room, “warning them of a suspicious person on the AGR complex’s roof."

“Instead of asking local law enforcement personnel for the AGR complex’s location, the counter drone operator searched online for it, and was still searching when Crooks fired his first shots,” the report states.

As a result, the president’s team remained completely unaware of the armed gunman just 155 yards away until bullets were already flying.

Just two minutes later, at 6:11 p.m., Crooks opened fire with eight shots. Despite that narrow window, the president’s own protective detail was never warned that an armed gunman had a clear line of sight to the stage.

Furthermore, a Secret Service site agent proposed using trucks already on location at the Butler Farm Show grounds to block the line of sight from the AGR building to the stage, but campaign staff rejected the idea because the vehicles would be “too close to [President Trump’s] press shot.”

However, the agreed-upon alternative placement was never implemented, and supervisors failed to follow up after being told that local law enforcement would handle the AGR complex. That miscommunication left Crooks with an unobstructed 155-yard view of the podium.

The IG report also highlighted that the lead agent at the event, Miyo Perez, was relatively inexperienced, while the two supervisors overseeing her planning faced no discipline and later received promotions from Sean Curran, the agent ultimately responsible for signing off on the Butler site security plan. Curran is presently the Director of the United States Secret Service.

Law enforcement was eventually able to neutralize Crooks, shooting and killing him on the rooftop after he opened fire.

"The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes, coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement, set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination," the report reveals.

It was a cascade of inexcusable failures. A man died in this attack, two others were severely wounded, the future President was almost killed, and the nation would have almost surely been plunged into absolute chaos.

How Did Britain’s Grooming Gangs Ever Get Started?

How Did Britain’s Grooming Gangs Ever Get Started?

Robert Spencer

AP Photo/Alastair Grant

The scope of Britain’s grooming gang scandal is breathtaking. As many as 250,000 British girls, and possibly even more were raped, tortured, trafficked, and more. The perpetrators were overwhelmingly Muslim males, mostly migrants from Pakistan, who looked to Islamic texts and teachings to justify these heinous crimes. Because they believed that Allah himself had sanctioned the seizure and use of infidel women as sex slaves, they didn’t think there was anything shameful about their behavior, and sometimes fathers, uncles, brothers and sons would all participate in a rape gang together.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for Western non-Muslims to comprehend this kind of thinking, but it must be done if Britain or any other Western country is ever going to take serious steps to prevent this sort of thing from continuing to happening. And so it is useful to explore the teachings of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, Abu Ishaq al-Huwayni, who in May 2011 offered an elaborate Islamic theological justification of the sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women. It was, he explained, all part of the jihad against the infidels.

Al-Huwayni asserted that Muslims and non-Muslims were actually in a state of war, and that this was good. “We are,” he said, “in the era of jihad. The era of jihad has come over us, and jihad in the path of Allah is a pleasure. It is a real pleasure. The companions (of the Prophet) used to compete to (perform jihad).” It was a pleasure, sure, but it also had a practical effect: the Muslims would seize the property of non-Muslims and thereby alleviate their own poverty: “The poverty that we’re in—is it not due to our abandonment of jihad? But if we could conduct one, two, or three jihadist operations every year, many people throughout the earth would become Muslims.”

Part of what made waging jihad a pleasure was that Muslims would be able to take captives, including attractive young women: “If Muslims returned to waging jihad, they would be able to take captives, and profit from doing so.”

First the Muslims would invite the non-Muslims to accept Islam. This proselytizing, or da’wa, would precede jihad. Then would come the fighting: “And whoever rejected this da’wa, or stood in our way, we would fight against him and take him prisoner, and confiscate his wealth, his children, and his women—all of this means money.”

The women would simply be more spoils of war: “Every mujahid who returned from jihad, his pockets would be full. He would return with three or four slaves, three or four women, and three or four children. Multiply each head by 300 dirhams, or 300 dinar, and you have a good amount of profit. If he were to go to the West and work on a commercial deal, he would not make that much money. Whenever things became difficult (financially), he could take the head (i.e. the prisoner) and sell it, and ease his (financial) crisis. He would sell it like groceries.”

Al-Huwayni emphasized that Muslim warriors could legitimately seize non-Muslim women as sex slaves: “Do you understand what I’m saying? Spoils, slaves, and prisoners are only to be taken in war between Muslims and infidels. Muslims in the past conquered, invaded, and took over countries. This is agreed to by all scholars — there is no disagreement on this from any of them, from the smallest to the largest, on the issue of taking spoils and prisoners. The prisoners and spoils are distributed among the fighters, which includes men, women, children, wealth, and so on.”

Then al-Huwayni invoked Qur’an passages on “those whom your right hands possess” to justify this teaching: “When a slave market is erected, which is a market in which are sold slaves and sex-slaves, which are called in the Qur’an by the name milk al-yamin, ‘that which your right hands possess’ [Qur’an 4:24]. This is a verse from the Qur’an which is still in force, and has not been abrogated. The milk al-yamin are the sex-slaves.” He added: “When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her.”

This may seem to be a long way off from rape gangs victimizing girls on the streets of Britain, but it isn’t. The Qur’an tells women to veil themselves so that they will not be molested (33:59); the corollary to that is that unveiled women are fair game. There is no hot war in Britain between Muslims and non-Muslims, but the Qur’an’s exhortation to fight unbelievers “until religion is all for Allah” (8:39) is open-ended. What better way to humiliate the enemy than to demonstrate that he cannot or will not protect the most vulnerable members of society? And that mission has been abundantly accomplished.

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2026/07/03/how-did-britains-grooming-gangs-ever-get-started-n4954638?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

Friday, July 3, 2026

Unhinged Lib: Trump Supporters Make Me Want to Burn the American Flag

Unhinged Lib: Trump Supporters Make Me Want to Burn the American Flag

Matt Vespa

Unhinged Lib: Trump Supporters Make Me Want to Burn the American Flag — *monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Getty Images Plus*

Again, these people just hate America. It’s funny that in 2020, they were all saying ‘you must love your country even when your candidate loses’ or something, and now they act like this. The Left is still in knots over patriots being in control. It’s to the point where they’re now backing those with Nazi tattoos for Senate, and folks who think we deserved the 9/11 attacks. It’s madness.

And leave it to Bravo star, podcaster, and nutjob extraordinaire Jennifer Welch to say that she feels like burning American flags because of Trump supporters. That’s right, honey. Throw a temper tantrum because there are people with differing opinions. Oh, and we’re the majority in case you didn’t notice, so guzzle down that white wine and scream into the microphone. Because when you’re done with all of that, we’re still going to be here.

There really isn't much to add here. What a lunatic.

Happy Independence Day, patriots. Don’t be like Jenny.

Also, Trump derangement syndrome should be classified as a real medical condition at this point.

We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong

We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong

Scientist looking through microscope — REUTERS

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In recent years, there have been a lot of catchphrases around science: “Follow the science!” “We believe in science!” Even “The science is settled!”

Well, sometimes it’s not settled. Sometimes it’s not even really science. But lots of people believe in it or follow it anyway. It’s a global problem.

Most recently, we learned that a widely noticed 2012 study co-authored by Dan Ariely — whom the journal Science refers to as a “superstar honesty researcher” — was based on fake data.

Ariely is indeed a superstar, and his work is highly influential. He’s written multiple New York Times bestsellers. He founded a center at Duke University. And his research has affected the policies of corporations and government institutions.

Ariely’s 2012 paper found that people were more honest when they signed a promise to be honest at the beginning of a transaction than when they signed the same promise at the end. The idea was that the early exposure to the importance of honesty set the tone. The Obama administration’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team recommended this approach to the government. It seemed like a cheap and easy way of promoting good behavior.

The only problem is, it’s not true. Other scientists found that his work couldn’t be replicated. And a deep dive into the data Ariely used determined that it couldn’t possibly be correct. Even Ariely agrees that the criticisms are “damning” and “clear beyond doubt.”

Did Ariely commit fraud — he says no — or was the data set he got from an insurance company faked for some reason? People are looking into that, but in a way the problem is bigger. Whether or not it was Ariely’s fault, a study that influenced policy turns out to have been baseless. And scientific peer review, often defended as the gold standard for research, didn’t spot the problem.

But lots of stuff gets past peer review. Back in 2018, several hoaxers slipped works dubious on their face past peer review and into publication. One study, which made it into the journal Sex Roles, employed “thematic analysis of table dialogue” to determine why heterosexual men go to Hooters, a question that would seem to answer itself. Another looked at “Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon.” And a third just scattered some modern buzzwords into translated passages from “Mein Kampf” and was published under the title “Our Struggle Is My Struggle” in a journal of feminist social work.

Meanwhile, leading names in the field of social psychology turn out to have committed research fraud to an extent that it tainted the entire field. And as the Wall Street Journal reported, “One noted biostatistician has suggested that as many as half of all published findings in biomedicine are false.”

Research on “implicit bias” drives all sorts of campus and government policies on race and diversity, but the Implicit Association Test underlying it turns out to be highly dubious. In 2012, the firm Amgen set out to reproduce the results in 53 “landmark” studies in hematology and oncology. Only six of them replicated.

Indeed the term “replication crisis” is now often used to refer to a situation in which so many major and influential studies don’t produce the same results — or any results — when other researchers set out to test them. And it really is a crisis.

At one level, the problem is that billions in research money is wasted.

But really, the problem is worse: Bad research guides behavior — whether it’s government policy or drug development budgets or energy research — in the wrong direction.

Producing such research is a natural temptation, conscious or subconscious, for scientists. Success depends on funding, and funding agencies want results. So do university administrations. And all too often, both are as interested in something that produces headlines, and headlines often drive policy.

With modern tools, it’s easy to torture a data set to produce some sort of interesting-sounding result, even if it’s not really valid. And that’s before we get as far as outright fraud.

Even more dangerous than the things we don’t know are the things we think we know that are wrong. Bad science produces things that sound important — maybe because they match our prejudices — but that are wrong. That’s not science at all, and we should neither believe in it nor follow it.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/26/were-told-to-follow-the-science-yet-some-of-it-is-just-plain-wrong/