California's Impending Energy Disaster That Nobody Talks About

California's Impending Energy Disaster That Nobody Talks About

Stephen Green  

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

When and if the world's fourth-largest economy implodes, you'll be able to say, "I told you so," thanks to a chilling report today from two experts in oil refining and energy production. 

Writing for Watt's Up With That?, Ronald Stein and Mike Ariza describe "the impending collapse of California's transportation fuel infrastructure," and conclude the state is "becoming a national security risk" to the rest of the country.

It seems impossible to imagine, but the Golden State was once an energy powerhouse. Oil production peaked in 1985, then declined as fields matured, offshore production was heavily restricted, and environmental laws strongly discouraged new drilling. As for refining, Sacramento has been at war with that industry for most of the 21st century. California had more than 40 refineries in the 1990s, and fewer than a dozen today. State laws and regulations (plus cap and trade) make it just too expensive to refine there. 

California's former powerhouse status was by necessity, not happenstance. Stein and Ariza call California an "energy island" cut off from the rest of the nation by the Sierra Mountains. They report that the "58 million gallons of transportation fuel" that the state requires each and every day breaks down like so:

• 11 million gallons/day for jet fuel for the state's military and international airports.
• 10 million gallons/day for diesel for the state's trucking and construction industries.
• 37 million gallons/day for gasoline for the state's more than 36 million vehicles.

"If those transportation fuels are not made in California," the authors say, "they have to be made in refineries located in the Gulf or East Coast, or in foreign countries with gross polluting refineries and shipped across the Pacific Ocean via polluting tankers."

There are no pipelines across the Sierras, and "the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland are NOT designed to import those humongous volumes of transportation fuels."

Stein and Ariza conclude that without "immediate federal intervention via the Defense Production Act, California, its neighboring states, and the U.S. military face the potential for a total supply chain collapse" as the state's refining capacity continues to decline. 

When the Iran War went hot earlier this year, Forbes Senior Contributor Robert Rapier warned that "California is uniquely exposed" to overseas energy disruptions — precisely because they no longer drill or refine enough domestically. 

"This is not a new concern," Rapier added. In a 2019 column, he "detailed how the state’s declining production and lack of pipeline connectivity left it dependent on crude that transits the Persian Gulf. That structural vulnerability remains." In fact, it's only grown worse, due almost entirely to the state's energy-hostile government.

How bad is it, really? Stein and Ariza note that "In just the last two months, California has been forced to import more jet fuel from the Gulf and East Coasts, via ships through the Panama Canal, than in the past 36 years combined."

And while we just happen to be at war, California's military reserves are being depleted: "Despite Gulf Coast refineries running at a grueling 98% capacity, California still required substantial emergency draws from the nation’s military fuel storage reserves  to prevent a systemic collapse and fuel rationing."

I knew things were bad, but had no clue they were this bad. 

The worst part might be that nobody with the power to reverse course looks at the state's dangerously deteriorating situation and says, "Hey, maybe we need to reverse course."

Instead, it's full speed ahead — at least until there's no gas left in the tank.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/07/30/californias-impending-energy-disaster-nobody-talks-about-n4955621?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Why Fauci Matters

Why Fauci Matters

He's not just a powerful guy who acted in bad faith. He's a totem to a whole class of people who don't care about that.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

This is old inside- baseball blogger stuff in part, but there’s a bigger lesson.

Old time (and I mean old-time) blog readers may remember Jeff Jarvis’s fierce post-9/11 warblogging, which pivoted rather suddenly into leftish pro-Democratic blogging in time for the 2004 election. Jeff and I were close before the pivot (he got me my long-ago MSNBC gig), and remained friendly even after. We were Facebook friends from the beginning, though our interactions over the past decade-plus were confined to the occasional like or happy birthday.

Then the other day I posted this:

Jeff’s response was “He saved lives. What have you done?” My reply was “Did he?”

A few of my friends came on to suggest, politely enough, that Fauci’s contribution was mostly negative and Jeff abruptly responded “Good-bye, Glenn,” and unfriended me.

Well, I will survive the shock of that blow, but it struck me — after all those years of disagreeing on politics, this was the straw that broke Jarvis’s back? Anthony Fauci? Especially now, when he’s the butt of self-incrimination jokes? In front of Congress, Fauci wouldn’t even say what color his tie was. (I’m trying to talk one of my distiller friends into putting out a limited run of Fauci whiskey, with the slogan “Take the Fifth!”)

Why Fauci, and why now?

I think the answer is that Fauci, and Faucism, represented the apotheosis of what the managerial/academic/journo class desires: An excuse for sweeping power, based on (alleged) expertise, in which they could ride roughshod over those stupid proles and flyover people while preening about the allegedly superior moral and intellectual qualities that justify their rule.

Then it turned out that they were wrong about nearly everything and — as Fauci’s diaries demonstrate — knew it at the time, at least at the top. And their overreach is one of the things that gave us Trump 47.

That this is out in public now produces cognitive dissonance. The easiest thing to do is to check out of the discussion. And so. Well, goodbye, Jeff, if by chance you’re reading this. I never stopped liking you, but I confess I liked the pre-pivot Jeff better. Enjoy your life as you are now.

https://instapundit.substack.com/p/why-fauci-matters

Sure, Roasting Fauci Is Fun, but There's No Do-Over for the Biden Years

Sure, Roasting Fauci Is Fun, but There's No Do-Over for the Biden Years

Stephen Kruiser  

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

As I wrote in Tuesday's Morning Briefing, conservative Americans are once again finding out that we were right about everything they called us crazy for during the Wuhan Chinese Bat Flu pandemic. Never in recorded history have "conspiracy theorists" been on a roll like the one we're experiencing right now. I'm beginning to think that the planet might change its shape if we decide to go the Flat-Earther route. We're that good these days.

Our current "You shoulda listened to us," moment is courtesy of Satan's Garden Gnome, alleged Doctor Anthony Fauci. We've been finding out how wrong he was for years but, thanks to his personal diary entries that we're seeing for the first time, we have evidence of Anthony Fauci proving that Anthony Fauci is a liar. 

We also now have evidence that Fauci was far more concerned with his own perverse pandemic-fueled celebrity than with anyone's health. His diary entries about his growing fame (infamy for those of us on this side of the aisle) read as if he were working himself into a sexual frenzy after every television appearance. Anthony Fauci most definitely had an Anthony Fauci fetish. 

Being proven right is always a good feeling, and watching Fauci being berated by Republican senators while pleading the Fifth (which Matt covered here) was entertaining for a minute or two, but it's not sufficient payback for what we endured during the interminable slog of the pandemic. The cold, harsh reality is that it never will be. 

Yes, the public exposure of the unhinged nature of Fauci's ego is newsworthy. And, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is some entertainment value in watching him squirm a little. However, unless you get extraordinary satisfaction from pointing at the television and saying, "I told you so," there's not a lot of satisfying "there" there. 

I am not an attorney, so I will not be indulging in any legal speculation about what might happen to Fauci. From a layman's perspective, it seems that a presidential pardon that's backdated to the Mesozoic Era probably covers a lot. If there is some workaround that can be used to nail this vile human being, I hope it's found soon. I don't want to just see Fauci in an orange jumpsuit, I want to bring back town squares and pillories and put him on display for his crimes. 

That sentiment may not be brimming with Christian charity, but I think we all know that I'm rather imperfect in that regard. There's also the fact that I only attack people with words, and I'm honest about it. I've never fear-mongered with lies that got elderly people sent to assisted living death beds. Once a person has a body count, he or she is deserving of some ill will. (I believe that's Confucius.)

My reaction to these Fauci revelations is the same as last year when the lefties started admitting that Joe Biden had pudding for brains during his presidency. The validation wasn't much of a balm for the steaming piles of misery those four years heaped upon us. OK, it wasn't any kind of balm at all, especially given the fact that Joe Biden has never been held accountable for any of his awfulness in the half century-plus that he poisoned American politics. 

The Biden years were a catastrophic abomination that did damage to this great country that we will probably still be uncovering for years to come. President Trump is doing a brilliant job of cleaning up Sir Sniffsalot's messes, but it all can be undone if another Dem gets into the White House soon. 

There is no satisfaction to be derived from any of this. Anthony Fauci will almost certainly live out his days having his lying rear end kissed by the same low-IQ lefties who made him famous. Their alternative universe-dwelling powers of denial can't be shaken. This was shared by my Twitchy colleague Doug P. in a post on Wednesday:

Nobody can fix that kind of stupid. 

Look for the Dem water-carriers in the mainstream media to give Fauci some storytelling camera time in the coming weeks. The hag coven on The View probably already has the vapors just thinking about it. They can fawn over Dr. Mengele-Light and then he can scribble in his Trapper Keeper that he's still the most popular boy in the lunchroom. 

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2026/07/29/sure-roasting-fauci-is-fun-but-theres-no-do-over-for-the-biden-years-n4955594

Fauci’s Disastrous Senate Hearing Signals That It’s Time to Put the Autopen on Trial Through Him

Fauci’s Disastrous Senate Hearing Signals That It’s Time to Put the Autopen on Trial Through Him

Tim O'Brien  

Greg Nash/Pool via AP

In the waning days of mentally impaired Joe Biden’s failed presidency, his handlers rushed through a large number of criminal pardons that skipped the president’s desk and went right to the autopen station. Biden likely wasn’t even aware of half or most of the people “he” pardoned. Compounding this curious situation, he didn’t pardon many for specific convictions, alleged crimes, or narrow time periods. Rather, the pardons were retroactive and all-encompassing, going as far back as 10 years prior.

On Dec. 12, 2024, Biden’s holiday shopping list included 39 pardons. On Jan. 19, 2025, the Biden administration issued over 19 pardons, including several Biden family members, the entire “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” and one Anthony Fauci.

In the clemency warrant that pardons Fauci, it states that he is pardoned, “For any offenses against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.”

There is no proof one way or the other that Biden personally reviewed this pardon before it was signed, or whether he signed it personally. We are left to presume the autopen did the deed.

This all raises two questions: First, is the autopen pardon even valid? And second, given Fauci’s silence this week in his appearance before the U.S. Senate, what is the normally loquacious egomaniac even worried about? He’s been pardoned. That makes him safe, right? Why not talk?

Earlier in July, my colleague Matt Margolis answered my second question. “Independent journalist John Solomon argues that Fauci could still face prosecution, spelling it out in an interview with Bill O'Reilly,” Matt wrote.

‘We know that in the end days of Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci got a pardon,’ Solomon began. ‘He can't be prosecuted for anything before January 20, 2025. But if Rand Paul puts him on the stand next week, as he's going to compel him to do, and Anthony Fauci does not tell the truth this time in the body of evidence that's there, he could be instantly prosecuted by the Trump Justice Department. If he does tell the truth, he's going to have to admit he lied to us previously.’

So Fauci had three options, and none were great. As Matt wrote, “Basically, Fauci, under oath again, has a choice: lie about what he did under oath and face prosecution, or admit he lied under oath before. Since Biden's pardon only covered what Fauci did before Biden officially left office, if he commits perjury, there’s nothing that can protect him. It left him completely exposed to everything that comes after.”

The third option is what Fauci actually did this week, which was to opt not to answer the questions senators posed to him by claiming protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. But as Sen. John Hawley (R-Mo.) pointed out, once you accept a presidential pardon, you forfeit your Fifth Amendment rights. We’ll see where that goes.

The new ground here, however, is the matter of the validity of the autopen as it relates to a presidential pardon. While it appears the Biden administration pardoned more than a few ethically sketchy people with that autopen, if you had to pick one of those pardons to put the validity of the autopen pardon to the legal test, Fauci presents the best of all worlds.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and since, Fauci was no stranger to Capitol Hill or just about any camera he could find. The man was everywhere you looked. His defiant battles with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were trademark Fauci. In the course of his public appearances, former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard alleged that Fauci may have lied under oath more than once, and she claimed to have passed along the documents to prove it.

The bottom line is that Fauci himself may have given the Trump administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ) all it needs to hold him to account for his activities before, during, and after the pandemic. What Fauci did not provide to the Trump administration, the Biden administration may have through its liberal use of the autopen for those infamous pardons.

The DOJ can literally put the autopen on trial using the Fauci situation to challenge it. In the process, it could expose how the autopen was used, who actually signed off on those pardons, and, through the courts, determine if Fauci and the others were legitimately pardoned.

I'll leave it to the lawyers to argue over the best way to do any of this, but investigative reporter Catherine Herridge provided a good overview in a post on X on three possible ways to do it:

One strategy calls for charging Fauci with a crime, with the expectation he would file a motion with the court to dismiss based on the pardon. This could open the door to challenging the sweeping pardon’s viability and years of litigation. Another strategy involves Congress. Because Fauci has theoretically been preemptively pardoned against past and future criminal charges related to his NIH work, it can be argued that Fauci has no plausible claim to the 5th Amendment, the right against self-incrimination. If Fauci takes the Fifth at Senator Paul’s hearing (which he has) the committee could seek to compel Fauci's testimony. A finding of contempt could follow. Finally, one of Fauci’s closest associates has been criminally charged. With pressure and the right incentives he might be flipped and become a cooperating witness.  

One of the most dangerous things about a criminal trial isn’t just the punishment that’s meted out at the end, but rather, all of the information that comes to light through discovery, testimony, and evidence that’s shared in the courtroom.

No amount of media spin can prevent the public from learning what happens in that courtroom. In a sense, while a criminal conviction of Fauci can hurt Fauci, the real threat to the left’s house of cards is what would become known to the world through a trial.

Because President Donald Trump sees his second term as an opportunity to more permanently right so many wrongs, in my opinion, if it would ever come to it, I can’t see Trump’s DOJ accepting a plea bargain from Fauci. They’d want a trial. They’d want to put Fauci on trial. They’d want to put the Biden administration on trial by putting the autopen on trial. And if they could get that domino to fall, there’s no telling how many other Democrat insiders would find the urgent need to lawyer up.

If you need a list to start with, just look at who Biden pardoned.

https://pjmedia.com/tim-o-brien/2026/07/29/faucis-disastrous-senate-hearing-signals-its-time-to-put-the-autopen-on-trial-through-him-n4955581

Seattle’s Inept, Anti-Gun Woke Circus Helps Turn a Food Festival into a Gang Shooting Gallery

Seattle’s Inept, Anti-Gun Woke Circus Helps Turn a Food Festival into a Gang Shooting Gallery

By John Boch 

Seattle’s “Bite of Seattle” was meant to be a celebration of overpriced fusion tacos and Instagrammable Space Needle backdrops. Instead, it delivered a gang shootout that left three people dead—including one of the shooters—and four wounded, one of them a toddler. It gets better: a 15-year-old thug showed up with one of those homemade handguns, complete with a happy stick magazine like it was a school science fair project. It worked.

Welcome to the Emerald City, where the only thing greener than the weed shops is the green light for gang thugs enabled and empowered by woke government “leaders.”

City leadership responded with all the urgency of a yoga retreat. Police Chief Shon Barnes—imported from America’s Murder Capital, Chicago — where he apparently still lives — wasn’t even in town. He flies back and forth to his Seattle crash pad apartment, a taxpayer-funded Airbnb.

But thin-skinned Barnes wasn’t even in Chicago. He was off at a Black law-enforcement executives conference in Dallas.  Because nothing says “protect and serve” like DEI networking in Texas while bullets fly at the food trucks in the city where he’s supposed to serve as the top cop…but can’t be bothered to actually live there.

Meanwhile, city city’s ultra-woke Mayor Katie Wilson and the rest of the progressive pageant needed five full hours to organize a press conference. Five hours. In that time a pizza could have been delivered, a suspect could have fled to another county, and Congress could have taken up and passed legislation. And adjourned for lunch.

This wasn’t a failure. It was the work product of woke social justice warriors functioning precisely as designed. King County’s juvenile justice system still treats armed teenagers like traumatized therapy clients who just need more social workers and hugs from grandma rather than riendship bracelets and cozy juvy cells. Prosecute a 15-year-old as an adult?  How dare you consider treating thugs like criminals, you carceral dinosaur.

Welcome to “equity.” The same soft-on-crime theology that keeps adult gang members cycling through the system with short time-outs until they finally shoot each other—or random festival-goers. Social justice warriors sell this kind of soft-on-crime bovine excrement as compassion. These morons treat gun-free zones like sacred ground. The only people who respect them are those who don’t carry or even own guns. Meanwhile gangbangers ignore the signs, assuming they can even read.

Anyway, hours after the first progressive parade, another PD spokesperson said the violence was gang-related, something that was obvious, but that the mayor couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge during her first press conference. Well, well. And one of the gangs was called the “Grimey Gangsta Gorrillaz.” You can’t make this crap up.

The jokes write themselves if you’re not bleeding. Seattle’s leaders will hold listening sessions about “root causes” while the roots keep dropping bodies. They’ll fund more civilian “CARE” responders who can’t stop a gunfight, but they’ll lecture the rest of the country about social justice while their own residents practice the ancient art of ducking and covering.

DEI boxes get ticked with solemn pride while body bags are filled with quiet efficiency. Law-abiding gun owners are the real problem here, according to Mayor Wilson, Governor Bob Ferguson and the rest of Washington’s insane clown posse. How dare you keep insisting on consequences, private property, and perhaps the most radical idea of all, that people who attend public festivals shouldn’t have to wear body armor?

Instead of holding gang members accountable and incarcerating violent gangsters, a local group of gun-grabbers called the Alliance for Gun Responsibility put out this piece of slop:

Another mass shooting has terrorized Seattle families during what should have been a safe Sunday evening outing to the last day of Bite of Seattle at city center. Three people were killed and another four wounded, including a toddler, in what eyewitnesses have described in The Seattle Times as chaos.

“As families enjoyed the waning hours of this weekend’s Bite of Seattle food festival, the terror of gun violence was once again visited on our community,” said Ryan Disch-Guzman, chief of staff for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Washington state-based national gun violence prevention organization. “People in crowded food lines trampling over each other in terror, families rushing to get inside the armory for safety, people escorted out of the movie theater by police with their hands on their heads — no community should have to live this way, and we don’t have to. This kind of horror is preventable.”

Gun violence is preventable. The Alliance for Gun Responsibility is available for media today to discuss last night’s shooting and gun safety policies. For inquiries reach out to press@wagunresponsibility.org.

You can’t hate these gun-grabbing grifters enough.

Crime without consequences isn’t mercy. It isn’t compassionate and it isn’t social justice It’s a taxpayer-funded protection racket for the people who make streets unlivable.

Seattle’s woke kakistocracy has built a city where the only reliable public service is the ambulance. As for the residents still stuck there, the smart ones are packing U-Hauls. The not-so-smart ones are donating money for gun control or to elect still more political leaders like those who are currently running what was once a beautiful city into the ground.

https://www.shootingnewsweekly.com/gun-control/seattles-woke-circus-helps-turn-a-food-fest-into-a-gang-shooting-gallery/