The Hidden Factors Driving up Gas Prices in California –

  RedState

"An open letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom:

I am writing to address the concerns raised in a recent letter from your "Oil Czar," Tai Milder, regarding gas price fluctuations in the state. While it is commendable that you are taking steps to better understand these issues, I believe it is imperative to highlight the significant role that local, state, and federal gas taxes, as well as California’s stringent environmental regulatory regime, play in driving up the retail price of gasoline sold in California.

Let's start by acknowledging the inconvenient truth about gas prices in the Golden State—they are not solely determined by global supply and demand. Something more insidious is at play—the exorbitant taxes piled on at every level of government. 

While it might be politically useful to focus on recent gas price fluctuations, California currently, and for a long time, imposes some of the highest gas taxes in the country. This burdens hardworking Californians with an unfair and disproportionate financial strain. We must not overlook the impact of these taxes in understanding why we pay so much at the pump.

And let's not forget about the environmental mandates imposed on the gasoline industry in California. 

While it is admirable to prioritize the environment, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that these mandates come at a steep cost. California refineries are forced to make costly adjustments to their processes and fuel formulations to comply with these so-called green mandates. 

With all due respect, Governor, who do you suppose bears the burden for these external costs? It's the consumers, the very people you were elected to protect. These environmental mandates directly translate into higher gasoline prices, causing retail and producer prices across the board to also rise, pushing families and small businesses to their financial limits." . . . 

Ukraine Has Americans On A “Kill List”

 100PercentFedUp  

‘American Citizens On The Kill List’: Ukraine Spox Who Pledged Global War On Russia ‘Propagandists’ Spars With Vance via @DailyCaller https://t.co/zMDmQSvSIn

— Chris 🇺🇸 (@Chris_1791) September 18, 2023

  "You know you’re VERY dumb when you send Billions upon Billions to a Country that hates you….and literally has a list of your own people they want to kill.

"I guess though, to be fair, it’s not the first time we’ve done this.

"Remember when we sent literal pallets of cash to Iran?

"The country that shouts “Death to America”?

"What did OBummer do?

"Sent them a plane with literal $400 million in cash.

"And to the fact-checkers who will say that’s not true, here is CNN from 2016:

Much more to this article here. * 100PercentFedUp.com *

Ad Fontes Is The Left’s Newest Tool To Destroying Conservatives

 The Federalist

‘Ad Fontes is complicit in the defunding of real journalism and turbocharging the revenue stream for legacy media propaganda.’

"An in-depth investigation into Ad Fontes Media, a “media literacy” organization, found that the for-profit company is making money by actively encouraging Big Tech platforms, advertisers, and educators to deplatform, boycott, and exclude conservative commentators and media organizations, including The Federalist.asquerading as a ‘media literacy’ organization, Ad Fontes Media is the left’s newest weapon to erase conservative speech while bolstering legacy media,” wrote the investigators at Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America.                                                                                                                                    "Ad Fontes, founded in 2018, claims to be impartial. According to its website, it is continuously updating its “Media Bias Chart,” which includes over 3,000 media sources graded on their own “bias” and “reliability” metrics. The organization insists it is objective because its evaluations stem from the consensus of anonymous analysts who are supposedly politically diverse. This couldn’t be further from the truth.                                                                                         "Fontes analysts evaluate individual news articles and other forms of media content in groups of three. Even though the three analysts are supposed to include one individual on the left, one on the right, and another in the center, Ad Fontes’ founder and CEO Vanessa Otero brags that “99% of the time,” the three allegedly diverse analysts arrive at a single score."     Promoting False, Leftist Narratives:

Dallas’s black Democrat mayor announces that, henceforth, he's a Republican

 Andrea Widburg - American Thinker   "This is news that should send horrified chills down the Democrats’ spines: Mayor Eric Johnson, the black Democrat mayor of Dallas, Texas, announced in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that he’s switching to the Republican party. The reason: The Democrats are destroying America’s cities through a combination of fiscal mismanagement and soft-on-crime policies. May he be the first of many.

When you look at the history of black well-being in America, black loyalty to the Democrat party is one of life’s great mysteries. Think about these facts:

• In the lead-up to the Civil War, the Democrats were the pro-slavery party.
• The Republican party was formed to champion abolition.
• The Republican party was the party of the Union Army, which fought a devastating war to end slavery on American soil.
• The first black person elected to the United States Senate was Blanche Bruce, elected in 1874. He was a Republican. The first black Democrat in the Senate was Carol Mosley Braun, elected in 1992.
• The first black person in the House of Representatives was Joseph Rainey, who took office in 1870…as a Republican. The first black Democrat in the House was Arthur Mitchell, who was elected only in 1934.
• Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat, segregated the federal civil service immediately upon assuming office in 1913.
• The Ku Klux Klan was the paramilitary arm of the Democrat party.
• Jim Crow was a purely Democrat political movement.
• Before Democrats brought welfare to the black community in the 1960s, black incomes were going up, crime was going down, and most children were raised in two-parent homes. LBJ’s “Great Society” and welfare state reversed all those trends.
• Black incomes went up during the Trump years. They’ve gone down during the Biden years.
• Crime in black communities has exploded since the 2020 Democrat-led BLM “defund the police” movement.

"Given that Democrat policies since at least the 1850s have systematically destroyed blacks in America, whether economically or socially, you’ve got to wonder why blacks remain relentlessly loyal to Democrats.". . .

'Only Two Genders': Lake Hilariously Challenges Liberal Reporters to Milk a Bull

 - Analyzing America

"Left-wing social activists have notoriously rejected the biological fact that gender is binary. Instead, liberals have claimed gender is a social construct that is assigned by personal choice and “identity.”

In response to this attack on the traditional understanding of sex, Republican Kari Lake confronted reporters at the Iowa State Fair while milking a cow.

" 'Which one of you is from the New York Times?” Lake asked.

“I am,” a reporter responded.

“ 'You know there are only two genders,” Lake said.

“ 'I just take pictures,” the reporter said.

"Lake continued, “There are only two genders and they know that in Iowa. I challenge the New York Times reporter and the Washington Post reporter to try to milk a cow and then try to milk a bull and see how that goes.' ”. . .

'Let's Go!!' - Karine Jean-Pierre SHOUTS and LOSES IT After Peter Doocy Exposed Her

 

"I'm actually not sure if Psaki was any better. If she couldn't/wouldn't answer she would just say "I'll have to circle back on that." But I don't know if she ever did come back with a real answer."

"First off, I think your headlines are often misleading, KJP didn't loose it any more than PD did, And you know that a straight answer is never enough for most reporters, and that they are often trying to make the person asked look bad in some way. Unfortunately the media has all turned that way, some for the right wing the others for the left wing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the left or KJP, but I think you're out of line for reporting this as a shouting match which is absolutely was not."

Peter Doocy: I will keep asking this to Karine Jean-Pierre

And just like that, Biden was too old

 - Don Surber (substack.com)

The flop sweat of desperation hits the Establishment

. . ."But there is no virtue in power. Lord Acton said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hence, we live in a corruptocracy because we gave Washington too much power.

"Fix pollution, we said. They shut down factories. There, fixed.

"Help black people, we said. They discriminated against whites in affirmative action. There, fixed.

"Save us from another 9/11, we said. The instantly created the Department of Homeland Security. There, fixed.

"When the answer to every problem is the government, the government has an incentive to create problems. I am not saying the conspiracy theorists are right, but I do notice their batting averages are rising.'

"Over at the Jeff Bezos Post, columnist David Ignatius played poker and saw the NYT’s dump Biden and raised them a dump Kamala.

"Ignatius wrote, “It's painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”

"By greatest, he means only. Biden is a one batter reliever like Obama, whose only achievement was being black." . . .

A beautifully written state of our Country

Sent to us by a former schoolmate in Oregon, George Smith.

"Men, like nations, think they're eternal.  What man in his 20s or 30s doesn't believe, at least subconsciously, that he'll live forever? In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it's harder to hide from reality.... as you lose friends and relatives. 

Nations also have seasons: Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.... Forever was about 500 years, give or take... not bad, but gone!! 

France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah. 

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 96-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline. 

In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone. 

I was born in 1945, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century - the American century. America's prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the 'Greatest Generation,' we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed.  It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity. 

We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world. We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered polio and now COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA...the blueprint of life. 

But where is the glory that once was Rome? America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism - which has worked so well NOWHERE in the world. 

We've gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We've traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution. 

The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, 'Dr. Jill' had to lead him like a child. In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency. 

We can't defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels. 

The president of the United States can't even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence ('You know - The Thing') correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago. Crime rates soar and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets. 

Our culture is certifiably insane. Men who think they're women. People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they're inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about 'unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.' 

We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year. Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It's a $30-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality. Our 'entertainment' is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive. 

Patriotism is called an insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified. A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress. We're asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in, while meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit.

 How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity? 

   * Fighting endless wars they can't or won't win 

   * Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay  

   * Refusing to guard their borders, allowing the nation to be inundated by an alien horde  

   * Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule  

   * Allowing indoctrination of the young  

   * Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy  

   * Losing national identity  

   * Indulging indolence  

   * Abandoning faith and family - the bulwarks of social order.  

In America, every one of these symptoms is pronounced, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.  Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had?  I'm surrounded by ghosts urging me on: the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.  

This is the nation that took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don't want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.  

During Britain's darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, 'Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.'  

The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us?  While the prognosis is far from good. Only God knows if America's day in the sun is over."  

Read it and weep, forward or erase it! I read it and am now forwarding it to you, believing that we in America are at the moment in time to stand up, or let it fall! We now may soon be at the next step in our country's future. I believe that it might be closer than we think.  

Author Unknown

Senators Dressed as Rappers: The Left Is Up to Its Old Tricks -

The political class is working hard to undermine itself. Since clothes represent the respect we feel for the people around us, the only ones who should be allowed to attend the Senate with their asses hanging out are the voters.  

The American Spectator | USA News and Politics  "Politicians work hard every day to make us lose respect for them. H.L. Mencken was a visionary, for it is truer now than when he said it: “Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” Nevertheless, they are public servants, whether they like it or not. They represent us; they represent our territories; they extend our will to the place where decisions are made (I’m not talking about the nightclubs in Washington, D.C.). Turning up at the Senate dressed as you would to go burning ATMs at a BLM rally is disrespectful. It’s ungainly too. But above all, it is disrespectful to the institution and what it stands for. Bending the Senate’s civility to the particularly bad taste of certain wayward senators is the best metaphor for why the West is going to hell.

"There is no longer a dress code in the U.S. Senate. Actually, there hasn’t been since a male senator was first allowed to dress like a woman on the job. And that was just the beginning. Look, predictably, a collective is growing around the world that claims to feel canine, and they demand their right to dress like dogs, bark, pee in the street, and chase kittens. We may well have six men dressed as dogs in the Senate soon. As far as the barking is concerned, I don’t think we will notice much difference from the majority of senators. But aside from that, now let’s say, officially, that the Senate’s usual and implicit formal etiquette has been abolished.

"I am already hearing the useful fools saying that this issue is unimportant, that what matters is inflation. Inflation is important — indeed, very important. But the loosening of dress codes in the Senate is a crucial issue because it culturally dismantles any reverence that we may have felt for the upper chamber since the Founding Fathers. And if we no longer respect the institution, we lay open the door to a lawless nation, which we will not respect either.". . .

Undressing America - Don Surber (substack.com)  . . ."No Senate dress code is no big deal? Schools dropped dress codes a generation or two ago. Now we have purple-haired LGBT groomers luring kids to the dark side.

" 'Fetterman’s stroke, ignorance, sloth and gym clothes show a contempt for the nation. He’s a wino without the wine. Democrats nevertheless stuffed the ballot to elect him. They should replace Schumer with him because Fetterman exemplifies today’s U.S. Senate.

" 'Now you know why Washington shunned those articulate Trump candidates in their suits and ties. They are not pliable. Bums like Fetterman are. Porn stars too."

Joe Biden Makes a Series of Insane Claims in a Speech, and No One Is Buying Them

The current president is responsible for the border crisis. Full stop. Any suggestion otherwise is absolutely bonkers. As I've said before, Biden is a sociopath. That's how he's able to say the things he does with a straight face, but in the end, no one is buying them. 

sundowners syndrome

 Joe Biden's mind and his as it pretty much as it has been: RedState   "Joe Biden had a rare late night on Thursday, appearing at the 46th Annual Gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 

"As he began to speak, it was immediately obvious why the president rarely does evening events. He continually screwed up his own "MAGA Republican" insult, calling them "mega" Republicans instead. It wasn't his senility that was noteworthy, though. Rather, it was a series of insane claims he made. 

"Let's start with this one on the deficit because it's maybe the mildest one. Yes, I've got another example coming that is simply mindblowing, but patience is a virtue." . . .

BIDEN: "I love our friends on the right talk about, the mega guys, about reducing the deficit ... on my watch, deficits have already fallen over $1 trillion!"

He's lying. Biden's policies have "undoubtedly resulted in HIGHER deficits — not smaller ones," per Moody's. pic.twitter.com/wzoKWVwmVi

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 22, 2023

 Biden Has More Concerning Repetition of Words During Zelensky Meet-up, Then Forgets Who He's Addressing – RedState   "As I reported on Wednesday, Joe Biden's meeting and remarks with the Brazilian President Lula da Silva did not go very well. 

"He said the quiet part out loud, acknowledging that they were telling him when he could talk and when he should be cutting off the reporters. He also almost knocked down the Brazilian flag as he walked onto the stage, leaving Lula and another speaker behind when they were announced together. But perhaps worst of all, when he was leaving after the remarks with Lula, he saluted the audience and just walked off, as Lula stood there. He shook hands with the other speaker and then just seemed to wave his arm in disgust in response to Biden walking off and not even acknowledging him. Biden didn't even seem to understand that he was supposed to shake hands/walk off with Lula." . . . 

Biden salutes the audience and shuffles off stage, leaving Brazil's president behind pic.twitter.com/JtkV0rmYqO

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2023

Laurence (Larry) Boorstein on X: "@RNCResearch "Verbal repetition in people with dementia is one important manifestation of reduced cognition. It can occur early in dementia and is amongst the behaviors that most trouble caregivers..."

"Samantha Power goes all in, nodding up and down, and pretending this is normal. You know by looking at Jake Sullivan's face that he knows it's not. He's blinking, looking down, and uneasy, likely thinking, "He's glitching again.' " . . .

RNC Research on X: "BIDEN: "Together with 29 other partners. Partners. Partners, partners, and their partners..."

BIDEN: "Together with 29 other partners. Partners. Partners, partners, and their partners..." pic.twitter.com/sQ5k14UeKX

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 21, 2023

Hands off Our Kids Comes of Age

When we send our children to public schools, which are government institutions, we put them in their care because we trust them to care for our children in our behalf and by foisting the trans ideology and indoctrination in general upon them the government is betraying that trust.

 Max D. Dublin- American Thinker   "The only good that came from the pandemic lockdowns was that parents in great numbers finally began to learn what was going on in the public school system as the corrupt curriculum was inadvertently beamed into their homes. This knowledge has given birth to an ever-growing backlash. Although protests and demonstrations are no longer my thing, when notice arrived in my inbox that concerned parents and their supporters were organizing demonstrations across Canada called “A Million March 4 Children” for September 20 I could not resist attending. I expected a sizable protest of diverse concerned parents and their supporters and as well as a strong counterprotest from the transgender lobby. I was not disappointed.

"In her book Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt wrote that the first order of business for aspiring totalitarian regimes is to get their hands on a country’s children. That’s why the German Nazis established Hitler Youth. That’s why Communist USSR set up the Young Pioneers. That is why in Mao’s Cultural Revolution children were made to turn against their parents. And that is why in the early days of the mainly leftist kibbutz movement in Israel children were raised in the so-called children’s homes, apart from their parents. Lenin is said to have written, “Give me a child till the age of seven and I’ll have him for life.” But Lenin wanted to own children through indoctrination -- it never occurred to him to do so through drugs and genital mutilation. Indeed, the idea would have appalled him: mutilated children are disabled for life, their ineluctable need for self-care and personal maintenance renders them useless even as useful idiots." . . .

Teens Accused of Intentionally Hitting, Killing Biker Now Id'd, Driver Claimed He'd Be 'Out in 30 Days'

RedState

“We believe that Andy’s murder is a direct result of society’s decayed family values and the strong effects that social media has on our youth,” Probst added.

It was horrible enough that retired police chief Andreas Probst, 64, was hit and killed while riding his bike in Las Vegas. 

But it got so much worse when a video came out about how he was killed, that he was run down intentionally by teens in a car, who giggled with one even saying "Hit his ass."  You can see that graphic video here. After allegedly hitting Probst, they fled and left him lying there to die. The video was shocking and it went viral on social media because of the laughter, the seemingly deliberate nature of the act, and the filming of it. Police discovered it and then said they believed the actions to be intentional. 

Now, the teens have been identified. And it turns out they aren't just accused of hitting and killing Probst. " . . .

When Ayala was originally picked up, he was arrested on a warrant as well as for obstructing a police officer, and he told them he thought he would be out in thirty days. 

“You think this juvenile [expletive] is gonna do some [expletive]? I’ll be out in 30 days, I’ll bet you,” Ayala told the cops, according to KLAS.

“It’s just ah, [expletive] ah, hit-and-run — slap on the wrist.”

It looks like he may have miscalculated on that.