Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Gasline
2. Iran
3. Privilege
4. Trainers
5. Gun Control
1. Gasline. If all goes well, Alaska will have a second major pipeline in operation by the time President Trump leaves office Jan 2029. That is, if we don’t screw it up. This one is a natural gas pipeline shipping natural gas from Prudhoe Bay. It is also on the fast track, taking advantage of planning work done over the last few decades. The history of a natural gas pipeline up here is not particularly pretty, mostly due to the lack of an economic driver for the project. Indeed, cost benefit analysis demonstrates that Fischer Tropsch Gas to Liquids (GTL) would pencil out at around $40/bbl oil a couple decades ago. But nobody could figure out how to batch ship it with crude. There was a worldwide glut of natural gas a decade or two ago that also delayed things a bit. Happily, the economics now line up nicely, as does the current administration, interested in increasing oil and natural gas exploration, production and export. Trump administration interest in the project that will grease the regulatory skids. Only opposition are the democrat-led majorities in the Alaska legislature, which is where things get interesting / frustrating / infuriating (any / all of these apply).
- The project is an 800-mile-long pressurized pipeline for natural gas produced on the Alaska North Slope. There is a treatment plant up there to remove water and impurities. There will be multiple access points for communities along the way to tap the throughput. Natural gas up here is used for heating and electrical generation, perhaps 2/3 of total energy requirements in the Railbelt. The pipeline will terminate in a liquification plant in Cook Inlet that will load LNG onto tankers for transit and delivery. The route appears to use the Alaska Highway route – Dalton Highway between Prudhoe and Fairbanks, and the Parks Highway between Fairbanks and the MatSu.
- Natural gas on the Slope is used to pressurize reservoirs and make production of shallow reservoirs easier. Permafrost up there extends to 2,000 – 2,500’ below the surface. Some of the shallow reservoirs have the viscosity of shoe polish and need more than a little help to get it out of the ground. Analysis done for years indicate there is enough available natural gas to supply a commercial gasline.
- Economics is sporty. We have been up here for 35 years and the economics for this never penciled out, right up until they did. At this point, color me happily skeptical, in trust but verify mode. The development group claims to have 13 of 18 long-term contracts for product signed. The regulatory thicket these sorts of projects generally need to travel is mostly cut down at the state and federal level. Greens will do their normal obstruct and delay routine in the federal courts. Happily, we have a Trump nominee to serve with the O’Bama nominee who had done the obstructionist bidding of the greens for over a decade.
- The opposition comes out of legislative democrats and their RINO fellow travelers. Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican who has “grown” in office over the last decade, is now the face of opposition, first claiming that a pipeline will bring prostitution back into the state, and after that didn’t work, now claiming that we don’t know enough to proceed yet. She has offered up SB275, a rat’s nest of taxes, regulatory gymnastics, and other brown floaters all aimed at jacking up costs and uncertainty of the project to the point where it is stopped in its tracks. The clear goal is to delay, delay, delay until the next democrat administration at either the state or federal level can kill it like Biden did with Keystone XL. Next gubernatorial election in Alaska is November, and our current Republican is termed out. Next presidential election is Nov 2026. If Cathy and her fellow travelers want to make this election all about the gasline, throw me into that briar patch.
- At one level, there is some work to do. First and most importantly, to set up a reasonable (there’s that magic word), tax, regulatory and oversight regime, and lock it in place for the next decade or so, so that future democrat majorities in the legislature, congress, governors or presidents can’t kill the thing off by twiddling with the taxation and regulatory controls ad nauseum.
- The biggest question is why the democrat opposition? As they aren’t really telling us, we are left to speculate. One reason could be Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). There is a local version called Dunleavy (current Republican governor) Derangement Syndrome. Another could be that they think they have their hot little hands primed to grab the $90 billion corpus of the Permanent Fund. If there is a new revenue source feeding money into the state treasury, it makes that grab more difficult to justify.
- Final observation is that the democrat / RINO coalition in the legislature was installed by union votes and outside money. A pipeline would employ lots of union members and provide union jobs for as long as it is in operation. Explaining their opposition to those who put them into office will be an interesting discussion and fun to watch. Bring popcorn for that one.
2. Iran. The war in Iran is just over two weeks long. The three biggest stories last week were the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, an attack on Kharg Island and the delayed response of terror attacks here in the US by Iranian sympathizers / Muslim sleeper cells. We are also seeing the early stages of government collapse in Iran. Additional story of a KC-135 midair will need to wait for additional information.
- The closure of the Strait of Hormuz was blamed on Iranian mining the strait coupled with active targeting shipping in the Gulf. An equal part of the blame sits with Lloyds of London refusing to backstop insurers of shipping operating in the Gulf. That piece ended almost instantly after Trump quickly offered US backstopping of the insurers. It is still fog of war over there, and there have been a few ships hit by enemy fire. Closing the Strait should be a bit of a surprise, though not an unexpected one, as the US already fought this battle with Iran in the late 1980s, the Tanker Wars under Reagan. It took a year or two and Iran lost a lot of boats, but that threat disappeared. I think we remember how to do that. There are also two pipelines to get Gulf Oil out of the region, one across Saudi and the other across Turkey. The Turkish pipeline is reportedly closed. The Saudi one is not.
- Second piece was a US attack on Iranian shipping terminal Kharg Island. Military targets disappeared. Oil shipping infrastructure did not. Trump effectively controls the economic lifeblood of Iran. Nice little island you have there, would be a shame if anything happened to it. The control also gives him significant leverage over China which is dependent on Iranian oil. There are 5,000 Marines on their way to theater. Speculation is that they will seize Kharg in a month or so after they arrive in theater. We will see. More leverage, regardless.
- At least four “lone wolf” attacks over the last couple weeks, all happening while senate democrats refuse to pay TSA officers, creating massive lines at airports during the Easter break. Note that airports are not the only places TSA operates. The attacks were all planned as mass murder. All were stopped by either armed citizens, local security or police. Two young adults from PA showed up at an anti-Islam protest at Gracie Mansion and tossed at least two IEDs at protesters. The Mamdanis were not present at the time. Police stopped the attack and arrested the perps. Mamdani responded by blaming the attack on white supremacy. Interesting description of a pair of bozos claiming to be ISIS suicide bombers.
- There have been 12 terror attacks in NYC since 9/11. 7 of them happened during O’Bama. 3 Of them in 2017 during Trump 45. It has been 4 years since the last one in 2022. Interesting that you elect a radical Muslim as mayor and it only takes 3 months for the terror attacks to start again. These attacks aren’t the only thing increasing, as racial attacks against Jewish residents have increased to the point where NYPD had to change their reporting system and criteria.
3. Privilege. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Last week, the Trump WH ordered the National Archives, the same outfit that conspired with the FBI and DoJ to orchestrate the raid on Mar a Lago, to release a tranche of Biden documents requested by a Senate investigation. WH Counsel found that Biden’s claim of privilege was not in the best interests of the US. Note that the Biden WH categorically rejected similar Trump claims on documents requested by the Kangaroo Court that was the Jan 6 committee. Payback, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
4. Trainers. Freedom Trainers is a Soros-funded (who else?) group teaching jurors in DC and other blue cities jury nullification techniques. The goal is to increase trainee chances of being selected for juries on federal cases so they can undermine chances of securing convictions. They are actively working with activists to insert them into the jury pool. In an earlier world, jury nullification was grounds to get summarily tossed from a jury pool by the judge. Not so, anymore. Apparently, the 95% democrat voting majority in DC and NYC is not a sufficiently large home field advantage for the left. They want to expand their lawlessness into the rest of the nation starting with the federal courts in the blue cities. Not content with destroying the prosecution of criminals via election of Soros Prosecutors, they want to make sure nobody on either side of the political divide can get a fair trial in any federal court in any blue city. Isn’t this a RICO violation? Jury tampering?
5. Gun Control. Like abortion, gun control for democrats isn’t just a political issue, it has become a Holy sacrament to be used as soon as they regain power or better yet, when they are politically vulnerable. It is a faint echo of the bloody shirt waved by Republicans following the Civil War. More recently, both sides used Roe v Wade to whip up their voters until the 2022 Dobbs ruling tossed the entire mess back to the many states. Abortion mostly died out as an issue after the 2024 election, though we still get the occasional constitutional amendment floated to legalize infant death right through the first week of life. Two states, for different reasons, are dabbling in massive gun control legislation, all of which are breathtakingly unconstitutional, but will be in effect upon signature until SCOTUS tosses them.
- First up is the Spamburger regime in VA, which is busily spamming the state with 18 gun control bills, all passed on a party line vote, all on her desk for signature. Among other things, the bills include an assault weapon ban which is broad enough to include most semiauto pistols and rifles. There is an expansion of the red flag law. There is a secure storage requirement for weapons to be locked in containers when a minor or person prohibited from possessing a firearm is in the residence. While not an explicit call for unannounced home inspections, one would wonder how do they know either way? Final piece of this is that the VA General Assembly conveniently exempted themselves from their new legislation. What is good for the goose is no longer good for the gander, especially in VA. This batch of legislation was offered because of the opening given VA democrats by virtue of taking control of both houses of the legislature.
- In MN, the story is different, as state democrats are about to get their backsides handed to them by an angry electorate following the massive fraud allowed by elected democrats since Walz took office Jan 2019. Their response is likewise gun control legislation. This one has the extra added attraction of surprise inspections of your home to ensure compliance. The sneaky little vermin writing the legislation crafted what is called a assault weapons ban that requires banned weapons to be registered, only allowed at a range or at home, essentially banning hunting. They sneak in the warrantless search via a 10-round magazine ban (anything larger is banned). Transfers of firearms are banned. In parallel, a second bill allows local governments to preempt state gun laws. A final law closes hunting lands and the ability to get to those lands to hunters. None of these have been passed as yet, and the MN legislature does not have nearly the democrat majority that the VA Assembly does, but they are certainly pushing this noodle as hard as they can to give dispirited democrats a shiny to vote for this fall.
More later –
- AG