GOOD ARTICLES. SELF-CENSORSHIP. ENERGY EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRATS. CRITICAL BIBI WINS.

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• Report: Over 90% of slanted articles in top US campus papers biased against Israel -
• New Report Warns America's Woke Military "Would Struggle in a War" -
• Netanyahu's peace plan with the Saudis may also end the Arab-Israel conflict -
• Netanyahu vows to 'neutralize' Lebanon deal 
• How 3 Billionaires Pushed 'Critical Race Theory' Into America's Schools
• Red Tsunami Watch: Suburban Women Have Bolted From the Democratic Party
  

  BY Matt Vespa

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• Is the ‘secret majority’ about to make a powerful statement on Nov. 8?
• BY DOUGLAS MACKINNON, 
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• Over the past few years, I have lost count as to how many Republicans, conservatives, independents and libertarians have told me that they have learned the art of self-censorship when it comes to discussing or even hinting at their political or faith-based views.
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• They went into self-censorship mode as a self-preservation response to the woke/cancel culture vigilantism many believe has swept into the corners of academia, corporate America and the mainstream media. As many now believe that identity politics and the search for any micro-aggression or misappropriation rule the day in these powerful, left-leaning institutions, they have decided that discretion is indeed the greater part of valor. They’ll make their views known only in the privacy of a voting booth. 
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• For decades, we have all heard of the “silent majority” in American politics. Today, for incredibly practical reasons, it may have morphed into the “secret majority.”
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• And why wouldn’t it? Back when the “silent majority” was coined as a term, whatever political opinion you might choose to express — generally more Republican, conservative and common sense from that demographic — you were not going to be fired from a job; you wouldn’t have your business picketed and shut down; you were not going to have anarchists and protesters march into your neighborhood; your children wouldn’t be targeted because of your views; you were not going to get viciously harassed on social media; you were not going to have your grade in college altered or be expelled from an institution of higher learning; you were not going to have your life turned upside down for simply having a different political or faith-based opinion in that version of the United States of America. We were indeed a nation conceived to ensure “liberty and justice for all.”
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• The America of 2022 is not the America of the past. The cancel-culture crowd has flipped that script.
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• Suddenly, the “secret majority” has come to the realization that, if they hope to live in peace and provide for themselves and their families, they must constantly remind themselves that they no longer have the liberty to speak their minds and the scales of justice have been hijacked by far-left politicians, district attorneys and advocates who push for open borders, the defunding of the police, identity politics and the rights of violent criminals over the victims. 
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• Many from the “secret majority” believe that this woke, anti-liberty and anti-free speech movement has taken over the power centers of big business, Big Tech, the media, universities, hospitals, science centers, and the most influential unions in the country — in other words, institutions that either employ them or exert power over their quality of life decisions.
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• Knowing that, why would they ever speak out or voice a differing opinion? The fact is, many do not. They have shut down.
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• If that’s the case, what does that tell us about political polling in the United States? Who are the pollsters communicating with? Are they getting “I’ll tell you want I think you want to hear” answers from some who agree to be polled? Do the pollsters unbiasedly factor in this “secret majority,” or are they themselves now being played?
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• As was famously attributed to New York Judge Sol Wachtler in 1985: “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” Aside from highlighting the potential misuse of power by certain district attorneys, it also reminds us that personal or partisan manipulation is not simply the domain of the criminal justice system.
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• Are Latinos becoming more Republican? Or just more American Only a complete and rapid system shift can avoid climate disaster
• During the best of times, polling is not an exact science; it has always been open to manipulation. Even before the woke/cancel culture descended upon our nation, a polling company, if so inclined, could make any poll reflect any narrative that a client wanted simply by weighting certain zip codes, demographics, or momentary hot-button issues.
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• Now, in this new age, have some in the “secret majority” purposely turned the tables on the polling companies? Come Nov. 8, we are about to get a number of critically important answers.  Many of them will be shocking. One of the most shocking may be that there truly is a “secret majority” and they have learned how best to punch back against those they believe have canceled their voices.
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• Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.
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• Iran on verge of policy shift as protests rage for 40 days -analysis
• These protests are not about economics or poverty but are geared toward the very underpinnings of the theocratic regime.
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• The killing of Mahsa Amini 40 days ago set off protests, first in western Iran’s Kurdistan Region and eventually throughout the country. There were reported massacres, including in the Baloch region of southeast Iran, but the regime has actively tried to prevent the protests from growing.
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• To do this, it has resorted to a complex series of tactics. The regime fears a major uprising and has been trying to tone down the clampdown on the protesters. For some reason, the Iranian leadership views these protests as being different from ones that have taken place in the past. They are not about economics or poverty, but rather, they take issue with the very underpinnings of the theocratic regime.
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• The regime has sent out riot police, cut off the Internet and detained protesters. It has armed police with less-lethal weapons than usual, such as paintball guns. Some of the protests, such as the ones that took place at universities, were not shut down as swiftly. All the while, the West has put in place a variety of new sanctions.
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• Overall, Iran’s government appears to have weathered the storm and is putting out the message that it will try to rein in the protests within the next few weeks. President Ibrahim Raisi said the government wants to discuss the university protests. This may sound conciliatory, but he has also said there are various “narratives.”
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• The use of these terms, such as “discuss” and “narratives,” would seem to imply the government is taking the protests seriously and understands that the anger of the people cannot simply be beaten out.
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• The contradictory tone of the Iranian regime and the messaging that seems to admit governmental errors, along with threats by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to suppress the protests, seem to signal that while the IRGC may not have been able to intervene as forcefully as it would have liked in the 40-day mourning period, it now has a free hand.
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• Iranian regime fears the country will unite against them
• It can also represent a dispute within the regime over the best course of action to take next. However, it would be wrong to portray this as meaning there are “moderate” voices within the regime.
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• The leadership today is not moderate, but even its more extreme personalities realize the need to avoid provoking larger uprisings in Kurdistan, Baloch and other regions of the country. This is because the regime doesn’t want a swath of the country to be provoked and united against it.
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• Furthermore, the regime has sought to downplay the deaths of protesters.
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• For instance, the death of Nika Shahkarami, 16, who was killed in late September, is another incident that could spark more protests.
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• “Iranian authorities claimed Nika’s body was found at the back of a courtyard on the morning of September 21,” CNN reported. “Her mother wasn’t given access to identify her until eight days later. CCTV footage released by the authorities timestamped just after midnight as September 20 became September 21 showed the figure of a masked person they said was Nika entering a building that was uninhabited and still under construction in Tehran.”
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• “Dozens of videos and eyewitness accounts obtained exclusively by CNN indicate that Nika appears to have been chased and detained by Iranian security forces that night,” the report said.
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• Iran’s regime disputes this and has been consistent in its attempts to disprove the claims. It’s clear that the regime is worried that every incident where its security forces kill young women could lead to greater protests.
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• That is why it is so keen to deny what happened. This is a shift in tactics from the past, where the regime would simply suppress protesters or not comment on allegations regarding its brutality.
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• DUH!
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• An Energy Education for Democrats
• By The Editorial Board
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• Consider President Biden’s outrage Friday over last week’s robust earnings reports for oil and gas companies. Six of the largest “made $70 billion in profit in one quarter,” he said at a fundraiser. These “excess profits are going back to their shareholders and their executives instead of going to lower prices at the pump.” The President who has done everything in his power to limit U.S. oil investment is now furious that he succeeded.
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• Mr. Biden doesn’t seem to believe oil companies should be allowed to make a profit or even cover marginal costs. “We need to keep making progress by having energy companies bring down the cost of a gallon of gas to reflect what they pay for a barrel of oil,” he said. Anything more is “excess” profit.
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• Keep in mind that oil majors’ current profits follow steep losses in the pandemic. As oil prices plunged amid lockdowns, companies and OPEC nations pared investment and shut in wells. Demand for oil then bounced back much quicker than supply, which has driven up prices—and profits. That’s Econ 101.
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• Mr. Biden is miffed in particular that companies are returning cash to shareholders rather than increasing supply. “You should be using these record-breaking profits to increase production and refining,” he said this month. But the progressive climate lobby and his own Administration’s climate policies have been urging the opposite.
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• Exxon Mobil lost a board proxy fight in 2021 after large public pension funds and asset managers criticized it for investing too much in oil and generating too little profit. Exxon and its board need to assess “the possibility that demand for fossil fuels may decline rapidly in the coming decades,” BlackRock said.
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• The International Energy Agency warned only last week that “no one should imagine that Russia’s invasion can justify a wave of new oil and gas infrastructure in a world that wants to reach net zero [greenhouse-gas] emissions by 2050.” It added that “any new projects would face major commercial risks” that may result in failing “to recover their upfront cost.”
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• No wonder oil companies are returning cash to shareholders rather than make investments in production that take decades to pay off. U.S. shale drilling can produce returns more quickly. But rather than drill more wells, many producers are shrinking their inventory of “drilled but uncompleted” wells.
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• The Energy Information Administration reported last week that the number of these wells fell to the lowest since December 2013, which means production will eventually taper off even in the prolific Permian Basin. Permitting challenges impede new drilling, as does limited pipeline capacity to move natural gas produced alongside oil.
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• Large asset managers are also pressuring oil giants to maintain “capital discipline”—i.e., spend less on production. Private U.S. oil companies added 47 drilling rigs in the third quarter while public firms added only one. Climate lobbyists want companies to return profits to shareholders or invest in green energy.
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• Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm said this month he is taking his company private to have the “freedom to explore.” “We have all felt the limits of being publicly held over the last few years, and in such a time as this, when the world desperately needs what we produce, I have never been more optimistic,” Mr. Hamm wrote to employees.
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• Mr. Biden and fellow Democrats simply refuse to understand the economic consequences of their assault on American fossil fuels. They have come to believe that climate is a crisis and that banishing oil and gas is urgent. But that means higher prices, which they now blame on the very companies they want to go out of business. Economic logic won’t persuade them, but maybe a rout at the ballot box will.
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• The Globalists at the WEF stole Brazil for Lula - just like they stole America for Biden! -
• The conspiracy to shrink Israel -
• The Real Israelis who elected Ben-Gvir - INN
• With 97% counted, Netanyahu has a 65 seat majority thanks to Shas's 12 seats -
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