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Biden Under Fire for 'Unlawful Cancellation' of Oil Leases as Prices Hit Highest Point of 2023

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In July 2021, Aaron Lewis released his first solo of the year, “Am I the Only One?” Two weeks later, the song hit the top spot on the Billboard chart for Hot Country Songs, according to Loudwire. It also debuted in the Top 15 of the Hot 100.

In other words, it struck a nerve in the American people.

A little over two years later, the song still resonates:

Am I the only one here tonight
Shakin’ my head and thinkin’ somethin’ ain’t right
Is it just me? Am I losin’ my mind?
Am I standin’ on the edge of the end of time?

One thing has changed — I don’t think I’m the only one who believes the Biden administration is hellbent on destroying America.

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In the latest move to undermine the country, President Joe Biden and his team announced Wednesday they will cancel oil leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The move will block new drilling on millions of acres at a time when gas prices are at their highest level of the year and crude oil prices are surging, according to MarketWatch.

Why would the Biden administration make such a move? I’m not the only one who thinks it’s crazy.

“These decisions are illegal, reckless, defy all common sense, and are the latest signs of an incoherent energy policy from President Biden,” Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski declared in a news release.

Should more land be opened up for oil drilling?

Murkowski is an on-again-off-again Republican who is often courted by Democrats for her vote. For her to sound off against the Biden administration is telling.

In the same news release, Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s other Republican senator, said, “Not only is this an affront to the rule of law, it’s also a grave injustice to the Inupiat people of the North Slope, especially the people of Kaktovik — the only village in ANWR.”

According to Politico, Sullivan told reporters on Capitol Hill that Biden officials “love to talk about racial equity, racial justice, environmental justice, taking care of people of color, but one big exception — the Indigenous people of Alaska. They screw ’em every time.”

Sullivan is spot-on except for one point. The Indigenous people of Alaska are not the only ones getting the shaft.

Progressives have made a concerted effort to appropriate the word “justice” in an effort to subvert its meaning. They claim the moral high ground while at the same time disdaining morality. For progressives, there is no justice and therefore no morality. There is only power.

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Randy Ruaro, executive director of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, agrees. He attested in the Murkowski news release that the Biden administration’s cancellation of the leases was an “arbitrary disregard for Federal law, based on campaign trail rhetoric.”

In his statement on the move, Biden boasted that he has “delivered on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in our country’s history. But there is more to do, and my administration will continue to take bold action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and to protect our lands and waters for generations to come.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland expressed similar sentiments in her statement. “With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” she said.

The president and his team are pandering to his radical leftist base — ideological globalists dreaming of world domination. When it comes to the environment, their motto is, “The sky is falling. The sky is falling” — thus the Alaska move.

In reality, progressives don’t care about anything but power. Their hypocrisy on the subject of Native Americans is there for all to see.

Charles Lampe, president of the Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation, knows as much.

“It’s difficult to express our utter shock and disappointment of Secretary Haaland’s decision today,” Lampe said in the Murkowski news release. “We live in the Arctic! We are the Arctic!”

People who live on the land know the rhythms of nature better than any government official in Washington.

Lampe wasn’t finished. “And for you to tell us about our region in the name of climate change is outrageous!” he said. “For an Administration that touts its focus on working with Indigenous People from our perspective, it is doing the opposite.”

“We are a subsistence culture and are working hard to collect enough food to feed our community through whaling,” Lampe continued. “We don’t have the time or energy to address this action.”

In her Wednesday announcement, Haaland claimed the decision was based on “the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”

Haaland is a Native American of the Pueblo Laguna who has apparently turned her back on indigenous peoples for political power.

She has bought into the politicized climate change rhetoric because that’s what the in-crowd in D.C. does. It’s that simple.

The need for oil is not going to go anywhere soon. Cutting U.S. production when fuel prices are at their highest in 2023 only serves to make Americans poorer and the country more dependent on foreign countries — including America’s enemies — for oil.

What’s more, the nation’s emergency oil stockpiles are at 40-year lows under the Biden administration, according to CNN. Nevertheless, in July, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm claimed the administration will refill the depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve if Biden gets a second term. Talk about campaign trail rhetoric. What a crock.

“Am I the only one not brainwashed?” Lewis sings. No, there are plenty of Americans who see what’s happening. The theme of his song, as I see it, is that no, you’re not alone if you think America is under attack from within.

The progressives, however, want you to feel alone if you don’t agree with them. They want you to think you’re crazy. They want you to be scared. Don’t allow them to manipulate you.

Globalism is inherently Marxist, and Marxism is the archenemy of the Constitution.

Marxism has no home here. If you believe that, you’re not alone. Resist.

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Jack Gist has published books, short stories, poems, essays, and opinion pieces in outlets such as The Imaginative Conservative, Catholic World Report, Crisis Magazine, Galway Review, and others. His genre-bending novel The Yewberry Way: Prayer (2023) is the first installment of a trilogy that explores the relationship between faith and reason. He can be found at jackgistediting.com
Jack Gist has published books, short stories, poems, essays, and opinion pieces in outlets such as The Imaginative Conservative, Catholic World Report, Crisis Magazine, Galway Review, and others. His genre-bending novel The Yewberry Way: Prayer (2023) is the first installment of a trilogy that explores the relationship between faith and reason. He can be found at jackgistediting.com




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