Opinion on Kamala Harris’ False Claims on Fracking and the Energy Board’s Controversial Secrecy
Energy desk: Harris’ Fracking Howler
The Wall Street Journal’s editors wonder why Donald Trump didn’t “call out” more of Kamala Harris’ debate “howlers” — such as when she “sidestepped” on why she’s flip-flopped on her 2019 support for a fracking ban. Instead, Harris boasted of breaking the tie on the Inflation Reduction Act, claiming it “opened new leases for fracking.” Sen. Joe Manchin “must be laughing,” the editors snark: She’s “taking credit for a provision” Manchin wrote and Harris’ folks “tried to sabotage.” She also tried “to sound like a friend of frackers by saying the U.S. has to ‘reduce our reliance on foreign oil.’ That is this Administration’s code for subsidizing electric vehicles.” Fact is, the US “fracking boom has taken place despite the Biden-Harris Administration, not because of it.”
Eye on NY: Energy Board’s Illegal Secrecy
Violating the Open Meetings Law “is business as usual for this group,” thunders the Empire Center’s Cam MacDonald of the New York State Energy Planning Board’s recent meeting to start a new round of energy planning. “Despite the Energy Law requiring a new state energy plan every four years,” the board produced its last update in 2015. “The Board amended its 2015 energy plan” noting actions taken by former Gov. Cuomo to “shut down the state’s coal-fired generation plants,” plus the reactors at Indian Point, and the “new goals set by the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.” Indeed, “the Board flouting the Open Meetings Law is a minor foul compared to the legal obligation to issue updated energy plans the Board has been ignoring.”
Military beat: Lessons of Hamas’ Tunnel Warfare
“What lessons can war planners learn from the Israeli military’s struggle to win control of Hamas’ underground maze?” asks Bloomberg’s James Stavridis. “First, traditional intelligence systems must put greater emphasis on the tunnel systems” of Iran, North Korea “and terrorist groups.” Plus, “US and allied troops will need better preparation for combat operations underground,” including “practice with night-vision devices in highly confined spaces,” and “psychological preparedness for subterranean warfare.” And “we need to apply new technologies,” including “intelligence systems that can detect and measure tunnel complexes from space or using long-dwell drones.” Add “unmanned above-ground capabilities” to “operate ahead of human troops to reduce casualties.” “Terrifying” tunnel warfare “will unfortunately be a crucial element of the 21st century battlefield.”
Culture critic: Purrformative Online Politics
“So it turns out it wasn’t brat summer — it was cat summer,” declares Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill. “On one side we have” “scandalously privileged” celebs like Taylor Swift “coming out as ‘childless cat ladies’ in solidarity with Kamala Harris, and on the other Donald Trump and his dwindling band of ride-or-dies fuming over immigrants ‘eating cats.’ ” It’s all been “catnip — pun intended — for the Very Online of both the left and right,” yet “one wonders who all this cat talk is aimed at.” (Probably not “America’s hard-working families.”) “From the economy to housing to the border, America has many crises, and the people deserve a vision for how to fix them” — so the country’s “elite needs to get off the internet and touch grass.”
Liberal: Stop Calling Terrorists ‘Militants’
“The U.S. government designated Hamas as a terrorist organization way back in 1997. Yet many major media organizations now insist on using the innocuous word ‘militants’ to describe Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist gangs,” fumes Will Marshall at The Hill. No: When “fighters cross the line and deliberately kill non-combatants, they “become terrorists.” “The distinction between self-defense and terrorism also seems to elude” anti-Israel college students, who have “discredited and marginalized their cause by rationalizing if not celebrating terrorism as a legitimate tool of Palestinian resistance.” Washington “ should stand firm on this point: Palestinians will never achieve their legitimate national aspirations through terrorism aimed at Israel’s destruction. And the media should dispense with ‘militants,’ a weaselly word that risks normalizing the wanton killing of innocents.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
