The refinery issue

The New Neo Posted on by

Please watch this; the part I’ve cued up is just two minutes long:

This isn’t something I’ve researched much yet, but my sense is that it’s more complicated than that.

It’s not as though Trump was unaware of the problem. But it’s been rough going. That article I just linked is from early September, 2026:

U.S. President Donald Trump told oil producers and refiners that he wants lower gasoline prices, immediately, at a meeting at the White House this week.

As gasoline prices remain above $4 per gallon on average across the United States and drivers are heading for the most expensive Labor Day weekend gas prices on record, President Trump urged executives from Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Valero Energy, and PBF Energy, among others, to raise refining capacity to increase fuel availability.

This topic is way outside my field of expertise, and at the moment I don’t have time to do a deep dive on it. But apparently this has been going on for a long long time:

At the White House meeting, the executives reportedly discussed efforts to boost existing capacity and, most of all, the Renewable Fuel Standard. Some refiners criticized the blending targets as unattainable, which are driving up gasoline costs, sources with knowledge of the closed-door meeting told Bloomberg.

Moreover, U.S. refiners are not even entertaining the idea of building new refineries to ease potential similar supply crunches in the long term. …

Despite the deep pockets and the blockbuster profits this year, oil companies are unwilling to sink billions of U.S. dollars into a costly new construction venture that may not even be too profitable when it starts up in about five years, as fuel demand is expected to level off and even decline.

Why is it expected to decline?

More here:

A review of EIA refinery shutdown data indicates that approximately 2.6 million barrels per day of individual U.S. refinery capacity has been shuttered since 2001. Meanwhile, surviving refineries have been expanded, debottlenecked and made substantially more productive.

In other words, America did not simply shrink its refining system. America concentrated it.

We closed numerous facilities while investing heavily in the survivors. The result is fewer physical refineries, larger individual plants and less geographic redundancy in portions of the country. EIA’s 2026 data show 128 operating refineries and two idle facilities. That distinction matters when something goes wrong.

A barrel of Gulf Coast refining capacity is not necessarily a substitute for a barrel of lost West Coast refining capacity. Pipelines, ports, product specifications, transportation costs and refinery configurations matter. …

COVID provided an extraordinary stress test.

U.S. refining capacity fell 4.5% in a single year, to approximately 18.1 million barrels per day at the beginning of 2021. Six refineries closed during 2020. EIA attributed the closures to several causes, including collapsing petroleum demand, poor refinery economics and plans that in some cases predated the pandemic. Some facilities subsequently converted to renewable-fuel production.

This is where discussions of refinery closures can become too political too quickly. Not every refinery closed because of government policy. Some were old. Some were uneconomic. Some suffered accidents. COVID destroyed demand. Some companies preferred investing their capital elsewhere. Some refineries were converted to renewable diesel. Environmental compliance requirements and changing federal and state policies also influenced capital decisions.

Regardless of the explanation, capital allocation decisions ultimately depend on expected risk-adjusted returns. Capital asks a simpler question: What return am I likely to earn if I put another billion dollars here? If the expected return is inadequate relative to the risk, the money flows somewhere else.

Much more at the link, including this: “But refining is not like turning up the thermostat. A refinery already operating near its practical limit cannot magically process another 100,000 barrels tomorrow. Nor can a gasoline-oriented configuration instantaneously maximize diesel production.”

NOTE: As I said, there’s much much more at the link. I haven’t had time to read all of it, and at the moment I have some obligations that I need to tend to – however, I plan to read it a bit later today and perhaps add something more to this post. In the meantime, I have little doubt that some of you readers are a lot more up to speed on this than I am.

This type of ed is special, all right

The New Neo Posted on by

Special education teacher Dana Zentgraf has some advice for women, and she wanted to share it with the world:

It’s your son too. It’s all of them,” Zentgraf wrote in a Facebook post under her online name, “Da Graf.” “They are all menace[s] to society and we need to stop giving birth to them.”

“I have news for the mothers of boys who believe they raised their sons ‘right’: In the world we live in, raising a boy right at home does not guarantee that he will be seen or treated right outside those doors,” she continued. “You can do everything in your power to raise him to be a good man … But once he steps outside your home, he enters a patriarchal world that has taught men, in ways both subtle and overt, that they hold power over women.”

“If it’s too late to abort, raise him like your life depends on it because it does. All of our lives depend on it.”

If she indeed posted that, should this woman be teaching anyone? Of course not. She’s free to express such thoughts, but she shouldn’t be employed as a teacher or in any field in which she interacts with the public. And yet – at least as far as I can tell – she still holds her position.

But this post isn’t really about Zentgraf. It’s about the prevalence of this sort of unhinged rage, whether against men or any other group, and the somewhat-puzzling fact that so many teachers and others in the so-called helping professions think it’s perfectly okay to express such thoughts. It was (and still is, actually) a widespread phenomenon after the murder of CEO Brian Thompson and in particular after the murder of Charlie Kirk. We saw it after 10/7. We see it and see it and see it.

It’s not a totally new phenomenon. But what is relatively new is that the internet – and especially social media – give it a perfect chance to spread widely and to be normed. A person gets used to reading this sort of thing and seeing it get attention and approval from like-minded people who have found each other in online forums, and over time the expression of such thoughts seems more and more acceptable. Politicians, comedians (Dave Chapelle is a recent example), and other celebrities add to the din of the baying hounds.

Sometimes if a person goes too far there are consequences; sometimes not. But the Overton Window of what is “too far” has certainly shifted. And I don’t think we’re going back any time soon, or perhaps never.

Trump says his deportation program might have been too tough

The New Neo Posted on by

He also floats the idea that illegal aliens who’ve been here ten or fifteen years and been law-abiding ought to be given some sort of status that allows them to stay.

Here is the excerpt from the interview:

When Trump took office for the second time and announced his intent to close the border and deport illegal aliens, I believed (and I said to people I know) that he would concentrate on deporting actual criminals, not just criminals in the sense of having entered the country illegally. I believed that was what most Americans wanted, and that if the border was simultaneously closed and stayed closed (which would probably require the right to retain power, or it would open again), that would be sufficient. Deportation of all eleven million or twenty million illegal aliens was probably possible, but it would cause a huge backlash.

Mostly, Trump did what I wanted. But – as always was the danger – some people were deported whose only crime was entering the country, and whose stories were going to be amplified by the press and the left. Plus, the methods used were sometimes draconian, and some protestors were killed (probably killed in self-defense, but maybe not in some cases and in any event it was something that could and would be exploited by the left).

I think Trump is correct when he indicates in that video that the majority of people don’t want the abuela down the street deported – the lady who has never committed a crime other than her original illegal entry into this country. And it is absolutely the case that deporting such people will present the left with a golden opportunity to make the right look bad.

That’s been the case for a long long long time, as long as I’ve been blogging and even earlier. I’ve never come up with a solution for it.

How much of last Tuesday’s results were because of this? I think it was in there, but can’t quantify to what extent. I think “affordability” – which I feel was a brilliant campaign tactic by the left – was a larger factor. But I also think Trump is correct in that clip in terms of observation, whether you like what he says or not.

And I think any compromise on his part on this score will alienate a large portion of the right, as such moves from Republicans always have.

Whether or not Trump will actually change policy on this is anyone’s guess. He often floats ideas to see what will happen. Maybe he even wants to suggest such a compromise with the left because he’s hoping they’ll refuse to compromise, and that will end up making them look bad.

I don’t know.

ADDENDUM 6:00 PM:

By the way, this isn’t as much of a stretch for Trump as you might think. I suggest you look at the following older posts of mine: this one from 2025, as well as this from 2016 when Trump was first running.

From the latter post, here’s an excerpt (the quote in the first paragraph is from a 2016 Hot Air article that now gives a 404 message but dealt with Trump’s earlier less restrictive ideas on immigration):

“To make its point, the ad [made by people opposing Trump on the right] pulls from sources that range from 1990 to July 2015. … The sources on Trump’s positions on “amnesty” come from 2013 and June of last year…The tweet in 2013 came at the same time that Marco Rubio put together the Gang of 8 deal on immigration in the Senate, for which voters and other Republican candidates have punished him ever since. Trump’s 2013 tweet basically summarizes the Gang of 8 approach – secure the borders, then legalize most of the remaining illegal immigrants after background checks and fines, which some consider “amnesty.” The June 2015 statement appears to go a little farther in providing a “path,” presumably to citizenship, and Trump made that statement in the context of the presidential campaign. The difference might be that Trump wants a “touchback” first – deportation followed by immediate readmission – but that would be almost impossible to accomplish, and in the end no different in substance than the Gang of 8 deal which GOP voters mainly opposed.”

I [neo] have little doubt that Trump will either say he is being misrepresented in this ad, or has changed his mind. And I have little doubt that most of his supporters would find that A-okay. But I’ve long wondered—long before I ever saw this ad … —why Trump is forgiven for words and revisions that other candidates aren’t forgiven for. Many of his supporters say it’s because he’s strong on immigration, and that’s the most important thing, but I’ve also long noticed that he’s not been consistent on immigration and that, even if you only consider his words since he entered the campaign, they sound much tougher than they are.

In other words, he has gone back and forth at least somewhat on the subject over the years. That’s not so strange; he’s been in public life a long time. But also, in my 2025 post, you can see some backtracking even that recently.

As I indicated in my post today, I don’t know exactly what Trump’s goal is. I think he’s testing the waters.

Worldwide “anti-Zionism” – trolls and others

The New Neo Posted on by

Since I instituted the new comment policy a couple of months ago, trolls are blocked more efficiently and mostly automatically. I still get to see what they write, of course. But you don’t.

I don’t usually feature any of these comments, and don’t plan to do so in the future. But this one struck me as being emblematic of what’s out there, so here it is:

The greater of two evils is you disgusting Zionist scum who want to support Israel and my not voting made you lose. Hopefully Israel is destroyed so nobody can ever argue we must support it again. That money sink that steals all our tax money deserves to be nuked. And hopefully it will be.

It’s kind of a garden-variety sentiment these days, of the type you see online quite constantly if you do much online reading. Lies about Israel, plus vicious gleeful murderous intent.

The most interesting thing about it is who is spreading this sort of thing. There are so many possibilities. That particular comment has designators that place it as coming from the US, but of course people can cloak their locations in various ways so you can’t rely on that. Here are some of the possibilities for motive (whether the source is local or abroad; paid, a bot, or a volunteer):

(1) Some Israel-hating Arab country, or Iran.
(2) Russia or China, in order to further bitter infighting on the US right.
(3) Home-grown (US) radical Muslims, or foreign ones.
(4) Leftists, home or abroad.
(5) But more likely (IMHO) it might originate with someone on the Tuckeresque right – again either at home or abroad. The Tuckeresque right is more numerous than neo-Nazis these days, although the latter is a possibility as well.

A related thought – I was listening to the following video last night. It’s a highly informative discussion of all the forces that for decades have been spreading the “anti-Zionist” message worldwide. I speeded it up to listen, as I often do. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, just watch however much you can. I really think it’s worth it:

The lesser of two evils, redux

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Bauxite” quotes me from the “lesser of two evils” post I wrote on Saturday:

I have never been able to understand the thought processes that would lead someone to stay home to punish those who are generally on that person’s side and enable those who want to destroy whatever policy that person is advocating.

Actually, “understand” is a misleading word there (I probably should have searched for a better one), because I think I do understand those processes – I just think they’re misguided and destructive. I understand them because I’ve been hearing them for decades from what I used to call the “Burn it down!” contingent of the right. For years I’ve written many posts on the subject, and I guess this is one more.

For example, back in 2020 in this post I didn’t pull my punches:

The most useful idiots of all to the left are the useful idiots on the right, such as the ones saying to Republicans in Georgia: “Don’t vote for the GOP candidates for the Senate. That’ll show the lousy good-for-nothing GOP!”

Sure. It makes a lot of sense. Because you have your quarrels with the GOP – who doesn’t? – and because you’re angry at the GOP’s failure to stop election fraud in any effective way in certain states, punish the GOP by giving the left everything it needs to destroy the country. …

I’m angry too. But when I’m angry, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to disembowel myself and hand my entrails to my enemies.

Yes, I know that the “logic” is that the election is rigged anyway, but there’s no logic whatsoever in handing US Senate over to the Democrats without fighting with every ounce of effort. That will just further the entrenchment of leftist tyranny, and extend it deeper and deeper into the judicial system as well. I don’t care what your beefs are with the GOP. I share many of those complaints but they pale and fade almost to nothingness in comparison to the perniciousness of the plans of the left. Give them the power and I don’t think they will ever relinquish it.

What happened back then? Let’s see. The Republicans lost the two Senate seats in Georgia, the Senate flipped to Democrat control, and the only thing that stopped the Democrat plan to take permanent power (entrenching insecure voting practices cross-country, DC and Puerto Rico as states, and packing the Court, for example) were Sinema and Manchin. Those two are gone; we only have Fetterman (sort of) and he no longer matters because now the Democrats have a bigger majority.

For the next two years, the only thing to stop the Democrats will be Trump’s veto and the current SCOTUS. If a Democrat wins in 2028 and the Democrats hold Congress (two things that could very easily happen), all bets are off.

Bauxite went on to add:

[Trump and the GOP have] made the “generally on that person’s side” piece smaller and smaller while making the corruption, sleaze, incompetence, and leftist policy side bigger and bigger.

This isn’t rocket science.

No, it’s not rocket science. And yet nevertheless voters on the right who sat home last Tuesday have failed the exam in whatever subject you want to call it.

Trump and the GOP haven’t given them enough of what they want? Well, I noticed that they gave me a great deal of what I wanted although they have disappointed me in several ways. Trump and company are corrupt, sleazy, and incompetent? Like all politicians seem to be? We ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of corruption, sleaze, and incompetence – so let’s put Democrats in power and really get those things plus leftism, open borders, an increase in fraud and crime, DES, and on and on and on.

Although I’m not actually sure that “incompetence” describes the left. Since their goal is to take power, I think they’ve been pretty darn competent. The Gramscian march has been wildly successful.

For decades I’ve heard reasoning from many people on the right much like that of Bauxite in that comment. It hasn’t improved with age. What dream world do they live in where good comes of this? Does some dream party with a slate of dream candidates swoop in and save us all?

That seems incredibly naive, which is a kind word for it. I think it ignores the very real possibility of the Democrats taking power and making sure no one on the right is ever again elected, as well as prosecuting some prominent people on the right (as well as some regular folks) to frighten others into silence.

My trusty rusty old car

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, now it’s my car.

I love my car. I’ve had it about fifteen years, though, and driven it mostly in New England, land of the salty roads.

The other day I saw an ominous sign: some rust way down under the rear door on the right. There wasn’t a lot of it, but I know this is dangerous. I took it to a body shop and they said, “Oh, no one does rust anymore.”

Someone else in the body shop piped up that there was one place that still did rust, and he gave me the name. I went over there and they put it up on the lift and studied it. Then they gave me the verdict, which wasn’t pretty: it would cost $8500 to fix it. Plus, the fix wouldn’t last long because there were other areas that would probably rust, too, and it would be hard to prevent it.

Well, the car’s value isn’t more than about $6,500. So it seems a no-brainer to get a new car (probably used). But that’s not easy for me because I have orthopedic problems (such as a bad back) that mean I have to sit for about an hour in each car I contemplate, and drive it a few times. Most cars aren’t all that comfortable for me. It takes me a lot of time to find a car that works for me.

Of course, I can try to get a lower-mileage version of the car I already have. I’ve looked, though, and there aren’t many for sale anywhere and none nearby. Plus, of course, even with low mileage it would be an old car subject to the same problems.

ARGHHH!

If you don’t vote because you’re tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, you get the greater of two evils

The New Neo Posted on by

A good example of the greater of two evils is this:

I have previously referred to many on the left as “ghouls.” They celebrate the death of those they think are enemies – even someone as relatively non-extreme as Kirk was – and are out to drink their blood. This clip also gives the lie to any idea that women are the kinder gentler sex, something to which I don’t subscribe anyway from what I’ve observed in life.

These podcasters are very popular. According to Google AI they have 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, for example. They’re hardly alone, either. For a long time I’ve noticed even among garden-variety Democrats I know this desire to make political opponents – such as Trump, of course – die. Not just to defeat them, but to kill them. And to laugh about it.

Welch and Sullivan also followed up with a claim that Kirk’s killer was MAGA. Totally untrue, but it’s a common assertion on the left. I’ve often thought that Kirk’s death was a watershed moment that disclosed just how far many seemingly-ordinary Democrats have gone in hatefulness, and it simultaneously unleashed Jew-hating forces on the right (or so-called right) that Kirk had managed to hold in check.

In many places I’m reading that a great many Republicans seem to have sat this election out. In this case, perfect is not only the enemy of the good but the enabler of evil. I can’t imagine that will turn out well.

Today I read this article by Mark Tapscott that says a great many evangelicals stayed home because – wait for it – the GOP wasn’t tough enough on abortion:

As my Washington Stand colleague Joshua Arnold reports, turnout among conservative Evangelical Christians was way down this past Tuesday, representing 22 percent of the voters in 2024 but just 17 percent in 2026. That precipitous decline represents a stark decline, compared to previous elections stretching back to 2008. Conservative Evangelical Christians have been utterly reliable GOP supporters for nearly two decades, so what happened to change this reality?

The Iran War didn’t help, thanks to Trumps’ month-after-month promises that a deal was right around corner, nor did the gas prices that soared after the initial combined U.S./Israeli air attacks in February 2026. …

in 2024, every shred of the pro-life position was removed from the platform by the Trump campaign that controlled the GOP convention. And it was done without a shred of diplomacy, negotiation or compromise. As Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins described it, “we were railroaded.” …

The Trump administration in 2025 and 2026 had little to say about the pro-life issue other than taking credit for Dobbs. Otherwise, the administration did nothing as the owners, operators and advocates for the blood-soaked abortion mills turned the U.S. Post office, the Internet, and private sector home delivery systems into the crucial conduits for chemically induced abortions.

Other than taking credit for Dobbs? Excuse me? Was Dobbs not a big big deal, something they’d tried to do for a half-century and finally succeeded in doing thanks to Trump’s SCOTUS appointments? Am I missing something here?

Or is Tapscott missing something – such as these actions by the administration, according to Google AI?:

FDA & HHS Re-Evaluation: Under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Makary, the administration launched a review of FDA regulations surrounding mifepristone. … The DOJ indicated in court filings that the administration’s internal review of mifepristone regulations is expected to take under a year to complete.

Republicans in general have launched many legal challenges to the dissemination of the drug through the mail. Staying home does zero to support those people and those actions and in fact helps elect those who celebrate abortion and want it to be on-demand at any gestational age.

I have never been able to understand the thought processes that would lead someone to stay home to punish those who are generally on that person’s side and enable those who want to destroy whatever policy that person is advocating.

On fraud: New Hampshire turns blue with a tiny purple spot

The New Neo Posted on by

New Hampshire is a very small state both geographically and in terms of population, and not much attention has been paid to it this cycle. But I think it’s very instructive to take a look, especially for those who believe that fraud was a significant element in this year’s election results. Simply put, New Hampshire has an unusually reliable voting system and its swing to the left mirrored that of many other states and even exceeded it. When there’s a widespread voting pattern like that, even in states with fairly tight voting laws, the chance of fraud being a big factor diminishes and something else is operating.

This year about 640K people voted in New Hampshire; that’s what I mean by “small.” Voter ID is required and paper ballots used. There is no early in-person voting and there are quite strict controls on absentee voting and on who can bring in ballots from a disabled person. Although scanners count the votes, there is also this check:

After ballots are initially counted, election officials must sign a post-election certificate that includes a variety of records, including polling place records that show the number of voters who checked in and number of ballots issued.

New Hampshire state law requires the secretary of state to conduct an audit after state primary and general elections and presidential primaries of randomly selected precincts. Two percent of ballots or 50 ballots, whichever is greater, must be counted by hand.

They all know there is a decent chance that they will be checked, and it doesn’t take a challenge or a close election to do it. The paper ballots are all saved and a hand count recount can easily be done if there is any kind of close election or suspicion of problems. It really is an unusually well-controlled situation and yet this time the state legislature flipped enormously.

The previous legislature was controlled by the GOP: in the NH House it was 207-184 and in the Senate it was 14-10. But as a result of Tuesday’s election, see this:

Paul Smith, the House clerk, announced Wednesday that Democrats may hold a 292-107 advantage over Republicans, with one Independent. He cautioned that there are likely to be recounts and other tight races with vote tallies still trickling in that could alter the final balance of power.

In the state Senate, the Associated Press is forecasting a 15-9 margin for Democrats, just shy of a veto-proof majority, though several races there also remain uncalled.

Talk about tsunamis! It’s an extraordinary change. Plus, something called the Executive Council went from 4-1 Republican to 5-0 Democrat.

Looking at all of that, it’s amazing that New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte was re-elected. But that fact also underscores that the election results in New Hampshire were not fraudulent. She got 51.38% to her Democrat opponent’s 47.1%. Ayotte’s vote margin was about 27K; not a landslide, but certainly a victory.

How did she do it? I don’t know. There must have been a lot of split ballots, too, because the total number of votes cast in the governor’s race (about 631K) was very close to the total cast in the US Senate race (636K) in New Hampshire. The latter was won by the Democrat by about a 14-point margin.

Note that those numbers – in a state so recently Republican-led in its legislature – now resemble California’s recent legislature. In California, the Senate has been 30-10 Democrat to Republican. The California Assembly (its lower house) has had much the same ratio. Because California takes so long to count its votes it’s not yet clear what the final tally will be for the next session, but you can see that the NH House approaches that same kind of ratio. It is a stunning change.

[NOTE: As a result of this election, New Hampshire has also come to resemble Vermont. Vermont’s Democrats recaptured two-thirds majorities in both houses. In Vermont, this means the Democrats have veto-proof majorities whereas in New Hampshire they are one Senate seat shy of a veto-proof majority (that apparently could change, according to the article I quoted, and I haven’t seen a more recent update on it so I assume it hasn’t been resolved). The veto-proof majority in both states matter, because both states have Republican governors.

Go figure. Vermont’s Republican governor is very popular:

Scott was first elected governor of Vermont in 2016, and was reelected in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026. Scott’s 2024 margin of victory is the largest in any Vermont gubernatorial election since 1946. Beginning in 2027, Scott will be the longest-serving incumbent governor in the United States. If Scott finishes his sixth term in January 2029, he will also be the longest-serving governor in Vermont history.

Scott is often described as a moderate Republican or a liberal Republican. While according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Vermont is the most Democratic-leaning U.S. state (D+17), Scott has consistently ranked as the nation’s most popular governor.

Ayotte is fairly moderate as well, as was her predecessor (also a Republican).]

So, why am I renewing my passport?

The New Neo Posted on by

That question was asked in yesterday’s thread about the stapler.

So I’ll answer.

No, I’m not planning to become an expat.

The truth is that my passport expired a while ago and I always like to keep it current even if I don’t have travel plans. It can be used for an impromptu trip to Canada, for example, and once in a blue moon I’ve done that. It helps with any kind of international travel to keep it at the ready, because there can be quite a wait to renew a passport and quite a surcharge if you want to expedite the process.

But it’s also the case that for about three years I’ve had a short trip to Europe planned for this summer. The plan was to travel there with my ex-husband for a certain event. Back when I first planned this, his Parkinson’s wasn’t so very bad, and although it got worse over the years I still thought we could do it.

I was wrong, of course. I did get “cancel for any reason” insurance, which is quite pricy, because I worried about his health. Now, with his death, I can activate that insurance (for our particular trip, even if someone dies you don’t necessarily get a refund unless you have insurance – and of course even with insurance the insurance payment is non-refundable).

I probably could also go on the trip with someone else, but that’s tricky. It has to be a person who is healthy enough (most of my friends are not), who wants to go, and with whom I get along well enough to share a room. And I don’t know if I still even want to go, although I suppose I should.

Needless to say, the whole thing is part of what makes me very very sad these days. Very.

Speaking of which – yesterday I made a doctor’s appointment and when I was done the person on the line asked me if my ex-husband was still my emergency contact. I just about burst into tears at the unexpected question. I had to answer that no, he died. She said she was sorry and asked me if I had a replacement. I couldn’t think of a single local one, so I gave my son’s name. He lives extremely far away.