June 29, 2026

In France, The Government Tries To Prevent The People From Getting Air Conditioning

June 29, 2026/ Francis Menton

A remarkable feature of governments in Europe is the extent to which they operate explicitly against the interest of their citizens and voters.
They give an outward appearance of being democracies, and they hold regular elections, but somehow the people in power are a self-perpetuating political clique that, from all evidence, seems to hold the ordinary working people and voters in complete contempt.
Prime examples of operating against the interests of the people include: opening the borders to millions of impoverished migrants who hate the host countries; and imposing a fantasy “energy transition” that drives up the cost of energy and destroys industrial jobs without any measurable effect on the climate.
A new example of the hatred of the governing class for the ordinary people has emerged in the past couple of weeks.

June 27, 2026

Britain: Time To Go Back To Coal

June 27, 2026/ Francis Menton

Among our “climate leader” jurisdictions, Britain is a serious contender for the top spot. Sure Germany got started earlier than Britain, with the so-called “Energiewende” going back to the 1990s; and upstart American states like California and New York each think that their own hair shirt energy restrictions should qualify them for the number one position.
But Britain’s suite of policies in the aggregate is hard to top: mandatory Net Zero goals set by statute; madcap buildout of wind and solar electricity generation; shuttering of generation from coal and natural gas; refusal to permit drilling in the North Sea; complete ban on fracking. The Energy Minister of the current Labour government — Ed Milliband — is as crazed a climate zealot as you can find anywhere. The British have even dynamited coal-fired power stations to be sure that nobody could ever change their minds about this Net Zero thing and try to re-start the plants.
Unfortunately for the British, their wind and solar generation facilities seem to be subject to all going quiet at the same time, often inconveniently at the very hottest or coldest times of the year. Building more and yet more of them does not solve the problem. Some call this Britain’s “looming firm generation capacity crisis.”
So what’s the answer? How about doing the unthinkable — bring back coal!

June 24, 2026

June 24, 2026/ Francis Menton

Yesterday was primary election day in New York. I previewed it in my prior post, “Socialism: On The March, Or Not So Much?” There were no Republican primaries in New York City, and very few statewide. This was almost entirely a day for intramural contests among the Democrats.
It was the Far Left versus the Crazy Insane Left. In almost every race, Crazy Insane prevailed.
The most important races involved federal congressional seats within the City — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America had endorsed candidates in three of the races: Brad Lander over incumbent Dan Goldman in NY-10 (my district), Darializa Avila Chevalier over incumbent Adriano Espaillat in NY-13 (uptown Manhattan and West Bronx), and Claire Valdez over Antonio Reynoso for an open seat in NY-7 (Northern Brooklyn and Southwest Queens).

June 20, 2026

June 20, 2026/ Francis Menton

The famous quote from Winston Churchill about Socialism is as apt today as when first uttered in 1948: "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."
Forty-three years later in 1991, Churchill stood fully vindicated, as the Soviet Union fell, following decades of not just stagnation and decline, but immense human suffering and death. At the time I thought, no one could ever possibly again take this ideology seriously.
Well, here we are in the United States of 2026, and you could easily get the impression that Socialism is on the march. Politicians proudly claiming the Socialist (or even Communist) brand hold the mayoralties of all the largest cities, and their movement is the source of all the energy in today’s Democratic Party.

June 16, 2026

June 16, 2026/ Francis Menton

I have often noted that the climate scam and the associated forced energy transition would of necessity go away at some point because the proposals being advocated to “save the planet” could never possibly work.
But the open question has always been, when that happens, what will it look like? Would all the big enviro groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club all go on national TV one night and admit that the whole thing was a fake scare from the beginning? In the real world, that’s not how these things happen. People who have staked out absurd positions somehow need to save face. So there would have to be some sort of gradual process of backing down.
And thus we come to the key role of the New York Times for the Left, which is to mold and convey the official talking points to the team’s candidates and influencers. How about sharing some instruction on how to quietly back away from the Green New Deal?

June 14, 2026

June 14, 2026/ Francis Menton

I often make fun of the federal government as operating with what it thinks is an “infinite credit card,” outside and beyond any budget restraints. And thus all problems, real or imaginary, can be solved by dispensing some of the infinite federal loot. In its partial defense, the federal government does have the ability to print money, although that ability too eventually runs into limits.
And then we have New York City. The City has no ability to print money, but nevertheless operates as if there are no constraints on spending. The sky is the limit! Recently I wrote about how the City spends about triple the national average per student on preK-12 education, and more than double the national average per capita on Medicaid. Those are crazy excessive amounts, but at least education and healthcare are bona fide purposes for the spending of resources.
But how about spending huge amounts of money on pure fantasies that accomplish absolutely nothing?