‘Landman’ Airs A Rare And Stirring Defense Of The U.S. Oil-And-Gas Industry

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

Oil companies have always presented easy targets for demonization by the news and entertainment industries. Their operations are highly visible — the flares from a shale well can be seen from many miles distant — the prices they charge for their products can strain family budgets, and they have generally done a lousy job of engaging with the media and defending themselves.

Thus, they typically present the proverbial low-hanging fruit to be exploited by lazy script writers in Hollywood. Those who were in the industry in the early years of the Obama presidency will well remember that pretty much every TV drama series aired at least one episode centered on some highly improbable, often impossible, scenario in which people were killed by a hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — accident. Such stuff never happened in real life, but it sure made for compelling entertainment for audiences who did not know that to be the case.

Given this history, it came as no small surprise when the lead character in the new Paramount series “Landman”, the newest offering from “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan, delivered a stirring 2-minute monologue in defense of America’s oil and gas producers in Episode 3 of the show’s first season. Set in the aftermath of a tragic, fatal Permian Basin oilfield accident that actually could happen in real life, the scene features lead character Tommy Norris, played to near perfection by Billy Bob Thornton, schooling a young, environmentally conscious lawyer who is looking for someone to blame for the accident on the reasons why oil and gas are highly unlikely to be replaced by wind energy in her lifetime.

“You have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete or make that steel and hold this **** out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane,” Norris says, pointing to a nearby group of 400 ft. wind turbines. “You want to guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that ****ing thing or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it. And don’t get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery.”

The monologue goes on for another minute and a half, with Norris detailing all the myriad products made with oil and natural gas, and the fact that, “if Exxon thought them ****ing things right there were the future, they’d be putting them all over the ***damn place.” He isn’t wrong about that last part, by the way. ExxonMobil and its fellow major oil companies like Shell and BP have proven themselves to be pretty much agnostic about the nature of the energy-related projects they’re willing to pursue in recent years.

Those companies and many other traditional oil companies are willing to invest in most any project they believe to be profitable, sustainable and able to deliver strong rates of return to investors. Where wind energy is concerned, both Shell and BP spent years investing heavily in such projects but have been backing away from such investments over the last year as they have failed to produce adequate returns. ExxonMobil, meanwhile, is investing heavily in carbon capture, hydrogen, and even lithium production as part of a growing portfolio of projects in its Low Carbon Solutions business unit.

Back to the Tommy Norris monologue: When I re-posted the clip on LinkedIn and at my Substack newsletter, it went viral, indicating a high level of interest in what Thornton’s character had to say. That may be indicative of a rising recognition of the reality that the US government and global community have in recent years thrown away trillions of dollars in failing attempts to subsidize non-viable, unsustainable, and unprofitable alternatives to oil and natural gas to scale.

Perhaps, then, it is no coincidence that Episode 3 of “Landman” aired on the same day when the media widely reported the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan had ended in failure. It also came amid continuing reports that the Trump transition team is developing detailed plans to refocus US energy policy back to Trump’s promised “drill, baby, drill” orientation.

The times are a-changing, and guys like Tommy Norris will look like prophets soon.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Related Topics:#DailyCaller #DavidBlackmon BIllyBobThorton Landman StirringDefenseOfUSOilAndGasIndustry

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‘We Are In A Hot War With Russia’: Tucker Carlson Is Back In Moscow With A Terrifying Revelation

Published on December 4, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson released a video on social media Tuesday from Moscow, revealing how the U.S. government has not only severed all communication ties with Russia but also prevented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from interviewing with Carlson and his team.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated last month after President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles on Nov. 17 for strikes inside Russia. In a video posted to X, Carlson told viewers how U.S. involvement in the conflict has brought everyone closer to a nuclear confrontation since he last interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin in February.

“In that time, just a few weeks ago, the Biden administration, American military personnel launched missiles into mainland Russia and killed at least a dozen Russian soldiers. So we are, unbeknownst to most Americans, in a hot war with Russia, an undeclared war, a war you did not vote for and that most Americans don’t want, but it is ongoing,” Carlson said. “Because of that war, because of the fact that the U.S. military is killing Russians in Russia right now, we are closer to nuclear war than at any time in history, far closer than we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Carlson went on to highlight how, despite believing that someone in Washington, D.C., was behind the push toward nuclear war, he had uncovered that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had cut off “all contact” between Russia and the United States.

“We felt there must be someone behind the scenes in Washington working to make sure that this conflict doesn’t become a nuclear holocaust. But we found out that no, in fact, there is nobody. Tony Blinken, the current secretary of state, cut off all contact between the U.S. and Russian governments. There is no back channel. There is no conversation. There hasn’t been for more than two years,” Carlson said.

WATCH:

“Meanwhile, most Americans have no access to any perspective other than that granted to them by NBC News and The New York Times. They don’t know how close we are. They don’t know the Russian perspective,” Carlson said. “We’ve been trying for over a year to get that perspective out to American news consumers.”

Carlson also noted that he had been attempting for over a year to interview Zelenskyy but had been “thwarted” by the U.S. government’s involvement.

“The American embassy in Kiev, which our tax dollars pay for, told the Zelenskyy government, ‘No, you may not do the interview.’ You can talk to CNN. You can’t talk to us. So we’ve been unable to speak to him,” Carlson said.

“So we came back to Moscow yesterday to interview the foreign minister of Russia, Sergei Lavrov, the longest serving foreign minister in the world … and ask him, where exactly are we? Are we headed toward an unprecedented conflict between Russia and the United States? Is there any way to peel Russia back from the east, from the sphere of China, back in to the west? Is that alliance permanent? Does the election of Donald Trump mean an end to this war, which is reshaping the world, the U.S. economy, the global economy and risking the life of every person on this planet? Is that possible? We just walked out of that interview,” Carlson added. “It’s absolutely fascinating.”

Talks of nuclear war surfaced after Biden authorized the use of U.S. long-range missiles for Ukraine, with Putin warning Ukraine about the potential use of new hypersonic missiles to target government or official buildings in Kyiv. Despite the signaling from Putin, U.S. intelligence sources allegedly told Reuters in late November that the decision to allow Ukraine the use of U.S. missiles has not increased the risk of nuclear war.

On Monday, Blinken headed back to Europe for what is likely his final high-level NATO meeting to discuss “priorities for transatlantic security, including supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion, deepening cooperation with NATO’s southern partners in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sahel regions, and preparing for the upcoming summit at The Hague,” the Associated Press reported.

Daily Caller

Let Them Eat Cake

Published on December 3, 2024

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Bob Ehrlich

It is “lessons learned” season for the political class, but recent anecdotes reflect the left’s selective takeaways from the campaign and election of 2024.

— Former President Bill Clinton bemoans the advent of “zillions” of right-wing websites as a reason why the Harris-Walz ticket had such difficulties in reaching out to rural America.

— Donna Brazile insists (on Bill Maher’s show) that while the Democrats’ primary challenge remains poor communication, the voters still really do agree with the Party’s platform.

— Bernie Sanders (again) criticizes the out-of-touch “economic elites” presently in charge of the Democrat Party because…they are not progressive enough.

— The city council president in Erie, Pa., associates red-hatted supporters of President-elect Donald Trump with the KKK … and does not back down when confronted by the media and MAGA supporters.

— Actors Alec Baldwin and Sharon Stone deride American voters as “ignorant,” “uneducated” and “uninformed” at an Italian film festival.

These and similar storylines are illustrative but certainly not new. Indeed, I still remember following a Democratic member of Congress on one of the cable networks (in the aftermath of the 2016 election) wherein he lamented Hillary Clinton’s hemorrhaging of working-class voters — after which he assured the audience that his party would continue to protect sanctuary cities…

Some will write off these tin-ear reactions to post-election frustration or simple hardheadedness, but there is something more profound going on here. To wit, this generation of Democrats is far too captive to progressive ideology for them to conduct a detached, deep-dive postmortem on why so many people who work with their hands, do not subscribe to The New York Times and have never visited Martha’s Vineyard have become so turned off by woke values (some on the right diagnose it as a “mind virus”) and the progressive platform foisted on them these past four years.

Alas, there is another problem for the Democrats going forward that has far less to do with substance but far more to do with attitude. To wit: Flyover America has been paying attention and is now intimately familiar with the litany of “Let Them Eat Cake” Trump-era indictments that have spewed forth from members of the ruling class directed to the ways, means, tastes and preferences of middle America. (President Joe Biden’s “garbage” characterization of Trump voters and Mark Cuban’s weird but instructive charge that Trump lacks “strong, intelligent women” around him now joining Obama’s “bitter clingers” and Hillary’s “irredeemable deplorables” in the Democrats’ Hall of Shame.)

This mean but persistent and tone-deaf attempt to defame half the country may go over well in front of the appropriate crowd (Harris’ advising two pro-life protestors to leave her rally and go to the smaller Trump rally down the street comes to mind) but remains a major obstacle to any serious attempt to recapture Democrats’ support within working class America. Phrased another way, when so many people tell you what they really think of you over an extended period of time … you should probably believe them. And now — to the dismay of millions of self-righteous progressives — it appears church/synagogue/mosque attending, Walmart consuming, Second Amendment believing, woke rejecting, blue supporting America Firsters received the message loud and clear.

They voted accordingly.

Bob Ehrlich is a former governor of Maryland, member of Congress and state legislator. He is the author of five books on American politics and opinion pieces that have appeared in America’s leading newspapers and periodicals. He and his wife, Kendel, can be seen and heard on their weekly podcast, “Bottom Line with Bob & Kendel Ehrlich.”