THE FIRST TIME AS TRAGEDY.

Thirty years ago, a sardonic quip went something like "Soviet Communism is the longest way from capitalism to capitalism."  Not that there were capitalist institutions during the Romanoff period, and that got in the way of a proper civil society emerging once the Evil Empire shut down.

The second time is the farce, something like "The Biden presidency is the longest way from Donald Trump to Donald Trump."  Not necessarily in the election, but "Remain in Mexico" is making a comeback.  That could be a consequence of court orders.

The so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy was initially suspended under Biden just hours after he took office in January. It was formally ended at the beginning of June by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

However, in August, Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled the administration must reinstate the policy, which requires asylum seekers along the southern US border to remain in Mexico until they can have their case be heard.

The Biden administration attempted to end the program again last month, while acknowledging the policy “likely contributed to reduced migratory flows.”

On the other hand, when the hits come with a frequency that would shame Milwaukee Brewers batters with runners in scoring position, perhaps something is happening.

The coot discovered, for instance, that oil holdings on federal lands are assets.

The Biden administration on Friday recommended an overhaul of the nation's oil and gas leasing program to limit areas available for energy development and raise costs for oil and gas companies to drill on public land and water.

The long-awaited report by the Interior Department stops short of recommending an end to oil and gas leasing on public lands, as many environmental groups have urged. But officials said the report would lead to a more responsible leasing process that provides a better return to U.S. taxpayers.

The pause in leasing came to an end long before the fifteen days to slow the spread did.

The report completes a review ordered in January by President Joe Biden, who directed a pause in federal oil and gas lease sales in his first days in office, citing worries about climate change.

The moratorium drew sharp criticism from congressional Republicans and the oil industry, even as many environmentalists and Democrats said Biden should make the leasing pause permanent.

The new report seeks a middle ground that would continue the multibillion-dollar leasing program while reforming it to end what many officials consider overly favorable terms for the industry.

The report recommends hiking federal royalty rates for oil and gas drilling, which have not been raised for 100 years. The federal rate of 12.5% that developers must pay to drill on public lands is significantly lower than many states and private landowners charge for drilling leases on state or private lands.

The report also said the government should consider raising bond payments that energy companies must set aside for future cleanup before they drill new wells. Bond rates have not been increased in decades, the report said.

Let's save for another day the lessons governments could learn about properly pricing other assets they own, such as highways, airways, and bandwidth.

The do-less-with-less elements of the Democrats' coalition are not happy with the compromise.

Despite the president's campaign pledge to ban new oil and gas leasing for public lands and waters, the administration last week auctioned off 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. In response to legal action from Republican state attorneys general, a federal judge ruled in June that Biden could not pause new leases.

The administration's legal obligation to hold lease sales has not stopped climate campaigners from accusing the president of failing to deliver on his promises to tackle the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.

"A minor increase in the royalties paid by climate polluters will have zero impact on combating the climate crisis," [Food and Water Watch policy director Mitch] Jones asserted Friday, "and will in effect make the federal government more dependent on fossil fuels as a source of revenue."

"This shocking capitulation to the needs of corporate polluters is a clear sign that, when it comes to climate action, the White House does not actually mean what it says," he added.

Note: another day, another unconstitutional executive order. Plus catch the charming naïvete that somehow there are sources of revenue available to the feds other than, oh, pricing assets they own in a way that isn't as obviously laundering the rents? "The government's royalty rates and bonding requirements are far too low and lead to public money subsidizing Big Oil's profits while our federal lands and waters suffer egregious harm."

The cherry on top, though, is the panicked response to yet another as yet incompletely understood variant of the Wuhan coronavirus that the health officials don't want to call the Sweetheart of Premier Xi.  "And Joe and handlers wonder why they’re encountering so much skepticism and resistance in 2021."

Compare and contrast:

Remember when the left and MSM labeled former President Donald Trump a racist when he banned travel from seven or eight mostly Muslim countries? They called it the “Muslim Ban.”

Then they labeled Trump a racist when he banned travel from China and a few other places because of COVID.

Biden blasted Trump in February 2020 when Trump expanded the travel ban to Africa. Biden said the “African Ban” happened because Trump wanted to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate here.

I guess Biden is a racist because he will ban travel from seven African countries over the new COVID variant called Omicron.

Mary Chastain correctly notes, "Our government is nothing but a bunch of morons. Granted, this has been true since…well, a long time." Perhaps so, although there is still enough time for the coot to pivot to more sensible policies, tell the communist part of his coalition to pound sand, and run again as the Not Trump.

RUNNING EXTRA.  The Giftzwerg weighs in.  "Fauci says 'we're going to have to start living with COVID.'"  Dear reader, you must remember this.  "Trump says 'we're learning to live with' coronavirus. Biden says 'people are learning to die with it.'"  Those were politicians scoring points.  What did the Giftzwerg say?

Speaking to host Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face the Nation," Fauci touched on previous remarks in which he said he would like to see daily infections fall below 10,000 in order for the U.S. to be able to "live with COVID." Brennan noted that current COVID-19 infection rates are now approaching 80,000 per day.

Ah, yes, that ten thousand figure he conjured out of somewhere, which is the daily production of false positives you might get out of a million tests.  But he's still ringing the fear alarms.

"I mean, we've heard people say, understandably, they're trying to look for a metric to give to the public that we're going to have to start living with COVID. I believe that's the case because I don't think we're going to eradicate it. We've only eradicated one infection of mankind, and that's smallpox. I don't think we're even going to eliminate it," the infectious disease expert said.

Fauci said illnesses - such as malaria, polio and measles - have become nearly nonexistent through "a very, very, very intensive vaccine campaign."

Yes, and smallpox, malaria, polio, and measles are much nastier running rampant than these Wuhan coronaviruses.  If only the people whose power continues to derive from pretending otherwise would face reality more quickly.