‘Puter rocking his Sunday-best orange leisure suit before all you can drink Hennessy and Hi-C night at the Leaping Peacock. Not pictured: Czar, who can suck it.

‘Puter’s hopping mad this morning, and that’s not a pretty sight. After all, ‘Puter’s a 5’10” Shrek-like man-beast partial to wearing orange leisure suits.

What’s got ‘Puter’s gold lamé man thong in a bunch, you ask? The New York Times editorial board, as usual, and its useful idiocy in this editorial, The High Cost of Dirty Fuels.

The editors’ thesis is simple: “countries should end subsidies for fossil fuels: It would save millions of lives.” Fair enough. ‘Puter disagrees with the editors, but the point is debatable.*

But what are the subsidies for fossil fuels to which the editors refer? Are the editors referring to tax subsidies directly related to extraction, refining and production of fossil fuels?**

Nothing quite so sane. The New York Times editorial brain trust informs us:

Governments subsidize energy in many ways. … But by far the biggest way countries reduce the price of energy is by not taxing it enough to account for the damage that burning fossil fuels causes to human health and to the climate.

See? Our government is subsidizing fossil fuel production by not taxing it enough. ‘Puter was unaware it was the goal of tax policy to interfere with the markets, unfairly picking winners and losers based on unproven “climate change” science.*** ‘

Using the editors’ new “entities should be taxed based on the damage their product causes to society” theory, ‘Puter awaits an editorial calling for a confiscatory tax on each copy of the New York Times sold. After all, the editors and reporters have caused more damage to American society through false narratives, piss-poor reporting, and outright lies than nearly any other media outlet to date. The damage to our nation and humanity is incalculable.

Will the New York Times repay Ukrainians for publishing Walter Duranty’s fawning pro-Stalin coverage and denial of the Holodomor? ‘Puter’s fairly certain the Soviet-created death by starvation of up to 7.5 million Ukrainians is worth some sort of taxation, no?

But let’s be fair to our intellectual superiors ensconced high atop Olympus the New York Times building. If we are to set taxes on the aggregate damage self-appointed ink-stained busybodies deem an industry to cause, we must consider the benefits afforded society by such industry as well. It’s only fair, and as we know, misty, undefined “fairness” is the ne plus ultra of liberal policy making.

The fossil fuel industry provides at a minimum the following undeniable benefits to America. As of 2013, the oil and gas industry alone directly employed 569,000 Americans. The reliably liberal Brookings Institution admits that fracking decreased energy prices nationwide by $74 billion per year. Natural gas prices are 47% lower today than they would be without fracking. The New York Times itself admits the three largest oil and gas companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips) between 2007 and 2012 paid $289 billion in taxes. Al Jazeera, no friend of America, admits fracking will allow the United States to become energy self-sufficient, thereby reducing or eliminating its reliance on Middle East nations, which will fundamentally reshape global politics in America’s favor.

‘Puter’s no genius like the men and women on the New York Times editorial board, but he thinks it’s not altogether clear the unproven claims about fossil fuels’ negative impact on the environment outweigh fossil fuels’ proven benefits. ‘Puter would even say fossil fuels’ demonstrable benefits clearly outweigh any speculative costs. But ‘Puter’s not very bright, so he’s sure the Mensa members at the New York Times will show him the error of his ways.

Sure, the editors failed to consider basic facts disproving their thesis on fossil fuels’ aggregate cost, but they’ve surely done a better job on property rights, right? Not so much.

The editors proceed from the faulty assumption that all corporate income is rightfully the government’s property. The editors believe the tax code is the means through which the government beneficently permits a worker or a corporation to keep a portion of the money it earned for the government in a given year. This is a profoundly un-American notion, but one that is widespread on the Left.

Non-taxation is not a subsidy. Non-taxation is the normal state of affairs. A man’s income is his property, not the government’s.

Say it with ‘Puter: “Government has no inherent right to the property of its citizenry, whether through taxation or other means, no matter how much liberals may disagree with this notion.”

The sooner the idiots staffing the New York Times learn that, the better.

* Ending subsidies for fossil fuels may or may not save millions of lives, but it would permit market forces to price fossil fuels appropriately. This alone would be beneficial. ‘Puter leaves for another time the editors’ naked assertion ending fossil fuel subsidies “would save millions of lives,” which is horse poop.

** ‘Puter notes American tax subsidies aren’t directly applicable to the pricing of the fossil fuel end product. Quite the opposite, in fact. In ‘Puter’s own workers’ paradise of New York, the aggregate per gallon gas tax is $0.687 per gallon (federal, $0.184, state $0.503). Tax subsidies affect the corporate producer’s treatment of the income, which may or may not reduce the price of the consumer product. Instead of reducing consumer prices, companies could pass the savings through to shareholders as dividends or to management as bonuses.

*** The only thing proven about “climate change” science is the scientists most certain about “climate change’s” existence either participated in or rely on fraudulent or erroneous studies. ‘Puter doesn’t deny the Earth’s climate changes. ‘Puter is simply unconvinced that the scientific community has proven the climate’s change is primarily due to man.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.