It is true, as many commentators have noted, that this is looking more and more like a third Obama administration.  Poor Ol' Joe just crouches down there as power leapfrogs over him from Barack to Kamala.  And just as with Obama, those voices that were raised most loudly about certain political hot-button issues when a Republican was president have fallen completely silent now that there's a Democrat in the White House again.

For example, you might have noticed that the conspicuous silence from the climate change crowd when Biden fired up the Oval Office fireplace the other day.  It's been all over the news that he personally stokes this fire, but where is the hue and cry against increasing carbon emissions?  Why the silence about the fact that the resultant carbon emissions, cancer-causing agents, and other contaminants are largely impacting a minority and historically oppressed community?

Only three weeks ago, Biden signed a flurry of executive orders mandating increased federal reliance on fossil fuel–free transportation and "green" federal procurement.  So far, no one is calling out this blatant hypocrisy.

Following in Obama's footsteps, Biden ignores his own policies and public statements, for his own comfort.  Obama had urged Americans to make sacrifices for the environment, saying, "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.  He then turned the thermostat up to 75 degrees in his new home and was criticized for it.  Biden has now done something similar, at just about the same point in his administration.  But AOC, our magical environmental congressional Disney princess, has been silent.

Does this mean that fussy Alexandria O'Green New Deal Cortez (D-Paris, Kyoto, and Rio) is turning into an establishment Democrat?  In the past, she threatened to primary other Democrats who failed to line up with her political priorities.  Now Cortez seems to have softened a bit from her first-term call-outs to her colleagues.  Lately, she certainly has failed to rail against carbon emissions from new sources.  What's up with that?

AOC's Green New Deal emphasized that the marginalized suffered more than most from the ravages of pollution and climate change.  So why was she silent this past year as Antifa and BLM rioters set fires not just to structures, but to whole city blocks all across America?  They poured tons of carbon, smoke, and highly toxic material into the air within and surrounding so many of these marginalized communities.

Oh, that's right, because she said that "marginalized" communities have no choice but to riot against their so-called oppressors.  "I believe injustice is a threat to the safety of all people.  Because once you have a group that is marginalized...once someone doesn't have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot."  How about clean air?  Can't we all just riot without burning the place down?

Our little butterfly is a woman of many shifting priorities.  At one time, it was kids in cages, but she's not uttered a peep about Biden's new temporary shelter tent cities at the border or his reopening of overflow facilities there for children.  At another, it was a cleaner environment for marginalized and indigenous communities.  I wonder what our marginalized communities in the Midwest would prefer — rioting, burning, looting, and murdering in their midst, or clean air to breathe?

Anony Mee is a retired public servant.

Image: AOC weeping.  YouTube screen grab.