Energy Inflation Derails Biden's Climate Agenda

Well, I guess that's one good thing about inflation. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "Under the president’s watch, emissions have risen, renewable-energy development has slowed and oil and coal use is up":

WASHINGTON—President Biden came to office vowing to cut dependence on fossil fuels, putting environmentalists in charge of energy policy and asking Congress for billions of dollars to fund a transition to cleaner energy.

Seventeen months later, greenhouse gas emissions are up, renewable-power development has slowed, and oil and coal consumption are on the rise. The biggest aspects of the green agenda are stuck in Congress, while Mr. Biden, facing surging energy prices and inflation, urged U.S. oil refiners this week to expand capacity.

Domestic oil and gas production has increased since Mr. Biden came into office and is projected to rise to record highs, but that has just inflamed concerns from environmentalists that Mr. Biden is backing away from his green agenda.

“I thought the country had turned a corner,” said Mary Nichols, a former California regulator and longtime environmental leader, “that the country was headed in the right direction.”

“Now this last year or two leaves you wondering whether that is true,” Ms. Nichols said.

Mr. Biden reaffirmed his environmental commitments Friday at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a virtual summit he hosted with representatives of more than 20 countries and international groups, including the European Commission and China.

“The critical point is that these actions are part of our transition to a clean and secure long-term energy future,” Mr. Biden said, adding later, “The science tells us that the window for action is rapidly narrowing.”

At home, however, Mr. Biden’s agenda has run into the reality of rising oil prices, punishing inflation and policy conflicts. Mr. Biden pledged last year to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030. But doing so will require Congressional approval of measures such as tax incentives for clean energy, analysts say.

Coal-state Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), who derailed Mr. Biden’s roughly $3.5 trillion climate and social spending bill last year, has been negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on a new bill that would include the tax incentives, but a deal is far from certain.

The stakes for Mr. Biden are high. High inflation and record gasoline prices at the pump are a political liability heading into the midterm elections, where Republicans have a chance to seize majorities in the House and Senate.

At the same time, Mr. Biden risks losing support among young and progressive voters by seeming to back away from his green agenda, activists and political analysts said.

“It is hard to forever turn people out when you’re not producing results,” said Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org, a group dedicated to stopping the use of fossil fuels world-wide. “Especially among young voters who care about this immensely there seems to be real signs it’s doing damage.”

Administration officials say they are still on course to meet their climate goals, citing measures including executive actions to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, spending to build out an electric-vehicle charging network and the rejoining of international climate talks.

Mr. Biden wants clean energy “installed here, deployed here and exported from here,“ Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. ”He has taken steps in every single aspect of that to make those things happen. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Some of the problems bedeviling Mr. Biden were triggered by events beyond his control.

The economy’s sharp rebound from the pandemic fueled higher demand for energy, raising costs. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine further taxed energy markets, leading Mr. Biden to label rising gas costs as “Putin’s price hike.”

Administration critics, however, say White House policy conflicts and political miscalculations made things worse as oil prices rose from roughly $53 a barrel when Mr. Biden took office to nearly $120 now.

One problem, these people say, was a too-rosy view of how smoothly the U.S. could move off fossil fuels. Mr. Biden used his first day in office to block completion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and freeze new oil and gas leases on federal land.

“Unfortunately, what we have seen since January 2021 are policies that send a message that the administration aims to impose obstacles to our industry delivering energy resources the world needs,” Bill Turenne, a spokesman for Chevron Corp., said in a statement to reporters Wednesday.

Mr. Biden is now asking oil-and-gas companies to pump and export more in response to soaring prices and war in Europe, leaving him open to criticism from Republicans that his early decisions fed the problem and from environmentalists that he was backtracking on his climate agenda...

The January 6th Committee Is Pure Political Theater (VIDEO)

From Julie Kelly, at American Greatness, "January 6 for Non-Dummies":

During another public hearing on Monday, the January 6 select committee featured a witness so irrelevant that his appearance should prompt even the most ardent defender of Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate inquisition to question the committee’s real purpose. Former Fox News talking head Chris Stirewalt, fired by the network shortly after the Capitol protest for calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden early on election night, told his sob story to a presumably slim viewing audience.

The washed-up commentator, however, is the last person with any insight into the events of January 6, 2021. Stirewalt’s performance—similar to the overwrought speechifying by committee members last Thursday—is another headfake designed to turn attention away from the truth about what happened that day and in the months leading up to the brief disturbance that resulted in the deaths of four Trump supporters.

A well-oiled fog machine operated by the Department of Justice, congressional Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and the national news media is once again pumping lie after lie into the body politic in a last-gasp attempt to destroy Trump and the powerful political movement he created.

For nearly 18 months, American Greatness has covered this issue like no other outlet. So, as the committee continues its dog-and-pony show on Capitol Hill this month with an eye toward producing a long list of legislative “fixes,” the Justice Department inexorably moves to criminally charge Donald Trump for his alleged involvement, and the media takes another extended nap on its purported fact-checking duties, American Greatness here provides the definitive list of what people need to know about January 6, 2021, and related hype...

Keep reading.

 

GOP Primaries Test Limits of Trump's Influence (VIDEO)

At the New York Times, "G.O.P. primary victories in Nevada set the stage for Trump-centered battles in the fall":

Republican voters in Nevada on Tuesday elevated conservative candidates who have ardently embraced Donald J. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, turning a key swing state into a contest this fall between embattled Democrats and Republicans who insist President Biden stole the 2020 election.

The victories in the Nevada primaries for Mr. Trump capped a series of elections on Tuesday that saw one South Carolina Republican lawmaker who had crossed Mr. Trump go down in defeat, another survive her Trump-backed challenge and a Hispanic Republican grab a South Texas House seat vacated by a Democrat.

Those results gave mixed signals about Mr. Trump’s continuing grip on the party even as the scrutiny of his actions following his 2020 defeat intensifies. At the same time, the elections on Tuesday suggested that Republicans remain on course for strong gains in November’s midterms.

By flipping the Rio Grande Valley seat of former Representative Filemon Vela in Texas, Mayra Flores became the first Republican to represent the majority-Hispanic district in the seat’s 10-year history, and she became the first Republican Latina the state has ever sent to Congress.

In the sheer number of tossup contests, few states will rival Nevada this fall. Republicans see chances to unseat a host of Democrats, including Gov. Steve Sisolak; Lt. Gov. Lisa Cano Burkhead; three Democratic members of the House; and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.

Among the Republicans who won their primaries Tuesday were Adam Laxalt, a Senate candidate and former Nevada attorney general who led Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, and Jim Marchant, a secretary of state candidate who has pressed conspiracy theories about voting machines and hopes to oversee the state’s 2024 election.

Election night on Tuesday started with the defeat in South Carolina of Representative Tom Rice by a Republican primary challenger endorsed by Mr. Trump, even as another South Carolina Republican, Representative Nancy Mace, survived.

Both Mr. Rice and Ms. Mace had crossed the former president as he struggled to maintain power after the Jan. 6 attack, which is now under the spotlight of congressional hearings. Mr. Rice, a staunch conservative in a conservative coastal district, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the riot. Ms. Mace, in her first speech as a newly elected freshman, said Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the deadly mayhem, though she did not vote to impeach him.

In turn, Mr. Trump backed Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker, to take on Ms. Mace and State Representative Russell Fry to challenge Mr. Rice. Mr. Trump, who turned 76 on Tuesday, called on South Carolina voters to deliver him “a beautiful, beautiful birthday present” — twin defeats of both Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice.

The South Carolina contests had their own dynamics — Mr. Rice was defiant and contemptuous of Mr. Trump to the end, while Ms. Mace tried hard to regain the good graces of Trump administration officials if not Mr. Trump himself. The outcomes of both races could hold deep meaning to the party as it considers whether to renominate the former president for another White House run.

“This took a little bit of time, but we are finally here,” Ms. Mace told those gathered for a victory party in Charleston, as she thanked Ms. Arrington for “stepping into the arena.” She added, “this is going to make our campaign even stronger in November.”

The elections on Tuesday represented something of a midpoint in a Republican primary season that has delivered decidedly mixed signals to party leadership. Mr. Trump has claimed some significant wins, propelling his chosen Senate candidates to primary victories, such as J.D. Vance in Ohio and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. However, his endorsed candidates have lost primary showdowns for governor in Georgia and Nebraska as well as a key secretary of state race in Georgia.

Still to come are contests that rank high on his vengeance list, such as Representative Liz Cheney’s primary in Wyoming on Aug. 16...

 

Steven Saylor, Dominus

At Amazon, Steven Saylor, Dominus: A Novel of the Roman Empire.

Most Americans Oppose Trans Athletes in Women's Sports, Poll Finds

Like, we needed a poll for this? Actually, maybe so. Leftists deny and lie about everything, so it's always good to have hard data to prove they're inveterate liars.

At Free Beacon, "Poll: Americans Say ‘No’ to Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports ":

A new poll from the Washington Post reveals most Americans agree: Transgender athletes in women’s sports should be sidelined.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said transgender female athletes should be banned from professional competition. The same number agreed for college sports, and 55 percent and 49 percent of respondents supported a ban on transgender females in high school and youth sports, respectively. Nearly 70 percent said transgender girls would have a competitive advantage. The poll, which was conducted in concert with the University of Maryland's Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement and the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism, surveyed more than 1,500 people nationwide in May.

Transgender participation in sports was thrust onto the national stage this year when Lia Thomas, formerly William Thomas, won the NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships 500-yard freestyle event in March. Thomas’s swim time smashed national women’s records, and the athlete leaped from ranking 65th among collegiate men to first among collegiate women in the event.

In the past two years, 18 states have passed laws to limit or ban transgender athletes from female interscholastic sports...

 

Kodee-Lee

On Instragram.

Photos Capture Election-Night Tension at White House as Trump Family, Aides Watch Lead Fade Away (VIDEO)

Watch, at ABC News, "They reflect what advisers told the Jan. 6 committee despite Trump's claims":

A series of photos taken on election night 2020 inside the Trump White House captures the tension as Trump's family and his top aides track election returns and see Trump's early lead fade away.

The photos, taken by a White House photographer and published exclusively in the book, "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," are a visual representation of the testimony of senior Trump advisers who told the House Jan. 6 committee that they did not believe Donald Trump should declare victory on election night.

The photos show Trump's family and campaign team camped out in the Map Room of the White House.

The room, located in the basement of the White House residence, is where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tracked the movement of Allied Forces during World War II.

It's called the Map Room because some of the maps used by FDR are framed and on the walls.

For election night, however, Trump's political team transformed the room in to a campaign war room, installing large-screen televisions and placing them over FDR's maps. 

The photos capture the apparently pained expressions on the faces of Trump's inner circle...

They're all at the link.

Governor Ron DeSantis Celebrates Flag Day (VIDEO)

I'm seeing more and more talk about the candidate lineup for the 2024 GOP presidential primaries. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis certainly has demonstrated executive leadership in his state. He's bright, bold, and fearless. There are others who're also very impressive, but we'll have to see how things shake out after November, when the midterms are concluded, which is the traditional time you see aspirants announce their candidacies for the presidency.

Expect the Republicans to field an army hopefuls looking to be No. 47. I can't think of a more auspicious time to be in GOP elective politics.

DeSantis is making all the right moves, or at least, he's making moves, many bound to be popular with the national-populist base of the party. And patriotism --- seen here in the love for our founding documents --- is certainly going to be in demand in 2024.

In any case, Happy Flag Day!

Flag Day provides us an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the American Flag as a symbol of liberty and justice. We appreciate all those who have fought for American principles both at home and abroad. pic.twitter.com/gPeyUIdjA2

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) June 14, 2022

The State Department's Toxic Equity Agenda

At City Journal, "Woke forces are working to turn America’s diplomatic corps into an arm of the Democratic Party":

Though support for the Black Lives Matter movement has plummeted over the last 12 months, many United States embassies and consulates will fly BLM flags again this year to mark Juneteenth. The display of BLM and Progress Pride flags, including at the U.S. Embassy in Vatican City, is just part of the State Department’s woke equity agenda, spearheaded by Ambassador Gina Abercrombie–Winstanley, the department’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer.

Winstanley participated in an Equity Town Hall this past week in order to discuss the State Department’s Equity Action Plan, which reads like something cooked up in the Evergreen State College faculty lounge. The 19-page document promises to “embed equity into U.S. foreign policies,” to “embed intersectional equity principles into diversifying public diplomacy,” and to “increase inclusive, equitable messaging to combat disinformation.”

A year ago, when I condemned the State Department in the Wall Street Journal for flying the BLM flag, BLM’s public support stood at around 50 percent, depending on the poll. Now that support has plummeted to 31 percent, according to a recent poll. A leaked cable in May 2021 revealed that State authorized posts to fly the BLM flag for the remainder of the year. A source told me that a February 2022 cable encouraged posts to fly BLM flags for Black History month and other occasions. The cable indicated that State Department lawyers believe that flying the flag isn’t a violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents federal employees from engaging in political activities at work. I asked a State Department spokesperson to confirm if posts were still authorized to fly BLM flags...

The embassies are overseas, though our country's being destroyed from within.

Keep reading.

 

Twitter Freaks Debate Deplatforming Libs of TikTok, Again, In Leaked Thread; Taylor Lorenz, Who Cries About Her Own Alleged 'Death Threats,' Mocks the Death Threats Libs of TikTok Receives

At AoSHQ, "The Purplehair Nosering Genderfux of Twitter are at it again, reports Libs of TikTok on her blog."

Why Aren't Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Joe Biden Gets Smashed by Resurrected Clip, Karine-Jean Pierre Flails in Response."

It's a link-fest over there, with this hypersonic missile of truth on gas prices:

The Good White Man Roster

From Freddie de Boer, "a database of progressive white men who are thirsty for credit":

You could be forgiven for thinking that we’re witnessing the end of the era of the white man. Headlines saying such are not hard to come by, after all, and media and academia are captivated by the notion that we white men must soon give way to women and people of color and, like, gray ace demisexuals or some such. So funny, then, and so profoundly American, that some of the most successful self-marketers of the 21st century are white men. They are, in fact, Good White Men.

These are the guys who have carefully crafted personas as ALLIES, as the good ones, as the right kind of white guy. These are the dudes whose every engagement on social media functions to let you know how very sorry they are, but always seem to come out on top in doing so. These are the guys who always stand behind women, ready to catch them when they fall, which they will inevitably do because of fucking patriarchy, man, and if people would just read their bell hooks maybe we’d be getting somewhere!, please like share and subscribe. These are the guys who think all complaints about identity politics, political correctness, and cancel culture are just the dying gasp of reactionary old men, which is why they lie awake at night praying to god that they never get canceled. These are the guys who put their pronouns in their bios in hopes that doing so might get them a little pussy. These are the guys who will harangue you about how white dudes do this and white dudes do that, speaking to you from their blameless white dude mouths in their righteous white dude faces. These are the guys who look at the discourse about white supremacy and patriarchy and see market opportunity.

There’s nothing wrong with being a white man who wants to do good. I am one, after all. The trouble is that the Good White Men believe that white men in general have some sort of inherent badness, that at the very least white men bear a special burden of helping to end injustice and to “center” women, people of color, and other minority groups, to step back and let others speak. Good White Males think whiteness and maleness are problems to be solved. The trouble here is twofold. First, simply by nature of being Good White Men, by the very act of endlessly talking about the sinful nature of other white men, the Good White Men exonerate themselves from the very critique they advance. Constantly complaining about the evil done by white men inherently and invariably functions to contrast themselves with other, worse white men. Being the white man who talks about the poor character of most white men cannot help but shine your own character. No matter how reflexively you chant that you realize that you yourself are part of the problem, no matter how insistently you say that you’re included in your own critique, you aren’t. You can’t be. To be the one who makes the critique inevitably elevates you above it.

He who humbleth himself wishes to be exalted...

 Continue on to the (familiarly hilarious) list, here.

The Bear Market Descends

The fear is palpable.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Dow Drops Over 800 Points; S&P 500 Closes in Bear-Market Territory as Stocks Slide":

Investors raise bets on aggressive Federal Reserve interest-rate increases; cryptocurrencies decline.

The stock-market selloff deepened Monday, with the S&P 500 entering a bear market, as investors took another look at Friday’s red-hot inflation data and liked it even less.

Faced with rising chances of aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve, investors broadly unloaded risk. The S&P 500 slumped 3.9% as 495 of its 500 components ended the day lower. The declines left the U.S. stock benchmark down more than 20% from its January record, sending it into a bear market for the first time since 2020.

Meanwhile, a rout in cryptocurrencies highlighted investors’ increasing unwillingness to hang on to their most speculative holdings. The price of bitcoin plunged below $23,000 before paring that loss to trade at 5 p.m. ET down 66% from its November high.

The drop in cryptocurrencies accelerated Monday after interest-rate fears sparked a weekend selloff. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, traded at 5 p.m. at $23,250.72, a drop of 15% from 24 hours earlier. Ethereum was down 16% from 24 hours earlier to about $1,243. Shares of Coinbase Global fell 11%, while Celsius Network said it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps between cryptocurrencies and transfers between accounts, citing “extreme market conditions.”

Even rare bets that have worked in 2022 stumbled Monday. The energy segment, the only one of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors in positive territory this year, fell 5.1%, a steeper decline than that of the broad index. The utilities group, the second-best performer in 2022, also lagged behind the market with a daily drop of 4.6%.

“We’re definitely seeing a risk-off atmosphere, a flight to quality,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management. “In that environment, people need to raise cash.”

The S&P 500 fell 151.23 points, or 3.9%, to 3749.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 876.05 points, or 2.8%, to 30516.74. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 530.80 points, or 4.7%, to 10809.23, off 33% from its November record.

Markets have swung wildly this year as investors scramble to decipher how rapidly the central bank will raise interest rates in an attempt to tame sky-high inflation. Rock-bottom rates and other stimulative policies helped keep the economy—as well as markets—afloat as the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic idled businesses and threw people out of work.

Now, the Fed is trying to tame surging prices by unwinding that easy-money policy. The Fed will begin its latest two-day policy meeting Tuesday, and most investors believe that the central bank will announce Wednesday it is raising its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point...

Still more.

 

'That Doesn't Feel Like $150 Worth of Groceries'

From Samuel Gregg, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "Why inflation is worse than you think."

E. B. Sledge: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

A classic, E. B. Sledge: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa — Frontline Marine Combat in Two of the Bloodiest Island Invasions of World War Two.

Cities Die in Eastern Ukraine (VIDEO)

This ongoing war, keeps going. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "Under relentless Russian bombardment, Severodonetsk and other eastern Ukrainian cities are slowly dying":

LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — How does a city die? To find out, turn to Severodonetsk, at the very edge of the Ukrainian government’s control on the eastern front, and currently the focal point of the fight between its soldiers and the Russians who have invaded.

Viewing Severodonetsk from across the river that separates it from its sister city Lysychansk, one witnesses the spasms in real time: Almost a dozen columns of smoke wreathe the skyline where tons of Russian ordnance smash through a building and start a fire, the flames twinkling in the distance like a votive candle. The soundtrack of the warfare— the bangs of artillery, the guttural whoosh of rockets launched in rapid succession, the snare-drum beat of heavy machine guns — signals fresh destruction to both cities.

“You never get used to it. It’s always terrifying,” said Natalya Sakolka, a 55-year-old mining engineer and administrator in Lysychansk, standing with a few neighbors in the backyard of her apartment building.

She grimaced every time a boom sounded. She grimaced often.

Ever since Moscow turned its sights on the Donbas, which encompasses the war-riven east Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, the city of Severodonetsk, Kyiv’s seat of power in Luhansk, has been a key target. In the months since its late February invasion of Ukraine began, the Russian army has made a torturously slow — but steady— advance in the east, unleashing the full power of its artillery arsenal and pummeling its way to almost full control of Luhansk.

Severodonetsk, together with Lysychansk, represent the last 3% of the province.

In May, a combined force of Russian troops, separatists and Kremlin-allied Chechen fighters blitzed into the city, taking a series of Ukrainian positions in residential neighborhoods. Now, they’re locked in a bare-knuckled street brawl with Ukrainian defenders bunkered no more than 300 yards away even as artillery thunders above them, turning onetime industrial hubs into what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described in a recent speech as “dead cities.”

The signs are obvious: There’s no electricity, let alone internet or phone service. Gas is cut off and, most crucially, so is water. An estimated 85% of the 220,000 residents here have fled, with those remaining largely the poor, the infirm and the elderly, as well as their caretakers.

But you won’t see them on the streets. Only a few residents, along with uniformed personnel, dare go above ground to scrounge supplies from the few shops in Lysychansk still open, or queue for assistance packages and water deliveries trucked into neighborhoods by the police or fire departments.

Driving is a fraught, nerve-racking game: With artillery batteries assisted by drones hunting for prey, the banshee-scream of incoming Russian ordnance reverberates often across the deserted boulevards. The warning sounds come too shortly for one to do anything but hurtle to the ground, hoping to be far enough and hidden enough to avoid shrapnel.

It’s a game in which the Ukrainians are almost hopelessly outmatched, they say.

“This is not a war of soldiers. It’s a war of artillery. The difference in approach between us and them is that they don’t have to count their ammo while we have to save it,” said Luhansk Police Chief Oleh Hryhorov, a laconic man who has remained — along with his officers — on the job to maintain order in the decreasing patch of territory under government control.

“To compare,” he said, “they’re using one ton; we’re using a kilogram. So they’re just burning everything.”

Facing such a barrage, whether in the Donbas or on other fronts, has been costly. This month, Zelensky said 100 of his soldiers were dying in combat every day; other officials say the figure is now double. The constant stream of armored ambulances racing from the front lines to the Lysychansk military hospital hints at the toll.

Those losses have spurred Ukrainian officials to plead with Western nations for more ammunition and better weapons, especially long-range multiple- launch rocket systems, or MLRS.

“We have Russian logistical hubs nearby that we can’t reach. Why? Because we don’t have enough weapons,” said Mariana Bezuhla, the deputy head of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on national security. She spoke in a government building in Lysychansk, where she was helping coordinate evacuations from there as well as Severodonetsk.

“We wouldn’t be in this situation if we had the MLRS months ago,” she said. “And for what? Why the delay? Or course there’s a concern about such tempo.”

On Saturday, a series of shells arced into a neighborhood nestled on a hill in Lysychansk that faces Severodonetsk. One of them slammed into 44-year-old Nikolai’s house. None of his family — his wife, Victoria, and three children, Arseniy, Vladislav and Yelizavyeta (they gave only their first names for reasons of privacy) — were hurt, but a fire blazed and spread rapidly across the roof. With a neighbor, Nikolai tried to douse the flames with whatever water they had been able to collect in recent days.

It wasn’t enough: Soon a hole opened up in the ceiling, dumping a shower of ash and red-hot embers into a corridor while Nikolai ran in and tried to gather up some of his family’s belongings. Watching the fire engulf one of the rooms, Victoria began to cry, screaming through tears of rage, “My home, my home is gone!”

By the time a lone firetruck showed up — it was the only one still undamaged, department officials said, adding that they deal with 10 to 15 fires a day, all caused by shelling — there didn’t seem much left to save. Nikolai watched with a sad smile as a weak stream of water came from the hose; it barely reached the blaze.

“It’s like they’re watering a garden,” he said of the firefighters, before turning away and taking another drag of his cigarette...

 Keep reading.

Emma

She's a graduate of the University of Southern California, with washboard abs. 

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Brings Back Mexico's Nationalization of the Economy

This never ends well for Mexico, and especially not for U.S. taxpayers, who always get stuck with the bill when the U.S. government rushes in to bail out our southern neighbor every time its economy crashes. 

At the Wall Sweet Journal, "Mexico Takes Aim at Private Companies, Threatening Decades of Economic Growth":

Populist president seeks to reclaim state control over oil-and-gas, electricity sectors; ‘It’s a closing off of Mexico’.

MONTERREY, Mexico—For the past 20 years, a 1,100-megawatt power plant owned by Spain’s Iberdrola SA outside Mexico’s industrial capital has kept the lights on for scores of companies such as brewing giant Heineken NV, despite winter freezes, a hurricane and the occasional brush fire.

But since January, half the gas-fired plant has been forcibly shut down by Mexico’s government, which argues that private energy companies have plundered Mexico like Spanish conquistadors of old. The electricity shutdown forced dozens of firms in Monterrey to return to the inefficient and more costly state-run utility for their power.

In September, a fuel-import terminal owned by global investment firm KKR & Co. was closed at gunpoint by Mexico’s energy regulator, months after it closed two other such terminals owned by U.S. companies. Last year, the government took over operating control of the biggest oil find in recent Mexican history, stripping it from a U.S. company that made the discovery. It is also trying to revoke the operating license of Latin America’s largest wind farm, majority owned by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp., an example of how the government’s policies are hobbling Mexico’s transition to renewable energy.

Going after private companies might seem like something from the playbook of Socialist Venezuela rather than Mexico, which in recent decades has transformed itself into one of the world’s most globalized nations, signing free-trade deals with more than 40 countries and using manufacturing exports to become the U.S.’s second largest trading partner. Along the way, it lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty.

But Mexico’s populist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in 2018, is shifting the country to a 1970s industrial policy focused on the domestic market, natural resources such as oil and greater state intervention, from backing state-run energy giants to using the army for major public-works projects.

“It’s a closing off of Mexico,” says Gabriela Siller, an economist at Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey.

The change is especially stark in Mexico’s crucial energy sector, where the government has launched a broad effort to stop new private investment and restore the dominant position of former government monopolies in both oil and gas and electricity—effectively reversing a 2013 constitutional overhaul that opened both markets to private firms.

The moves will cost Mexico billions of dollars in forgone investment; raise domestic energy prices; limit the growth of oil and electricity output; and damage the competitiveness of Mexican companies and hundreds of multinationals that operate here, according to the U.S. government, private companies and economists. It also risks prompting more migration by job-seeking Mexicans to the U.S.

The president says, without offering evidence, that past governments were paid off by multinationals to allow them to enter the market and destroy the state oil giant Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and the state-run utility, Federal Electricity Commission, or CFE, leaving Mexico’s energy security at risk and consumers at the mercy of profiteers. He also argues that Mexico’s turn to an open economy left too many poor people behind.

“They had a plan to close all the CFE plants and leave everything to the private sector, to such a degree that half our country’s electricity is now made by private companies,” the president said at a news conference.

The CFE has a monopoly on residential power, which it subsidizes heavily. But it lost hundreds of industrial clients over the past decade as firms opted for cheaper electricity provided by private firms. The CFE usually doesn’t subsidize electricity for large corporate clients, and its prices can be up to 30% to 50% higher than those of private power producers. Some privately produced renewable energy is a third of the price of the CFE’s power, according to Mexico’s renewable energy association.

In many ways, the decommissioned electricity plant outside Monterrey is a metaphor for Mexico’s stalled economy and a glimpse of the country’s potential economic future.

From 2019 through 2021, the first full three years of Mr. López Obrador’s presidency, Mexico’s economy shrank an average of 1.14% a year, according to government data. While the U.S. regained its prepandemic level of economic output by mid-2020, Mexico is among the few countries in the hemisphere, along with the leftist dictatorship of Venezuela, that hasn’t yet recovered, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

The Mexican economy is now lagging that of the U.S. and Canada in a sustained way for the first time since shortly after the mid-1990s, when all three countries banded together in a free-trade deal then called the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

Next year, Indonesia is set to overtake Mexico as the world’s 15th-biggest economy, according to IMF estimates.

At the same time, migration from Mexico has accelerated to the U.S. for the first time since the early 2000s. In fiscal year 2021, U.S. apprehensions of Mexican migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border more than doubled over the previous year to almost 655,600. That figure is set to rise in 2022, U.S. government data show.

Mexico’s average electricity prices for companies are already about 40% higher than the U.S., according to Mexican business chamber Concamin, putting the country at a disadvantage for manufacturing. But economists say Mr. López Obrador’s policies will make matters far worse.

Since Mr. López Obrador took power, the government has halted new auctions for oil-and-gas exploration by private firms, new mining concessions and new investments for private electricity generation, including solar and wind farms that can produce electricity at roughly a third the CFE’s average cost, according to figures from Mexico’s energy regulator.

Last year, the government passed a law forcing the national electric grid to give priority to electricity produced by the CFE, even though its power is more costly and polluting than that of private firms. The laws retroactively affected an estimated $22 billion in investment by firms such as Iberdrola. Energy regulators have also tied up oil-and-gas firms from Shell to BP to prevent them from opening up new filling stations to compete with state oil giant Pemex, the companies said.

The law forcing the grid to use the CFE’s electricity first could raise Mexico’s electricity costs by up to 52%, or some $5.5 billion a year, and boost CO2 emissions by up to 73 million tons a year, a 65% jump from current emissions, according to a recent study by the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That would prevent Mexico from meeting its carbon reduction goals under the Paris Climate Agreements, say environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. Mexico’s Environment Ministry declined to comment.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president from 2006 to 2012, tweeted last October, “What Mexicans need is more clean energy…and not more polluting and expensive energy from the CFE. The government’s changes seek to stop renewable energy from private firms and force us all to pay for old fossil-fuel energy.”

Thanks to more than 200 lawsuits against the new dispatch rules, a judge last year ordered the government to temporarily block their implementation. The government is appealing the order and has vowed to start implementing the changes despite it. Mexico has halted auctions for new renewable-energy investments. Three such auctions between 2015 and 2017 were so successful they doubled the country’s renewable energy capacity to 15 gigawatts, according to the wind industry association. During the 2017 auction, Mexico set a then-world record low price for wind power per megawatt hour and close to a record in solar, making both forms of energy produced here far cheaper than electricity made by fossil fuels and among the cheapest sources of energy in the world.

With no more private investment in wind or solar farms, the country’s renewable energy capacity will stall. Mexico’s state utility is currently building five natural-gas fired power plants and doesn’t plan on opening its first solar farm until 2027. It has no plans for wind farms.

“If Mexico can’t create a legal framework to promote renewable energy, then General Motors isn’t going to get rid of its zero carbon plans. Unfortunately, we just won’t consider Mexico as an investment choice,” Francisco Garza, the president of GM in Mexico, recently told a meeting of financial executives.

Foreign direct investment during Mr. López Obrador’s first three years averaged $31.4 billion a year versus $35.7 billion a year during his predecessor’s six-year term, according to central bank figures. Meanwhile, for the first time since NAFTA came into effect, Mexico saw a net outflow of investment in publicly traded stocks and bonds for two consecutive years.

The government’s policies are causing the country to miss out on a historic chance to attract more U.S. companies that are trying to diversify their supply chains away from China and face growing labor shortages at home, economists say.

“The Mexican government needs to do some soul searching about why investment has been so weak,” said Alberto Ramos, chief economist for Latin America at Goldman Sachs. “It’s not just the pandemic. I think it’s the overall business environment, and it’s a pity because there are great opportunities Mexico could be taken advantage of.”

KKR said it planned to sue the Mexican government for $667 million in damages linked to the takeover of its fuel terminal. Houston-based Talos Energy said it would pursue international arbitration over the government’s decision to seize operating control of its Zama field, which shares oil with a neighboring field under Pemex’s control.

Mexico’s government said it is in talks with Talos, KKR and other U.S. firms to resolve the issues.

The three closed fuel terminals all supply gasoline to private oil companies that are competing with state oil firm Pemex to sell gasoline, part of the 2013 overhaul in Mexico that ended Pemex’s monopoly...

Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps

At Amazon, Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps: 10th Anniversary Edition with a New Afterword by the Author.

Jeremy S. Adams, Hollowed Out

At Amazon, Jeremy S. Adams, Hollowed Out: A Warning about America's Next Generation.

Poll Shows Americans Have Dim View of the Economy, Government, and Global Elites

I still see articles saying the Democrats have a chance in November, blah, blah. If you see stuff like that, fugetaboutit.

The left will be crushed in the midterms. We're in a national malaise, certainly worse than the 1970s, when President Jimmy Carter --- during the oil shocks from the Middle East --- told Americans to turn the thermostat down in winter.

People will not stand for this much longer.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Inflation, Political Division Put U.S. in a Pessimistic Mood, Poll Finds":

Americans are deeply pessimistic about the U.S. economy and view the nation as sharply divided over its most important values, according to a new Wall Street Journal-NORC Poll.

The findings are from a Journal survey conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization that measures social attitudes. The survey found Americans in a sour mood and registering some of the highest levels of economic dissatisfaction in years. The pessimism extended beyond the current economy to include doubts about the nation’s political system, its role as a global leader and its ability to help most people achieve the American dream.

Some 83% of respondents described the state of the economy as poor or not so good. More than one-third, or 35%, said they aren’t satisfied at all with their financial situation. That was the highest level of dissatisfaction since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1972 as part of the General Social Survey, though the poll’s 4-point margin of error means that new figures may not differ significantly from prior high and low points.

Just over one quarter of respondents, 27%, said they have a good chance of improving their standard of living—a 20-point drop from last year—while just under half of respondents, 46%, said they don’t.

The share of respondents who said their financial situation had gotten worse in the past few years was 38%. That marked the only time other than in the aftermath of the 2007-09 recession that more than three in 10 respondents said their pocketbooks were worse off, according to GSS data going back a half-century.

The survey results show that high inflation in particular is driving the dim economic outlook, said Jennifer Benz, vice president of public affairs and media research at NORC. Inflation is running at close to its fastest pace in four decades, at an 8.3% annual rate in April, one of several factors weighing on consumers. Households are digging into savings to support their spending, the Commerce Department has said, and the S&P 500 nearly closed in bear territory recently.

The labor market has been an economic bright spot, with the unemployment rate close to a half-century low, at 3.6% in May. In the survey, about two-thirds of respondents said it would be somewhat or very easy to find a new job with about the same income and benefits. That was one of the highest levels on record since GSS began asking the question in 1977.

Still, the results suggest that Democrats, who control the White House and Congress, face a dispirited electorate heading into November’s elections. Other pollsters say economic issues are the top concern for voters, and they are likely to hold the party in power accountable for high inflation that has made housing, groceries, gas and other essentials more expensive.

More broadly, the survey reveals a despondent view of national unity and partisan splits over cultural issues, suggesting that a connective tissue of pessimism underlies Americans’ economic and social attitudes. Some 86% of respondents said Americans are greatly divided when it comes to the most important values, and over half said they expect those divisions to worsen five years from now, up from just a third of respondents who were asked the question last year.

“In the prior years that we’ve asked this question, there’s at least been some hope, a little bit more hope, that things might get better,” Ms. Benz said. “That’s a key difference underlying all of this right now.”

About six in 10 respondents said they were pessimistic about the ability for most people to achieve the American dream...

 

Lindsey Pelas on the Runway

She's stunning. 

Absolutely amazing.

On Twitter.

Chesa Boudin, San Francisco District Attorney, Doomed by Rising Crime and Angry Voters

Tomorrow's California's primaries election, as well as the recall for red-diaper baby Chesa Boudin.

I haven't seen any polls or anything. I just know voters are mad about crime, and in San Francisco, not just crime, but the open-air drug markets. Big quality of life issues, even though some say the murder rate is down. 

Okay. Whatever.

Anyways, next to inflation, law and order's the big thing. It's going to be blockbuster.

At WSJ, "Progressive Prosecutor Movement Tested by Rising Crime and Angry Voters":

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and other prosecutors advancing progressive measures around the U.S. face electoral challenges.

SAN FRANCISCO—District Attorney Chesa Boudin declared his 2019 election victory a call by voters for radical change. He promised to do more than lock up criminals and embarked on a progressive agenda to reduce incarceration rates and scrutinize police misconduct.

On Tuesday, Mr. Boudin faces voters again, in a recall election backed by business owners unhappy with his performance. Polls indicate his ouster is supported by the majority of residents in a famously liberal city that has seen, along with the rest of the nation, a spike in murder and other crimes.

“Crime makes everyone more moderate,” said Albert Chow. He owns a hardware store in a once-placid San Francisco neighborhood hard-hit by home and business burglaries.

A successful recall of Mr. Boudin would mark a significant setback in what has been called the progressive prosecutor movement. Progressive prosecutors include the district attorneys of Los Angeles County; New York County, which encompasses Manhattan; Chicago’s Cook County; and Philadelphia—all places where homicides went up during the pandemic and lockdowns. Homicides in the U.S. jumped nearly 30% in 2020 from 2019, the largest single-year increase ever recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Progressive prosecutors have pursued such goals as sending nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail, sparing juveniles from being prosecuted as adults and spending resources looking at old cases to free wrongfully convicted people from prison.

Worry about crime among Americans is at its highest since 2016, according to a national Gallup Poll in April. Many criminologists say there is little evidence that prosecutors’ policies are to blame for increased crime, but voter concerns are resonating in local politics during this midterm year, including a backlash against the “defund the police” movement.

In just the past three weeks, candidates for district attorney with tough-on-crime messages in smaller counties have defeated progressive rivals in at least five elections in North Carolina, Oregon and Arkansas.

In Pennsylvania, legislation that would effectively bar a third term for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has declined to file charges against people arrested for drug possession, cleared the Republican-led state House of Representatives in April with votes from several Democrats.

Groups allied with police unions and largely funded by business leaders have gathered tens of thousands of signatures in Los Angeles, Northern Virginia and Colorado to unseat prosecutors changing longstanding practices.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is one recall target. Mr. Gascón, who previously served as San Francisco D.A., will face a recall election if opponents collect the required 566,857 signatures by July 6. The recall campaign reports it is close.

“Crime is going up around the country, which really speaks to the root causes of crime that have nothing to do with reform,” said Mr. Gascón, a former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief.

In San Francisco, crime overall has fallen since Mr. Boudin took office in January 2020, but burglaries have gone up 45% in the past two years and homicides rose by 37% over the same period. The city’s homicide rate in 2021 climbed to 6.4 per 100,000 residents from 5.4 a year earlier; the national homicide rate in 2020, the most recent available, was 6.5 per 100,000.

Mr. Boudin, a former public defender, said opponents of change are exploiting crime fears without cause. “Every single criminal-justice reform policy we’ve implemented is aimed at making our community safer,” he said.

Prosecutors on all sides see the San Francisco recall election as a gauge of voter support for revamping the justice system.

Steve Wagstaffe, a more traditional district attorney in San Mateo County, south of San Francisco, said Mr. Boudin’s defeat would be “a sign that even in California, it can be taken too far.”

Turning point

Longstanding calls for an overhaul of the criminal-justice system—including by those who see it as stacked against minorities and the poor—intensified after the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Mr. Boudin was one of the first prosecutors to respond. He ordered his crime-victims division to aid people harmed by police and filed San Francisco’s first homicide charges against an officer for an on-duty shooting. He also abolished cash bail, seeking what he saw as more evenhanded treatment of suspects who can’t afford to post bail while awaiting trial.

Mr. Boudin, who grew up visiting his parents in prison, has said his childhood set him on a path to become a lawyer and a public defender. Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert had been members of the Weather Underground, a violent far-left group, and were arrested 14 months after Mr. Boudin was born. They served lengthy sentences for their roles in the 1981 robbery of Brink’s armored vehicle and the murders of a security guard and two police officers.

A turning point in Mr. Boudin’s term as district attorney came a year after he took office. On New Year’s Eve 2020, a man driving a stolen car hit and killed two women in downtown San Francisco. The alleged driver, Troy McAlister, has pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter and other felony charges.

Mr. McAlister was a parolee with a long rap sheet who had been arrested five times in the previous six months for various crimes including burglary. In each case, Mr. Boudin’s office had declined to file charges that could have sent him back to prison because, prosecutors said, evidence in the five arrests was weak. The case became a high-profile local news story.

Mr. Boudin said his office had referred Mr. McAlister to a parole agent who had the power to revoke his parole. He later instituted a policy allowing his office to seek parole revocations directly with the court.

“Mr. McAlister deserves a fair trial, but the slanted media coverage makes it almost impossible now,” said Scott Grant, the deputy public defender representing him.

In April last year, the former chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party launched a recall campaign casting Mr. Boudin as soft on crime, a theme that resonated with residents fed up with petty theft, drug use and homelessness.

City data show that Mr. Boudin’s office filed criminal charges at a rate similar to his predecessor’s, but the conviction rate fell to 39% in 2021 from 60% in 2019. His office attributed that to an increase in the proportion of defendants diverted to rehabilitation programs, which went to 39% from 18% over that period.

Brooke Jenkins, a homicide prosecutor who worked under both Mr. Gascón and Mr. Boudin, left the district attorney’s office and joined the recall campaign. She had been handling the trial of a 29-year-old man accused of murdering his mother before setting her corpse on fire. Ms. Jenkins won a conviction, but the jury couldn’t decide whether the man was legally sane.

Mr. Boudin intervened, accepting an insanity plea proposed by the man’s public defender. Ms. Jenkins objected and quit. She said Mr. Boudin kept his view as a public defender from his past job, to the detriment of crime victims.

Explaining his decision in the case, Mr. Boudin said most of the victim’s family wanted the man locked away in a mental hospital, and that three of four experts in the case determined he wasn’t sane enough to be found guilty...

Obscene.

 

Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus

The 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Fiction, from Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.

The Chesa Boudin Recall Election in San Franciso (VIDEO)

A good overview of the recall election at the Los Angeles Times, and I love the lamentations of the article.

See, "San Francisco’s bitter D.A. recall could set back national justice reform movement."

If Boudin's recall --- which is apparently a near sure-thing --- sets back the "national justice reform movement," then that'll be one of the most significant electoral victories of 2022. 

And Nancy Rommelman, who, according to Reason Magazine, is "a journalist and author based in New York City," has a new on-the-ground report on Substack, here: "Time's Arrow: The Chesa Boudin Recall." 

RTWT. 

Especially good is her email exchange with San Francisco Police Department Patrol Sergeant Adam Plantinga, who in reply listed the reasons he supports Boudin's ouster:

Let me front-load that I'm not a political animal and I'm not an SF voter, so what I say doesn't matter as much as folks who live in the city or who are more plugged in to such matters. But as a San Francisco cop, I am, of course, invested in the outcome.

1. He implemented a policy prohibiting his office (with very few exceptions) from charging cases where the police find contraband during pretextual stops. His reasoning for this was to reduce racial disparities. I believe, as do most working cops, that pretextual stops, when done right (you don't have to treat everyone like John Dillinger), are essential to smart proactive policing and get a lot of bad actors off the street. Criminals don't tend to turn themselves in to you. You have to go find them. And pretextual stops are one of the very best ways to do that. I believe his policy is harmful to public safety.

2. He campaigned on not charging quality-of-life crimes and as far as I know, has been true to his word. I'm not for nickel-and-diming every hobo, for Illegal Lodging, who sets up camp on a public sidewalk, but if there are no teeth to the law, it eliminates an important tool from the cop's tool belt. Wondering if Boudin would feel differently if a transient set up camp in front of Boudin's garage, blocking him from driving to work every day. Maybe he'd just shrug and take the bus. At least then, he'd have the courage of his convictions.

3. His refusal to charge gang enhancements and three strikes. It's no secret that street gangs are behind much of the violent crime in the city and repeat violent felons have proven, time and time again, that they should not be among people. They should be spending their criminally productive years in jail. So let's put them there. An old-fashioned view, to be sure, but I work one of the most violent sections of the city and you see enough blood and brains on the sidewalk, it can get a fella to thinking this way.

4. He has made some highly questionable decisions in charging officers on Use of Force cases (to be fair, he's made some other decisions in charging cops that I don't find unreasonable). On a related note, I am an officer who has over two decades of experience, doesn't rattle much under pressure, and tends to make good decisions in the field, but I have little hope that I would receive a fair shake from Chesa Boudin's office if I were to be involved in a serious Use of Force that resulted in serious injury or death to a suspect. Maybe that's not fair--maybe my case would have a just outcome. But that's how I feel and that's a pretty shitty feeling to be walking around with at work with a gun on your hip and continually having to enter volatile situations to take on people with weapons. I'm not alone in feeling that way.

5. He is a former Public Defender and still clearly has a Public Defender mentality (examples of this abound, including a recent interview where he talked about how a high percentage of drug dealers in SF are being trafficked from Honduras). This makes him the classic fox in the henhouse. What if we flipped things around? I don't imagine the Public Defender's office would be overjoyed in having a former DA head up their office who still had a tough-on-crime DA's attitude. It's a lousy fit in our adversarial criminal justice system.

6. I don't claim to have the insider's view on the DA's office. I know they are understaffed and overworked and plea bargains are essential to making the system go. Cops will probably always feel like the DA's office isn't doing enough and tends to be soft on crime. Many of us felt that way about the last few DAs. But ADAs under Boudin have been leaving in droves, which I find telling, and folks who do have an insider's view, Assistant District Attorneys that I've worked on cases with and respect, including Brooke Jenkins*, Thomas Ostly*, and Shirin Oloumi, have strongly spoken out against Boudin. Their words carry a lot of weight with me.

7. I have yet to meet another police officer who thinks Boudin is the right person for DA. Maybe we're all wrong and Boudin alone is right, the lone prophet in the wilderness, whose genius will not be known in our time. But maybe not.

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping

Any person with a brain knows this. Electric vehicles are for driving around town, not built for the road: 😎

At WSJ, "Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn’t soon do it again":

I thought it would be fun.

That’s what I told my friend Mack when I asked her to drive with me from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric car.

I’d made long road trips before, surviving popped tires, blown headlights and shredded wheel-well liners in my 2008 Volkswagen Jetta. I figured driving the brand-new Kia EV6 I’d rented would be a piece of cake.

If, that is, the public-charging infrastructure cooperated. We wouldn’t be the first to test it. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866—over 4% of the total market, according to database EV-volumes. More than half of car buyers say they want their next car to be an EV, according to recent Ernst & Young Global Ltd. data.

Oh—and we aimed to make the 2,000-mile trip in just under four days so Mack could make her Thursday-afternoon shift as a restaurant server.

Less money, more time

Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each. We’d need to charge once or twice each day and plug in near our hotel overnight.

The PlugShare app—a user-generated map of public chargers—showed thousands of charging options between New Orleans and Chicago. But most were classified as Level 2, requiring around 8 hours for a full charge.

While we’d be fine overnight, we required fast chargers during the days. ChargePoint Holdings Inc., which manufactures and maintains many fast-charging stations, promises an 80% charge in 20 to 30 minutes. Longer than stopping for gas—but good for a bite or bathroom break.

The government is spending $5 billion to build a nationwide network of fast chargers, which means thousands more should soon dot major highways. For now, though, fast chargers tend to be located in parking lots of suburban shopping malls, or tethered to gas stations or car dealerships.

Cost varies widely based on factors such as local electricity prices and charger brands. Charging at home tends to be cheaper than using a public charger, though some businesses offer free juice as a perk to existing customers or to entice drivers to come inside while they wait.

Over four days, we spent $175 on charging. We estimated the equivalent cost for gas in a Kia Forte would have been $275, based on the AAA average national gas price for May 19. That $100 savings cost us many hours in waiting time.

But that’s not the whole story.

Charging nuances

New Orleans, our starting point, has exactly zero fast chargers, according to PlugShare. As we set out, one of the closest is at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Slidell, La., about 40 minutes away. So we use our Monday-morning breakfast stop to top off there on the way out of town.

But when we tick down 15% over 35 miles? Disconcerting. And the estimated charging time after plugging in? Even more so. This “quick charge” should take 5 minutes, based on our calculations. So why does the dashboard tell us it will take an hour?

“Maybe it’s just warming up,” I say to Mack. “Maybe it’s broken?” she says.

Over Egg McMuffins at McDonald’s, we check Google. Chargers slow down when the battery is 80% full, the State of Charge YouTube channel tells us.

Worried about time, we decide to unplug once we return to the car, despite gaining a measly 13% in 40 minutes.

When ‘fast’ isn’t fast Our real troubles begin when we can’t find the wall-mounted charger at the Kia dealership in Meridian, Miss., the state’s seventh-largest city and hometown of country-music legend Jimmie Rodgers.

When I ask a mechanic working on an SUV a few feet away for help, he says he doesn’t know anything about the machine and points us inside. At the front desk, the receptionist asks if we’ve checked with a technician and sends us back outside.

Not many people use the charger, the mechanic tells us when we return. We soon see why. Once up and running, our dashboard tells us a full charge, from 18% to 100%, will take 3-plus hours.

It turns out not all “fast chargers” live up to the name. The biggest variable, according to State of Charge, is how many kilowatts a unit can churn out in an hour. To be considered “fast,” a charger must be capable of about 24 kW. The fastest chargers can pump out up to 350. Our charger in Meridian claims to meet that standard, but it has trouble cracking 20.

“Even among DC fast chargers, there are different level chargers with different charging speeds,” a ChargePoint spokeswoman says.

Worse, it is a 30-minute walk to downtown restaurants. We set off on foot, passing warehouses with shattered windows and an overgrown lot filled with rusted fuel pumps and gas-station signs. Clambering over a flatcar of a stalled freight train, we half-wish we could hop a boxcar to Chicago.

Missed reservations

By the time we reach our next station, at a Mercedes-Benz dealership outside Birmingham, Ala., we’ve already missed our dinner reservations in Nashville—still 200 miles away.

Here, at least, the estimated charging time is only an hour—and we get to make use of two automatic massage chairs while we wait.

Salesman Kurt Long tells us the dealership upgraded its chargers to 54-kW models a few weeks earlier when the 2022 Mercedes EQS-Class arrived.

“Everyone’s concern is how far can the cars go on a charge,” he says. He adds that he would trade in his car for an EV tomorrow if he could afford the $102,000 price tag. “Just because it would be convenient for me because I work here,” he says. “Otherwise, I don’t know if I would just yet.”

A customer who has just bought a new BMW says he’d consider an EV one day—if the price drops.

“You remember when the microwave came out? Or DVD players?” says Dennis Boatwright, a 58-year-old tree surgeon. “When you first get them the prices were real high, but the older they are, the cheaper they get.”

When we tell him about our trip, he asks if we’ll make it to Chicago.

“We’re hoping,” I say.

“I’m hoping, too,” he says.

 

Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Color-Blind Equality

At Amazon, Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Color-Blind Equality in an Age of Identity Politics.

The Moral Idiocy of Gun Control

It's Sultan Knish, at FrontPage Magazine, "Is it more moral to own a gun or to pay someone else to do it for you?":

I was chatting with a horrified Swedish visitor who described a visit to Nevada.

“There was this grandmother, an elderly lady, and she took out a gun from her purse,” he told me, shaking his head.

We were having this conversation in a city which had racked up 77 shootings in just one month.

Few New Yorkers legally own guns. The NYPD has issued around 40,000 handgun permits in a city of over 8 million. That’s around one handgun for every two-hundred New Yorkers.

Don’t assume that the parts of the city with the most guns are the most dangerous.

The vast majority of handgun permits are in Staten Island, which has the lowest crime rate in the city, as opposed to the Bronx, with the highest. Manhattan has few legal guns relative to its population while the white working class areas of Brooklyn have some of the most legal guns.

The Daily News, which interviewed a criminologist as part of its anti-gun crusade, found that he was "puzzled". “Some people see a mugging in the Bronx, and they want to get a gun on Staten Island,” he argued. “That’s not rational, but some people really want guns.”

Perhaps one of the reasons that there are fewer muggings in Staten Island is that more of the folks there can prevent them. Muggers, like most predators, prefer victims who don’t fight back.

Big city progressives find guns indefinably ‘icky’. It’s not only foreigners who marvel at a country where guns, even ‘big scary black ones’, are available everywhere. The propaganda of Michael Moore’s “Bowling in Columbine” and countless network news shows is that people who live surrounded by guns have created the conditions for mass shootings. And they have it coming.

But New Yorkers, like most big city dwellers, live surrounded by guns. These aren’t the guns that ride on trucks or sit in sporting goods store displays. They’re the guns flashed by a mugger under his heavy down winter coat, or shot by rival gang members exchanging fire in the 73rd precinct in Brooklyn which accounted for around 100 shootings in just one year alone.

And there are the guns worn more openly by the army of police officers, security guards, bodyguards, and others, many of whom live on Staten Island, who are hired to keep New Yorkers safe. Two years ago, Bond, an app that some have called 'Uber for Bodyguards' debuted, allowing New Yorkers to order their own security personnel. New Yorkers, who disdain guns, instead tap an app for bodyguards to escort them from their train stop to their office.

Most urbanites hate living in this kind of world, but they hate the alternative even more.

Gun control isn’t policy, it’s culture. And while the media often goes on about “gun culture”, there’s little thought given to “gun control culture” for the same reason that fish rarely film documentaries on what it’s like to have gills and swim underwater.

Gun control culture means paying men with guns between $50,000 to $85,000 a year in the hopes that they’ll show up in under 10 minutes and do something useful when you call 911.

That strategy didn’t work very well in Uvalde. It doesn’t work all that well most of the time.

Before Uvalde, in the recent Buffalo mass shooting, a 911 operator hung up on a store employee calling for help. The cops arrived in 5 minutes: in time to talk the shooter out of killing himself in front of the store so that taxpayers can pay for his trial and a 50-year prison term.

And that’s what a fantastic response time looks like. But by then, 10 people were dead.

Gun control culture pathologically hates guns, but also hates the men it hires to wield them. Urban lefties threw an anti-police tantrum that was so successful that their cities are frantically trying to hire more police officers to keep up with the resulting crime wave on their streets.

Police defunding is deader than the thousands of additional murder victims in the Year of BLM.

Gun control is a fantasy that somehow making guns as illegal in the rest of the country as they are in New York will put a stop to all the violence so that urban and suburban elites won’t have to choose between being victims or paying the armed men they disapprove of to protect them.

Eliminating guns isn’t actually on the table.

This is a choice between an empowered public of gun owners and an endless running battle between cops and thugs in a society where only criminals and governments have guns.

A nationwide New York or Chicago.

Most Americans don’t want to live in this kind of world. Neither does anyone else. That’s why the wealthy hipsters who poured into New York City after Giuliani cleaned it up are leaving. Those who can afford it, go to the suburbs or to wealthy enclaves in other parts of the city. While crime hasn’t entirely depopulated the city, it has put a stop to gentrification. A slow motion white flight is happening all over again even though its participants are too ashamed to admit it.

The sharp division between gun culture and gun control culture is the border of an affected distancing from life’s realities. Gun controllers aren’t necessarily physical cowards, but they are moral cowards.

The same sorts of people who think guns are ‘icky’ also don’t want to know where their meat comes from or to see the soldiers who come back from the wars. These are things that they pay other people to do because it preserves their illusions about the world and about themselves.

America is becoming a nation split between those hard workers who take responsibility for dealing with life’s realities and the managerial elites who only issue meaningless orders.

Faced with shootings, managerial elites apply rule-based abstractions to messy realities that they are incapable of grappling with. The Left is always good for easy solutions that take away agency from individuals and invest it in a central authority in order to solve the unsolvable problems of human nature. And the managerial elites are always suckers for the myth that getting everyone to follow the rules in line with some grand theory will solve everything.

The people who, as the champion of managerial elites, once claimed, “cling bitterly” to their guns, understand that life is messy and that there’s no grand fix, only a series of choices.

Gun ownership is an act of personal responsibility. By buying and owning a firearm, a man is saying that he also intends to take ownership of his personal safety and his choices. That doesn’t always end happily, but there’s far more moral self-awareness in that choice than there is in urban elites who hate guns paying the gun owners they despise to keep them safe.

The one thing we absolutely own in this world are our choices.

Gun control isn’t about stopping gun violence, but disavowing moral responsibility for preventing it, passing the buck to the cops, to society, and to some force outside our control. Gun control rallies are the virtue signaling of moral cowards seeking to blame someone else for horrors that they cannot cope with and that they do not intend to take any personal action to prevent.

Disarmament, national or personal, is not a moral stance, but the abandonment of morality.

Gun controllers have had a field day with the inaction of the Uvalde cops, but it never occurs to them that’s who they are, standing around, wringing their hands and waiting for someone to tell them what the plan is, so they don’t have to make any difficult choices in the face of a crisis.

Gun control is the moral idiocy of the irresponsible blaming those who have taken responsibility.

 

Anthony Fauci Won't Serve in Government Past 2024

See, at Pajamas, "Best. News. Ever. About Dr. Fauci." 

Russia’s War on Ukraine at 100 Days Has No End in Sight, Threatening Global Costs

Putin sure has some staying power, because this cluster must be causing some inside assessments of his leadership and power. Somebody's gotta cross the Rubicon, breach the Kremlin, and get him out of there.

At the Wall Street Journal, "A war of attrition for Ukraine’s survival—and Putin’s vision of Russia—devours both countries’ resources while hurting the world economy":

After 100 days, Russia’s war on Ukraine is turning into a bloody slog with no end in sight, causing mounting devastation in Ukraine and prolonged costs world-wide.

The biggest conflict between European states since World War II has undergone swings of fortune that offer a reminder of war’s unpredictability. The failure of Russia’s early blitzkrieg fueled Ukrainian confidence that is ebbing as Russia concentrates its firepower on a narrower, grinding advance.

On Friday, Russian forces advanced behind heavy artillery barrages in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, where they have slowly but steadily gained ground, sending tens of thousands of civilians fleeing westward.

Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky marked 100 days of war with a somber but defiant video message. “The armed forces of Ukraine are here,” he said. “Most importantly, our people–the people of our nation– are here. We have been defending our country for 100 days already. Victory will be ours! Glory to Ukraine!”

Many Western governments fear a destructive stalemate looms, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s defenders locked in a struggle that is viewed as existential by both.

Around 6.9 million Ukrainians have left the country since the war began, according to the United Nations, with Poland alone receiving 3.7 million, although some are returning home. Millions more Ukrainians have been displaced internally by the Russian onslaught. The invasion has devastated cities in Ukraine’s east, including Mariupol, where at least 22,000 residents were killed during the weekslong Russian siege, according to local officials.

Ukrainian and international investigators are gathering evidence of possible war crimes in areas where Russian troops killed and mistreated civilians. Kyiv has accused Moscow of forcibly deporting large numbers of Ukrainians to Russia, including many children.

Mr. Zelensky said Thursday that Russia now controls 20% of his country’s territory. The problem for Kyiv—and for Western European governments proposing a cease-fire—is that Russia has seized much of the industrial heartlands of Ukraine’s east and vast tracts of its fertile agricultural land, while blocking Ukraine’s access to the sea, needed for exports.

That threatens to leave Ukraine as a barely viable state surviving on Western giving. Ukraine needs roughly $5 billion every month to cover essential government services and keep its battered economy functioning, officials in Kyiv have said, in addition to humanitarian aid and armaments.

Russia, meanwhile, faces a deep recession this year from Western sanctions and a long-term erosion of its economic potential. Absent an unexpected collapse by one side, a war of attrition looms that could steadily devour the resources of both countries.

The stakes are too high for Ukraine or Russia to back down. The war also threatens two long-accepted pillars of global order: The principle that territory can’t be annexed by force, and that the seas are free to all nations’ ships.

The war has made the world poorer. By driving up food and energy prices, it has complicated the troubled global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The disruption of long-established energy and food supply relationships leaves much of the world facing a protracted and costly economic adaptation.

“The time of cheap fossil-fuel energy is over,” German economy minister Robert Habeck said recently.

Russia’s expansionism has brought the world’s advanced countries closer politically. But it has also exposed gaps in interests and outlooks between the West and the poorer global South, which has remained largely neutral, and where Russia’s narrative of anti-Western grievances—echoed by China—has many sympathizers.

With no outright Ukrainian victory in sight, the Biden administration has begun to emphasize that its goal is to increase Kyiv’s leverage for potential negotiations with Moscow...

 Still more.

Why Sheryl Sandberg Quit Facebook's Meta

She's sketchy.

At WSJ, "One of the world’s most powerful executives became increasingly burned out and disconnected from the mega-business she was instrumental in building. That dovetailed with a company investigation into her activities":

Sheryl Sandberg’s departure from Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. FB -3.68%▼ came as a surprise even to many people close to the tech giant. In reality, it was the culmination of a yearslong process in which one of the world’s most powerful executives became increasingly burned out and disconnected from the mega-business that she was instrumental in building.

More recently, there was a fresh irritation: Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal contacted Meta about two incidents from several years ago in which Ms. Sandberg, the chief operating officer, pressed a U.K. tabloid to shelve an article about her former boyfriend, Activision Blizzard Inc. Chief Executive Bobby Kotick, and a 2014 temporary restraining order against him.

The episode dovetailed with a company investigation into Ms. Sandberg’s activities, which hasn’t been previously reported, including a review of her use of corporate resources to help plan her coming wedding to Tom Bernthal, a consultant, the people said. The couple has been engaged since 2020.

As of May, that review was continuing, the people said.

“None of this has anything to do with her personal decision to leave,” said Caroline Nolan, a Meta spokeswoman. She earlier said that the Kotick matter had been resolved.

Earlier, on the Activision issue, a spokeswoman said at the time Ms. Sandberg had never made a threat in her communications with the Daily Mail, the U.K. tabloid. Mr. Kotick said it was his understanding that the Daily Mail didn’t run the story because it was untrue.

The broad company review added to a difficult period for Ms. Sandberg, which included the personal challenges of blending two families as part of her coming marriage and dealing with multiple family members with Covid-19, according to people close to her.

A long-planned sabbatical, as part of the company’s program to offer 30 days of paid leave every five years, was postponed multiple times this year, first when her fiancé came down with Covid and then, a few months later, when she and her children did. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ms. Sandberg was notably absent among the confab of global business leaders. Instead, Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox and head of global affairs Nick Clegg, who was elevated to president in February, were the top executives present.

Ms. Sandberg, 52 years old, stayed in the U.S. to attend the bat mitzvah of her daughter, according to people familiar with the matter. She told people close to her that she was relieved not to have to go to Davos, an event that for years was a highlight of her annual calendar, the people said.

Burned out

Ms. Sandberg has been telling people that she feels burned out and that she has become a punching bag for the company’s problems, the people said. “She sees herself as someone who has been targeted, been tarred as a woman executive in a way that would not happen to a man. Gendered or not, she’s sick of it,” said one person who worked alongside Ms. Sandberg for many years.

Ms. Sandberg hasn’t been closely involved with the company’s high-stakes plan to execute Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to the development of virtual worlds in the so-called metaverse, the people said.

That vision, which Mr. Zuckerberg has said will require billions of dollars in investment and take more than a decade to implement, is less dependent on advertising, which has long been Ms. Sandberg’s fief. She didn’t attend many of the leadership meetings related to the strategic shift, and people close to her said she felt the effort didn’t play to her strengths.

Ms. Sandberg, who will remain on Meta’s board, informed Mr. Zuckerberg on Saturday of her intention to resign. While her relationship with some other board members, including Mr. Zuckerberg, had become strained at times, Ms. Sandberg’s decision to step down was voluntary, according to people familiar with her decision....

Ms. Sandberg, a former chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, was already a rising star when Facebook snatched her away from rival Google. Her mandate was to take a free social network, and build a business around it in large part by using the vast swaths of data it collects on its users—and allowing Mr. Zuckerberg to focus on the engineering side of the company.

Advertisers loved it, with Ms. Sandberg as the primary liaison between the company and Madison Avenue. Her profile rose alongside that of the social-media company’s. After Facebook went public in 2012, Ms. Sandberg became an icon for women in business following the release of her 2013 book “Lean In.”

She wrote about how ambitious women in the workplace are often misconstrued as aggressive. She encouraged women to “sit at the table,” speak up, vie for important assignments and not talk themselves out of certain positions or projects for fear of not being able to manage work and life commitments.

A second book, “Option B,” chronicled her grief and recovery from the death of her husband, who died in 2015 while they were on vacation in Mexico.

As her reputation grew, so too did whispers of her political aspirations. There were enough rumors in 2016 that she could leave Facebook for a cabinet role for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that Ms. Sandberg felt the need to shoot the rumors down.

“I really am staying at Facebook. I’m very happy,” Ms. Sandberg said in October 2016 at a conference.

But Ms. Sandberg’s standing within Facebook began to change after that election. The company was mired in allegations that it didn’t do enough to circumvent Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Controversy surrounding the election grew for the company in March 2018 when the Guardian and the New York Times reported that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the data of 50 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target voters on Facebook to get them to support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to the reports. The number of affected users was later revised to 87 million.

Cambridge fallout

After the fallout of Cambridge Analytica, Mr. Zuckerberg told Ms. Sandberg that he blamed her and her teams for the scandal, the Journal previously reported. Ms. Sandberg confided in friends that the exchange with Mr. Zuckerberg had rattled her and she wondered if she should be worried about her job.

The two scandals resulted in Ms. Sandberg being called by Washington to testify on foreign influence on American social networks.

Ms. Sandberg was further embattled by a 2018 New York Times report alleging that she had overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, including hiring a Washington-based opposition research firm.

In the wake of those events, Ms. Sandberg became a less visible presence around Washington and ceded many policy issues to other executives, said former employees who worked with her.

At times, Ms. Sandberg expressed frustration that she was being blamed for issues that arose in parts of the business she didn’t control, the former employees said.

Her overall influence also waned, in part because Mr. Zuckerberg in recent years asserted tighter control over all aspects of the company’s operations.

Last year, when the Journal published a series of investigative articles called The Facebook Files based on thousands of internal documents, Ms. Sandberg stayed largely silent. She is a strong advocate for women, and her muted public response was noted inside and outside the company in part because one of the revelations was that the company researchers had repeatedly found that Instagram was harmful to a sizable percentage of its young users, most notably teenage girls.

Data from the internal documents also showed that Ms. Sandberg’s share of employees had shrunk in recent years. At the start of 2014, 43% of the company’s staff reported to her, but that amount fell to 31% by 2021.

Ms. Sandberg also has been anxious about how coming film and television projects on Facebook will depict her tenure as one of the top women in tech. “There’s no scenario in which a successful businesswoman is not portrayed as a raging bitch,” she told one adviser.

In recent years, there was persistent speculation about her leaving, though some speculated that the controversies surrounding Facebook left Ms. Sandberg with fewer opportunities...

Actually, no. Since the news broke she's leaving the company she's been approached with an offer of a board seat and a CEO position. 

Such privilege. *Eye-roll.*