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JULY 30,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT? – FROM FOX:   Vice President Kamala Harris has another big trip ahead – but it won't be a return visit to the U.S.-Mexico border.  Instead, Harris next month will travel across the Pacific, to Vietnam and Singapore, amid U.S. tensions with China.  Her goal is to "strengthen relationships and expand economic support," chief spokeswoman Symone Sanders said in a statement.  Harris will be the first sitting vice president to visit Vietnam.  The trip is also an effort to rally support against China’s growing economic ascendency, according to Reuters.  The trip comes against the domestic backdrop of the continuing crisis at the U.S. southern border. Back in March, President Biden tasked Harris with studying the root causes of the crisis.  Over subsequent weeks, Republicans and even some Democrats urged Harris to visit border towns in the U.S., in order to get a first-hand impression of how the migrant crisis was affecting those communities, but Harris resisted. Then in late June, 94 days after her appointment from Biden, Harris flew to El Paso, Texas, for a brief visit – before flying on to Los Angeles, where she owns a home.   I'm sure the people of Vietnam and Singapore can't wait.  I hope Kami knows where those countries are.

THEY FINALLY WOKE UP – FROM FOX BUSINESS:   The Biden administration announced new sanctions on Friday against Cuba's national revolutionary police and its top two officials as the U.S. looks to increase pressure on the communist government following this month's protests on the island.  The Police Nacional Revolcionaria and the agency's director and deputy director, Oscar Callejas Valcarce and Eddie Sierra Arias, were targeted in the latest sanctions announced by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The police are part of Cuba's interior ministry, which was already the subject of a blanket designation by the Trump administration back in January.  "We hear the cries of freedom coming from the island. The United States is taking concerted action to bolster the cause of the Cuban people," President Joe Biden said at the start of a White House meeting with Cuban Americans not long after Treasury announced the sanctions.  Too little, too late.  Biden won't do much because the hard left in his party is still loyal to Fidel.  But he has to throw out a token to avoid completely alienating Cuban-Americans.  I doubt if they'll be impressed.

July 30, 2021       Permalink

GREEN ENERGY?  AHEM.  OVERNIGHT:  We're being sold the line that green energy is here, or right around the corner, or on our front porch, and that we'd better buy in to prevent the world from ending on AOC's next birthday.   Apparently, not everyone with a driver's license agrees.  From Yahoo:

Roughly 20% of electric vehicle owners in California replaced their cars with gas ones, a study shows.

The main reason drivers said they made the switch was the inconvenience of charging.

The findings suggest new challenges facing the growth of the nascent electric vehicle market.

In roughly three minutes, you can fill the gas tank of a Ford Mustang and have enough range to go about 300 miles with its V8 engine.

But on a recent 200-mile trip from Boston to New York in the Mustang's electric Mach-E variant, Axios's Dan Primack said he felt "panic" as his battery level dipped below 23% while searching for a compatible charger to complete his trip.

"I was assured that this might be one of the country's easiest EV routes," Primack wrote. "Those assurances were misplaced."

For Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan, an hour plugged into his household outlet gave the Mach-E just three miles of range.

"Overnight, we're looking at 36 miles of range," he told Insider. "Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged in at the charger we have there."

Standard home outlets generally deliver 120 volts, powering what electric vehicle aficionados call "Level 1" charging, while the higher-powered specialty connections at 240 volts are known as "Level 2." By comparison, Tesla's "Superchargers," which can fully charge its cars in a little over an hour, run on 480 volts.

That difference is night and day, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Energy by University of California Davis researchers Scott Hardman and Gil Tal that surveyed Californians who purchased an electric vehicle between 2012 and 2018.

Roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners switched back to owning gas-powered cars, in large part because charging the batteries was a pain in the… trunk, the researchers found.
Of those who switched, over 70% lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, and slightly fewer than that lacked Level 2 connections at their workplace.

"If you don't have a Level 2, it's almost impossible," said Tynan, who has tested a wide range of makes and models of PEVs over the years for his research.

Even with the faster charging, a Chevy Bolt he tested still needed nearly six hours to top its range back up to 300 miles from nearly empty - something that takes him just minutes at the pump with his family SUV.

EVs have come a long way in recent years in terms of range, safety, comfort, and tech features, but Hardman and Tal note that very little has changed in terms of how they are recharged.

The researchers warned that this trend could make it harder to achieve electric vehicle sales targets in California and other countries, and the growth of the market overall.

COMMENT:  You know, this article is really about common sense.  For the average car buyer, buying electric is going backward, not forward.  Common sense tells us that no one will want to have a car inoperative for hours while it's being recharged.  And the cost of the car will exceed the cost of a gasoline-powered vehicle. 

Going green will not be easy, and may not even be necessary.  But don't tell that to the environmental fanatics running things.

July 30, 2021       Permalink

JULY 29,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

STUNNING - FROM FOX:  The Navy has charged a sailor in connection with the massive fire that destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard warship over four days in 2020 while docked off San Diego, a naval spokesman said Thursday.  The unidentified sailor was a member of the ship's crew and is accused of starting the July 12, 2020 blaze, the Navy said. The charges are based on evidence collected during an investigation, Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Sean Robertson said in a statement.  "Evidence collected during the investigation is sufficient to direct a preliminary hearing in accordance with due process under the military justice system," Robertson said.  Vice Adm. Steve Koehler, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, is considering court-martial charges. He has ordered a preliminary hearing at which an impartial hearing officer will make determinations and recommendations required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including "whether or not there is probable cause to believe an offense has been committed and to offer a recommendation as to the disposition of the case," the statement said. We're watching this.  Is it possible that an American warship was sabotaged by an American sailor?  Will the case be covered up to protect certain people...or countries?  This, potentially, could be a very big story.  Or, maybe the evidence will show that we're dealing with an accident.  Proceed carefully.  In 1989 there was an explosion in a gun turret aboard USS Iowa, one of the last American battleships to see active service. It killed 47 sailors.  Investigators concluded that one sailor caused the explosion intentionally, a conclusion devastating to that man's family.  However, other inquiries decided differently.  To this day we don't have a clear answer to how the blast occurred.  Be cautious about jumping to conclusions.

July 29, 2021       Permalink

KAMI, KAMI, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THEE? – OVERNIGHT:  William Goldman's line about Hollywood could apply to Washington today.  "Nobody knows anything."  I mean, name a subject.  Where have all the elder statesmen gone?

Take Kamala Harris...please.  (Hat tip to Henny Youngman.)  I mentioned this earlier in the week.  Where is she?  Someone said he saw her at the unemployment office.  Who's Who is panicking because they can't give her more than a two-line description.  And it's unfavorable.  Even FedEx is returning packages sent to her.  From the New York Post: 

As Vice President Kamala Harris’s poll numbers remain underwater, and well below President Biden’s, some Democrats are worried that she could become a drag on their efforts to maintain control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

A new Economist/YouGov poll shows that 48 percent of Americans disapprove of Harris’ job performance while only 46 percent expressed approval. This is in line with a flurry of recent surveys and puts her well behind Biden, whom the Real Clear average of polls has at 51 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval.

According to Democratic strategists who talked to The Post and The Hill, the numbers have the party concerned about the midterms.

“As of right now, I think she has the potential of doing more harm than good for some of these candidates,” one strategist told The Hill, referring to Harris.

“My sense is she’ll probably raise a lot of money and maybe she’ll go to some specific districts, but they’ll have to be really strategic with her.”

An early test of just how strategic Democrats plan to be with the veep is the run-up to the Sept. 14 recall election in her home state of California, where she has vowed to campaign for embattled Gov. Gavin Newson, but has offered no set plans about doing so.

Forty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Harris’ job performance, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.

New low poll numbers on Harris’ job performance have some Democrats worried about the midterm elections.

Under normal circumstances, Harris, the first woman to be elected vice president, would be a natural fit for campaigning on both the recall race and the 2022 midterms, but staunch criticism of her handling of the border crisis as well as dysfunction in her office have potentially made her politically toxic.

In June, Harris took a trip near the US border with Mexico after pressure built for her to go for months. In that time, she snapped at reporters who asked why she hadn’t trekked to the border given that she was put in charge of the crisis there.

In one interview, she told NBC’s Lester Holt that “we’ve been to the border.” When he pointed out that she had not gone as vice president, she whipped back at him with, “And I haven’t been to Europe, And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”

Meanwhile, there have been persistent stories about issues in her office, where staffers have gone so far as to say they are treated “like s–t,” and which date back to similar concerns from campaign staff that helped derail her 2020 run for president.

COMMENT:  No wonder she's hiding.  But her wobbles cannot but concern our allies, who now have to contend with an impaired man in the presidency and and an invisible woman in the second office, and some clear psychiatric cases just below them. 

Maybe I'm being too critical.  Maybe Kami is at Wokeness School, and will come out a kinder and more sympathetic public servant.  We'll know when she sets fire to her first building, then tries to rescue the people inside.

Do you think she would?

July 29,  2021     Permalink