Looking forward to the new cascade of whistleblowers from this thing. https://t.co/Q2oEiOapYc
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) October 25, 2019
NYT: William Barr’s Justice Dept has opened a criminal inquiry into the origins of ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ — the code name for the FBI’s Russia investigation https://t.co/GxcFMPT7eT
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) October 25, 2019
… Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges…
Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. That view factors into the impeachment investigation against him, as does his long obsession with the origins of the Russia inquiry. House Democrats are examining in part whether his pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into theories about the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power.
The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself…
It was not clear what potential crime Mr. Durham is investigating, nor when the criminal investigation was prompted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment…
Revelations so far about Mr. Durham’s investigation have shown that he has focused in his first months on the accusations that Mr. Trump’s conservative allies have made about the origins of the Russia inquiry in their efforts to undermine it. Mr. Durham’s efforts have prompted criticism that he and Mr. Barr are trying to deliver the president a political victory, though investigators would typically run down all aspects of a case to complete a review of it…
What Barr is doing in Europe is just a more careful version of what Giuliani is doing.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 25, 2019
dollars to donuts, this will end up being another article of impeachment https://t.co/dHs0wzrDHP
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 25, 2019
The conspiracy theory at the heart of the Barr/Durham investigation has been smacked down the three US allies–Australia, Italy, and the UK–whose officials it accuses of sabotaging the Trump campaign (see, e.g. https://t.co/Z1LvwOEpLj, and last week https://t.co/9xv1mGWJmv).
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 25, 2019
Cold War is riddled with examples of even trusted allies being suspicious of moles and leaks in each orher’s services. US/UK relationship is a monument to this. Now our allies need only worry about the US president and Chuckles the AG.
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) October 25, 2019
The Justice Department's investigation of the investigators appears to be turning into a criminal probe, the NYT reports: https://t.co/5BMYL3egck Time to redouble scrutiny of Bart's enabling of Trump's corruption, as outlined in this piece and thread: https://t.co/yjyVABQqEx
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 25, 2019
Reup, on all the ways Bill Barr's DOJ is obstructing connecting the dots on Parnas, Furman, Rudy, and his own disinformation investigation.
If the AG Is Involved in a Foreign Influence Operation, Does He Have to Register with Himself?https://t.co/14uMGFI8Su
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 24, 2019
What William Barr is not investigating while he's busy investigating why anyone investigated the last time Russia invaded our elections. https://t.co/B51NARcz4Q
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) October 25, 2019
His legacy was the guy who finished the cover-up of Iran Contra and wanted to investigate Bill Clinton. https://t.co/dYAW7Rw0zs
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) October 25, 2019
Too be clear, Barr didn't decide to become a Trump loyalist. Barr's "problem" is that he has the most radical viewpoint of executive authority of anyone who has ever held that position- way worse than any of the "unitary theorists" in the GW Bush Admin. Barr is actually dangerous https://t.co/rSRy3AkFrH
— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer ???? (@RachelBitecofer) October 25, 2019
NotMax
Gives new meaning to the appellation Bull Durham.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I had to check to see this wasn’t a few weeks old. Barr dropped his fig leaf and showed his entire behind in that speech at Notre Dame a couple weeks ago. He’s not a cultural warrior, he’s a crusader.
Mike in DC
Any Democrat 2020: Nobody Walks
the Conster
It was always going to come to this once Barr was confirmed. He’s the new Michael Cohen the mob boss fixer. Except it’s now a transnational criminal enterprise with corrupt sovereign states.
My contention all along is that Barr was going to bring back deep state DERP from Europe for Moscow Mitch to use in his kangaroo court Senate show *trial* to rile up the moron base coming into the next election. The House should hang onto the hearings as long as it takes and keep their work away from the Republican clown show. Pelosi can do the drip drip drip thing all day every day because Trump can’t get rid of her and that’s now her superpower. She’s got his number.
Gravenstone
Maybe Barr wants to spend the rest of his life in prison. Ya know, to atone for his sins against the nation coming out of Iran-Contra….
Mary G
James E Powell
Every Democrat needs to refer to Barr as Trump’s fixer. They need to call him what he is, refuse to call him attorney general.
Aleta
Since they’re just going to make stuff up anyway, couldn’t they skip it, save some money for once?
Major Major Major Major
I always think it’s weird how Ezra Klein seems to know less political history than me despite his being older and a professional politico.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What’s Barr’s endgame? Record-breaking number of obstructions of justice. (If that is the plural form.)
burnspbesq
Maybe he thinks Commander Trump will assign him a Handmaid or two.
JGabriel
NYTimes via Anne Laurie @ Top:
A failure to be cynical enough about the GOP continues to plague the NY Times. Barr and Durham are not just trying to deliver a victory to Trump. They are also attempting to construct a right-wing hall of mirrors to discredit the very concept of objective truth – an Orwellian counter-narrative to drive forward the notion that the only ‘reality’ is whatever Trump, the GOP, and their authoritarian propaganda networks, say it is.
They want to create an authoritarian mindset, and a controlling right-wing state apparatus, that will outlast Trump.
rikyrah
Yep. He is a hack.
He needs to be impeached.
patrick II
If Ezra wants to understand Barr’s motivation he should read Barr’s speech at Notre Dame. Barr is a fundamentalist Catholic still fighting against the Enlightenment.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
He needs to be arrested. Start at the top. There’s no OLC memo that says he can’t be arrested.
I really liked Amy Klobuchar on Rachel tonight. She gets it. She told everyone in the justice and intelligent communities that she would have their backs.
Mary G
Nadler and Schiff just put out a joint statement that boiled down to “bullshit.”
CaseyL
When the entire Justice Dept has become part of the treasonous RW-Oligarch axis, I’m not at all sure how the country walks out of this in one piece. Trump and his fixers/sponsors are determined to end the US as a liberal democracy, and there isn’t enough fight left in the DOJ, or the FBI, or the IC, or anywhere in the Federal government to stop them.
ETA: Certainly not the Courts which are now packed with RW ideologues.
Jeffro
@Mike in DC: “We’d like to look forward, but we’ll be looking back for a long, looooong time with these crooks”
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
I personally suspect playing the Wide-Eyed Naif is Klein’s political ‘brand’.
(On the other hand, IIRC he dated Megan McArglebargle back when they were new little hatchling bloggers together, so… )
Jeffro
@JGabriel:
I am not sure they’re not smart enough to plan all that out, but yes, that’s what they want. They are flailing in that direction, and the next crew will be worse.
People need to wake up. This gang is bad, bad news and does not give even 1/1000th of a shit about the actual rule of law as the term is commonly understood.
MJS
Not the point, I know, but if they haven’t already done so, Jones, Sinema and Manchin may want to take this moment to express regret for voting to confirm this piece of shit.
Patricia Kayden
The 2016 Russia investigation was initiated because Russia interfered in our elections. Barr is now trying to destroy those who did their jobs by investigating said interference. Democrats need to raise holy hell about this development. No one who was doing their job should be charged, harassed and subjected to criminal prosecution by Barr and his henchmen.
Anne Laurie
@patrick II:
Librarian
When is Barr going to be hauled up to the Hill and asked just what the fuck he thinks he’s fucking doing? Fuck that, why isn’t he being impeached?
JGabriel
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m old enought to remember (a decade ago) when we still called Klein young Ezra.
Sigh.
oldgold
Mueller should speak out publicly and forcefully against this outrage. But….
Jeffro
@Librarian: Exactly. He’ll refuse documents, testimony, any/all of it, so – as the nation’s top law enforcement officer (gag), refusing to honor a subpoena and/or appear for a lawfully-ordered hearing, he should be instantly subjected to impeachment hearings. Like 24 hours and done. Send that to the Senate.
Jeffro
@oldgold: …but he clearly doesn’t have the faculties to spell it out, nor the willingness to do so. Mueller NOT exposing this criminal gang is the one big thing that I and perhaps many/most Dems got wrong. Just one more potential ‘guard rail’ that didn’t hold.
Another Scott
Doesn’t Donnie and Barr remember that at this point they’re supposed to get the CIA to do this investigation? They’re too incompetent to even follow Nixon’s playbook.
They’re not even trying…
(groucho-roll-eyes.giv)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anne Laurie: I recall John Kelly listing “life” as something “we used to hold sacred in this country”. Seems a likely candidate. Kellyanne ?
I thought of Pence, then I remembered that my recent fun fact about Pence comes from the fact that he went to a conservative protestant college. Said fun fact is that when Woody Harrelson was a devout student at Hanover College, an upperclassman named Mike Pence tried to recruit him for the ministry.
Pence and Pompeo would be ripe targets for conversion, though, and would be very comfortable with that crowd.
JGabriel
Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Worse, Barr is the kind of guy who organizes a Children’s Crusade so he can march the kids into slave markets and sell them.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: he’s definitely on the credulous side, but this feels like an actual lack of background knowledge.
Major Major Major Major
David Fud
Maybe the Congress should just start impeaching everyone in sight and make them all defend themselves. I am sick to death of mobsters running our government. What a sham.
Patricia Kayden
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: how many Dem primary candidates defended her against mean ol Hillary? Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg, O’Rourke (IIRC) … somebody here said earlier that none of the women fell for that shit
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
AFAIR, only Y-chromosome bearers allowed in Opus Dei. Doesn’t exempt her husband George, but hunting after Opus Dei members is a side trail too far, at this point in time. Although Scalia was ‘unmasked’ as a member after his death (membership is supposed to be SEKRIT, becasue of course it is), and it’s widely speculated that Chief Justice Roberts is also ‘of the body’. (Justice Thomas would be a given, too also, except for that melanin thing… )
Mary G
DC is getting carried away with its love of the Nats:
If you don’t feel like clicking through, the picture is to words and music to a hymn called “Lamb of God (Baby Shark Mass).
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yang as well, and I wanna say Williamson, who is still running!
Mary G
Is there a front pager around who can get me out of moderation limbo?
trnc
@Aleta:
FWIW, record number of instances of obstruction of justice, I think would be the way to pluralize it.
chris
@Anne Laurie: Kellyanne is a member of The Council for National Policy. Almost as bad. Hell, maybe worse but I was raised RC.
JGabriel
@David Fud:
So many wingnut criminals, so little time …
Another Scott
Reuters:
Good, good.
(Schumer gets a lot of grief from some here – this is a decent counterpoint.)
Cheers,
Scot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anne Laurie: Kavanaugh and Alito, I’d bet, Gorsuch strikes me as a less likely candidate, for some reason
ETA: Louie Freeh, as I recall, was said to be a member
Patricia Kayden
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in DC:
Not even the plank?
Steve in the ATL
@Aleta:
I’m going with a “murder of justice by obstruction”
Crows haven’t earned the exclusive right to that.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: can’t wait for the UAW to strike over the fewer jobs needs to manufacture electric vehicles!
JGabriel
via Patricia Kayden:
NY Post:
“This is a fucking children’s park, goddammit!”
patrick II
@Anne Laurie:
While he’s checking Trump’s staff, he should also be checking five Catholics on the Supreme Court: The Secrets of Leonard Leo, the Man Behind Trump’s Supreme Court Pick
Citizen_X
@JGabriel: Hey, she can pretend to be a cop: she’s had enough experience with them. (Two DWI convictions in the last five years, charged with assault last summer.)
The Dangerman
I wonder if he gets to do his time in the same slammer that John Mitchell did his time in.
patrick II
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The claimed religion of Vice President Mike Pence has raised more than a few eyebrows. Vice President Mike Pence calls himself an “Evangelical Catholic.”
trollhattan
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
f
Ewww!!!!!
patrick II
Just to point out the obvious, but Barr isn’t getting revenge 2016 so much as he is making sure justice doesn’t do its job for 2020. They will be too busy peeking out from their foxholes.
jl
” What Barr is doing in Europe is just a more careful version of what Giuliani is doing. ”
Maybe more careful in that Barr is not wandering around dark allies with shady oligarchs and their gangster muscle and money goons. But, yeesh, seems like Barr has been showing up at random countries and asking them to dig up dirt on themselves. Maybe more careful, as in not as flamboyant and safer, but not much smarter. Like some werido old white guy neighbor pestering the neighbors asking them if they stole the lawn mower than he stole.
Amir Khalid
I’m curious: does Barr have any ideological basis for his belief in the sovereignty of the executive? It contradicts the letter of the US Constitution, to my knowledge, and from what I’ve learned is not universal even among the American right.
Also: I’m pretty sure I did not need in my head the mental image of William Barr proudly displaying his wedding tackle to the world.
Patricia Kayden
@Amir Khalid: Barr believes that REPUBLICAN presidents have sovereign privileges. He’s a partisan attack dog. No way would he MSU’s the same argument for a Democratic President.
Steve in the ATL
Speaking of religion, one of my kids has started attending both church and bible study. She’s a solid liberal and her bible study teacher is gay, so maybe it’s not the worst thing ever, but it sure has me feeling like I’ve failed as a parent.
On the plus side, both kids are refusing to go to my sister’s for thanksgiving, thereby avoiding southern fundamentalist religion and scores of firearms. Sister who used to fly to California just to get her hair cut is now terrified of the entire west coast and southwest because of the coming invasion by Mexico. Her nutjob husband has been caught concealed carrying at family dinners, funerals, and graduation parties.
You know a family is screwed up when I’m the sane one….
Patricia Kayden
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Another proposal from a homeowner that ignores renters, “Ah, where to I plug this in?” Until there are places where folk who either park in carports without power(most of them) or street park, it just seems these folk are out of touch.
SFAW
I hope I live long enough to see Barr swinging from the yardarm, whether figuratively or literally. The motherfucker is a danger to the country, and by extension, the world.
If I thought Moscow Mitch had a picogram of integrity, I’d wish for a House impeachment vote tout de fucking suite.
SFAW
@patrick II:
Yeah, and I consider myself a Devout Atheist.
Sab
@Amir Khalid:Nope. I suspect that he was traumatized at an impressionable early age by Nixon’s near impeachment and actual resignation. Those RWNJs apparently have tender psyches.
The rest of us just plugged along, believing (back in the day) in the rule of law and the arc of justice.
frosty
@Steve in the ATL: Job security, amirite? Sorta like my stormwater pollution line of work: permanent employment ’cause the world isn’t getting any cleaner.
Cheryl Rofer
Brain bleach needed
Another Scott
@Amir Khalid: It’s probably in his 19 page letter to Rosenstein and Engle at the DOJ from June 2018 before Donnie appointed him to be AG.
“… Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived …” Yada, yada, yada.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@trollhattan: Most everything about the PG&E “PSPS” has been half-baked, half-assed and confused. For those not suffering under the PG&E reign of error, “PSPS” stands for “Public Safety Power Shutoff”, it’s the crappy marketing buzzword they came up with so the dirty words ‘power shutoff’ in polite company or in public.
Scary thing is that it could get worse. I’ve read hedge funds are circling PG&E in case the lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings go really badly for the incompetent crooked public utility. We could get Bain Power. I hope many local governments take up the idea that Newsom’s pushing, to take their local PG&E service public. Newsom almost seized PG&E’s assets in San Francisco as a danger to public safety when he was mayor and the utility was starting fires and blowing up stuff on a weekly basis, maiming a few people in the process. So, I suppose Gov. Newsom can give advice on how that process works.
PG&E wants to take ten years to fix up their mess, and do their PSPS stunts in the meantime. I heard an interview with a state legislator who says that PG&E can do it in three, and if the crummy utility can’t figure it out, the state government will show them how and make them do it.
JoyceH
Barr isn’t doing this for Trump, though perhaps it’s at Trump’s direction. He’s doing it for RUSSIA. Produce a narrative that Russia didn’t really hack the 2016 election and what do you get? A plausible reason to eliminate sanctions on Russia. This is the “deliverable” that Russia has been after all along.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Incidentally, how much does the electricity cost for charging a car, and how does it compare to the price of a full tank of dinosaur juice?
frosty
Help help! I’m being moderated! Ah, now we see the violence (OK, nonsense) inherent in the system!
Mary G
@JoyceH: I imagine Vlad is pretty unhappy with his incompetent underling who can’t get big prize, Barr and Pompeo should come shortly after the president for impeachment.
Sab
@patrick II: Well there are charismatic episcopalians, so whatever.
Don’t you have to still be a Catholic to be an evangelical or any other kind of Catholic?
jl
@Amir Khalid: Here’s a link to a Deep State gummint pdf with a chart.
Comparing Energy Costs per Mile for Electric and Gasoline-Fueled Vehicles
Idaho National Laboratory
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf
kindness
So now that the IC’s patriotism is also being questioned will they pull out the stops? Or will the contingent that was aligned with the NY FBI office go full Maud Dib? I hate it when they link up with fundies of any religion. Those folk are wacked.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
VW’s Electrify America outfit (part of their mea culpa for dieselgate) plans:
$45B over 10 years for charging stations and infrastructure (Schumer’s plan) is a lot. It’s ~ 20x what VW has planned to spend. (I assume) It won’t just be tax breaks for people with garages.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
mjohnso27 (@mjohnso27) Tweeted:
These white male lawyers on #Maddow are so naïve in their trust of AUSA John Durham. They are discounting just how radicalized certain conservative white men became after they saw Barack Obama, a brilliant Black man, rise to the US Presidency in 2009. https://twitter.com/mjohnso27/status/1187550691532910592?s=17
rikyrah
@Anne Laurie:
Gets on my phucking last nerve with this bullshyt ? ?
joel hanes
@Anne Laurie:
Scalia was ‘unmasked’ as a member [of Opus Dei] after his death
We knew this long before his demise — I personally knew it by the start of W’s second term, at the latest, and I learned it from others, so they knew it even earlier.
I remember that I had to look up “cilice”.
There’s something wrong with these people.
Sab
@Amir Khalid: If we do that in Ohio, we will be charging our cars with a mixture of taxpayer subsidized nuclear power that has been shut down repeatedly for scary safety lapses, and plants fired with Appalachian coal.
Dinosaur juice seems better in the very short term.
And I am not advocating dinosaur juice as a good solution.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That was me.
I am amused that none of women did??
gene108
@Another Scott:
Need more money for charging stations. Most people don’t live with an attached garage.
I’d look for a used Tesla or other EV, but I live in a condo. Don’t have places near me to charge overnight
jl
@Sab: The word evangelical has several meanings. Evangelical in the sense or believing all the protestant fundamentalist stuff and trying to get converts, or these days, trying to force everyone to do what you think they should do regardless of whether they convert or not, is just one of the meanings.
I think the earliest meaning was Christian belief that emphasized Jesus’ teachings in the four Gospels, which doesn’t have much in common with, and in some very important ways is even opposed to, what contemporary protestant Evangelical fundamentalists believe. Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels were far too soft and tolerant. Actually so were many teachings of their main man Paul, but they skip over those parts because they don’t like them (a perfectly valid reason in their opinion). So, I guess ‘Evangelical Catholic’ is not a contradiction, though I don’t know whether it a real thing, or just some random notion, or a marketing gimmick some reactionary Catholics came up with.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: CA law says that landlords must allow renters to install chargers. The renter needs to pay for the charger, but owns the charger and can take it with them when they move out.
@Amir Khalid: This varies a LOT by state in the US. Electricity prices vary from about $0.08/KwH to as much as $0.20 here in CA. At the high end, a full charge of a Tesla with 300 mile range would run $20. My non-hybrid car with similar range costs about $50 to fill at current prices (around $4.35 – gas is similarly expensive here in CA). That said, about half of electric car owners in CA also have solar panels, so my wifes plug-in hybrid car costs $0 to charge since we do that off of our own power and costs us about $200/year in gas. My employer has charging stations at work, and I could charge mainly off of those if I planned, and stick them with the bill (which for them is $0 given they have a massive solar buildout).
Here in CA we have an interesting problem in that on many days we massively overproduce electricity during the day. So if we can coordinate charging of vehicles during those hours, it’ll be free. Wholesale electricity rates at those times is actually slightly negative.
Schumers plan is really important, because here in CA, ⅔ of our carbon emissions are from transportation. We’ve actually made so much progress on electricity production that it’s not the driving problem any longer. CA can make this move with some additional regulation. Bill’s point is very well taken because like so many things, it fucks over renters. But the state can use the Federal subsidies to alter the state ones and shift them from EV purchases to charging installations for renters. We have a new law just going into effect that forces fuel producers to cover the lifecycle emissions cost of their fuel – from extraction to transportation to refining to sale to its use in your car. This is part of the reason why gas prices are so high here. But the fuel producers can earn credits against those emissions by building out public EV charging, so they’ve been snapping up EV charging startups left and right.
With the solar panel mandate for new home construction, I expect to soon see both a whole house battery mandate come, a law mandating grid upgrades to allow homes to island their power (allowing homeowners with solar + battery to continue to have power during grid shutoffs like we’re having now) and mandating EV chargers for all new constructions and for renters. I know those are all considerations, but seen to be too early. With some federal backing the state could shift their incentives to these areas.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Stunt leaked to Vichy Times to divert attention from Ambassador Taylor’s bombshell testimony.
Martin
@jl: San Jose is trying to turn it into a public owned utility. It’s really the only way I see to get out. Everyone knows the private equity guys will loot the utilities of assets and then bail out. I don’t see CPUC allowing that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I have no idea, if I bought an electric/plug in hybrid I’d have no place to plug it in.
@Another Scott: This in one of my hobbyhorses, unless it’s where I park my car(on the street), I’m still being treated as a second class citizen.
@Sab: I tried to do my part and went with a hybrid.
Aleta
@trnc: @Steve in the ATL:
For the tabloids: Republican Serial Killers of Justice !
Amir Khalid
@jl:
Thanks for the info. It was exactly what I needed.
jl
@Martin: ” Everyone knows the private equity guys will loot the utilities of assets and then bail out. I don’t see CPUC allowing that. ”
I hope not. The CPUC kind of allowed PG&E to loot its own assets… so… that in and of itself is not a strong argument against letting a hedge fund loot it up right and proper.
Another Scott
@gene108: One of the things that have caused me not to seriously consider a plug-in hybrid or electric thus far is lack of home charging infrastructure. (We don’t have a garage and would need an electrical upgrade in our 55+ year old home.)
But there are fast chargers not too far away.
E.g. https://www.tesla.com/findusm#/
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/find/nearest?fuel=ELEC
And charging times are falling (not quickly enough) as the car electronics gets better. Infineon – Today, a DC charger with 150 kW can put a 200 km charge on an EV in around just 15 minutes. As fast charging and battery technologies continue to evolve and improve in the near future, experts anticipate the charging time to drop even further.
It may be 10 years before such super-fast charging is common, but it’s coming.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who may bite the bullet in another year or two.”)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: You don’t get it. I park my car on the street, I have to move it to a different side of the street twice a week to facilitate street cleaning. Even if I could park in front of the property I rent, It’s about 80 feet from the nearest point that I could plug anything into. Folk that park in carports often don’t have power that’s metered for them. It’s a problem that non-renters don’t see.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “to facilitate street cleaning.”
No, you mean to avoid a parking ticket.
Martin
@Another Scott: Note that 40% of VWs money is going to CA to help comply with state regulations.
I don’t think people realize just how badly CA is outmaneuvering the rest of the country economically right now. Next year EV prices are projected to fall below ICE prices. There’s 1/10 as many parts in an electric car as a gas powered car, and battery prices continue to plummet. We’re building out infrastructure for EVs. We have the vast majority of investment money coming into CA. We have hundreds of thousands of jobs. Every automaker has an EV group in CA. This is all happening in one place, and leaving everyone else out because CA passes law and regulation after law and regulation to position in front of this, while everyone else relies on the feds who are going in the other direction. We’re building out the grid to support this, building out charging networks, incentivizing EV purchases, doing all of these things, and we’re only attracting more and more of these companies and jobs because the rest of the country is largely just sitting on their thumbs. We’re making bank out here. My solar + EV investments will now pay off in less than 6 years. My monthly outlay is down $200. That adds up fast.
Amir Khalid
@Martin:
A friend of mine was Catholic but heavily influenced by evangelical Protestant literature. He lent me a book once that struck me as completely nuts.
Mary G
Some fun comments on here:
Millard Filmore
@jl:
Jesus was a candy assed girly man, a wuss. Don’t pay him no nevermind.
joel hanes
@Steve in the ATL:
one of my kids has started attending both church and bible study
You don’t say which denomination, and it matters.
There is Bible study and Bible study.
That is to say, if her class puts proper emphasis on the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the good Samaritan, and if they teach the current academic theories about the history of the various texts, I don’t see a lot of harm
Many of the old-line “liberal” denominations (Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist) are pretty much SJWs in their dominant organizations — although various “conservative” splitters have forked off smaller organizations so that they can maintain their favored bigotries.
Many good people are fervent Christians — Jimmy Carter, for one.
Other good people are believers, if not fervent — Barack Obama.
And many good kids go through a phase where they explore religion to see what it’s about and why so many people have pursued it. Most of them recover.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
You are correct, sir.
jl
@joel hanes: If you go to fundamentalist protestant Evangelical Bible study, you study cherry picked excerpts from the Apostle Paul, Revelations, and bits and pieces of the Old Testament prophets that predict horrible apocalypse that God intends for the Endtimes, or as punishment for our sins of the flesh, or both, or something, and that can be connected to Revelations in some way, no matter how far fetched. It is a true mess.
The selections are usually just a verse or two or short excerpts from paragraphs, so cherry picking is extreme and transparent to all but minors, who are impressionable and can’t be expected to know any better, and the brainwashed. And maybe weak minded authoritarians? I don’t want to be uncivil.
Don’t ask me how I know, but I know.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: LOL and sacrilege.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think they will incrementally build out incentives to address the problem. For workers, its better to charge at work because of the overproduction during the day so the incentives may flow that way. For those that doesn’t apply to, European cities are building off of the street lighting. The switch to LEDs means that the street lighting infrastructure is generally about 10x more than it needs to be, so they have capacity there to install street-side outlets for charging.
It varies a lot, but many mid-century street lighting systems are 480V 3phase. Those would provide better charging capacity than most residential systems (mine is 240v 40A, and exceeds the capacity of our current car). The wires are already under the light post, it’s just a matter of putting a box on the post. Depending on how many were charging simultaneously on the circuit you could get a full Tesla charge out of it in 20 minutes or so. You certainly should have enough excess capacity in those circuits to charge everyone up every day, though not necessarily all at the same time.
Sab
[email protected]Amir Khalid: A lot of evangelical Protestants sort of ignore the New Testament (the Jesus’ stuff) because it isn’t harsh enough. So they go all in on the old testament prophets.
Makes for a weird religion: Christianity without Christ.
I am guessing Muslims (also of the Book) have similar issues.
Quaker in a Basement
This calls for an investigation.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: My point is, don’t try to cycle out the cars until that infrastructure is in place.
cain
How long before this criminal probe starts moving towards members of congress? In any case, I would add this to the articles of impeachment and drag Barr over as many times to update Congress on this probe and where it has gone thus far. But one thing for sure, this whole thing is about witness intimidation and a way for witnesses to stop whistleblowing.
It’s going to fail because the manic asshole in charge is going to keep breaking laws and involving foreign countries. The criminal probe makes no sense when in fact laws are being broken by the executive branch.
Amir Khalid
@jl:
It’s telling, isn’t it, what these people see as fundamental to Christianity.
Marcopolo
Tulsi Gabbard just announced she will not run for re-election to Congress if she loses the D Prez nomination. Guess that frees her up for the 3rd party run after she loses the D nomination race.
This is good news for the folks living in HI-2. At least they will get a better rep as a result.
cain
@Martin:
Hey mister, don’t forget the northwest, we’re doing the same thing. The entire northwest + NoCal is one big electric highway. I see as many Teslas around here as I do in California. (well not really) I used to own a Tesla, and likely will again even if I think Elon Musk is a putz.
Steve in the ATL
@joel hanes: Church of Christ, whatever the hell that is
Amir Khalid
@Sab:
Yes we do.
TomatoQueen
The news about John Durham is so disturbing that I wonder whether I’ve fallen into another timeline. I knew him slightly when I was a Federal court deputy clerk back in the late 90s, and up until now I would’ve said this is one of the most respected US Attys in any District. The Connecticut Bar is small, they all know each other, yet it’s tightly knit and nobody will tell tales out of school. Connecticut is also a state with ethnic and religious stratifications that intersect and react in myriad ways, being the home of Knights of Columbus (raise eyebrows) and other miscreants but it’s never been loudly evangelical. Planned Parenthood, after all, is about 8 long blocks from the K of C. So this being a project of the Opus Dei loonbuckets strikes me as weird and not plausible. That this is the John Durham I knew a long time again is most hurtful. How did he get stuck with this awful task? What would make him think kowtowing to Barr, an obvious fraud, would be anything other than rolling around in a sty with a porker of excessive size? Here is John’s bio from dot gov: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/meet-us-attorney and if you go back long enough you can see this guy, right up until now, is a bog-standard blue suit of the first order. Deeply, deeply disappointed.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I wouldn’t worry. The soon to be released Illudium Q 36 Explosive Space Modulator will solve all problems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT5zcmLeRLo
Mary G
Just saw all the fires all over the state. LAT front page. Power cutoffs not too helpful. PG&E says transmission line broke as Sonoma fire began. Humidity where I live is 11%, and my skin feels like a russet potato just pulled from the ground.
Raymond Chandler said it:
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Three words: Salt, pepper and rosemary.
jl
@Sab: ” I am guessing Muslims (also of the Book) have similar issues. ”
I read a history of Islam and a history of Islamic law, Both said that fundamentalism was repeated imposed throughout its history by rulers in order to preserve political power. The book on the history of Islamic law was very interesting. Several time in its history including before 1000 CE, Islam seemed, at least from court records and annals, to be more liberal than it is now in many places.Particularly places like Saudi Arabia.
NotMax
@Marcopolo
Guess she can read the ten foot high handwriting on the wall: PAU.
Now let’s see if she sticks to her word. Or runs for the seat as an R.
patrick II
@Marcopolo:
Hillary was exactly right, Tulsi is going third party. Beto, Mayor Pete, Bernie may want to rethink their defense of her.
joel hanes
@Steve in the ATL:
Church of Christ
Ah. That makes it difficult to know, because the largest group of congregations using that name have no central organization, and there’s wide variation among them.
If it’s the sect I’m thinking of, they’re a bit more blinkered than I’d like, but mostly not part of the hard-core fundagelical mob. If, as doctrine, they eschew instrumental music in their services, so that all singing is a capella, I’ve got the right sect.
Eric NNY
Occam’s razor: Barr is compromised.
NotMax
@NotMax
Or setting herself up to run for governor in 2022. (Current gov is term-limited and cannot run again.)
joel hanes
@jl:
Yes, I know that fundagelical Bible study is fundamentally dishonest.
I haven’t been reading Slacktivist for over fifteen years without learning a thing or two
As a youth, I spent a week each summer at a church camp run by bible-literalist Presbyterian missionaries. I ended up strong atheist.
patrick II
@Sab:
They are not usually very compatible. The Catholic church controlled the teaching of religion back before the printing press. Then they could print Bibles, Calvin nailed his protest to a church door and the Protestant reformation began, with an emphasis on each person reading the bible (not the catholic catechism) and having a personal relationship with God. Then that splits off into various schisms. But basically, in the Catholic church, the Pope rules, and theoretically Protestants rule themselves, although charismatic leaders pretty much make a joke of the ideal.
Dan B
@?BillinGlendaleCA: With additional high speed chargers charging can take 10 minutes. The issue of apartment dwellers should be addressed upfront so the resistance to electric cars does not grow. Also for poor people the subsidies are inadequate.
joel hanes
@jl:
The modern nation with the largest population of Muslims is Indonesia.
(You know, where the young Barack Obama spent several years.)
Islam in Indonesia seems relatively benign compared to its Saudi or Pakistani versions
Another Scott
@patrick II: Martin “Calvin” Luther??
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jacel
@JGabriel: I remember the early 2000s when I was first seeing Ezra contribute to a blog while an underclassman at UC Santa Cruz. As an alumni (“Go Banana Slugs!”) from long before, I was proud to see what he was writing, which often focused on the state of health care. His rise in venues was rapid and, I thought, deserved
moops
@Amir Khalid: A Tesla Model S long range battery is 100kWH capacity, at PG&E rates of $0.22/kWH that is $22 for a full tank of electricity. The gas in SF Bay Area is about $3.80, for 15 gallons that’s $57. Both are going to go up over time. Cheaper electricity would help, but PG&E rates a likely to rise if they have to step up upgrading the grid to avoid blackouts.
patrick II
@Another Scott:
Damn it.
I was raised Catholic, all of those Protestants look alike to me: heretics.
Cacti
Once a fascist political movement seizes power, their first priority is to criminalize any opposition to them.
Sab
@patrick II: That’s what I thought. If not okay with Rome it’s not okay.
Sab
@patrick II: We are all very different. Hence the contention.
NotMax
@joel hanes
The Constitution of Indonesia requires a belief in God. Indonesia also does not recognize Judaism as a religion, nor any system of belief other than Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
Mary G
@rikyrah: Marianne whatshername defended Tulsi. The other women didn’t say anything, and surprisingly, neither did Biden.
ThresherK
Tone-deaf “didn’t you hear” award of the week: Rolling Stone just posted a video tonight about Hillary’s NeoMcCarthyism.
I’m not clicking on it, but it looks like Matt Taibbi is there. What a shock!
joel hanes
@NotMax:
I will defer to the esteemed Amir Khalid, should he care to weigh in, on the practical impact of those legal structures. My only claim was that Islam in Indonesian seems less harsh and blinkered than Islam in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jacel: Young Ezra transferred and graduated from UCLA.
Fair Economist
@Sab:
The electric car still ends up being better for emissions, because the electric motor is several times more efficient.
In any case, even in Ohio the coal plants aren’t economic and the Republicans in control of the government have had to tax people’s electricity to keep their donors in the coal business afloat.
mrmoshpotato
Sab
@Jacel: He was discussing the ACA provisions and markups intelligently when all of the MSM guys were idiots.
My life depended on it at the time. It passed. I am alive. Lots of gratitude there.
At the same time, Matt Yglesias, also writing on healthcare policy, was discussing whether whoevers girlfriend ( his or a roommates) got bit by her own dog could go to the ER for free.
Seriously, that was the difference. Ezra digging into the fine print, v. Matt who knew absolutely nothing, and was not embarrassed to trade on writing about his ignorance because he was too ignorant to know he was a moron. As long as he got paid.
Lots of peoples lives on the line, but Matt got a paycheck.
He will have to be extra special reporting to make up for that. Haven’t seen signs of his increasing excellence.
Ezra, on the other hand, has my gratitude. Before Mayhew, Anderson, and Barbara in the BJ comments, he was about all there was out there for us unaware of the technical blogs. He told us where to go to download the actual legislative proposals, and he commented intelligently on them.
lgerard
I am gonna wait until we get those hydrogen cars George Bush promised us 15 years ago
NotMax
@Igerard
Am I the only one who remembers him yattering on about switchgrass?
And the peril of being overrun by human-animal hybrids.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: Dave Anderson’s good, but he’s no Dick Mayhew.
Citizen Alan
@Marcopolo:
I am confused. Is she saying that if she wins the nomination, she will also run for reelection to Congress? I mean, she won’t, but is that what she’s saying?
lgerard
@NotMax:
the whole stem cell Kerfuffle that took place back then now seems quaint as well
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: I remember human-animal hybrids. Still working on them apparently since Dump looks like a pile of shit-assclown hybrid.
patrick II
@Sab:
I haven’t been to church since — I don’t know, somebody’s wedding. But, anyhow, the gist of what I said earlier is correct. Catholics were not taught to read the bible, but the church’s explanation of how to act in accordance with the bible — the catechism. That changed with printed bibles and LUTHER. Pence’s claim to be both (because he has been personally saved) is not really coherent with Catholic church teachings, but Pence seems comfortable with it — and hopes for votes from both.
lgerard
@Citizen Alan:
She’s saying that being Fox’s new in house radical far leftist is a much better gig
Amir Khalid
@joel hanes:
Islam in the Malay world (Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, the southern Phlippines, the Malay minority in Singapore, etc.) has historically been less hard-core than in the Arab world. But in the decades since Obama’s childhood in Jakarta, it has grown significantly more conservative.
@NotMax:
The Malaysian Constitution does not have such a requirement, although Islam is the national religion, and a belief in God is heavily promoted as a positive value. I know of several nations, including post-Communist Russia, that list the “good religions” in their constitution. I see no point in this, especially since it seems to justify discrimination against those of an unlisted faith. What if one were Baha’i, say, or Sikh?
Amir Khalid
@Citizen Alan:
I would like to see that campaign.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dan B: The issues with “Where to I plug this thing in” need to be addressed up front. Due to many policy makers being home owners(often several), they don’t seem to take into account others situations. And it’s got to be more than just we’re allocating 2.5 billion for charging stations, folk have to know that it’s not going to be an additional major hassle.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
switchgrass
IIRC, ethanol from switchgrass cellulose makes some sense from an ecological standpoint (switchgrass is a deep-rooted, fast-growing native perennial) and results in a net reduction in petroleum use. Neither is true of ethanol from corn.
But the potential profits to seed-corn, herbicide, and fertilizer companies are fare smaller.
cain
@moops:
We already know their executives are incompetent and overpriced. They can also start cutting salaries to these executives and the board. There should definitely be some belt tightening for the executives and not the workers.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Marcopolo:
She wants to spend more time with her
familyAssad.NotMax
@Amir Khalid
All I can tell you is that only those five are recognized there as religions and that members of any other faiths (or of none) must choose one of those five to be printed on their official I.D. cards and papers.
Matt McIrvin
@patrick II: When Tulsi goes third party all the progressive betters and sensible centrists I know are going to be blaming the witch Hillary for goading her to do it.
Matt McIrvin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There won’t be a push to upgrade the infrastructure unless there’s demand for the cars. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation.
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, Anderson tries hard. Whatever happened to that Mayhew guy, anyway? His insurance stuff was pretty good.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Oh, goodie – electric vehicles are fucking shit at hauling and in my experience they are severely underpowered going up mountains, so where does that leave those of us who live in the mountains and have to haul stuff? As well as those of us who are never, ever ever, under any circumstances, going to be buying a new vehicle again. Unless, of course, the Democrats in their wisdom decide they are simply going to outlaw gas and diesel engines.
To say nothing of the fact that out here in the sticks where one routinely puts 20-25,000 miles on a vehicle yearly just to get around, there are no charging stations. I mean, nice idea in theory, but until GM develops a truck that can haul a horse trailer filled with two tons of horseflesh plus gear, and unless the Democrats up their subsidies to $20,000, I ain’t interested and I sure ain’t buying.