Scoop-de-doo from the NYT access lady:
The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office.
The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.
The stark warning — the only time Mr. Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Mr. Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.
When the mob stormed the Capitol Building, Giebels hustled Pence to the loading dock, where he refused to get in the car. According to Haberman’s article, aides say Pence wouldn’t get in the car because “it would let the rioters and others score a victory against a core democratic process.”
Huh. I still think he was afraid they’d clap a chloroformed cloth over his face and dump him in the Potomac. The January 6 hearings are gonna be LIT.
Open thread.
ETA: Excellent retort from President Biden on Elon Musk’s announcement that he’s laying off 10% of Tesla employees because he’s got the white hot fantods about the U.S. economy. POTUS even gets in a pro-union shot! Well done!
“Lots of luck on his trip to the moon.”
— President Biden responds to Elon Musk saying he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy pic.twitter.com/RNjXcP1Szn
— The Recount (@therecount) June 3, 2022
One Good Thing
ruidh
It’s scary how close we came to a stolen election. Who knew Pence had that much backbone?
JPL
Let’s not give kudos too quickly for sharing info before the book comes out. The info will probably be released next week anyway.
My kudos go to Pence because he did not make an escape and get in the car. Why did he bring his family?
Kropacetic
@JPL: Let’s not give credit anyway. This is being released after it’s seriously actionable in any way and Habs was sent to the White House for four years as Trump’s personal turd polisher, a gift from the New York Times.
Courtesy among fascists.
Parfigliano
Would have been nice to know at that time but book sales come first
jnfr
I’m really looking forward to the public hearings next week.
WaterGirl
I saw that title in the dashboard and I SO wanted to peek and see what it was. Hoping it’s as juicy as I have been hoping.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Sure wish all these dang books reporters are writing would hurry up and get published. Time’s a’wasting, justice delayed, digging for truth and all the clap trap we are supposed to believe about reporters. Guess capitalism demands they get rich off a book before we get the details
lollipopguild
This is funny, really funny, when you think of it. The president(trump) wanted his vice president killed. If the mob had found pence and killed him, trump and others would have openly and loudly CELEBRATED! No writer of fiction-novel or script would have been allowed to write this unless it was done as farce/comedy.
WaterGirl
That Biden comment “good luck with your trip to the moon” is right up there with “good luck with your asparagus”.
I believe the shorter spelling of both phrases is “fuck you”.
coin operated
I call bullshit. If I recall correctly, Adam posted up something to the effect that LTG (R) Kellogg, Pence’s NatSec Advisor, advised him not to get in the car.
Calouste
@JPL:
So they couldn’t be held hostage?
VOR
IIRC a high-ranking Secret Service person was working in the TFG administration as an advisor. Pence may have thought if he got in the car, then the TFG-loyalists in the Secret Service would take him to a safe, undisclosed location somewhere in Outer Mongolia or the dark side of the moon. You know, for his own protection.
germy shoemangler
Musk: “I’ve got a bad feeling about the economy tanking. I think I’ll help out by raising the unemployment rate.”
WaterGirl
Betty, John must have thought this was an Anne Laurie post. :-)
trollhattan
Musk has also decided remote work Ist verboten and said that if you don’t return to the office he will accept it as your resignation. Mr. Buzzkill.
Wag
@ruidh: I hope Mother is proud of her little man. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m kinda proud of him for this one patriotic act.
Kay
So Musk is just vaguely threatening to fire “10%” of his employees?
See, if he was a normal non-genuis he would lay people off the ordinary way, one by one, and then all his best employees wouldn’t hit the door knowing they can be instantly employed elsewhere.
It’s how a moron would do it.
germy shoemangler
germy shoemangler
that should certainly help employee morale.
Kay
@germy shoemangler:
I sort of agree. I was always “let them in” but a little Party discipline wouldn’t hurt.
Baud
Biden’s quip dovetails nicely with the Ford commercial.
germy shoemangler
@trollhattan:
While simultaneously bragging online about how many video games he’s been playing.
bupalos
That whole delivery from Biden was about the best tight 20 seconds I’ve seen out of him in forever and “Good luck on his trip to the moon” is an absolute classic.
Baud
@Kay: Heh. Good luck with that.
Barbara
@germy shoemangler: It’s the employees you can least afford to lose who end up leaving as a result of hamhanded management tactics like this.
Kay
@germy shoemangler:
The ordinary non-genuis idea is you would pick the 10% ahead of time and not tell all the people you want to keep.
But far be it from to stand in the way of innovation. He should fire them alphabetically, perhaps. Maybe by Zodiac sign.
MisterForkbeard
I clicked through the twitter link about Biden’s comeback, and holy shit are the Musk fanatics out in force. “Companies get rid of 10% of their workforce all the time!” “This is just Elon finding out who shares his vision by making things bad for people who don’t want to be there. Genius!” or “Why is the media LYING about this? It’s making Tesla shares go down when this actually indicates that he’s being financially responsible. Shares should go up!”
Etc. Scary stuff. It’s exactly like it is with Trump every two weeks when we uncover some new horrible fact about his coup attempt.
germy shoemangler
@Barbara: @Kay:
My wife owned some Tesla stock a few years ago.
She sold after seeing Musk interviewed on TV. He gave off strong “this boy ain’t right” vibes to her.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
After the Depp/Heard trial, who’s to say that that’s not just Musk out in force.
(Not that he doesn’t have his fanatics).
WaterGirl
@coin operated: I believe the bit about the national security advisor was speculation, not fact.
MisterForkbeard
@germy shoemangler: Specifically, he’s clarified that it totally doesn’t count because he’s just going to fire a lot of salaried employees, but the hourly folks who actually build his cars and get paid much won’t be touched.
Incidentally, when you have huge problems meeting internal deadlines, supply chain issues, and your cars have significant design problems cutting your core salaried white collar employees is not how you solve those problems.
Why don’t we all recognize his jeenyus? Yeesh.
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
Maybe Muskrat is angling for a job hosting a rebooted The Apprentice. As I recall, the premise of the show was a “successful tycoon” firing 10% of his workforce every week for contrived reasons. As Mitchell & Webb noted years ago.
Steeplejack
Peter Navarro live (on MSNBC, maybe other outlets) slinging some seditionist bullshit. At least he hasn’t mentioned “Green Bay sweep” yet.
Another Scott
@germy shoemangler: Elon’s probably just riffing off Jack Welch’s famous commandment about firing the bottom 10%. There’s a book out now/soon on “How Jack Welch Destroyed Capitalism” or something. The powerhouse that Jack built is now a pile of dead embers. I guess Elon wants the same thing for his little empire (Jack made out like a bandit, so it was all good for him.).
Cheers,
Scott.
Calouste
@MisterForkbeard: I was just browsing wikipedia a little, and Tesla produces about 9 cars per employee per year. Ford and Toyota (and I assume most of the other large car manufacturers) are in the 20-25 range. 10% lay offs sounds like it’s just the start.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Ha! MSNBC cut away because John Heilemann said they had reached their limit on “bug-eyed gibberish.”
bupalos
@MisterForkbeard:
The preface to Biden’s barb is the actual dig here- Ford is hiring to do trucks that have a huge waiting list. The reality for Tesla is pretty much EVERY automaker foreign and domestic is jumping into electrics hard, and while Tesla is a top 3 competitor in the space, they’re going to have to work awfully hard just to keep the spot they have now with everything that’s coming. The Korean companies are already very close, VW’s ID lines look like a really smart way to deliver a bunch of models with manufacturing efficiency. And frankly Elon is pissing off a lot of lefties that otherwise want his cars, but are going to have a lot of options soon.
Meanwhile, Tesla is priced more like it’s already guaranteed to be #1 through the next decade. First mover in cars isn’t going to be anything like first mover in online retailing or social media, they’re going to have to keep building something that people want more than the competition and they aren’t going to be able to run anyone out based on early volume.
Jinchi
I’d think that the CEO of the most well-known electric car company would see record high gas prices as a golden opportunity, but I guess Elon is still looking for an excuse to bail on the Twitter deal.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Cole is the yeti of bigfooters.
Tony Jay
FFS. Someone clearly mixed herb and vine while watching ‘The Fifth Element’. This time next week he’ll be shaving one side of his head and covering it in cling film.
Another Scott
re the Biden clip in the tweet above.
[ rofl, snort! ]
The shoulder shrug and hands was perfect.
Cheers,
Scott.
Calouste
@bupalos: I also suspect that it is going to be a lot cheaper/easier/faster for say Toyota to convert the production lines they already have for 9 million vehicles per year from ICE vehicles to EVs, than it is for Tesla to build production capacity for an additional 8 million vehicles (they produce about 1 million at the moment).
Mike in NC
@Steeplejack: Navarro and Bannon always struck me as two of the Fat Orange Clown’s most deplorable henchmen, and are still plotting the next coup attempt.
JPL
@Steeplejack: Good.
Mike in NC
@Another Scott: I worked as a contractor at a GE facility for four years. That company treated everybody like dirt.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Huh. I still think he was afraid they’d clap a chloroformed cloth over his face and dump him in the Potomac.
The problem with chloroform is the dosage; there’s always a chance they’ll wake up.
JPL
@Tony Jay: Since Ford just released an ad mocking him, and with the president’s comments today, I’m sure you’re right.
Tony Jay
@Jinchi:
Who was it that said on, like, day one of Musk’s ‘Amazing Twitter Adventure’ that the whole thing was just a con to drive up the price of Tesla stock so he could sell a ton of it?
His increasingly bizarre preconditions for actually going through with the deal are making that look positively prophetic.
Jinchi
If I were in the top 10% of a company where the leader made a comment like that I’d get a new job immediately, before the company reputation was trashed.
Kay
@germy shoemangler:
Me too. He’s a bullshitter. Tesla also hired people from here because we have a lot of skilled workers in automotive and some tried it. They came back. They think it’s poorly run and the quality isn’t there. I don’t really understand the specifics but the story was Musk presents what these people see as “work arounds” as “innovations”. So he doesn’t invest in what he would need to do higher volume but instead says “I found a better way to do it” which they think at any other automaker would be “we’re just patching this short term”. It wouldn’t “count” as an innovation.
HeleninEire
How did Marc Short know this? Put another way, who on Trump’s staff told Pence’s staff?
Another Scott
@Mike in NC: The writing was on the wall when IBM and GE and AT&T and all the other industrial giants cut way, way back on internal research. Once chasing the almighty quarterly earnings reports were all that mattered, and everything essential for the future became a “cost center”, it was only a matter of time before the giant was slain. Jack and the other MotUs looting the companies for their personal benefit made it all worse.
Grr…,
Scott.
VOR
@Calouste: I looked at buying a Tesla model Y last year. Eventually decided to stick with an ICE vehicle in the near term.
Tesla is doing some innovative things with their manufacturing. The “Gigacasting” idea of making large assemblies using cast aluminum rather than welding potentially 100s of pieces of steel. Constantly improving designs and rolling out the changes into production ASAP rather than waiting for the next model year.
OTOH, there are downsides to treating hardware products as software. You can buy two cars built a month apart and find they have different parts, different assemblies. Can those large castings be repaired or are vehicles going to have to be totaled out after every crash? And I dislike the idea of getting rid of all buttons in favor of touchscreen menus – I like tactile feedback and I live in a place where we wear gloves several months of the year.
But Musk’s own behavior is probably the biggest negative right now. I want a CEO focused on his company, not his Twitter profile.
trollhattan
@Kay:
He was smart WRT the Gigafactory where teamed with Panasonic, Tesla has ginormous battery production capacity. IDK where the bigs are sourcing batteries but it’s got to be a bigger hurdle than chip shortages over the long haul. They also guessed right with DC charging.
JMG
First auto company with an electric pickup truck wins the race for the US market. Doubt that’ll be Tesla.
trollhattan
Yup, hate taking my eye away from, you know, driving to ponder which hunk of a smooth, large surface I need to poke in order to do…whatever. Am also now seeing steering wheels festooned with literally two dozen buttons and dials. I get the concept (“keep you eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel”) but you still have to LEARN them to use them, presuming you ever do.
Even the seemingly innocuous changing a volume dial to up/down buttons is a step backwards.
trollhattan
Florida Man
Everybody is the enemy. Everybody.
Matt McIrvin
@bupalos: I really like the Hyundai hybrid I got, and if I were looking for an electric I might well go for a Hyundai there too–their latest EV model is getting rave reviews, but it sounds like it might be hard to buy at the moment
At this point, no way would I buy a Tesla. Like VOR, I never liked their idea of replacing nearly all of the dash controls and displays with a touchscreen mounted right in the middle. The weird centrally mounted display in the Toyota Prius bothers me enough.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: Trump was a trash magnet, but he was also a crazyness enhancer. Navarro’s career shows he never had much balance, and now he’s spinning into the void.
HinTN
@bupalos: I looked seriously at an ID before settling on a Hybrid RAV4. VW wasn’t ready to deliver within 4 to 6 months and I wasn’t ready to commit to trusting the infrastructure across the southeast for long trips. I love my Toyotas, our 2015 Hybrid Camry and now this one!
burnspbesq
Elon made a huge strategic mistake when he committed to opening the Supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles—and compounded the mistake by saying it on an earnings call. The Supercharger network is Tesla’s last remaining advantage that can’t be competed away, because it got there first and snapped up the prime locations. But he can’t renege, because he would then be guilty of securities fraud.
debbie
Glad to read this:
Baud
@burnspbesq:
Fixed.
Matt McIrvin
@JMG: Tesla’s “Cybertruck” was announced in 2019, was a gimmicky abomination that looked like something from a low-polygon Nintendo 64 game, and apparently still isn’t out. Ford is going to beat them to market with the electric F-150.
HinTN
@Calouste: The folks at Toyota told me that if 10% of the entire ICE fleet in the USA converted to fully electric the grid couldn’t support it. I think they’re into perfecting hybrids for the near term. My RAV4 gets 40 mpg cruising at 70 (+).
burnspbesq
@HinTN:
I loved my ID.4. But I love my Taycan even more.
debbie
Asshole actually said it out loud:
Steeplejack
Re Musk and Tesla: I don’t know enough about early automotive history, but Tesla has the vibe of an early, perhaps innovative company that couldn’t scale and got crushed by the big players. Maybe like an REO or a Stutz?
Baud
@debbie:
First non-lie he’s ever said.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
I think you meant “yet again.”
Not sure what the SEC is waiting for. In civil enforcement actions, the burden of proof is only preponderance of the evidence, and it could bar him from serving as a director or officer of any public company. Much hilarity would ensue, and Tesla could hire a new CEO who actually understands the car business.
trollhattan
@HinTN: They’re painting with an awfully broad brush. If EVs are to overwhelm the grid it will be in select regions. California, with a ninth of the country’s population, will be ready.
Texas? Probably not.
Matt McIrvin
@HinTN: Toyota also made a bet on hydrogen fuel cell cars, which I think is kind of hopeless–electric grids will be able to support an all-EV fleet before there’s enough fueling infrastructure to make hydrogen cars practical.
Steep’s Helper
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
How’d you like an apostrophe in your nym?
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack: Tucker? DeLorean?
prufrock
@bupalos:
Oh, I feel seen.
Another Scott
@debbie: More from KyivIndependent (via Google Translate):
More at the link.
Godspeed to the Ukrainians!
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
LMAO!
debbie
@Another Scott:
I’m seeing Twitter disagreements over percentages, but as long as they’re being pushed back…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If his business is crashing with these gas prices then maybe he should shut his trap and stop trolling his liberal customers for the LUZ. There is a reason why every other CEO is careful what they say in public, Elon…
Feathers
@Another Scott: From my BSchool days, I remember a chat with a professor who said that you can tell you are dealing with a fool when they just want to reapply something that was successful once, over and over again. Firing 10% might well be the right thing to do when you’ve got a company that’s been in the doldrums for a long time. But you can’t expect anything other than chaos and poor morale when you get the brainiac idea to fire the “bottom” 10% every year. People become afraid to join strong teams and gaming stats becomes all consuming.
Feathers
@trollhattan: It would be great if the coming of EVs is what allows the feds to do something about the atrocious state of the national electric grid.
germy shoemangler
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: There was a huge amount of churn in the early days of automobiles. Ford Motor Company was Henry Ford’s 3rd car company – the first 2 failed. Henry had a huge advantage with the Model T and finding ways to cut production costs to crush competitors, but GM found ways to compete anyway and Ford was never as dominant again.
I don’t know if Tesla will be around as an independent company in 20 years. It’s hard to know how they and the rest of the industry is going to change. (Ford setting up a separate EV company.) Legacy costs almost killed GM, Ford, and Chrysler not that long ago. Legacy costs from internal combustion transportation are huge, also too.
Big changes are coming. CEOs that get in twitter battles about cartoons and other stupid stuff aren’t doing their businesses any favors…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@germy shoemangler:
That was our first mistake…
Steep’s Helper
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, they came along later—Tucker in the ’40s, DeLorean in the ’70s. I was thinking of “pioneering” companies that had a shot against Ford, Buick et al. in the beginning and lost out.
HinTN
@burnspbesq: Handling in the curves, eh?
HinTN
@Matt McIrvin: I agree with that. The logistics of hydrogen are crazy.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin:
The Supertruck strikes me more like the Vector W8. Neato specs! Coming Real Soon Now!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Especially in a context where the Blue Screen of Death could easily be literal.
Ken
@debbie: In a just world, Gohmert would have begun chanting “but if everything a lie then it is a lie when I say everything is a lie but then everything is true so it is true that everything is a lie but…” and caught fire like a Star Trek android.
(Though in a truly just world, Gohmert would be the guy on the back of the city truck who hops out to shovel up the roadkill, and even that might strain his capabilities.)
Ken
Surely a courtesy that any citizen can expect.
Actually what I’m expecting is they’re going to find an open first-class ticket to Bahrain in his house, and that will be sufficient evidence of flight risk to deny bail.
matt
My theory is that the comments today from the Emerald Dandy were made to provide some rational sounding context for his Tiger Oil-like ‘go pretend to work somewhere else’ memo leaked earlier in the week.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: More precisely, ‘anyone who says ANYTHING about a position that Republicans oppose’ is the enemy. Doesn’t matter who you are, if you even make anodyne comments then the State is going to come after you.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: We recently moved to Volvo’s hybrid and EV options, and I have to say that Tesla really doesn’t have that much of a leg up on anyone right now.
They’ve got a valuable brand, but other companies are delivering experiences very close to the Tesla cars, but with better quality control, cheaper cars, and in some cases better interiors and support/repair.
Tesla’s big problem has always been reliability and scale while they charge boutique prices, and I really don’t see that changing.
Baud
US has over 750 complaints of Teslas braking for no reason
https://apnews.com/article/technology-politics-health-cd1a51e26baa07678de50cab8ae90ee0
prostratedragon
@germy shoemangler: Well, per my favorite version of a favorite oldie, “Life can’t always be a song”.
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: I keep hoping and expecting at least a 2-speed transmission in reasonably-priced EVs soon. Tesla was promising one, and working on one, for the Roadster for years before Elon came along. They couldn’t get get one that didn’t eat itself. The Porsche Taycan / Audi e-Tron GT may be still be the only ones that have one now (I haven’t checked recently). It looks like ZF is claiming about a 5% increase in range at the moment (as of 2019), but they’re mostly used for quicker acceleration in sports cars at the moment.
Cheers,
Scott.
HinTN
@Baud: The 2015 Lexus IS 250C that I traded for the RAV4 had that nasty Toyota habit of trying to accelerate while foot was on the brake. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and say that my fat foot was to blame but it was disconcertingly frequent enough to tip me away from my sexy geezer car into my boxy geezer car.
MisterForkbeard
@debbie: So to be clear, he thinks Durham was fucking around with Sussman and that Durhams (proven egregiously false) accusation was bullshit to begin with?
MisterForkbeard
@debbie: I mean, I remember literally four years of questioning his ethics from various watchdog groups, but sure. They should have questioned them more forcefully. Maybe by firing him from a cannon into the sun.
MisterForkbeard
@Another Scott: You want to know about something cool? There’s an EV Jeep that’s a manual transmission. Yeah: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/jeep-magneto-an-ev-with-a-manual-transmission/
Won’t be on the market for a couple of years at least, but they have working ones now.
billcinsd
@Matt McIrvin: Last year I was car shopping and wanted to get a plug-in Ioniq hybrid from Hyundai. I went to the local Hyundai dealer, and they said they could get 2 every 5 years. I ended up with a Sonata Hybrid, which gets like 50+ mpg
zhena gogolia
@bupalos: My husband said, “He’s the wittiest president we’ve ever had!”
prostratedragon
@Calouste: Bingo!
prostratedragon
@germy shoemangler: [ cough-cough ] Donald Trump. Acres of gossip patter is not a deep dive.
ETA Not Democrat I know, but the public sphere in general is at as much risk, and it should have been in anyone’s interest to take him down as hard as possible from the beginning. Unless of course they wanted to exploit the chaos themselves.
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: Neato. It will be good to see if they have solved the reliability issues.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
SamIAm
@germy shoemangler:
Oh what a bunch of bull. Both of them polled south of three percent together.
Don’t push a Liberal version of the Dolchstoßlegende.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: Is there a reason to put a manual transmission in an EV other than old-school vibes?
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: It’s a little awkward given that the reason Elon Musk even has his own viable space program is his contracts with NASA, under a program that I think started under Obama–and currently SpaceX is their astronauts’ only reliable ride, because Boeing repeatedly screwed the pooch. Of course I suspect Musk had very little to do with any of that success.
Geminid
@Feathers: The Infrastructure bill passed last year included $65 billion to help upgrade the nation’s electrical grid. More investment is needed it, but this is a start.
Almost all the nation’s electrical grid is privately owned. Utility regulators can mandate private investments to upgrade the grid that ratepayers will pay for.
This is actually an interesting topic to research. There is a lot going on in this area, both technical and political.
UncleEbeneezer
Here is a really great PDF Primer for all you need to know about the upcoming January 6th hearings. It shows the four teams of the Commission, what they focussed on, what we know (from publicly available info) and what to look for:
1.) GOLD TEAM
Efforts by Trump and close associates to pressure federal, state, and local officials to overturn the election
2.) BLUE TEAM
Law enforcement and intelligence agency failures
3.) PURPLE TEAM
Domestic extremist groups, QAnon, and online misinformation
4.) RED TEAM
Jan. 6 Rally planners and the Stop the Steal Movement
Citizen Alan
@trollhattan:
Texas probably can’t handle everyone in the state turning on their air conditioners all at the same time.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: Between hurricanes and heatwaves, this will be a challenging summer for Texas’s electrical grid. Greg Abbott’s reelection bid may end up hostage to the weather.
JDM
I agree with the poster and not some commenters re Pence. I don’t think he had any more backbone than he’s shown since (none, in case that wasn’t clear). I think he didn’t want to get in the car for the same reason you don’t want to get in the car that Big Tony the bookmaker sent for you when you owe money.
MisterForkbeard
@Matt McIrvin: Nope. It’s purely to replicate the feel for people who like offroading and manually shifting.
germy shoemangler
@SamIAm:
“You’re exaggerating. Stop exaggerating,” he exaggerated.
Martin
So, I’ve known Peter Navarro for 25 years. I have despised Peter Navarro for 25 years.
Navarro is the kind of person who believes he is more special than anyone else around him. Rules do not, and have never applied to him, and he will protect that privilege by driving everyone around him fucking insane. He will call you and scream at you, show up at your desk, and so on. I spent a considerable amount of my time running interference for my staff and steering his ire at me, and then working through the disciplinary process against him.
That it’s reported he’s shocked that this indictment happened, and that he’s now in jail. Not surprising at all to me that he feels that way. Consequences were always for other people. I’d be overjoyed today if not for the need to save some of that for when he’s convicted and sentenced.
germy shoemangler
@Martin:
He’s been released from jail, the latest I read
(Washington Post)
Martin
@trollhattan: I wouldn’t be so quick on that. Moving to 100% EVs will consume about as much power as all households. Essentially you’re saying ‘if the population of California doubled, would the grid be able to handle that’ and the answer is quite clearly ‘no’. What’s more, that shift doesn’t absolve the state of its own goals for renewable energy generation, so that now needs to move *much* faster as the load on the grid goes up, but the fraction of grid renewables remains the same for the state goals.
I’m not saying CA can’t do it, but I don’t think the public is willing to pay for that, and you’re seeing that now in the rising cost of batteries, EVs, etc. I expect in the next few years, we’ll be looking at BEVs as a problem because they aren’t able to bring emissions down enough. We need to be taking the BEV subsidies and pouring that money instead into e-bike subsidies and mass transit.
TriassicSands
One way, please.
Cheez Whiz
@Jinchi: It was a thing at software companies back in the 90’s to tell employees that the bottom 10% in the biannual review process were at risk of being RIFd (reduction in force, a tapdance that avoided some retaliation actions by let go employees). Supposed to motivate people. Yeah, right.
Obvious Russian Troll
@trollhattan:
One theory on his ban on remote work is that Musk is trying to thin out the herd before the layoffs. I don’t know if it’s true, but it is plausible.
ruidh
@Wag: The cynical side of me says he was trying to preserve his political career and potential run for the presidency. Mother approves.
TriassicSands
Does he mean a private corporation that has all the rights and few of the responsibilities of actual human beings? The Supreme Court’s super humans. As a fascist, DeSantis may be choosing the wrong enemies.
Clearly, this is a
manPOS who can’t tolerate disagreement or dissent.Martin
What Ari Melber is describing about Navarro’s behavior about seeking revenge against people in the current administration is exactly how he operates. He did that against me personally a number of times. It’s interesting how moving up from a university professor to a WH advisor has had no impact on his behavior in any way. He’s exactly the same guy he’s always been. And he’s dumb as nails. How does a business economist not understand how life expectancy tables work?
joel hanes
@Martin:
There’s a tendency in Silicon Valley neighborhoods, and I suspect elsewhere in CA, for homeowners to invest in significant rooftop solar at the same time they have their home EV charging station installed.
Of course, on work days, the car isn’t likely to be charging in the home garage during the peak hours of insolation.
Timill
@joel hanes: They’re probably charging the PowerWall for when the EV comes home…
Matt McIrvin
@joel hanes: Ideally there would be a charger wherever the car IS parked, so the home solar arrays can feed into the grid. (Also, I’d imagine that a lot of these Silicon Valley folks are now working from home, which should be a bigger reduction in transportation emissions than driving EVs.)