{Dumber than a second coat of paint!}

Could the federal government impose a ban on new gas-powered cars?

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said recently he is interested in such a policy after California mandated that only "zero-emission" cars be sold by the mid-2030s.

What did California do?
In late August, the California Air Resources Board approved a new rule banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

The regulation does not ban Californians from driving vehicles with internal combustion engines, but it mandates that any new vehicle sold in the state with a model year of 2035 or later must be free of fossil fuel emissions.

What did Buttigieg say?
The transportation secretary told KTTV-TV last week that he is "really interested" in regulations like those in California. In fact, Buttigieg suggested such a policy may be considered nationally.

"It’s interesting to see how the states are trying to go above and beyond what we’re doing at the federal level," Buttigieg told the news station.

"I’m really interested in these developments, while we continue to set a national policy that’s the baseline for all of this. We need to move in the direction of electric vehicles," he added.

The transition to electric vehicles must happen "quickly," Buttigieg added, in order to "beat climate change."

"We’ve got to make sure that this happens quickly enough to help us beat climate change," he said. "We’ve got to make sure it happens affordably enough that’s it not just wealthy people, but low-income people who are the ones who most need those gas savings if they can afford the EVs in the first place."

However, Buttigieg did not explain how mandating electric vehicles will "beat climate change." After all, the U.S. is only one country and accounts for roughly 10% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

Anything else?
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently agreed that California's rule "could be" a "national model."

The irony of California's new rule is that just this month Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) instructed residents to restrict their use of electricity amid a record-breaking heat wave.

Among other measures intended to preserve the electric grid, Newsom asked Californians not to use large appliances between the hours of 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. One wonders if charging electric vehicles fell into that category.

Meanwhile, California was also forced to use gas-powered emergency generators to prevent widespread blackouts.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1568409073535811584

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{This lunatic is definitely the WORST politician I've ever seen; first a Republican; then independent; then Democrat; now raving madman!}

By G. McConway, September 12, 2022

It is almost laughable that people can listen to Democrats talk about uniting a country with a straight face.

This week’s blunder came out of the face of Charlie Crist, Governor Ron DeSantis’ Democrat opponent in the gubernatorial election.

The man who claims he wants to unite the state called DeSantis “DeSatan,” then had the audacity to agree with a supporter who called him Christ.

Delusional
First, Let’s talk about Crist going on record after he won his nomination saying he wanted nothing to do with DeSantis supporters.

Not exactly unifying words.

In the video you are about to watch, he has his nose stuffed so far up Joe Biden’s tail end that it is disgusting.

Crist is also trying to promote Biden as a unifier, even though he just gave what could arguably be called the most divisive speech by anyone who ever had the keys to the White House…

DeSantis rapid response director Christina Pushaw fired right back, stating, “Charlie Crist has always been self-absorbed, but comparing himself to the second coming of Jesus Christ is a new level of bizarre delusion.

“He’s beyond embarrassing — and it’s only September.”

For better or worse, Crist has attached himself to Joe Biden.

I think he will find out in about two months just how bad of an idea it is to do that in Florida.

Sources: Daily Caller & Breitbart

https://twitter.com/i/status/1562452608765542400

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{Once again, in the language of "libtard-speak," go thank a union!}

You’ve bought the school supplies. Your kid’s backpack is all packed up and ready for the first day of school. This is a common ritual around the country, especially right now.

Only, parents in Seattle have to face a harsh reality. Their kids are missing the first day of school because the teachers have decided to go on strike. Kids are being punished so that Seattle teachers can get political.

And of course, it’s Seattle. The liberal city has faced countless issues in the past two years, mostly as a result of weak and progressive leadership. They’ve cleared up their barricades for the autonomous government just in time for the teachers to strike.

A Seattle teachers union took a vote – and it was an overwhelming decision to strike instead of starting school this past Wednesday.

50,000 students are being deprived of a timely start to the school year. Instead, teachers decided that they were going to strike – and it’s all about pay and benefits.

Keep in mind that the teachers had all summer to work out the details. They could have picketed around the city for months. They waited until the first day of school because they are selfish. They don’t care if they’re hurting the education of tens of thousands.

The issue is not just an increased salary. It’s also about the district maintaining proper staffing ratios for multilingual and special education students. Now, salaries are important. Teachers deserve to earn a respectable wage. And staffing ratios are critical for the learning environment. But a strike? This is unacceptable.

The union feels as though they had no choice because of the failed negotiations with the school district. The problem is that only the school district seems to be committed to working to help both students and teachers. The union is focused solely on the teachers – and that created the mess that Seattle has now found itself in.

The union argues that they are advocating for the students. If that is the case, however, why deny students access to an education while the feud goes on?

Seattle has been faced with COVID policies and closures. And they’re dealing with lower academic success. In February, Seattle Public Schools announced that the achievement testing scores were less than satisfactory, reporting “The SBA data shows that 54% of current SPS 4th graders and 51% of current 8th graders met or exceeded standards for math outcomes. Fewer than 50% of students in 11th grade met or exceeded standards. In English language arts/reading results, more than 50% of students in grades 4, 8, and 11 met or exceeded standards.”

It’s hard for a school district to pay more to teachers when the expectation of testing scores isn’t there.

Is it because of COVID policies or because of poor teaching tactics? Should teachers receive raises based on performance? Because if that’s the case, it’s no wonder why the school district is hesitant to meet the demands of the union.

At the time that this is being published, the teachers are still on strike. As for whether they will get into the classroom soon so that students don’t miss more than a day or two, well…we’ll keep you updated.

Let’s hope that the teachers get their raises while the school district sees an improvement in test scores. Then, we can guarantee that the kids will win no matter what – and isn’t that what’s really important?

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{"The Land Of Fruits And Nuts"...where the fruits are getting nuttier, and the nuts are getting fruitier!}

No matter how hard California tries to be on the cutting edge of electric vehicle use or on getting into green energy, they keep tripping over their own two feet. Their refusal to see just how unprepared the US is to go green and how it cannot be done all at once is a tremendous shortcoming for the state.

In response to this shortcoming, the state has had to issue warnings of potential rolling blackouts and inform its residents of the tremendous strain on their aging electrical grid.

As first reported by Fox News affiliate KMPH, the state has had to resort to its emergency gas generators as a backup for the grid. These four generators have never been needed in the state’s history but are not being used after the order was passed down from the California Independent System Operator to the Department of Water Resources of Roseville and Yuba City.

These generators were installed in 2021 for emergency use and, through the burning of natural gas, can generate 120 megawatts for the grid. This means power for 120,000 homes in a state with over 39.2 million homes.

Given the drop in the bucket that this represents, it underlines just how dire the situation has become. With the current heatwave that California and much of the western side of the US have been under, it is only making things far worse for the state’s grid.

Now, this kind of news is not unexpected.

Since August 2020, when the state first started rolling blackouts through 800,000 homes and businesses, these outages lasted from 15 minutes to hours at a time. Governor Gavin Newsom accepted blame at the time and claimed that they had not taken the steps necessary to be prepared.

Two years later and with a 2045 timetable to become reliant solely on renewable energy, Gov. Newsom has proven that he has learned absolutely nothing about electricity.

Given the mass exodus that California has undergone in the last few years, the fact that the electrical grid is this strained is even more shocking than it was in 2020. Elliot Manzer, the ISO’s president and CEO, issued a statement on September 5th about the situation.

“We need a reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we’ve seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify.” Manzer went on to suggest that the state needed “energy deficits” of 10% or more or 3 million households or more could find themselves going offline.

The last week of August also saw ISO warning Californians and suggesting they raise their thermostat to 78* or higher. They suggested running large appliances and pre-cooling the house when the sun was out to take advantage of the solar power.

Before Labor Day weekend, they changed this stance. Instead, they asked customers to avoid large appliances, turn off unnecessary lights, and resist charging their electric cars.

Given the large push to change over to green energy-driven solar-powered cars and to convert their homes to solar power, California is already seeing the problems with electric car reliance. Their grid simply cannot keep up with the demands, and given their makeup, it’s not surprising in the least. The infrastructure itself is old and not as efficient as it could be.

However, it’s the energy sourcing that causes most of the problems.

Currently, California gets 40.5% of its electricity from solar power. 32% comes from natural gas (much to the disappointment of the green lovers), 11.5% from wind, 11.1% from hydroelectric, 10.5% from nuclear, and 0.1% from coal.

Suffice it to say, California’s electrical needs are being met through incredibly diverse sources. This might be satisfying the green energy crowds, but this kind of reliance without proper backups is a dangerous idea and one that they are already discovering can become catastrophic at a moment’s notice.

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{And so continues the lunatic Leftist scheme of flooding the country with as many illegals as possible and turning them into a permanent underclass of DEMOCRAT voters!}

Nearly 5 million illegal aliens have crossed the border since President Joe Biden took office. So far this year, of those encountered at the southern border, over 500,000 illegal aliens have been released into the interior of the country by Border Patrol. In addition to depressing the wages of low-skilled American citizens, committing crimes beyond their initial breaking of American immigration laws, and potentially undermining the integrity of elections, illegal aliens also are costing U.S. taxpayers a great deal of money.

A new study published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform determined that to provide for the needs of those criminal non-citizens who have entered the U.S. under Biden, taxpayers must carry the burden of an additional $20.4 billion every year.

FAIR noted that this annual figure is not included in the estimated $140 billion per year that taxpayers are already weighted with, which compensates for the provision of services and benefits to the "longer-term" illegal alien population.

Not including those who slipped past Border Patrol, there were 1,734,686 border encounters in 2021, and so far this year there have been a record-breaking 1,946,780 border encounters. Accounting for removals and Title 42 expulsions, FAIR found that nearly 2.3 million illegal aliens have remained in the country's interior since January 2021.

FAIR arrived at the $20.4 billion figure after multiplying the estimated number of illegal immigrants who have recently entered by a conservative cost estimate of $9,232 per illegal alien per year.

Dan Stein, president of FAIR, suggested that this money could alternatively "address some very important needs of the American public, instead of covering the costs of the surge of illegal migration triggered by this administration's policies."

FAIR looked at how else this money could be spent and determined that this money might otherwise have been used to:

provide every homeless veteran in America $50,000 per year for ten years;
give every family earning $50,000 or less a $410 grocery voucher;
provide Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to over 7 million additional needy American families;
hire more than 315,000 police officers nationwide to combat rising crime;
and complete construction of the majority of the southern border wall.

Although the price tag on unchecked criminal migration is high, it is likely to run higher.

If the Biden administration's spring decision to end Title 42 — currently in legal limbo — goes into effect, the burden on taxpayers will only increase. Title 42, a policy introduced during the Trump presidency, enabled border authorities to quickly throw out non-citizens who had entered the U.S. illegally.

In July, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz went on record noting that an internal Border Patrol emergency memo instructed agents to release illegal aliens straight into the U.S. interior upon Title 42's official elimination. The reasoning: When the policy is ended, there will be such an overwhelming number of illegal aliens surging across the border that American authorities will not have the means to stop, detain, and process every individual.

When Title 42 falls either by court decision or by the CDC's decision to let it expire, 18,000 illegal aliens are projected to cross the border daily. At that rate, over 6.5 million would cross over in the course of a year. Given FAIR's per-alien cost estimate of $9,232, this will add $166 million to American taxpayers' annual illegal alien tab every day.

Earlier this year, Republican National Committee spokesman Nicole Morales told Fox News Digital, "Joe Biden and border czar Kamala Harris have overseen the worst border crisis in DHS history and are actively making it worse by ending Title 42."

Vice President Kamala Harris does not, however, perceive this massive influx of illegals to be a problem. Over the weekend, Harris appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," where she claimed, "The border is secure."

Joseph Mackinnon, Blaze Media, September 14, 2022

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