EV Subsidized Market Bowing to the Free Market, Finally

Via AUTOMOTIVE REVIEWS:

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

In this episode, we uncover the shocking story of Lucas Turner, who faced a staggering $20,000 bill for a hybrid battery replacement in his used car. The key takeaway: buyers must prioritize pre-purchase inspections for hybrid and electric vehicles to avoid unexpected expenses.

We discuss the discrepancy in replacement costs, the importance of understanding warranty limitations, and the need for consumers to research alternative sources for more budget-friendly options. This cautionary tale serves as a reminder for listeners to stay informed and prepared for potential challenges in the world of hybrid and electric car ownership. Drive safely!

Here is an update [of sorts] to EV costs and normal repair costs, and the faltering sales of EVs as people realize they are shite! But first, because I use some sites that I do not recommend wholeheartedly, I feel the need to preface this post:

BTW, even though I go to this it, I do not recommend it – Liberty Daily. Having been immersed in the conspiratorial view of history for years, I know what red flags to look for. The owner/contributors are big Alex Jones fansand Alex is a disgrace to real news. What I tell my boys is “if you find a story that goes back to Prison Planet, Infowars, or Alex Jones in any way. Don’t use it. Find other sources for the article or news piece.

All that said, there are links below that I have not checked out in full. I can say that Discern Report is another shite site, but like Liberty Daily, there are topics and stories that are good and do not get into bat-shit-crazy stuff and are useful info for the reader. That said, enjoy the critique I pull together here by others hard work… this is a good post to branch out from. Here is my canned response for when I post stuff on Facebook:

  • While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to caution you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet and Summit News network of yahoos, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs.

I will offer red marks to designate which sites deal in conspiracy issues in other arenas of politics. I will throw in an  “I don’t know guy 🤷‍♂️for sites that I haven’t checked out. No marks mean the site is just about oil/fossil fuel outlooks, the automotive industry, etc, or political sites I trust.

Okay, the EV “revolution” is meeting the free market… and even with the attempt to route the market through legislations and tax-payer funded incentives, people are not having it. So at some point he car manufacturers and dealers will have to bow to what the consumer wants, or else face bankruptcy. Legislation is another issue, government will have to physically enforce these failed policies… which… if you are a student of history, is not that far-fetched.

This story has surely changed to include more disgruntled EV buyers: 1 in 5 EV Buyers Switch Back to Gas-Powered Cars: Study (THE DRIVE | Apr 30, 2021) And this story about costs of repairs and downtime of the customers car doesn’t help the outcomes either: Repair costs, turnaround times higher for EVs. This is all factoring into decisions such as these three stories:

Only Half of All Ford Dealers Agree to Sell EVs Next Year

Ford said on Thursday that half of all 1,550 Ford dealers chose to sell electric vehicles in 2024—down from two-thirds that said this time last year that they would opt in to sell EVs for 2023.

The other half of Ford dealers will sell—and service—ICE and hybrid models. “EV adoption rates vary across the country, and we believe our dealers know their market best,” Ford spokesman Martin Günsberg told the Detroit Free Press. …

There is a very mature statement by corporate! “we believe our dealers know their market best” Amen! Buick, on the other hand, is not so intelligent as to understand the market. And I assume that corporate is just wanting the hand-outs from the Feds for such changes (BREITBART):

According to GM, almost 1,000 of its nearly 2,000 Buick dealerships across the U.S. chose to take buyouts from the parent company rather than investing potentially millions into retooling and prepping dealers to service and sell EVs.

The buyouts mean that GM will now have just about 1,000 Buick dealerships across the nation as the automaker moves forward with adhering to President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Dealers who are taking the buyout would give up the Buick franchise and no longer sell the brand, he said. The dealer can continue to sell other GM models, such as Chevrolet or GMC, that often account for a higher percentage of sales. [Emphasis added]

The Journal reported in late 2022 that the automaker planned to offer buyouts to its U.S. Buick dealer network. The move came after the Detroit automaker gave them a choice: Invest at least $300,000 to sell and service EVs, or exit the Buick franchise. The investments would cover electric-vehicle chargers and worker training, among other initiatives. [Emphasis added]

The move comes as U.S. car dealers are so concerned with EV sales that they are urging Biden to abandon his EV mandates and carbon emission regulations that would effectively force all-electric cars on consumers.

“The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of [EVs] arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. [EVs] are stacking up on our lots,” the car dealers write:

With each passing day, it becomes more apparent that this attempted electric vehicle mandate is unrealistic based on current and forecasted customer demand. Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace. [Emphasis added]

At the same time, a bombshell Consumer Reports survey recently revealed that EVs spur nearly 80 percent more problems for car owners than gas-powered cars using traditional combustion engines.

So, Democrats wax-long about being for the little guy, the small business, and the like. But their policies push the little guy into going out of business or selling to the large corporation. But some companies do see the warning of the market and respond to it. Audi for one, is reading the tea-leaves properly (🤷‍♂️ SLAY NEWS):

German automaker Audi has announced that it is slashing production of electric vehicles (EVs) and halted future plans as demand for the products has plummeted.

Audi, which is owned by auto giant Volkswagen, revealed that demand for expensive EVs has now fizzled as consumers are put off by high prices and poor infrastructure.

The company says consumers are instead choosing gas-powered vehicles.

As Slay News has reported, car and truck dealers across America have been warning that their lots are stacking up with EVs that they can’t sell.

Thousands of American auto dealers have signed a letter to Joe Biden, urging the Democrat president to scrap his electric vehicle (EV) mandate….

So, here is a good article by a site I do not recommend as a whole… but this article excerpt is decent (  LIBERTY DAILY):

The “Electric Vehicle Revolution” Is DOA

In the early days of the push for electric vehicles to replace gas-powered vehicles, they were novelties used for virtue signaling. As the push from government leftists ramped up quickly, millions worldwide jumped onboard willingly or reluctantly as it appeared that an EV future was inevitable.

Now that the market has matured, challenges are evident. Electric vehicles are unreliable. They are expensive to repair. The infrastructure to power them is insufficient today even though they only make up a tiny percentage of what’s on the road. Behind all of these roadblocks is an underlying reality: Far fewer people are joining the climate change cult than the powers-that-be had hoped.

Force-feeding us through regulations, incentives, and massive ESG bullying campaigns have failed miserably. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost for a fearmongering industry that couldn’t deliver on any of their promises. Is the “Electric Vehicle Revolution” dying?

No. It was dead before it got here.

Audi is joining U.S. automakers in slashing production of EVs. On the retail side, Ford dealers are backing away from even offering EVs. Reports of coming challenges for EV drivers are making the Christmas news cycle. This isn’t the future that climate change cultists were promised and it’s impacting faith in the movement.

Below is an article highlighting the worst indicator of them all: Lack of used EV enthusiasm. Vehicles with staying power enjoy popularity through all stages of existence. They sell well when they’re bought or leased new. They then sell well again as program vehicles, certified pre-owned, or plain old used cars. Some, particular trucks, enjoy extended usefulness as owners sink money and effort into keeping them on the roads for decades. With EVs, none of those scenarios are panning out. The results have been predictable as EV graveyards have started popping up across the western world. Here is the article generated from corporate media reports by Discern Reporter

More from JUST THE NEWS:

Half of Ford and Buick dealers balk at investing in EVs, citing high costs, underperforming sales

Experts say that automakers and the federal government grossly overestimated consumer interest in the vehicles. “The government can’t really dictate everything it wants to dictate to the market. Seems to me we have to learn this lesson in the United States every 10 to 20 years,” said energy writer and analyst David Blackmon.

…..Energy expert Robert Bryce has been documenting Ford’s losses on its EV lines over the past year. In the third quarter of this year, the company lost $62,016 for each of the 20,962 EVs it sold during the period. It was an improvement over second quarter losses, Bryce wrote, which were more than $70,000 for each EV it sold.

Despite the hits Ford took on its EV lines, Ford posted Q3 net income of $1.2 billion compared to an $827 million loss in the same quarter in 2022. The profit was the result of strong outcomes in its Ford Blue line, which includes gas-powered and hybrid vehicles, which are vehicles that have a gas engine that can power the car or charge the vehicle’s battery. Some of the cars in that are designed to attract sports car enthusiasts and others who want high-performance vehicles…..

FLASHBACK:

Biden’s War on Gas and Oil Drilling

(PART ONE) The typical course of societal response to most government impositions is for small, aware, vocal groups to speak out against them, fail to stop them, and become frustrated as the rest of the population adopts normalcy bias, assumes the changes are just “natural,” and new generations are born into the mad system, never knowing what was destroyed and never seeing the lost opportunities that freedom could have offered.

(PART TWO) Writing about political activity is a never-ending exercise, akin to “demonology” – the chronicling of evil. But, thankfully, some courageous souls go to the trouble of doing the heavy lifting to report on areas of particular interest to them. And in this second of two parts looking at the first two years of Biden Administration attacks on oil and gas energy provision, one can thank Institute for Energy Research (IER) head Thomas Pyle for doing the “heavy lifting” of compiling the top 150, and putting them in chronological order.

(PART THREE) Last week, MRCTV produced two articles and videos outlining the numerous attacks against energy independence and competition Joe Biden’s Administration has committed since he entered office in January of 2021. The bulk of those attacks were against inexpensive acquisition, refining, and transport of petrochemical fuels such as oil and natural gas. And now, he’s added another to the ever-expanding list.

The Biden Admin’s “Bogeyman” | Oil and Gas

Biden threatened [mafia style] oil and gas companies with the “Defense Production Act.” Here Dan Bongino speaks about the issue on a drive between studios the other day. Some articles worth a read are:

  • Biden Is Threatening Oil Companies With Use of Emergency Powers Against Them (RED STATE)
  • Defense Production Act: How Biden Is Using Emergency Powers for Green Energy (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
  • President Joe Biden Temporarily Suspends Oil & Gas Permitting on Federal Lands & Water (BIG 102.1)

The Biden Administration Is Responsible For The Energy Crisis

‘Unfiltered’ host Dan Bongino slams President Biden for campaigning on ‘destroying’ the domestic oil industry, and his administration is following through on it.

The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin | Shellenberger

  • “It was the West’s focus on healing the planet with ‘soft energy’ renewables, and moving away from natural gas and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply.” — Michael Shellenberger

Armstrong and Getty read some of Michael Shellenberger’s article titled, The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin. An article of similar nature is found over at THE FEDERALIST, and it is titled: Stop Letting Environmental Groups Funded By Russia Dictate America’s Energy Policy.

Both are must reads.

FLASHBACK: Leftist Tactics via Alan Grayson (Dennis Prager)

Media’ITE captured this story in a post entitled: “Alan Grayson Wants Michael Steele To Go To Jail For Causing The Gulf Oil Spill” (Jun 4th, 2010). *Here Dennis Prager plays audio from the Stephanie Miller Show where Alan Grayson discusses their bias against views that differ with them.

*My Vimeo account was terminated; this is a recovered audio from it. (Some will be many years old, as is the case with this audio.)

Was The Iraq War About Oil?

  • (CNNMoney.com) — Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq’s new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. ~ via my old site in April of 2007.

SWEETNESS-N-LIGHT points out in their post on the subject that China will get about 80% of the oil from Iraq:

The International Energy Agency expects China to become the main customer for Iraq’s vast oil reserves. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, recently declared “a new trade axis is being formed between Baghdad and Beijing.” Birol said that about 80 percent of Iraq’s future oil exports were expected to go to Asia, mainly to China.

Iraq’s potential for oil production is huge. The International Energy Agency predicts that Iraqi production will more than double in the next eight years and that the country will be by far the largest contributor to growth in the global oil supply over the next two decades. By the 2030s, the agency expects Iraq to become the second largest global oil exporter, overtaking Russia…

Iraq hasn’t become the bonanza for big Western international oil companies that some might have expected when the U.S. invaded 10 years ago

The below is an update from 2013, 10-years after the war… I am going to highlight something for the reader to emphasize the proclivity of the Professional Left in dumbing down complicated choices and simplifying history. It comes from FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE:

Now that the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom has arrived, the American left has taken another opportunity to revive the trope that going to war in that nation “was all about oil.” The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald is one such revivalist. In a column on Monday he’s magnanimous enough to concede that saying the war in Iraq was fought strictly for oil is an “oversimplification.” Yet just as quickly, he can’t contain himself. “But the fact that oil is a major factor in every Western military action in the Middle East is so self-evident that it’s astonishing that it’s even considered debatable, let alone some fringe and edgy idea,” he contends. The war for oil mantra may be self-evident to Greenwald and his fellow travelers, but the facts say otherwise.

If oil were a major factor for prosecuting war in Iraq, it stands to reason the United States would be getting substantial amounts of it. It may come as a shock to Greenwald as well as a number of other Americans, but with regard to importing oil, the overwhelming percentage of our imported oil does not come from the Middle East. Canada and Latin America provide the United States with 34.7 percent of our imported oil. Africa provides another 10.3 percent. The entire Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia at 8.1 percent, provides us with a total of 12.9 percent of our imported oil.

As recently as December 2012, Iraq provided the United States with approximately 14.3 million barrels of oil out of a total of about 298 million barrels imported, or 4.8 percent of our total imports. And as this chart indicates, we were importing the highest amount of oil from Iraq before we went to war to oust Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, the United States fully supported the United Nations’ oil embargo against Iraq, imposed when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, despite the reality that we were far more dependent on imported oil then than we are now. We continued to support it even when it was revealed that the eventual softening of those sanctions, known as the oil for food program, revealed that Russia, France and a number of other nations were collaborating with Saddam Hussein to violate sanctions in return for billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains. Of the 52 countries named in a report compiled by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker detailing the scandal, only 28 even wanted the evidence, and the United States led the way in prosecuting those implicated.

In 2010, the UN Security Council lifted most of the remaining sanctions. The Security Council said it “recognizes that the situation now existing in Iraq is significantly different from that which existed at the time of the adoption of resolution 661” in 1990. In other words, they recognized that Butcher of Baghdad and his brutal dictatorship had been tossed on the ash heap of history, and a relatively stable government had taken its place. The Council also voted to return control of Iraq’s oil and natural gas revenue to the government by June 30 of that year. “Iraq is on the cusp of something remarkable–a stable, self-reliant nation,” said Vice President Joe Biden, who chaired the meeting.

It is precisely that self-reliant nation–not an oil-rich client state of America–that Iraq is becoming.

If America went to war in Iraq mostly for oil, it would stand to reason that we would maintain a stranglehold on both their supply and production. Ten years after the war began, China has emerged as one of the main beneficiaries of a relatively stable Iraqi government and a country that, after two decades, is poised to become the world’s third largest oil exporter. Trade between Iraq and China has doubled almost 34 times, soaring from $517 million in 2002, to $17.5 billion by the end of last year. If current trends continue, it will replace the U.S. as Iraq’s largest trading partner.

Furthermore, the first postwar oil license awarded by the Iraqi government in 2008 was to the state-run China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), in the form of a $3.5 billion development contract for Iraqi oil field Al-Ahdab. In December 2009, in the second round of bids to develop Iraq’s vast untapped oil reserves (following a June auction allowing foreign companies the chance to increase production at existing fields), China and Russia emerged with the lion’s share of the contracts. At the time, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani envisioned a bright future. “Our principal objective is to increase our oil production from 2.4 million barrels per day to more than four million in the next five years,” he said.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL notes more recently that these many myths presented to us by the Left are deserving of being retired:

OK, I had some help from a duplicitous vice president, Dick Cheney. Then there wasGeorge W. Bush, a gullible president who could barely locate Iraq on a map and who wanted to avenge his father and enrich his friends in the oil business. And don’t forget the neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon who fed cherry-picked intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, to reporters like me.

None of these assertions happens to be true, though all were published and continue to have believers. This is not how wars come about, and it is surely not how the war in Iraq occurred. Nor is it what I did as a reporter for the New York Times. These false narratives deserve, at last, to be retired….

(read it all)

See more about the “behind the scenes” machinations that included Alan Greenspan at COLUMBIA JOURNALISM JOURNAL. REUTERS noted the clarification as well…

 

Failed Eco-Nut Predictions of 2015 (A Short List)

(Here’s the long list)

Temp Change ipcc

1) UN overestimated global warming by 2015

Two decades ago, the UN came up with several models that all predicted that by 2015, the Earth would have warmed by at least a degree Fahrenheit. Yet in the last two decades, there has instead been virtually no warming according to satellite temperature measurements….

RPT’s addition: NASA has said that the “Abyss” has not gotten warmer since 2005, and do not know why [if taking into account global warming realities] why the earth has stalled in temperature… even getting slightly colder globally since 2005 (see chart of CO2 output and temperature, below). It is called a “mystery” by NASA.

[…..]

2) All Rainforest Species Will Be Extinct

Dr. Paul Ehrlich, the President of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, got famous for his 1968 book “the Population Bomb” which predicted that increasing human populations would spell doom.

One part of that doom, he warned in his 1981 book “Extinction,” was that all rainforest species would likely soon go extinct due to environmental destruction.

“Half of the populations and species in tropical moist forests would be extinct early in the next century [the 2000s] and none would be left by 2025,” he warns on page 291. He added that that his model indicated that, on the upper bound, complete extinction would occur as soon as 2010….

RPT’s additionThe New York Times makes point that “…for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.” This doesn’t sound too alarmist to me. Speaking of alarmists, William Shatner, Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame, mentioned in a National Geographic video that, “rainforests [are] being cleared at the rate of 20 football fields per minute.”  If this were truly the case, the forests would have been completely wiped out years ago.  In fact, the co-founder and long-time director of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, said:

“All these save-the-forests arguments are based on bad science….  They are quite simply wrong… [Phillip Stott and I] found that the Amazon rainforests is more than 90% intact. We flew over it and met all the environmental authorities. We studied satellite pictures of the entire area.”

Phillip Stott, who has 30 years of studying tropical forests under his belt as well as being professor of biogeography at London University mentioned that, “there are now still – despite what humans have done – more rainforests today than there were 12,000 years ago.”

3) Oil will run out by 2015

A Pennsylvania state government “Student and Teacher Guide” reads: “Some estimates of the oil reserves suggest that by the year 2015 we will have used all of our accessible oil supply.”

Yet the Earth still has oil: at least 1.6 trillion gallons of proven reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration, a US government agency. In fact, proven reserves have more than doubled over the last couple decades, as technological innovation made more oil accessible….

RPT’s addition: Yes, the U.S. has hit an all-time high in production:

Oil Reserves

More than that though, “According to the Institute for Energy Research’s calculations, the U.S. actually sits on 1.442 trillion barrels of recoverable deposits. That’s over 60 times the amount we usually hear about. Merline writes that this larger number would be enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years” (Business Insider).

Let me repeat that, 200-years of oil!

4) Arctic sea ice will disappear by 2015.

“Peter Wadhams, who heads the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge… believes that the Arctic is likely to become ice-free before 2020 and possibly as early as 2015,” (Yale Environment 360 reported in 2012). Yet government data shows that arctic sea ice has increased since then….

RPT’s addition: Here I will post information from a previous post about Polar Bear population levels, in which I point the following out:

Recent Population Increase Partly Due To Lots of Sea-Ice

Canada (CBC News via the Canadian Coast Guard, 3/2014) [ARCTIC Sea Ice] The Canadian Coast Guard is pleading with merchant ships to plan their voyages well in advance this year as the organization’s icebreaker fleet confronts some of the worst ice conditions on the Atlantic Ocean in decades.

“Plan your voyage and we’ll all get through this,” said Mike Voight, the Atlantic region’s director of programs. “We’ve got a pretty bad or challenging ice year.”

The Canadian Ice Service, an arm of Environment Canada, said there is 10 per cent more ice this year compared to the 30-year average.

“We probably haven’t seen a winter this bad as far as ice for the past 25 years,” said Voight, referring to both the amount and thickness of the ice….

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Abstract (12/2014) [ARCTIC sea ice] Despite a well-documented ~40% decline in summer Arctic sea ice extent since the late 1970’s, it has been difficult to estimate trends in sea ice volume because thickness observations have been spatially incomplete and temporally sporadic. While numerical models suggest that the decline in extent has been accompanied by a reduction in volume, there is considerable disagreement over the rate at which this has occurred. We present the first complete assessment of trends in northern hemisphere sea ice thickness and volume using 4 years of measurements from CryoSat-2. Between autumn 2010 and spring 2013, there was a 14% and 5% reduction in autumn and spring Arctic sea ice volume, respectively, in keeping with the long-term decline in extent. However, since then there has been a marked 41% and 9% recovery in autumn and spring sea ice volume, respectively, more than offsetting losses of the previous three years. The recovery was driven by the retention of thick ice around north Greenland and Canada during summer 2013 which, in turn, was associated with a 6% drop in the number of days on which melting occurred – climatic conditions more typical of the early 1990’s. Such a sharp increase in volume after just one cool summer indicates that the Arctic sea ice pack may be more resilient than has been previously considered.

Talking About Weather (7/2014) [ANTARCTIC sea ice] Antarctic sea ice has hit its second all-time record maximum this week. The new record is 2.112 million square kilometers above normal. Until the weekend just past, the previous record had been 1.840 million square kilometers above normal, a mark hit on December 20, 2007, as I reported here, and also covered in my book.

Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, responded to e-mail questions and also spoke by telephone about the new record sea ice growth in the Southern Hemisphere, indicating that, somewhat counter-intuitively, the sea ice growth was specifically due to global warming.

Sea Ice 2014

Let us compare this to Al Gore saying the northern ice-caps will be gone

 NewsBusters makes the point another way, in that the “media” is derelict in their duty:

The same year that former Vice President Al Gore predicted that the Arctic sea ice could be completely gone, Arctic ice reached its highest level in two years, according to a report by the Danish Meteorological Institute

According to that report, which was cited by the Daily Mail (UK) on Aug. 30, “[t]he Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in a row.” The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) confirmed this trend, but didn’t go into as much detail as the Danish Meteorological Institute.

But an examination of ABC, CBS and NBC news programs since the Daily Mail story was published found that all three networks ignored news that Arctic sea ice was at a two-year high….

Remember, you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink.

…read it all at Fox News.

Hollywood Libs Caught On Camera (UPDATED w/ Simpsons)

(H/t ~ Gateway Pundit) EPIC! Via Progressives Today:

Via The Hollywood Reporter:The conservative journalist duped progressives Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemmingway to get involved in an anti-fracking film that was funded by Middle Eastern oil interests. O’Keefe will unveil the movie at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday!

James O’Keefe says he duped Ed Begley Jr. and Mariel Hemmingway into agreeing to get involved with an anti-fracking movie while hiding that its funding comes from Middle Eastern oil interests.

Journalist James O’Keefe, known for his controversial undercover sting operations aimed usually at liberals — is set to unveil at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday the first of a group of videos that he says will reveal hypocrisy among Hollywood environmentalists….

…read more…

Just Press Play, It Works:

This is one of the scenes from the Simpsons in 1999 where Ed Begley Jr.’s made a cameo appearance:

Billionaire Coal Magnate Tom Steyer Gives Hypocrisy a New Name

“I think that I’m very different from the Koch brothers in the sense that I have absolutely no personal interest in what happens except as a citizen of the United States. So whereas they’re representing points of view that are in their personal monetary interests, I’m actually representing the citizens of the whole country in terms of their diffuse interests against concentrated economic interests that the Koch brothers represent.” ~ POWERLINE

(A response to this quote is at bottom)

Some great information about Democratic billionaire activist, Tom Steyer has been added to the collective mind called the blogosphere, via Powerline! If one is not familiar with the issue at hand, you should read a previous post on this issue. A quick recap however, also comes from Powerline who explains the reason behind a bunch of old, outdated politicians doing an all-nighter:

(Pic Linked)

…Tom Steyer, a billionaire who has made a great deal of money on government-subsidized “green” energy projects, has become one of the Democratic Party’s most important donors. On February 18, he hosted a fundraiser at his home that netted $400,000. Harry Reid and six other Senators attended, along with Al Gore and a number of rich environmentalists. At that meeting, plans for last night’s talk-a-thon were already being laid.

The connection is simple: Steyer has pledged to contribute $50 million and raise another $50 million to help Democrats in the 2014 elections. The catch is that they have to emphasize global warming as an issue:

✦ Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Political Action, plans to spend at least $50 million of the former hedge-fund manager’s money, plus another $50 million raised from other donors. The group will refuse to spend money on behalf of Democrats who oppose climate regulation, but will not spend money against them either, according to Chris Lehane, a Steyer consultant.

So the Democrats are trying to walk a narrow line. They need to make noise about global warming to keep the cash flowing from Tom Steyer and other deep-pocketed environmental activists (some of whom, of course, are also “green” energy cronies)….

The newest installment in regards to the biggest story lately in Democratic [billionaire] hypocrisy is the recent piece by John Hinderaker on Tom Steyer. Below is part of that article by John as well as an interview of John by Hugh Hewitt:

But Steyer’s hypocrisy goes still deeper. Today, he is a bitter opponent of fossil fuels, especially coal. That fits with his current economic interests: banning coal-fired power plants will boost the value of his solar projects. But it was not always thus. In fact, Steyer owes his fortune in large part to the fact that he has been one of the world’s largest financers of coal projects. Tom Steyer was for coal before he was against it.

A reader with first-hand knowledge of the relevant Asian and Australian markets sent us this detailed report on how Steyer got rich on coal. He titled his report “Hypocrisy & Hedge Funds: Climate Change Warrior Tom Steyer’s Secret Life as Coal Investment Kingpin.” Here it is, in full:

Tom Steyer founded Farallon Capital Management L.L.C. (“Farallon”) in 1986. Farallon has grown to become one of the largest and most successful hedge funds in the United States with over $20bn in funds under management.1 Mr. Steyer’s net worth is reported to be $1.6bn.2

Mr. Steyer left Farallon in 2012 to focus on political and environmental causes and potentially to position himself for public office. He has been described in the press as the “liberals’ answer to the Koch Brothers”3 due to his wealth and his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and carbon-based energy in general. He has dedicated some $50 million of his personal fortune to back political candidates who support his position on climate change – and punish those who don’t. Mr. Steyer has led recent campaigns with Bill McKibben to encourage university endowments to divest coal equities.

[….]

The facts, summarized below, might lead one to conclude that:

  • Mr. Steyer has had a direct, personal involvement in assembling, through Farallon, a portfolio of strategic investments in overseas coal miners and coal fired power plants which is unprecedented in scale. The total quantum of Farallon’s investments in these transactions is not publicly disclosed, but reasonable estimates suggest that it could be between US$1 and $2 billion in total.6 Taken collectively, the coal producers in which his fund has amassed these investment interests represent one of the largest sources of thermal coal in the world;
  • The financing provided by Mr. Steyer’s fund enabled these coal producers to restructure and recapitalize thereby freeing them to grow rapidly during a period of rapidly rising coal prices, leading to one of the largest expansions of thermal coal production in modern times7;
  • Made during a period of ever rising coal prices, these investments were almost certainly extremely profitable for Mr. Steyer’s fund overall, and my extension Mr. Steyer personally. It stands to reason that few people in American history have made more money from investment in thermal coal than Mr. Steyer.

[….]

Hypocrisy is not in short supply in the political world, but Tom Steyer is in a class by himself. Now that he is enriching himself through “green” cronyism, coal is evil. Sure: like all hydrocarbons, it competes with the solar energy boondoggles on which he is making millions, with the aid of the Obama administration. But where was Steyer’s alleged social conscience when he was one of the world’s biggest investors in coal? And how substantial are his current holdings in coal projects? Is Steyer financing his anti-fossil fuel campaign on profits from past or, perhaps, ongoing investments in Asian and Australian coal? Inquiring minds want to know! Tom Steyer appears to have elevated political hypocrisy to an entirely new level.

…read it all!…

Jake Tapper of CNN, one of the few truly fair guys in the legacy media, was also asked by Hugh Hewitt about Tom Steyer and the hypocrisy uncovered by John at Powerline. Hugh also played an American Commitment ad for Jake to get his comment on the topic at hand. Here is THAT interview with the description from my YouTube channel:

Hugh Hewitt interviews Jake Tapper of CNN, the topic? John Hinderaker’s recent piece, “The Epic Hypocrisy of Tom Steyer” (http://tinyurl.com/lro2wow). Tapper is hopeful for a braoder media attention to stories like John broke in regards to rich — hypocritical — millionaires and billionaires that give to the Democratic party. LIKE, the legacy media does, in regards to the Koch brothers and others.

My posts on the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer are as follows:

https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/tag/koch-brothers/
https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/tag/tom-steyer/

Tapper is fair as usual, one of the names in the media I have come to respect.

For more clear thinking like this from Hugh Hewitt… I invite you to visit: http://www.hughniverse.com/

To see more projects and information as well from American Commitment, check out their site: http://www.americancommitment.org/

WOW! I look forward to more on this.

PolitiBrew offers a response to the quote I chose to start this post with, “I think that I’m very different from the Koch brothers…” (top). I will include an upload of Michael Medved speaking about the generosity of the Koch Brothers as well, enjoy:

Tom Steyer is most certainly not the Koch Brothers. Steyer’s hedge fund is tied to a $67 million ponzi scheme that siphoned millions of dollars from foreign investors.

Steyer has also promised to spend $100 million to get democrats elected in 2014.

Meanwhile, the “evil” Koch Brothers donate billions of dollars to many deserving causes but generally give to conservative ones, you know, like all the money they give to M.D. Anderson for cancer research. How conservative is that? I guess they’d like to help conserve lives. How about that they “underwrite research and teaching at Brown, Mount Holyoke, Sarah Lawrence, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Vassar, and some 245 other colleges”? Is that conservative?

Think nothing of the Millions to MIT for cancer research, that’s conservative too, right? Right.

Yes Tom. We can’t deny that you are not the Koch Brothers. You may be able to hold a candle, just not to these Men. May as well blow it out….

These leftists are making it too easy! It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.