Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama took a selfie.
That’s it, that’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/3Ja9WeOYKz
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) August 31, 2019
Warren campaign notes in advisory that the park is close to the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. (When the factory burned in 1911, dozens of workers died — background on the historic significance of that here: https://t.co/HOQY8WDJJ9) https://t.co/scTxapqepk
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) September 3, 2019
(Reminder: She launched her campaign at the site of the Bread & Roses Strike.)
In the shadow of NYU, the attendance at this speech is going to seriously test Warren’s policy of staying for a selfie with anyone who wants one.
Gonna be a big crowd unless they cap it. https://t.co/BoOpFj8IuF
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) September 3, 2019
Warren got 15,000 in Seattle; she can easily fill this park and get yet another "candidate surrounded by people in front of landmark" photo, this time with every major media outlet there.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 3, 2019
Trump being jealous that Elizabeth Warren’s is bigger than his is my everything tonight. https://t.co/60WQduuC7k
— Kaili Joy Gray (@KailiJoy) August 27, 2019
Elsewhere…
Warren is also calling on other 2020 Dems to do the same. She writes of Inslee: “Jay didn't merely sound the alarm or make vague promises. He provided bold, thoughtful, and detailed ideas for how to get us where we need to go…” https://t.co/JFP6IEJwGx
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) September 3, 2019
Jay Inslee's former digital director just endorsed @ewarren on the heels of her adoption and expansion of Inslee's climate plan. https://t.co/otnnbtPjiU
— ??Dante Atkins?? (@DanteAtkins) September 4, 2019
The person who some Trump advisers sound worried about in last few weeks is Warren. They don't share POTUS conviction he can hate-tweet her away, and see her ability to capitalize on the populist/outsider energy he ran on in 2016 and has tried to recreate despite holding office. https://t.co/T1Zzq1amQD
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 3, 2019
A pretty emphatic @ewarren here as she responds to questions from @AlisonNBCBoston about whether she’ll ever start to draw distinctions with @BernieSanders in the 2020 race #FITN #nhpolitics pic.twitter.com/gNXKALsOkt
— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) September 2, 2019
When it comes to “2nd choice” preferences, Sanders voters clearly like Warren over the others.
But the feeling isn’t mutual. Warren fans like Harris most, followed by Sanders and Biden, per @pewresearch.https://t.co/zqypFHcz15
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 27, 2019
(IMO, guy who does not understand Bernie Sanders, or the Sandernistas…)
In the realm of potential huge pre-Super Tuesday shakeups of the Dem field, Sanders dropping out and endorsing Warren doesn't strike me as all that far-fetched. https://t.co/6ngnFDQwIV
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 26, 2019
Cathie Fonz (formerly Cathie from Canada)
I think the nomination will be decided by the end of March 2020.
Warren or Saunders would need to win at least two of the four early primary/caucus states in February – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina – to get the momentum to defeat Biden in March. I hope Warren can do it, she is already showing presidential levels of leadership.
pat
I WANT PRESIDENT WARREN!!!!
I want her to eviscerate trump on the debate stage. I want her to fill her administration with people who can begin to repair some of the damage done by the current crowd of corrupt a-holes. I want her coat-tails to bring a dem majority to the Senate and the House.
GO ELIZABETH!!!!
ETA: I don’t see Uncle Joe able to do any of this.
Gravenstone
Once again, Donnie projects his insecurities. Remind us again which campaign has historically had to pay to pad their audiences?
SFAW
Crowd size is not the only thing of his that the Liar-in-Chief says is much bigger than it actually is. About the same “scaling factor” with him, too — at least an order of magnitude.
Betty Cracker
I wanted Warren in this race because I believe her ideas belong in the party platform. Didn’t really think she had a shot at the nomination. Now I’m starting to think maybe she does. What a fitting backstop to the Trump Error a President Warren would be!
Gin & Tonic
I want some of that good weed, too.
Baud
I don’t like the fact that she is the only one of the top three that I find desirable. Little margin for error.
@Gin & Tonic:
Sounds more like bad weed to me.
Baud
BTW, good for Warren but
C’mon, man. Who cares?
germy
I’m all fired up and ready to go.
jl
Warren seems to be confident enough to start making alliances with other candidates and their factions. She played nice with Sanders, which might have been part of an explicit deal. Or more likely, they both implicitly understood that it was better for the two most ‘progressive’ candidates to make a stand together against the centrists (‘progressive’ gets quotes for ‘reasons’ wrt to Sanders). Anyway, getting buy in from the Sanders supporters is key for after she beats him. Now she is moving to get somewhat higher profile support from a candidate who was very good on one issue, and did a good job at the debates.
So, looking good to me, since Warren is my first choice. Harris was my second choice, but now I’m not sure where her campaign is going. I think her odd uncertainty about direction of health care policy hurt her. I hope she can get a clearer direction on that and get some steam back up.
germy
@jl:
Conservatives always whine about “civility” but compare our primary to the ’16 Republican primary, which was just a cacophony of personal insults.
The only exception I can think of was Gabbard’s bad faith attack on Harris: “She called Biden a racist!!” And Harris’s first sentence to Biden was “I’m not saying you’re a racist, but you were anti-busing…”
lumpkin
That one tweet about Warren, all by itself should be proof to any half way thinking adult that trump is utterly unfit to hold any position of responsibility in any organization. I am still shocked and dismayed anew every single day.
rikyrah
Trump connects NC emergency declaration, vulnerable GOP senator
09/04/19 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
As Hurricane Dorian continues to threaten the southeastern United States, Donald Trump announced via Twitter last night that he was “getting the North Carolina Emergency Declaration completed and signed.” That made sense; the deadly storm isn’t far from the state’s coast.
But in the same tweet, the president also said that he was moving forward with the emergency declaration “at the request of” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
And if that seemed odd, there was a good reason for that: it’s not up to senators to request emergency declarations from the White House; it’s up to governors. As the Washington Post noted overnight, that’s just how the system works under federal law.
Zzyzx
The Inslee plan is complete wishful thinking. “We’ll overcome global warming through magical scientific breakthroughs that don’t even have theoretical justifications yet (as far as I know. I desperately want electric vehicles and all I’ve ever read on the subject of battery tech is that it’s like fusion power – always 20 years away) , and we’ll do so very quickly and with no pain to anyone.”
Sure it sounds great, and increasing funding on renewables is a good thing, but our entire world is based on the fact that we’ve been abusing a cheap, energy dense, easy to refill quickly source of energy. Even if batteries are scaleable and we can get chargers in every rest stop (again, not a bad idea per se), we’re talking about an hour of downtime for every 3 hours driving, not to mention the waiting in line for a charger to free up. That’s fine if we’re just talking about road trips but this will really affect shipping.
Sure, still throwing magic at the problem and hope we get lucky is better than ignoring it, but our culture is now incapable of discussing real issues and the trade offs involved.
ThresherK
This is great stuff by Warren on both a policy and personal level.
I’m waiting for the Bernie Bros I know to re-posrt that “Warren copying off of Bernie’s test” JPG again.
rikyrah
Trump admin zeal to punish immigrants heedless of morality
Rachel Maddow recaps the development of the Trump administration’s abrupt decision to target immigrants whose status in the U.S. is subject to a medical deferral, including immigrants invited to the U.S. to participate in medical research, and whose deportation would be tantamount to a death sentence.
Glare of public outrage budges Trump admin on medical deferrals
Mahsa Khanbabai, American Immigration Lawyers’ New England chapter chair, talks with Rachel Maddow about an apparent gesture by the Trump administration to grant relief to immigrants on Medically Deferred Action and why the new policy is not only still cruel but a waste of government resources.
Sept. 3, 2019
dr. bloor
@Cathie Fonz (formerly Cathie from Canada): Neither of them have to win anything early. They need to hang around long enough to pick up some of the money and supporters of the also-rans when they begin dropping out, and Warren will kick Bernie’s ass in that department.
rikyrah
This makes no damn sense.
Democratic debate rules could broaden field after shrinking it
Rachel Maddow explains how Democratic presidential candidates who didn’t qualify for the third debate will still get a chance to qualify for the fourth debate on October 15th and 16th, making it entirely possible that the fourth debate will have more qualifying participants than the third.
jl
@germy: Good thing Trump very rarely listens to his advisers, and then only sticks to their advice if it gets cheers from his fanatics at rallies. Hate tweets on Warren, posted on twitter and yelled out at rallies will get Trump instant gratification, so he’ll stick with that.
rikyrah
Uh huh ??
Trump admin says national parks need $12 billion in repairs.
The real number is $1.3 billion.
Why the discrepancy?
It allows them to sell/lease public lands and privatize parks operations.\
https://t.co/JH3IUIPh5H
— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) September 3, 2019
rikyrah
Bring those receipts ??
No. “Over-the-top” was @senatemajldr trying to block every single positive thing @BarackObama tried to do to help strengthen our country for 8 years!
https://t.co/9f0cWP8Whl
— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) September 4, 2019
germy
Meanwhile…
Ella in New Mexico
@Betty Cracker:
It would certainly relegate Trump to the dust-heaps of shame in history even more permanently. Kind of a “sandwich generation” of two slices of Superior Character, Intellect and Decency flanking a Dog-Turd center.
And the Karmic Irony would be perfect: To have been such a grandiose, narcissistic, racist,misogynist jackass who almost ruined a great nation on track with so much progress. One that had been so advanced by the first black (possibly the most admired) President in History and to then be replaced by the first female President in history…
If he has any functioning brain cells by then I can’t imagine what the depths of his humiliation and rage will be. As will be that of his Republican proppers in all this.
Baud
@germy:
Well, that and guns.
rikyrah
???
BREAKING: Mitch McConnell Just said he’d fill Supreme Court vacancy in 2020
This is the same Mitch McConnell Who blocked Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland because it was “in the middle of a presidential election.”
the hypocrisy is astounding
— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) September 3, 2019
Gravenstone
Unpleasant take, but I expect the die hard Berniestans to lose their collective shit if he were to ever choose to withdraw and support another (any) candidate. I can already hear the outraged howls of ‘forced’ and ‘rigged’. It’s just how they roll.
Zzyzx
@rikyrah: he’s been saying that for months now. It’s nkt breaking.
rikyrah
The no open carry is just common sense ??
Kroger is following Walmart’s lead in asking shoppers not to openly carry guns in any of its stores, in states where open carry is allowed, unless they are authorized law enforcement officers. Kroger is calling on the gov’t to strengthen background checks. https://t.co/jX3WFvvy12
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 4, 2019
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: I’d prefer if the only thing he were to fill in 2020 was his own grave. But I’m petty that way.
germy
I saw this comment over at LGM:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic:
He eventually conceded to HRC and endorsed her, and then spent the next two years grumbling about superdelegates and bellowing about the Democratic Pahwty being a fayl-yuh. And I don’t know what percentage of his followers qualify as cultists (overrepresented on twitter, of course) but they’re there, and they’ll never vote for anyone else. I hope it’s a smaller number than the ’16 Stein vote suggests.
The NYT magazine had a profile about the state of “Medicare For All” that turned out to be a deep dive into the halfwit lunatic Roseann DeMoro. What a waste of time, ink, paper and pixels.
dmsilev
@Zzyzx: Uh, what? You can buy perfectly good electric cars today. They’re expensive, especially if you need something with more than a couple hundred miles of range (which most people looking for a daily-commute vehicle don’t actually need), but the price of batteries has been dropping steadily for years and years now, so that price premium will be less and less of an issue. Putting aside Tesla, the Nissan Leaf for example is in the $30-40K range, and can hit that 200 mile range mark.
That’s hardly fusion-power level “twenty years away for the last fifty years”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Hilarious and accurate observation from Barbara Res, the former trump org exec who wrote a book about him and now appears on MSNBC from time to time
Betty Cracker
@germy: I got a screenshot:
What an idiot. Williamson didn’t make the next debate, and that’s a good thing. But something is wrong with our primary rules when a crackpot like that can get hours of TV time to damage the party’s brand. I have no idea how to fix it, but fix it we must.
Baud
@Gravenstone:
I think her selfie with Obama demonstrates her neoliberal heart, don’t you?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
A coronation!
Kay
Triangle shirtwaist fire is of course hugely important in labor history, but there is a lot of labor history and it might be worthwhile to bring some of it back:
IMO, this extensive US history of labor has been disappeared deliberately. There are sites all over the country. Pick a less famous one sometimes, Elizabeth! It’s educational! :)
SiubhanDuinne
Not sure whether this has been noted, but yet another Texas Republican — Bill Flores — has announced he will not run for reëlection. He’s the fifth from TX. I’ve lost track of how many GOP Members of Congress (both chambers) have announced retirement or resignation this cycle.
germy
@Betty Cracker: It’s hilarious that she deleted it. She’s been saying stuff like that for decades, putting it in books. But now that she wants to look presidential she stops suddenly and goes “whoops, didn’t mean to say that!” But it’s muscle memory for her by now. It’s her brand!
Zzyzx
@dmsilev: yes. They work for daily commuters. There has been definite improvement. However, the range hasn’t expanded. We’re still at that 2-300 range which is fine for driving around town but we haven’t had the breakthrough that will allow trucking to be possible.
Ultimately, I want there to be electric cars that can work like gas ones, and even replacing some will help, but promising to go carbon neutral in a decade or two is a pipe dream, short of doing something like enacting a $4000/gallon tax on gas and jet fuel.
Redshift
@Zzyzx:
WTF are you smoking? That rant bears no resemblance to what his climate plan actually says.
germy
@Zzyzx: More electric charging stations for long haul electric trucks?
Right now we’ve got gas stations on every corner. A ridiculous amount. Down my street there are three across the street from each other. But in my town there’s only one charging station, in the parking lot of a supermarket.
cain
@dmsilev:
There are already trucks that Tesla is selling that is all electric. It can be done. This is not at all far fetched. In fact, it might be more lucrative as well especially if you have self driving cars. Electric lets you control everything and thus more safer than combustion engines.
MisterForkbeard
Gonna have to agree with AL – I’m pretty sure this won’t happen. Sanders’ 2016 performance does not indicate a willingness to compromise or subsume his own interests for the best interest of the party (and the nation). Likewise, his online supporters are just rabid. They’re not always convinced that Bernie is the best thing ever, but they ARE always convinced that Democrats are evil because the party isn’t doing things like unilaterally turning over the legal, health, or corporate tax system.
The ones I know have specifically called out Warren as being unacceptable, because she’s ‘corporate’.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@jl: Alliances and deal making are often useful in the Iowa caucuses. In 2008, Obama and Bill Richardson had a deal that if Richardson was non-viable, his voters would go to Obama. Came as a complete surprise to the Richardson voters I might say. But if Warren can work that kind of deal, she can score big by picking up people who see her as their second choice in Iowa.
SFAW
@Kay:
You probably already know this, but Erik Loomis (at LGM) does a “This Day in Labor History” post. [Daily, of course.] I confess I don’t often read them, but I expect there’s a lot of interesting/useful information to be found in them.
Hungry Joe
@Gravenstone: A Bernie bro of my acquaintance explained Bernie’s support of Hillary in the general election: “They threatened him, or his family, or both. I think they literally put a gun to his head.”
Zzyzx
@cain: everyone who isn’t Musk is saying that Tesla is completely exaggerating the range of potential trucks. Maybe he’s right and everyone else is wrong. I hope so. But he also has enough of a cult about him that I need better back up.
patroclus
C-SPAN is covering the Brexit debate live. The opposition parties (now including 21 new Independents who were purged last night (including Winston Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames)) are kicking ass and taking names…
SFAW
@MisterForkbeard:
The ones you know wouldn’t happen to be the common clay of the New West, would they?
Hungry Joe
@Zzyzx: We have a Nissan Leaf as our second (around town) car. The only real inconvenience: We never go to a gas station, so the windows are usually dirty.
gene108
I don’t understand the Obama-Warren selfie. Obama still flies commercial? Somehow, I thought his Secret Service detail would limit him from flying commercial.
Just don’t understand how they both ended up on the same plane.
FlipYrWhig
@MisterForkbeard: The anti-Warren “left” is at the intersection of batshit and stupid. It’s based on nothing but stuff they repeat at one another for showy display.
Eta: It’s all, like, “donors say they like Warren, it must be because she’ll kiss their butts.” Just mind bogglingly dumb.
gvg
@rikyrah: I would not use the word astounding. Let’s try disgusting or enraging. I have been paying attention. I am not astounded. By the time he did that, I knew he was corrupt and bad. I didn’t even pay much attention to what his excuse was.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MisterForkbeard: A few weeks ago, Chris Hayes had a discussion on health care between a single payer Bernie Bro and a sell-out neo-liberal advocate for a public option. The SPBB kept repeating the word corporate with an inflection that suggested he thought that was the end of the argument, and he had clearly won.
I learned from twitter this weekend that one of the reasons Warren is unacceptable is because her daughter had a corporate job.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think Levi Sanders almost had a job once.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: LOL– according to family tradition, he’s waiting for his 40th birthday
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ah yes, the Bern Mitzvah
Baud
@gene108:
How else would he fly?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I heard she purchases goods made by corporations.
catclub
@Hungry Joe:
do you have a home charger? is the other poster right that this is still $30-40k?
C Stars
I’m trying hard not to get too excited about Warren. Just on a gut level I really like her persona, and I think she’d make a good POTUS and her election would mark a huge turn away from the toxic masculinity that seems to have steered this country for so long. Trying to get a read on what my “Bernie Bro” acquaintances think of her and most of them don’t seem to have any policy complaints but just say “she’ll never get elected,” which they could be right about (of course, their guru won’t either, so what do they know?)
Like I said, trying not to get too invested. There are a few candidates I like so hopefully I won’t be disappointed.
dr. bloor
@gene108: He’s a private citizen now. His SS detail is minimal and can’t overrule his decisions in any case.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So…. you think somebody at the Washington Post saw that twitter trend of people saying they were better than the NYT and decided to run with it?
That’s the headline, not the fifth paragraph a la Baquet
The Moar You Know
@Kay: Right down to the Orwellian attempt to make a random date in September “Labor Day”. I always tell people labor day is May 1 and the only person who that doesn’t confuse is a Russian acquaintance of mine.
BC in Illinois
@gene108:
The picture, though making the rounds now, was taken on January 21, 2017.
We need to re-do it on inauguration day, 2021.
Baud
@BC in Illinois:
God, one of the things I hate about the internet is the loss of any sense of when things happened.
The Moar You Know
@FlipYrWhig: I want to build a large religious edifice to you for this. I’m still laughing. I will probably be laughing for days.
low-tech cyclist
@germy:
Or just build out a freight rail network with enough capacity and reach to make long haul trucks superfluous in most of the country.
Zzyzx
@Hungry Joe: if Inslee were saying “I want to promote electric cars and work to increase their range” or “I will provide tax breaks for people who switch to electric cars,” I’d be onboard.
His plan is to end all sales of non-electric vehicles by 2030 which seems unrealistic with present technology. Just basic use cases like driving from Seattle to North Cascades NP for a hike would become difficult.
Now it’s fair to argue that we shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing, but it’s pretending that we can eliminate a vehicle that we’ve structured our entire society around and have it happen easily that drives me crazy. I get that you have to sell it but there don’t seem to be answers to questions like “what happens if we don’t have battery breakthroughs?” and “what happens if farmers have trouble bringing their crops to market?”
Gemina13
#I’mWithHer2020.
mad citizen
On EVs, fast and ultra fast charging stations are being installed. Like 215 miles of range charged in 10 minutes. Future chargers will be faster. Google this topic and information will flow.
rikyrah
@patroclus:
TWENTY-ONE???
tobie
The picture of Warren and Obama is from 2016, I believe.I wonder why it’s being tweeted again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just found myself speculating on who would be a good running mate for Warren. Some part of my own brain is mocking me and telling me to go get something done today.
rikyrah
@FlipYrWhig:
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
the shade…
hueyplong
@Hungry Joe: Whose point does the Bernie Bro think he’s making?
We agree that the only way to get Bernie to support a Den nominee against Trump is to put a gun to his head.
Will these people never fuck off as requested?
Inventor
@Zzyzx: That’s false. The vast majority of trucking is not long haul. Most is withing 100 miles on regular routs that are run repeatedly. Ideal for electrics. That’s the market being targeted.
When the trucks that work within the ports of L.A. and Long Beach were converted pollution locally dropped precipitously and the program is a success. Even though it was initially derided with the identical language that you use.
mad citizen
I think it is so strange that the “campaign ” is happening without any votes being cast. I’m still in for Harris but Warren is my next choice and the delicious irony of “Pocahontas” taking the reign from the Historical Accident is too funny. Perhaps if Neil Young can play that song at the inauguration.
low-tech cyclist
@FlipYrWhig:
Brilliant!
Zzyzx
@low-tech cyclist: sure. Let’s do it. I’d love more rail both freight and passenger. I just want realism about what this will mean and talk about trade offs.
We’re talking massive changes to our society and pretending it’ll happen with no obstacles in the way. In my experience, that usually results in people getting mad when the rail is delayed and voting out everyone. We have to overpromise to get elected and that’s not sustainable.
bystander
Best take on Williamson is still Paul Rudnick’s burlesque of her in “Jeffrey”. Sigourney Weaver does the role to perfection.
Zzyzx
@Inventor: thank you. Seriously. I’ll look that up because I want to be wrong. I’ve just seen how the actual process is working under Inslee and when it’s taking 30 years to build a 15 mile second light rail line through Seattle, it’s hard to believe that bigger projects can happen faster.
Zzyzx
@mad citizen: I have googled it and I keep seeing 40 minutes. That’s a huge difference.
low-tech cyclist
@mad citizen:
Too bad Marlon Brando passed away awhile back.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
I’d love to go see Warren, especially as she’s giving that speech at my alma mater. Health issues (and living in the ‘burbs) renders that a hugely exhausting trip, but for her I might make the effort.
neldob
@rikyrah: If he gets the chance we should converge in
dc and Kentucky with our pots and pans and drown him out. I think I would drop everything to do that and hope someone organizes it.
Mandalay
@germy:
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. Anytime someone says “I’m not saying you’re a racist, but…” they definitely are calling the other person a racist. It’s merely implicit rather than explicit.
Just as when Andrew Gillum said to Ron Desantis “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists …” he was calling Desantis a racist.
Both attacks were sanitized approaches for calling their opponent a racist.
(To be clear I’m with Gillum and Harris all way on this, but you have to be very naive to believe that they are not branding their opponents as racists.)
Barbara
@Zzyzx: I would just like to point out that car buying, like a lot of other economic activities, is really changing among millenials. Yes, of course, it’s hard to see how society will stop being overly reliant on car transportation but that doesn’t mean even individuals riding in cars will be doing so in their own vehicle, or on the same consistent basis that they do now. I think the problem with these concrete plans is how to balance them with organic innovations that might make the plans seem gratuitous when the date rolls around. It is important to establish goals without necessarily legislating or mandating that specific result, which could crowd out a better solution that emerges in the meantime.
For instance, there are states that have met goals they established for themselves for using alternative energy much earlier than projected. It doesn’t mean the goals were not important or at least useful.
joel hanes
Sanders dropping out and endorsing Warren doesn’t strike me as all that far-fetched.
Wasserman don’t know Bernie very well, do he?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNZFZ6jDCR4
To be scrupfair, if Wilmer does this, I will publicly retract most of the bad things I’ve said about him, because it will be strong evidence that I’ve comprehensively misjudged his character.
gbbalto
@low-tech cyclist: We had such a system! We have about 94,000 route miles (not including double track, sidings, etc) at present. We had 254,000 at the peak in 1916 and still had 217,000 in 1960. We can certainly do it again, but only when trucking gets a lot more expensive, probably because of much higher fuel costs. I do think we will have to go back to rail eventually.
ETA – Source is https://www.railserve.com/stats_records/railroad_route_miles.html
ETTA – Oops, that’s Class I lines only. Now 137,000 route miles including smaller lines
Baud
@joel hanes:
I will assume there’s something he’s decided to hide, but it really would be the best thing he’s done in the last five years.
Baud
@joel hanes:
It’s also kind of a dumb thing to say while Sanders is still polling second in a lot of polls.
joel hanes
@lumpkin:
That one tweet about Warren, all by itself should be proof
He’s abandoned all restraint, not that he ever had very much.
David Evans
All the skeptics about electric cars here don’t address the question: what is the human and economic cost of not stopping climate change? It frightens me. Taking longer over some journeys, maybe using bus or rail more (my city has some electric buses and is getting more) is nothing in comparison.
Barbara
@joel hanes: The only way I see this happening is for health related reasons. As the campaign heats up, it will be more and more taxing to Sanders and Biden.
JPL
@tobie: hmmm Beats me!
neldob
@Zzyzx: Maybe trains can make a comeback. I would love to ship lots of things here and there, as
well as travel by train less expensively.
James E Powell
@germy:
If that happens I would expect Blue Dogs to join with Republicans to undermine everything President Warren tries to do. It will suck, but you know what? I’ll take that deal every time.
Baud
The interesting thing is that, if Warren wins it all, it’ll be the second office she’ll have won after the loss of a previous first woman candidate for the position.
JPL
@joel hanes: It won’t happen while he’s alive. He’s wants to pretend that he’s relevant.
cokane
Warren and her team have shown, imo, that they have a tortoise-like understanding of how to win this race. Getting the native stuff out of the way a long time ago (in political years) is now showing itself to be brilliant. She’s now co-opted Inslee’s issue. And I think she has a pretty strong shot at both Iowa and New Hampshire. Winning those will catapult her into front runner status.
And she’s a candidate where Trump doesn’t have a lot of ammunition. He’ll try to resurrect the native stuff, but it will be even older news by then. Unless there’s some other skeleton in her closet, there’s not much else there to attack. And anything he does attack about her record will probably backfire in a general — using her time with the Obama admin or using her past status as a Republican
neldob
Maybe end tax breaks for oil companies.
Barbara
@Zzyzx: Current Tesla supercharging is around 250 miles in one hour. The Model Three will be able to take advantage of new supercharging technology that will be faster (though I don’t really know whether it will be 50% or 100% faster). My husband knows stuff like that. At any rate, unless you drive 200 miles every day you don’t have to spend any time charging except at the end of the day or during a meal or some other down time that doesn’t inconvenience you at all. If I leave Boston with a full charge, I can stop twice, or maybe three times for comfort, and drive the 400 miles or so to the D.C. area. But I would stop anyway. I have talked to people who are skittish about this but we just don’t understand. How often do you drive more than 200 miles in a single day? The much bigger issue is electric charging for people who live in apartments and really don’t have easy access to home charging. This is the issue for electric cars in China.
P.S. You don’t actually need to get a full charge when you stop, you just decide where you want to stop for lunch or dinner and get enough to arrive there with a margin of between 30-50 miles.
jl
@rikyrah: “TWENTY-ONE???”
Looks like Tony Jay was correct yesterday. None of them have any reason to trust Johnson on anything, and no reason to lift a finger to get back with the Tories. So, the didn’t.
From one down to twenty-one down in one day. Another historic achievement for Prime Minister Johnson, if I understand the sequence of events correctly.
Mainmata
@Zzyzx: The battery issue is exactly why hydrogen fuel cells should be a top priority for transport. They produce no carbon and can be made from water (hydrogen and oxygen) using solar power to power the electrolysis process. This is not a theoretical technology; it has been around for decades but has never been scaled up and applied to transport. So batteries with long term, powerful storage are not yet feasible but there are other solutions.
Mainmata
@Barbara: We have a Ford CMax Energy hybrid, which we use for local driving. Not only does it charge through a wall outlet but also every time the car brakes or your foot is off the accelerator. As a result, we go weeks at a time without using any gasoline (in fact there is a warning to drive fast enough and long enough once in a while to use some gasoline so the fuel doesn’t get too “old”. The Ford is not anything like a Tesla, of course, and the present model is not a long-term solution at all but, depending upon your driving habits, you can, in fact, go a very long time without needing to charge the battery.
Barbara
@Mainmata: Yes, the main issue with the hybrid/electric vehicles is that you still need an engine, even if you don’t use it often. AEV technology is amazingly free of the need for engine maintenance.
catclub
@Inventor: Trucking. Who knew?
I did not know that. Thanks!
Barbara
@catclub: Right, it’s like delivery vehicles that have been retrofitted for natural gas. They don’t stop at local stations to fill them up. They have centralized depots where they are refueled and maintained. But that’s a lot of vehicles.
ThresherK
@Barbara: My hot take is that millenials aren’t into car culture in the way we boomers are. I chalk it up to the fact that Americans are driving themselves to a standstill and that boomers are pining for the past they remember when driving was less crowded and more relaxing.
At some point (which we may have reached in places) paying people to keep them from driving on “my” roads is going to be an uncrazy idea.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t ingest that in any form, at least not for a few decades, but yeah, that must be some gooooood stuff.
Elizabelle
I think Elizabeth Warren could win.
Roger Moore
@gbbalto:
The US actually has the best freight rail system in the world, largely because we’ve decided to emphasize freight at the expense of passenger rail. Amtrak sucks as a system because it’s largely piggybacking on freight tracks, and they have to set their speeds and schedules to accommodate freight traffic. Most other countries do the opposite; they set the schedules based on passenger rail and force freight to work around it.
I think you’ll find that the big drop-off in route miles was mostly from industrial rail and other kinds of special purpose stuff that was largely replaced by trucks. For example, I know the town where I grew up used to have a bunch of short-range freight lines going through town that were used to move agricultural products (mostly sugar beets) from the farms to the factory where they were processed. They fell into disuse and were gradually removed, leaving only the main trunk line that had been the original reason the town was located where it was. We don’t need to resurrect those local lines as part of electrification because they could be handled by electric trucks with relatively modest range.
Jimmm
@Zzyzx:
And you’re talking as if the alternative is doing nothing and having the world remain exactly as it is with no consequences… Some would say that this is even more magical thinking than trying to implement large, systemic changes.
The good news is that, generally speaking, the news is good (as far as the tech goes). The price/performance curves for wind, solar and batteries are stunning. My advice: Don’t immediately write off aggressive-sounding environmental proposals just because they seem like overreach – things may be further along than you think.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
Or finances. If the money dries up, Sanders will suddenly discover more important things to do.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Twitter has named her Chakra Con.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
You don’t think someone was/is supporting her enough to enable her bullshit do you? Because I do. drumpy damages his brand all on his own, someone has got to be paying her to do that to dems.
cokane
@ThresherK: This is true. But for a whole bunch of reasons. Younger people are tending to live in cities more than the past generation, especially high cost cities, where owning a car becomes a major expense. Along with that is just the ordinary expense of a car and much like children or owning a home, it’s less economically viable for this generation than it was for the past one.
Jeffro
@cokane: This take seems to be on point.
The ‘both sides’ media can try to pretend that Warren’s got some sort of issues on a par with trumpov, but the greatest argument against that is EVERYONE’s tired of his insanity, and it’s not like he’s getting better. He’s already been beating on the Constitution, economy, and Americans’ psyches for three years. Who wants four more years of his crap? (Yeah, I know the answer is ‘his base’ but his base isn’t big enough to win the election and it sure seems to be eroding bit by bit, day by day)
Zzyzx
@Barbara: spoken like an east coaster ;). I’ve had multiple trips this summer that required over 200 miles a day. Again, you could argue that I shouldn’t be going to Montana to see a festival or so day hikes in National Parks but I have friends in Wyoming who need to travel that far for medical appointments.
Well maybe no one should live in Saratoga, WY and maybe the only way to Utah’s national parks should be by train and the like because of global warming being that serious. It’s a change though and the high speed passenger rail doesn’t yet exist, and that’s why I’m frustrated by the sell job. I know why we can’t be honest about the sacrifices but the pretending drives me crazy.
West of the Cascades
@Betty Cracker: Williamson apparently doesn’t think that the Abacos and Grand Bahama islands qualify as “land.”
Gravenstone
@Hungry Joe: Which would have engendered my preferred response, “Have you always been a moron? Or was today just a bad day for you?”
zzyzx
@Mainmata: Whatever happened to that tech? It was shaping up to be the next rage and could completely be done in Arizona or somewhere via solar (at least to a large degree) and then it died out. Did the fuel cells not actually work? Was refilling them not possible? I should look it up.
Mike in DC
Warren, in my opinion, is at the leftward limit of “electable” in the current political environment. She is willing to work with the establishment, her proposals are progressive but also pragmatic, well-reasoned and properly budgeted. She also seems more likely capable of working with Congress to get things done than Sanders. I’m still partial to Harris, but EW is my solid second pick. I’d like the nominee to have a youngish pick who is nonwhite and/or female.
chopper
@zzyzx:
hydrogen is notoriously difficult to store and ship. it leaks like nuts, given the small molecular size, and it embrittles metals.
FelonyGovt
@MisterForkbeard: I got into a Facebook fight yesterday with a rabid Sanders supporter who assured me that they weren’t going to put up with the same DNC shenanigans as in 2016. (Eyeroll). I pointed out that this will lead to 4 more years of Trump.
Only difference this time is I think more of us are willing to call them out.
Spanky
@low-tech cyclist: Heck, you could make short haul freight lines light rail, and combine with passenger service.
Roger Moore
@Zzyzx:
I agree there are problems with complete electrification in a big hurry, but at the same time there’s a big difference between ending the sale of new IC cars and getting all those cars off the road. People who desperately need the range will be able to stick with their older IC cars for at least a decade longer, and I would expect there to be reasonable options for much better range and/or faster charging before 2040.
I also think you’re underestimating the value you can get from clever trip planning. I know when I’ve gone on a trip through the National Parks in Utah, I’ve rarely planned it to require going more than a couple hundred miles at a go. So you charge your car in Springdale while taking the park shuttle into Zion. The next day, you drive from Zion to Bryce, and again take the park shuttle into the park while your car charges. From Bryce you can drive to Torrey to see Capitol Reef, and then from Torrey to Moab for Arches and Canyonlands. And if you think those will tax your range (hint, they won’t) there are plenty of other scenic places to stop along the way.
Chetan Murthy
@Zzyzx:
This is a sure-fire recipe for doing nothing. Adapting to, not to mention reversing AGW, will require enormous changes to society. Talk to voters about that, and inevitably they decide to just stick with the current system. No, it’s not rational. But it *is*.
I guess you don’t like that. My advice to you would be to find a better electorate.
Fair Economist
@Zzyzx: First, driving around town is 95% of driving. It has been literally over a year since I did anything that needed over a 200 mile range. Second, costs are way down and if you factor in the fact that an electric car saves over $10,000 in lifetime maintenance and fuel it’s now got about the same cost of ownership as a gasoline car. Around 2025 or so the cost to *purchase* will be lower for electrics and that is why all the car manufacturers are heading like mad for the electric exit. Third, the lack of a long range electric is a marketing decision. Slap another $10,000 of batteries in a Bolt or Tesla 3 and you can drive it all day. I’m sure Tesla would already have updated the Model S for that if they weren’t going broke. I am surprised GM hasn’t yet done something like that – per their “only electrics from now out” they have to be working on it.
trollhattan
@Zzyzx:
Tesla has at least one station along I-5 in the Central Valley were you drive onto a rack that robotically swaps out the battery for a charged one in a few minutes.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Another Scott
@Cathie Fonz (formerly Cathie from Canada): BooMan at WaMo is doing similar calculations:
None of this is really new or surprising. Yeah, front-runners have a lot to lose, and Iowa and New Hampshire can throw a monkeywrench in any front-runner’s plans. What I take from this is that it’s still very, very early and we shouldn’t be surprised if things change in the coming months.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@zzyzx:
It’s available in the Toyota Mirai. I know someone who drives one, and it seems to work OK. It hasn’t taken off because hydrogen has problems as a fuel. It’s expensive, and it has poor energy capacity per volume compared to natural gas. And batteries have the huge advantage that our society already has an extensive electrical distribution system that charging stations can feed from, which hydrogen lacks.
trollhattan
@chopper:
Our metroplex now has hydrogen and so is one of four regions in the country where you can lease a Toyota Mirai. Map.
Have bicycled behind a couple and they are rather quiet and actually do drip water from the tailpipe.
My suspicion is they cost a yuge amount to build compared to what the lease payment is. Whether there’s a viable way to make fuel cells affordable remains to be seen but the technology is pretty cool.
ETA Honda also makes one–the Clarity.
https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity-fuel-cell
zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy: I agree with you 100%. It’s just that even when I know why Warren and Inslee and Sanders are being completely unrealistic, I can’t get cynical enough to the point of accepting it. I mean sure, I’ll vote for the nominee, but I fear the backlash that will happen when it doesn’t work as easily as we were led to expect.
It’s why I can’t get all “WARREN IS SO COOL!” the way everyone else I know seems to be when I know she’s just bullshitting.
zzyzx
@Fair Economist: That’s a realistic approach. “You’re losing a freedom, yes, but it’s one that you very rarely use and the consequences of not changing are huge.” I just wish we could speak in these terms and still win elections. We just aren’t wired for short term sacrifices for long term gains.
Chetan Murthy
@zzyzx:
I’d be curious where you think she’s bullshitting, outside of climate change. B/c everywhere else, it’s a mere matter of clawing back our patrimony from the fucking one-percenters. Which is a really heavy lift, but it’s not bullshit. This is an unbelievably rich country we’ve been bequeathed; if we’d just take care of it, it could be paradise.
TenguPhule
@Mainmata:
Unfortunately the storage of hydrogen fuel for road vehicles is still underdeveloped compared to where we need it to be for broad every day use.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
It’s not quite as easy as that. The 85 kWh battery pack Tesla uses weighs 1200 pounds and takes up a lot of space, so doubling the range by adding more batteries is not really practical. And if you did it, you still wouldn’t have true all-day driving range- I’ve driven about 900 miles in a day, and that’s without a second driver to spell me- and you would double the charging time on a flat battery.
Another Scott
@Zzyzx: There are places (in India, IIRC) that do battery swaps. Batteries are pretty good now, and charging is something that can be addressed (e.g. battery swaps on trips, faster/smarter/cheaper at-home chargers). Higher-voltage electronics for cars and trucks is coming and will help a lot (if you need 10kW for your trip, it’s 5x quicker to get it into your batteries at 1000V than at 200V).
Drum is right that a lot of research money needs to be spent, and we all need to recognize that the first world is probably going to have to spend a lot of money to get the developing world to buy-in. We created the AGW problem, we have to have them on-board to help solve it. Everyone in America driving electric cars and trucks isn’t going to do much at all if India and China and Africa are still driving Trabants and TukTuks and burning coal and gas and paving over the Amazon.
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
I guess Trump figures he can racist call the good Senator/Professor Pocahontas and win in 2020. Well he will win 27% of the population on that alone. The rest of us though? Not so much.
joel hanes
@JPL:
It won’t happen while he’s alive
This is my expectation.
On the day after Super Tuesday, the world will once again know that Sanders will not be the Democratic nominee.
The choices he (and his followers) make after that will determine his place in history?
Barbara
@Zzyzx: I don’t think the rest of the country should stand still because something like less than 5 million people in the states you named might find it harder than the rest of us to get by. I am totally aware of the fact that there are places that are far more car dependent than where I live, but speaking as someone who crossed the country in a Tesla five years ago and went through Wyoming, Utah and other places you named, I also know that you seem to be underinformed about the current state of play of charging capability. In the intervening five years, the number of chargers has multiplied by at least four or five. You no longer need to do what we did when we got to a bare spot, which was to spend the night at a KOA campground (Raton, NM; Bear Lake, Utah; Grand Tetons NP), or use the municipal charger (Santa Fe, Vail, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City), neither of which we found to be offputting or unreasonable, and both of which are still possible. The guy at the campground in Utah put in an extra charger just for us! When I consider the long term inconvenience of massive spring flooding that inhibits farmers from planting for the upcoming cycle, spending a few hours from time to time at a KOA campground just doesn’t sound like a lot of hardship.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: Bingo! This is exactly what we did. Yes, you do have to plan better but to call it a hardship seems a little overwrought.
joel hanes
We don’t need to resurrect those local lines
Some of them make very good bike/hike paths.
A few of them could/should be resurrected as electric light passenger rail.
mad citizen
@Zzyzx: Yes, today. But new versions, currently here now and being installed are 20 minutes for 80% charge. It’s Level 3 charging, DC. Not recommended for normal use. My point is, these are here now and the technology will only get better.
Hungry Joe
@catclub: Yes and yes: home charger and $30-$40K.
Chetan Murthy
@Barbara:
You’re far too generous. Fuck if I care what some goober in some desert wants. He can move to a fucking city unless he’s an actual farmer. Fighting AGW *will* force people to live closer-together. And all those people who think that they NEED their 4000 sqft houses for them and their spouse can suck it.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
There’s also the whole issue of one-way vs. round trip range. I’m sure there are people in Wyoming who need to drive 200 or 300 miles to get to a doctor’s appointment, but they aren’t going to drive that far and then immediately turn around. Their doctor’s appointment will take a while, and they’re going to take advantage of being in the city to do some other errands. IOW, they’re going to be in town for long enough to recharge their car, so they only need enough range to make the trip one way.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: The Tesla is designed with 7 year old batteries. The Bolt’s batteries are only 1/4 of its weight and the other assorted all electrics are similar. Sure, it’s not completely trivial to double the batteries but it is doable. The decision not to, I assume is mostly because extended range is a fairly marginal feature and as long as essentially all families have at least one gas car, and *anybody* can rent one, why bother? It makes more sense to use a gas car on those rarish times you need to go more than 250 miles in a stretch and 350 in a day than to cough up another 10-15 K on a car.
I do think it would be a good “halo effect” car, though, in the way a sports car that can only reach its top speed on a racing track is.
zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy: She’s proposing plans that she knows will never ever ever pass any realistic Senate she is likely to have. And, while it’s not bad to have a marker present, she really is counting on people overestimating the power to make changes that she’ll have, especially with an oppositional Senate.
Kayla Rudbek
@Barbara: My family has driven 500+ miles in one day fairly often (parents’ house to grandparent’s house), but that’s because passenger rail in or into the Midwest absolutely sucks, and flying was too expensive. I swear that the train service was better 100 years ago than it is now.
Barbara
@Fair Economist: Yes, I suppose so, but I can’t tell you the number of people who come by to talk to us at chargers to show them the vehicle and their first question is, always, how far can you go on a single charge? Lower range makes it a harder sell, but you are right, most electric vehicles are commuter cars.
Roger Moore
@joel hanes:
This has actually happened here in Southern California. A number of our new light rail lines are on old rail right-of-way.
Chetan Murthy
@zzyzx: that’s it? that’s all you got? That her plans don’t work without real landslides?
I’m disappointed.
What? You think people are going to donate money, time, heart, for “well, I’ll see what I can do, but Moscow Mitch will stop everything I try.”
zzyzx
@mad citizen: that is getting closer. That’s good news that didn’t come up in my searches.
Kayla Rudbek
@Barbara: and HOAs and townhouses are another big problem in terms of setting up charging at home for electric cars. I need to get onto my HOA’s back to see if we can get charging stations in the residential neighborhoods.
Barbara
@Kayla Rudbek: It depends on how you want to drive. In addition to driving to Arizona from the East Coast, we have driven from DC to Savannah, GA in one day and from DC to Montreal in a single day. We now drive just about everywhere if it’s less than six hours, except for NYC, when we take the train. You can do it. You just have to charge and it takes more time than rolling up to get gas. I am just trying to dispel some of the negative certitude that is not just gloom and doom but is actually wrong.
mad citizen
@zzyzx: I was on a renewable energy tour earlier this year in the Denver area and the scientist told us that Amazon was using hydrogen-powered forklifts in their local warehouse. They were having to buy H tanks from off-site, but hoped to get to the point of making it off the electric grid ( which of course is getting ever-greener) themselves.
Roger Moore
@Kayla Rudbek:
Largely because driving wasn’t a practical option 100 years ago. If most cars were limited to 200 mile range, medium-range rail would become a lot more popular.
zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy: I said I understand why she’s lying, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s selling bullshit, which makes it harder for me to buy into it, especially because her entire brand is having plans.
It’s why I didn’t like Sanders in 2016. Warren is smarter and more detailed, but she’s still selling snake oil and the danger of that is that it will promote cynicism. “I voted for all of this change. I got nothing. Why bother again?”
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
I’ll chime in to remind fellow sunbelt dwellers that plenty of communities in the sticks where it gets cold have curbside electrical hookups for folks to plug in their block heaters. Probably not the current needed to charge a car but ample demonstration of the willingness to install desired infrastructure.
Some of the earliest telephone systems were rural co-ops that turned wire fencing into distribution lines.
Barbara
@Kayla Rudbek: Unless they can stop you from getting one installed in your garage that shouldn’t be a problem.
trollhattan
@zzyzx:
“Snake oil”? Per whom?
Barbara
@trollhattan: Teslas use the same chargers that RVs do. So if there is an RV park nearby then the infrastructure already exists.
Chetan Murthy
@zzyzx:
Three responses:
(1) it’s a miracle you ever get around to voting at all. Every pol lies a bit. Every one.
(2) Yes, Warren has plans. Yes, some of those plans depend on Congressional support that she might not get. But they’re pretty detailed plans, and she has the policy and admin experience that we can actually believe she’d be able to execute them.
(3) there was this other President who ran on that hopey-changey thing. It worked out pretty well.
And (4) We don’t just elect a President. We also elect an entire raft of appointed officials who sweep in and change the direction of government. The example of the NLRB, that finally started ruling for unions, comes to mind.
Mike in DC
The Model S Long Range Tesla has a range of 335 miles. It seems reasonable to assume we will see ranges up to 621 miles(1000 km) for electrics by or before 2030. Some countries have somewhat later electric mandates. China has 2040 as the deadline for 100% electric sales. Typically there’s a 10 year phaseout period for the old gas cars as well. Even that timetable would be extremely helpful for addressing climate change, if we got all the gas cars off the road by 2050. Charging long haul trucks will be a major challenge, but doable within that timeframe.
Roger Moore
@Kayla Rudbek:
Any kind of legal requirement to stop selling internal combustion cars will also need regulations to require multi-unit housing to include charging infrastructure in their parking areas.
Kayla Rudbek
@Barbara: no garages for the townhouses in our HOA, so we need either charging stations at the local shopping centers or charging stations in the townhouse neighborhoods.
zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy: for primaries in national elections, that’s true.
It’s a huge difference which party controls the executive. What I’m arguing is that, barring incompetence, it doesn’t matter all that much which of the 10 Democrats in this month’s debate wins the White House. Their administrations are likely to be very similar. Huge fights about how Biden is a moderate sell out and Warren is a very cool radical cause more problems IMO than the actual different between what either one would accomplish.
Another Scott
@ zzyzx – Here’s Inslee’s plan:
Note the word “new”. Note the words “carbon-neutral”. These things aren’t impossible.
He plans 10 years to do it.
We went from the first animal in space to having humans walking around on the moon in less than 10 years.
It can be done. It’s not impossible, it’s not “lying”.
Yes, political will is a problem. But getting people enthusiastic about elections is the way to address that issue.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@zzyzx: A President who thinks the Banks are just fine, is different from a President who thinks the Banks wrecked our country. Go back and look at SPW’s testimony before Biden et al about the bankruptcy bill. And I’m not even gonna get into all the shit when it comes to social justice.
But yeah, aside from the nuts (Tulsi, Marianne), and Ol’ Pervy Uncle Joe and Wilmer[1], I think MOST people (certainly most commenters on this blog) are happy with all of ’em. All. Of. ‘Em. That doesn’t mean we don’t have druthers.
[1] And why do we not like Wilmer (Bernie)? B/c after he lost the primary, he proceeded to heap shit on the Democratic Party for months and months — well after Shitler’s inauguration. And he still does. Fucker runs against the Democratic Party. Oh, and you really think he’s going to get the best talent to staff his administration if he wins, after he’s spent two MORE years shitting down the necks of every Dem in the country?
And even if OPUJ or Wilmer win, I think most commenters are Team Broken Glass. Doesn’t change that people have druthers. That’s what primaries are FOR.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: Or, y’know, WWII
At least Dems are talking about how we have to approach AGW like we did WWII.
Dan B
@dmsilev: Thanks for pointing out that electric vehicles already work great and batteries are better and cheaper every year. Innovation is as great in electric vehicles and renewable energy as it was in cell phones and smart phones a couple decades ago. Right now electric vehicles are past the “brick in your hand” early cell phones. The mind set is rapidly changing as well.
We’ve leased Nissan Leafs for four years and had fun figuring out how, when and where to charge. We went to the ocean in our 2019 and stopped at a charger half way even though we didn’t have to. We got Tortas the size of a small baby and added 90 miles to the car in 15 minutes. Traffic was appalling, added two hours to the drive but electrics have no problem with stop and go traffic, unlike our stick shift pickup.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zzyzx: You are doing a great job nailing yourself to that cross.
Jimmm
@Mike in DC:
The ones manufactured since April 2019 (codenamed Raven) have a range of 370 miles.
Change is happening quickly – as more people start to embrace that change, the pace will continue to improve.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
We even know about what we need to do. It’s mostly a matter of spending a bunch of money building the infrastructure. The other, absolutely critical point is that the longer we delay, the more drastic action will be required to keep climate change within any given target. If we had started serious work to decarbonize our economy when Jimmy Carter was talking about it, we could have been done already and we’d have little trouble keeping to a 2°C temperature change target. If we had gotten serious when Al Gore talked about it, we’d be mostly done with little disruption to our economy. If we wait until 2024, we will have very little chance of success without incredibly drastic steps.
Omnes Omnibus
@zzyzx: Why do I get the feeling that, if Warren proposed only things that could get through a likely senate, you would say that her plans are too timid and will never solve [insert problem here]?
Aziz, light!
@Barbara:
If you live out here in one of the big Western states, often enough. Distance is relative.
Chetan Murthy
@Aziz, light!:
Then life will get a lot more expensive. Boo hoo. I also want a big house with a big yard and fancy toys. Sadly, I get a 1BR and a 19-year-old car that hopefully will be my last. We all have to make sacrifices to save our civilization. Even overfed pretend ranchers.
LuciaMia
Obama’s got smiley cheeks that could crack walnuts! LOL
zzyzx
@Omnes Omnibus: because you’re confusing me with the trolls, which is understandable in 2019, but you can search my history here and I’ve been reading and sporadically posting since the Schiavo days.
I’m an incrementalist especially on a national level when we have to try to appeal to a heterogeneous population. My philosophy is that our winner takes all system is designed to get the person who scares fewer elected, not the one who appeals to more.
Dan B
@Zzyzx: Want to know how to get to North Cascades NP from Seattle in an EV? Did it in our older Leaf 3 years ago.
Farmers goods to market? Hydrogen fuel cells and electric trains means that multiple solutions are available already we just need infrastructure. Building it creates jobs.
A mindset of we-might-fail! is not helping. Farm production might be a challenge due to flooding and drought but we can’t stop burning fossil fuels!! I fail to see the logic.
Dan B
@Zzyzx: Massive changes to our climate are happening and you’re concerned about massive changes to our transportation system? We need to focus on how to implement solutions effectively not on how they are “not perfect yet!”.
Another point. Have you priced used EV’s recently? Under $8,000 is easy to find. By 2030 they’ll be even cheaper.
trollhattan
@Jimmm:
The display says “Fuck :LBJ” once the remaining range goes below 40 miles.
Ruckus
@catclub:
I had to buy a car 3 yrs ago and I looked hard at hybrid or electric. I drive less than 3500 miles a year but have no garage or charging ability at home so it really wasn’t a viable option. And the second thing was cost. Now some of that is covered by no gas purchase and some by rebates. But it just didn’t add up. But. And it’s a big, round, firm but, the technology is advancing rapidly and as more people get to needing a new car, as more charging stations get up to speed it will be a very reasonable choice to go electric, for at least one car in the family.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Not sure if it was Pasadena or the county but they just installed 3 charging units in my building in Pasadena, just before I moved. That landlord wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t required.
Omnes Omnibus
@zzyzx: No, it is because people have addressed your concerns many times already and you are just digging in.
How about this for the distance travel issue. Keep an IC or Hybrid car for those long trips. Use the EV for most of your driving and break out the OG ride only when needed. That should get most families through until battery tech and infrastructure meets your needs.
Also, if you are single or are a one car family for whatever reason, I bet you could find ways to adapt.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey, not everyone is capable doing that!
James E Powell
@zzyzx:
Campaigns are about branding and branding is about identity and that includes aspirations. Realistic aspirations are not going to get anyone excited.
A Good Woman
@zzyzx: I’m an incrementalist especially on a national level when we have to try to appeal to a heterogeneous population.
Incrementalism is comfortable, but not what is really needed. The longer it takes for us to move on climate change, the more likely that transformational change, with little time for a smooth transition, is going to occur. In that case some level of chaos WILL ensue. As was pointed out by Roger Moore, we are well behind the curve in terms of infrastructure, even to maintain the status quo.
I hope you have a Plan B when the time comes that incrementalism is no longer a viable option.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Think about expectations in 2009 and and the 2010 midterm results.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E Powell: Yes, candidates generally run aspirational campaigns. For me, if I were running, I would go with “I want to turn the US into a larger and more diverse version of Denmark with fewer speech regulations.” It gives the voter an outline of my vision for the future. My realistic expectations would probably move the ball down the field on healthcare and climate and also trying to scrape as much shit off of our reputation as possible.
I’d still run on the Denmark thing though.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chetan Murthy: Hmmm, guess I won’t be able to do astrophotography anymore, I have to go out in the middle of the night to remote places. The only way I can do that is with a long range vehicle, there are no rail lines, there are no shuttles. Oh and y’all’s privilege is showing, some of us use street parking*, there’s no place to plug in your car.
*And that’s first come-first served street parking, sometimes I can park near my residence, other times 2 or 3 blocks away.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Instead of solar panels invest in a few Milky Way PV panels.
There, fixed it!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dan B: When I bought my Prius 2 years ago, I looked at used Leafs as well, but quickly rejected them since I have no place to charge them.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Right. And I won’t get an EV now, because I don’t think the infrastructure is there yet. In five to ten years, if the country (and world) put their mind to it, who knows where we
could be.
Barbara
@Aziz, light!: JFC, I drove 900 miles in a single day in a Tesla from Chicago to Rapid City, South Dakota. The issue isn’t “can it be done?” because it most certainly can, but it will be somewhat less convenient to refuel than it is now. If you drive 100 miles to a hospital for a doctor’s appointment that takes you two hours, in that two hours your car can be charging. And you know what, just fundamentally? The rest of us shouldn’t have to put our lives on hold because you guys out there like living so far apart from each other. Do you really think human history has never seen changes in living patterns to accommodate climate and political change?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@zzyzx: Christ, you’re tedious. Warren is “lying” because she’s not giving voters a remedial course in fourth-grade civics? It’s her job now to educate voters on how the U.S. Congress works too?
It’s bad enough when the media falls into Murc’s Law (“only Democrats have agency”). People here really should know better. Why isn’t American voters’ poor understanding of civics being blamed on the media who place responsibility for everything on the president, eliding the two other coequal branches of government? I know Warren has a background as an educator, but the kind of standards people are already holding her to are ridiculous.
(I’d still be surprised if she didn’t also have a plan for that, though.)
Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.
Kayla Rudbek
I just saw this from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory: NREL and GE working on predicting battery range for electric vehicles
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: “Why can’t y’all out west be like us folk in the east?”
Heard for the millionth time in my 60 years.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@(((CassandraLeo))): I think zzyzx is looking a recent history and coming to a conclusion based of facts(Obama’s election and first 2 years and the 2010 midterms). If you have additional data, that might help.
Dave
@Inventor: I agree that there’s a ton of short haul trucking. However, if you travel any of the major interstate highways out west in a car (think I-10, I-40, I-80 for example) you’ll find yourself a distinct minority.
Barbara
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nice try, when, in fact, it is they who are asking me and my ilk to be like them.
I would take these things more seriously if I didn’t know for a fact BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOR SIX YEARS that EV is totally possible in the hinterlands. Indeed, some of the most intractable issues with charging come with population density. But you can keep pretending that you poor folks west of the Mississippi just can’t figure your way through a paper bag when it comes to new technology if it makes you feel better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: Ok, this summer I went to Joshua Tree for astrophotography 3 times. I leave in the afternoon to arrive around sunset(about a 4 hour drive there), shoot for 5 or 6 hours and return home in the early morning hours(2 1/2 to 3 hour drive). It’s about 400 miles roundtrip, how would I accomplish this task in an EV? I should add that I have no place to plug it in here at the cave.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dave: I-5 as well.
Barbara
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Bill, I am not actually advocating for outlawing gasoline engines, but you are referring to incredibly outlier conditions and circumstances and a large part of the point I am making is that your extreme journeys shouldn’t rule or really even affect efforts to develop alternative technologies, anymore than the 1 in a million chances that a good guy with a gun might actually save the day should affect how we think about regulating guns to address gun violence. And I don’t know where exactly you went or whether this link is going to work, but based on what I can see you could totally manage an EV trip to Joshua Tree: https://www.plugshare.com/location/57950
There are probably 30 EV chargers, including at least one supercharger, between Joshua Tree National Park and Cathedral City, California (around 50 miles away).
Miss Bianca
@Barbara: My concern about electric/hybrid trucks is the same as with my little hybrid Honda – which I still mourn, years after its demise in a black-ice accident outside Crested Butte: towing capacity. Those of us who actually tow things, like horse trailers or flatbeds, will really be wanting to keep our big old diesel trucks, here in the mountains. Maybe we can make our own biodiesel…
Uncle Cosmo
@Barbara: And what if you don’t have a garage? I live in a garageless 1930s-era row house** in uptown Baltimore, Can’t run a charging line out front because it would have to cross a sidewalk; can’t run one out back because a car parked there even tight up against the fence would block the alley.
I intend to drive my current gas guzzler till it drops (cf. “sunk cost”) & then buy a hybrid, but will eschew a plug-in if the added cost is significant.
Um, here’s a weird trick: How hard (& expensive) would it be to build EVs with the ability to discharge the power in their batteries into an external port? You could start a small cottage industry, where folks who have the time to fully charge their EVs connect a la Uber with EVs running low while transiting a community where there are no charging stations, rendezvous in a parking lot or on the curb, & deliver an emergency charge at some agreed price. Heck, you could mount multiple batteries in a minivan, charge a small fleet of them in echelons over a period of hours, & advertise emergency charging on demand.
(ETA: ** Difference between a row house & a town house: Thicker party walls & sounder construction. Knock the middle one in a group down & the rest of the row houses will remain standing. Not so with town houses.)
Barbara
@Uncle Cosmo: This is a real issue. It is probably the MAIN issue that needs to be addressed before EV technology can really take off (which is what I already said above). But these people living in rural and suburban areas are just lobbing powder puffs at me. And since I lived in a row house in Baltimore I don’t really need an explanation.
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, attaching a tow hitch to a Tesla voids the warranty, so I know this is an issue.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: BWAAAH HA HA
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: Cat City is WAY out of the way(and would vastly increase the distance), I shoot in the northern part of the park where the foregrounds are more interesting. The closest towns are Joshua Tree and 29 Palms, remember we’re talking 2am to 3am. There are a good number of folk out here who drive in the desert at night, it’s much cooler and for me the darkness is essential.
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: Dominion VA Power is proposing to fund electric buses and take advantage of the batteries when they’re not being used.
I’m suspicious of them because they’re too far entwined in VA politics, but things like this are needed to take advantage of distributed storage. There are obvious benefits (as outlined above). Let’s see how it works, and see if it can be done without giving away the store…
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: I live in a dense urban area; like Uncle Cosmo, there’s no place to charge a EV, even it had the range for night travel.
Barbara
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Bill, you look it up on Plugshare. What your comment tells me is that you really have no idea whether you could do it or not. Maybe you can’t, but Cali is practically stuffed with chargers, most of which are accessible 24 hours a day.
Jimmm
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Check out the plugshare.com link that Barbara posted. The charging infrastructure is already decent, and getting better every day.
The thing I’ve learned since going electric myself is that your sense of range anxiety fades quickly as you learn how to manage your requirements. For example – do you make that drive on back to back days? If not, then it only really matters that you get home with enough range left to get to your next stop tomorrow, assuming your next stop has a charger (again – this is easier to arrange than you think once you start looking). Maybe it means you go to the library first instead of last when running errands, or you pick a different place to eat lunch because you prefer someplace where you can add a quick 20 or 30 miles of range while you grab a bite… but this all becomes automatic in short order. Like topping up your phone’s battery when you’re near an outlet at the airport.
And as for lack of plugs at home, a number of municipalities are starting to offer EV outlets built into streetlights. It’s a problem that has readily available solutions.
Barbara
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Until you look on Plugshare I am not commenting anymore. There are many, many chargers in California that are totally publicly accessible. It is one of the best served states in the nation, for fairly obvious reasons.
Miss Bianca
@Chetan Murthy: Watch who you’re tarring with that big, broad brush of yours. Not all of us who live in the sticks out here are “pretend ranchers”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Barbara: I have looked at plugshare, no dice. The closest publicly available location is about 4 blocks away at the mall and only during business hours. As far as for when I’m actually “On the Road”, remember my return trips are always early in the morning and waiting for an hour or so isn’t really doable. Increasing the travel time really adds quite a lot to the whole decision about whether to go or not.
AnotherBruce
@rikyrah: time to pack the courts. And not just the supreme ones.
Barbara
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, obviously, we should let the planet burn so you don’t have to give up nighttime photography. I routed the journey from Glendale to Joshua Tree NP in EV trip planner and a Tesla can do it without charging and there are at least six superchargers that you could visit on the way back. They are accessible 24 hours a day. I am not telling you to buy an EV but your desperation to prove that you could not do it strikes me as kind of silly.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Sanders has persuaded himself he must become POTUS. He will not withdraw and endorse another candidate unless and until compelled by circumstances, i.e. that someone else is nominated. and even then he won’t do it sincerely. We saw in 2016 that he’s a sore loser.
J R in WV
@catclub:
So MAYBE a single $1000… a long way from $30K~!!~
J R in WV
@Kayla Rudbek:
It won’t be legal for HOAs to keep recharging stations out of neighborhoods.
Just like many deeds written in the past have clauses making it improper to sell houses to black homeowners — these clauses are no longer operative, since discrimination is now illegal.