Month: July 2021

It’s no sooner than Tesla comes out with a new model that one is seen rolling down a suburban street, engulfed in flames, before exploding.

That was the case with one of the company’s new Model S “Plaid” vehicles and that was apparently the scene in a Philadelphia suburb, where pro-Tesla blog electrek noted that the vehicle had caught fire under what it called “strange circumstances”. 

The incident took place in Haverford, Pennsylvania and the the Gladwyne fire department responded to the scene. They released the following statement: 

“Gladwyne Firefighters responding to the 100 block of Rose Lane last night just before 9pm to assist Station 25 (Merion Fire Company of Ardmore) with a vehicle fire. While enroute to the call Chief 25 was advised that the reports were that a Tesla was on fire and it was well involved in fire. Engine 24 with a crew of 7 arrived on scene simultaneously with Engine 25. Due to prior training classes on Tesla Vehicle Fire emergencies, Engine 24 laid a 5 inch supply line into the scene so that we could keep a continual water stream on the fire to extinguish the fire and cool the batteries down to ensure complete extinguishment. Engine 24 and Engine 25 both deployed hand lines to extinguish the fire, each maintained a dedicated water source and continued to cool the vehicle down for almost 90 minutes.”

Photographs released by the fire department show firefighters attempting to put out the blaze, and – as we have seen in many cases of Tesla fires – the charred remains of the vehicle that once was. 

Attempting to offer up some form of analysis, electrek noted that the “exact circumstances of how the vehicle caught on fire are still unknown”. But the post also claimed that a witness from Narberth Ambulance, who was working as an EMT in the area and who was on the scene, said that “the call came in from one of the residents of the neighborhood who saw it rolling down the road on fire before exploding in front of their house.”

The blog post then turns on the spin, theorizing a number of potential causes for the fire except for negligence on the behalf of Tesla. “In this case, the most interesting thing is that the vehicle affected appears to be a brand new Model S Plaid, which is equipped with a new battery pack from Tesla,” electrek editor Fred Lambert writes, possible unaware of the argument he’s tacitly making. 

He concluded by stating the blog would wait for more information before drawing conclusions, and then suggests that “even arson” may have played a role in the fire.

But later in the day on Thursday, more information came to light when a Tweet appeared from a lawyer claiming to represent the owner of the vehicle.

Our firm & @AthleteDefender represent an exec who purchased new Tesla Plaid Model S, which was 1/250 shipped. On Tuesday it spontaneously combusted. Our client was trapped & could have died. We tried reaching out to Tesla & have been ignored so far. This is car after escape. pic.twitter.com/wXyJXbWggJ

— Ben Meiselas (@meiselasb) July 1, 2021

The lawyer claimed that the owner of the vehicle was trapped in the vehicle when it “spontaneously combusted”.

The lawyer said he was unable to reach Tesla so far. 

So much for the arson theory, Fred.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubled down Wednesday on her embarrassing claim that Republicans are the ones defunding police departments across the country, yet failed to name a single example when asked.

Fox News’s Peter Doocy refused to drop the matter, telling Psaki “You mentioned, at the last briefing, that you think Republicans wanted to defund the police because they did not support the American Rescue Plan.”

“Which Republican ever said that they did not like the American Rescue Plan because they wanted to defund the police?” Doocy asked, knowing that there are none.

Psaki ignored the core question, and claimed that Republicans have “stood in the way of crucial funding needed to prevent the laying off of police officers as crimes increased,” but Doocy continued.

“There are lots of examples of Democrats explicitly saying they want to defund the police,” the reporter asserted, adding “We’ve got Congresswoman Cori Bush, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar.”

“Are there any examples of Republican members of Congress saying they want to defund the police?” Doocy again asked.

“I think most people would argue that actions are more important than words, wouldn’t you say?” Psaki replied, again not providing an answer, and then further suggesting that Republicans failed to vote for police funding by voting against the Democrats bloated COVID relief bill.

Watch:

Unreal gaslighting as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubles down on the insane notion that it’s Republicans and not Democrats who have and continue to want to defund the police.

Credit to Fox News’s Peter Doocy for hanging tough and not backing down on Psaki’s lies. pic.twitter.com/YwfkCzPXhT

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 30, 2021

The absurdity of the Press Secretary’s claims is off the chart considering Democrat controlled Oakland voted this week to defund the police, in addition to Democratic lawmakers Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman all calling for defunding the police this week.

WATCH: Democrat Ayanna Pressley says she still supports defunding the police.

“I support a radical reimagining of community safety and public safety…which means reallocating and not further investing” in police. pic.twitter.com/ODEsVjK7dX

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 24, 2021

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doubles down on Defund the Police, downplays crime wave pic.twitter.com/rZEUmmudyR

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2021

As crime surges, Democrat Jamaal Bowman say he supports defunding the police pic.twitter.com/kh7W99gkOz

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2021

The cities of Austin, Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, and Seattle have all suffered from police cutbacks and defunding within the past year, and they all happen to be run by Democrats.

Sensing a pattern here?

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Most people don’t know it, but EVs are not as clean as gasoline cars right off the bat. In fact, due to the impact of mining many materials used in EV batteries, it takes quite a bit of driving before you are doing less harm to the environment than gas cars.

This was the topic of a new Reuters analysis piece by Paul Lienert, which sought to point out exactly how long you have to own and drive an EV in order to reach parity with a gas vehicle. The analysis was performed using “data from a model that calculates the lifetime emissions of vehicles” developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago.

The necessity for the analysis is obvious, because “…making EVs generates more carbon than combustion engine cars, mainly due to the extraction and processing of minerals in EV batteries and production of the power cells,” said Jarod Cory Kelly, principal energy systems analyst at Argonne.

The time it takes for how long EVs need to be driven to make up for that gap varies. It varies on factors “such as the size of the EV’s battery, the fuel economy of a gasoline car and how the power used to charge an EV is generated,” the analysis notes.

In a Tesla Model 3, for example, the article points out you’d need to drive 13,500 miles before you’re doing less harm to the environment than a gas powered car.

Reuters used the model, which took into account how power was generated in different countries to reach its conclusions:

Reuters plugged a series of variables into the Argonne model, which had more than 43,000 users as of 2021, to come up with some answers.

The Tesla 3 scenario above was for driving in the United States, where 23% of electricity comes from coal-fired plants, with a 54 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery and a cathode made of nickel, cobalt and aluminum, among other variables.

It was up against a gasoline-fueled Toyota Corolla weighing 2,955 pounds with a fuel efficiency of 33 miles per gallon. It was assumed both vehicles would travel 173,151 miles during their lifetimes.

But if the same Tesla was being driven in Norway, which generates almost all its electricity from renewable hydropower, the break-even point would come after just 8,400 miles.

If the electricity to recharge the EV comes entirely from coal, which generates the majority of the power in countries such as China and Poland, you would have to drive 78,700 miles to reach carbon parity with the Corolla, according to the Reuters analysis of data generated by Argonne’s model.

EVs “generally” emit far less carbon than ICE vehicles over a 12 year life span, according to Michael Wang, senior scientist and director of the Systems Assessment Center at Argonne’s Energy Systems division. 

The question then becomes – especially for vehicles like Teslas, which are notorious for quality control issues – can your EV make it to 12 years?

Analysis performed by Reuters using Argonne’s GREET model concluded that the “typical break-even point in carbon emissions for EVs was about 15,000 to 20,000 miles” depending on which country the vehicle is in. Other past analyses have been less optimistic. For example, University of Liege researcher Damien Ernst had said in 2019 that the “typical EV would have to travel nearly 700,000 km before it emitted less CO2 than a comparable gasoline vehicle,” before eventually revising his estimates lower. 

The analysis follows last month when we published an article reporting that EVs may offer a negligible difference from ICE vehicles in CO2 emissions. It was the topic of a blog post by natural resource investors Goehring & Rozencwajg (G&R), a “fundamental research firm focused exclusively on contrarian natural resource investments with a team with over 30 years of dedicated resource experience.”

The firm, established in 2015, posted a blog entry entitled “Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint”, where they called into question a former ICE vs. EV comparison performed by the Wall Street Journal and, while citing work performed by Jefferies, argue that there could literally be “no reduction in CO2 output” in some EV vs. ICE comparisons. 

Their analysis “details the tremendous amount of energy (and by extension CO2) needed to manufacture a lithium-ion battery.” Because a typical EV is on average 50% heavier than a similar internal combustion engine, the analysis notes that the “embedded carbon” in an EV (i.e., when it rolls off the lot) is therefore 20–50% more than an internal combustion engine.

Donut purveyor Krispy Kreme opened at $16.30 on Thursday after its initial public offering priced at $17.00 (well below its $21 to $24 offering range)…

…that’s not supposed to happen!

 

Speaking at CNBC’s Financial Advisor summit this week, Leon Cooperman – who has a track record of speaking critically about the market while it’s dropping – actually went on record and criticized the market while on its way up. 

“I have a strong feeling the cycle we’re going through won’t end well but I have no idea where it ends,” he told Becky Quick on Wednesday. 

“I have a strong feeling the cycle we’re going through won’t end well but I have no idea where it ends,” hear the full details of what Lee Cooperman told @BeckyQuick at yesterday’s @cnbcevents #FASummit at https://t.co/Rc4p9phRer. pic.twitter.com/NnjIezNOvN

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) June 30, 2021

Quick called him a “fully invested bear” and said that he believed you “have to be in the market right now”, but that despite that, he’s “nervous”. 

When asked about what he was watching for indicators: “I would watch the dollar exchange rate, I would watch Fed Speak, I would watch economic performance, I would watch the craziness in the market – you know, Bitcoin, stuff like that, meme stocks. The market structure is totally broken. The way stocks trade is very unnatural.”

Cooperman said the Fed’s view on inflation will “provide support” to the market (otherwise known as hyperinflating it). Cooperman said that company’s would be able to pass on inflated materials costs to their consumers: “Everybody is worried about inflation. Inflation is a positive for common stocks because inflation in companies’ costs works its way into selling prices, which lift the nominal level of revenues and earnings. Inflation becomes a problem for the market when the central bank is moving to curb inflation.”

He continued: “The cyclical forces that determine the market outlook are basically positively positioned and that’s why I’m heavily invested. We have a central bank that wants more inflation. Until that changes, I think the market is probably in good shape.”

“In terms of my long-term outlook, to be honest with you, stocks are the best place to be, but I just wouldn’t expect much from the major averages,” he continued telling CNBC. “I’m prepared to be in that kind of environment where I have to stock pick my way to success.”

One week after the Champlain Towers South building collapsed, search-and-rescue efforts at the condominium site in Surfside, Fla., were halted around 0200 ET Thursday amid concerns the remaining structure could topple, according to WaPo. 

The pause is a massive blow for search-and-rescue teams – at least 18 residents are dead and 145 still missing. There were no new confirmed victims today. 

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters that authorities are doing “everything we can to ensure that the safety of our first responders is paramount and to continue our search-and-rescue operation as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

“The only reason for this pause is concerns about the standing structure,” she said. “We’ve already informed the families this morning who are waiting and waiting about this development.”

Miami-​Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said there are concerns about the stability of a large column hanging from the structure that could fall and cause damage to the support columns near the garage area of the building. He said any “slight movement” in concrete floor slabs and additional collapses would be triggered. 

Cominsky did not provide a timeframe on when search and rescue operations would resume. “We’ll evaluate, and my primary focus is to see how we can get back out there and continue our search-and-rescue efforts,” he said. 

President Biden arrived in Surfside to meet with local and state officials, where he said the federal government would provide financial assistance to the rescue and recovery efforts.

“I want to pick up 100% of the cost from the county and the state over the first 30 days,” Biden said at a meeting with Levine Cava, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and other local officials. “I think I’m quite sure I can do that.”

President Joe Biden met with officials involved with the search and rescue mission in Surfside. #surfside @condocollapsehttps://t.co/xKw9i2tg8V pic.twitter.com/NAswDd1mYd

— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) July 1, 2021

Meanwhile, a tropical storm is developing in the Atlantic Basin may present additional challenges for the rescue operations and spark concerns that wind and rain could further damage the standing structure. 

Following weeks of intense talks involving diplomats from more than 130 countries and jurisdictions, Washington has succeeded in winning international backing for a new global minimum corporate tax framework that, if implemented, would constitute the biggest shakeup in international tax rules in a century.

The world took a critical step toward implementing the deal, which involves implementing an international minimum corporate tax rate in exchange for the US sharing the tax spoils from hundreds of the biggest American multinationals. The plan is a critical piece of Biden’s “Build Back Better” strategy, which involves passing trillions of dollars in “infrastructure” spending that will be partially offset by the biggest tax hikes in decades.

The deal, brokered with the help of the OECD, follows years of missteps and other setbacks for the organization, which has been trying to reform international tax rules for years, even before the US threw its support behind reform. The framework received the backing of the G-7 and G-20. Now, finance ministers from the G-20 are expected to sign off on an “agreement in principle” during a meeting in Venice, Italy set for next week.

Both China and India have reportedly given their blessing to the deal, eliminating the last bit of resistance from within the G-20.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was tasked with overseeing the US-led effort, tweeted Thursday that the deal would soon put a stop to “self-defeating international tax competition, lowering our corporate tax rates only to watch other nations lower theirs in response.” Read the full thread below:

“Today is an historic day for economic diplomacy. For decades, the United States has participated in a self-defeating international tax competition, lowering our corporate tax rates only to watch other nations lower theirs in response. The result was a global race to the bottom:  Who could lower their corporate rate further & faster? No nation has won this race.”

“Lower tax rates have not only failed to attract new business, they’ve also deprived countries of funding for important investments like infrastructure, education, & efforts to combat the pandemic.  In the United States, this agreement will ensure that corporations shoulder a fair share of that burden.”

“Today’s agreement by 130 countries representing more than 90% of global GDP is a clear sign: the race to the bottom is one step closer to coming to an end.  In its place, America will enter a competition that we can win; one judged on the skill of our workers & the strength of our infrastructure.”

“We have a chance now to build a global & domestic tax system that lets American workers & businesses compete and win in the world economy.”

“President Biden has spoken about a “foreign policy for the middle class,” and today’s agreement is what that looks like in practice.”

While Washington and the US press celebrated the “deal”, it’s worth remembering that a small group of rogue nations haven’t joined the plan, as the OECD acknowledged in a statement. Holdouts like Bermuda and other traditional tax havens (including Ireland, which has benefited tremendously from its low corporate tax rates) are anxious about hiking taxes, worrying that joining the deal could seriously destabilize their economies.

To be sure, implementing the deal will take years, and there’s still no guarantee that it will make it to the finish line.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that Rep. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former VP Dick Cheney and a prominent GOP critic of Trumpism, has been selected to join the committee that will investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

While Pelosi will undoubtedly tout Cheney’s appointment as evidence of “bipartisanship” on the committee, Cheney’s standing within the GOP has taken a hit after she was stripped of her leadership role within the GOP’s House caucus. So far, Cheney is the only Republican to join the 13-member committee, which will consolidate several ongoing House investigations.

Pelosi’s goal with the appointment is to give the commission the same bipartisan credentials that were enjoyed by the 9/11 Commission. Members of the GOP, however, might better describe Cheney as a “RINO” – or “Republican in Name Only”. President Trump himself has denounced Cheney as such.

The remaining five members will be picked by Pelosi “in consultation with” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, though he hasn’t said yet whether any other GOP members would be willing to join the committee. According to Axios, McCarthy met with freshman GOP lawmakers and warned that they would be stripped of their committee assignments if they accept a position on the committee.

Here’s a complete list of the committee’s membership so far, ranked by seniority within the House:

• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) (Thompson will serve as chairman)
• Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
• Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Texas)
• Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)
• Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.)
• Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)
• Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.)

In a statement confirming her appointment to the committee, Cheney said “what happened on January 6th can never happen again. Those who are responsible for the attack need to be held accountable and this select committee will fulfill that responsibility in a professional, expeditious, and non-partisan manner. What happened on January 6th can never happen again. Those who are responsible for the attack need to be held accountable and this select committee will fulfill that responsibility in a professional, expeditious, and non-partisan manner,” she added.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, who created the legislation that in turn created then commission as part of his role as chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said at a press briefing that “I look forward to coming up with the causes and effect. It will come in due time. I can’t give it a timeline.”

The House voted 222-190 on Wednesday to approve the select committee, which doesn’t require approval from the Senate. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempts to establish a bipartisan commission similar to the 9/11 commission to investigate the attacks.

Asked by a reporter about how McCarthy’s threat to his caucus might impact the committee’s membership, Pelosi said “that’s a matter for the Republican caucus.”

Cheney was one of only two GOP members to vote in favor of establishing the committee: the other was Adam Kinzinger, a moderate Illinois Republican. Pelosi announced her eight picks for the committee Friday morning.