Monthly Archives: March 2022

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March Madness

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Another good one from my friend and brother Marine, Greg. Thank you Greg. Yes March Madness is upon us in more ways than one. BTW, the Lady Vols won there first round. LOL. Yeah I know, my bride and I watch Women’s College Basketball. I get ribbed about that a lot, especially from the book’s editor, my best Marine friend, Dennis. He simply cannot understand why I watch the women play but not the men. Because watching 7′ giants beat each other up, while I can watch what basketball used to be many tears ago i.e., the Bulls in their heyday!

A March to Madness

By: G. Maresca

Not too long ago, March madness meant college basketball rather than nuclear brinkmanship.

By not winning quickly and outright in Ukraine, former Russian president, and prime minister Dmitri Medvedev, a Putin hand puppet, wasted no time threatening the West saying Russia could rip up its nuclear agreements. Putin endorsed such malfeasance by placing his nuclear forces on heightened alert saying we may face “consequences you have never seen.”

In doing so, Russia placed the once remote possibility that tactical nuclear weapons could be exploited on the battlefield making what was once inconceivable, anything but. Moreover, BCA Research set the odds of a “civilization-ending global nuclear war” over the next year at an “uncomfortably high 10%.”

Russia telegraphed their intentions when troops seized the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant that in 1986 produced the planet’s worst nuclear accident.

Russia is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency where an attack against any nuclear facility committed to civilian power production is a violation of governance. This breach is also included in the United Nations Charter, and the Geneva Conventions.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, Europe’s biggest, triggered a fire in the plant’s administrative building that fortunately did not affect the facility’s six nuclear reactors or produce a radiation leak. This flagrant assault was nothing short of a war crime proving that conventional weapons are far from the only option available in the Russian arsenal.

Putin made it clear for years what he intended to do given his invasion of Georgia and the Crimea proving he has no intention of stopping until his objectives are met. Having NATO intervene to defuse a nuclear disaster risks further escalation but at some point, may be necessary.

Provided Russia captures all of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors it would hold Ukrainians hostage by manipulating the energy supply where small armed detachments would protect the reactors is certainly strategically feasible.

No nation is sovereign without energy independence of which nuclear plays a major role.  President Biden voluntarily surrendered ours in exchange for Russian and Middle Eastern oil. American environmentalists approve of fossil fuels provided they come from such perilous places where tyrants like Putin are able to finance their evil.

Provided Ukraine’s nuclear facilities are unsecure, its spent radioactive matter will risk a nuclear catastrophe far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Ukrainians are diligently laboring in the middle of a war to keep the reactors safely operating – unsung heroes in a crusade teeming with them.  Ukrainians need an abundance of aid on many levels most especially securing their nuclear power plants and the radioactive material they produce.

Putin’s invasion is not just about returning Ukraine to the Russian fold, but a siege on the international order that for decades has worked to safeguard the peaceful use of nuclear power.

By closing in on Ukraine’s nuclear power plants that total 15 reactors at four sites, Russia rather than the contracted Westinghouse Electric, will profit from Ukrainian nuclear fuel that they had been supplying. What garnered little media attention is the fact that Westinghouse was in the planning stages to build at least five nuclear reactors in Ukraine over the next two decades. According to the World Nuclear Association, that enterprise is worth more than $30 billion for Westinghouse, an American company.

What kept nuclear war at bay during the longstanding Cold War era was M.A.D. — Mutually Assured Destruction. Both the U.S. and Soviet Union knew that any nuclear launch would be returned and annihilate both countries. However, it is another thing entirely to confront a potential nuclear conflict when one side believes it can win.

Russia is not the only American adversary that could employ its nuclear arsenal as a buffer for a conventional invasion. China is modernizing and multiplying its nuclear forces and covets Taiwan the way the Russians do Ukraine. Regarding Ukraine, the Chinese are trying to appear neutral, but in actuality are Russia’s co-conspirator.

The war raging throughout Ukraine should alarm the international community to reassess suppressing nuclear weapons. Failing to take heed to such a benevolent cause will lead to another and unnecessary nuclear arms race.

Add to this toxic mix, the nuclear starved Iranian mullahs – religious zealots possessed with an Islamic apocalyptic mentality – where “mutually assured destruction” is not a deterrent, but an incentive.

 

Current Events, Recent Posts

BLM

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Good Day Followers, I hope this post finds you well, safe, and enjoying life as best we can during these very troubling times within the world we live. I am so sick about hearing about BLM, I want to puke. It seems everyday there are more and more indictments coming out concerning the so-called leaders of this organization.  Finally, there seems to be a  significand rise in Black people realizing just what this organization is really all about. Lord, I hope hope so.  

From The “Patriot Post” MARCH 3, 2022

Marxist Envy Drives BLM Grifters

Black lives matter, and that’s why the organization that coopted that phrase as its name deserves utter condemnation for being little more than a bunch of Marxist grifters.

Consider Patrisse Cullors, the self-described “queer” and “abolitionist” (as in abolishing the police) cofounder of Black Lives Matter (BLM). If you doubt that she’s a Marxist, don’t just take our word for it; take hers: “We are trained Marxists,” she said. But she’s also a wildly successful capitalist because she managed to peddle her divisive tripe all the way to the bank, raking in millions of dollars and buying multiple mansions before “retiring” from BLM last year at age 37.

She must be content to sip chardonnay in the quiet spread of one of her four homes, chuckling at all the dupes who funded her lavish lifestyle, right? Wrong. Her recent interview with The Guardian begins this way:

“You’re gonna make me cry,” Patrisse Cullors warns when I ask how she feels about being criticized by other Black people. Then [she] turns away from the webcam and starts to sob, hand to her mouth. “I’m crying because I was prepared for rightwing attacks. I wasn’t prepared for Black people to attack me. And I think that’s probably the hardest thing in this position, to lose your own people. The people that you love the most, the people that you do this work for. The human being feels betrayed, the leader feels like: ‘Yeah, welcome to Black leadership. This is the f**king hazing.’”

She talks about having been to therapy, which she claims is “difficult because we don’t live in a world that cares for black people’s vulnerability.” What is she talking about? In the years since she and two others began BLM, she raised perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars ($90 million in 2020 alone), often from decent Americans who simply thought their gifts meant they were showing that they care for black people. Yet here’s Cullors, vengefully biting the hand that fed her, while admitting that she daily contends with “a lot of resentment.” Resentment for what? That she didn’t raise a billion dollars?

No, that she’s being “treated as the fall guy” for all of BLM’s missing money.

Speaking of Black Liars’ Millions, we recently noted that roughly $60 million of BLM’s graft was unaccounted for. Well, it seems that’s an underestimate. Thanks to BLM’s diversified network of fundraising arms, millions more dollars have mysteriously become what Democrats love to deride as “dark money,” vanishing to who knows where.

Whether or not Cullors used BLM money to fund her real estate or anything else, she certainly cashed in on the racial resentment and division BLM fomented. “I’m also a published author, writer, producer, professor, public speaker and performance artist,” she has said previously. “I work hard to provide for my family.” Indeed.

So why did BLM fail at financial transparency? “I think it’s because black people in general have a hard time with money,” Cullors said. “It’s a trigger point for us.”

Just imagine a white person saying that.

Her hatred of the police comes from her circumstances growing up. Forget the war on drugs, she says; let’s focus on the “war on gangs.” She describes growing up in 1990s LA where “essentially the federal government [was] declaring a war on brown and Black children and calling them domestic terrorists.” She claims it was “a literal war zone.” Going to school in a neighboring white community, however, is what fed her resentment and envy.

Her comments are actually quite enlightening about leftism generally and Marxism in particular. That philosophy and ideology is built almost entirely on envy. A Marxist thinks, Someone else has something I don’t, so I’m either going to take it or at least make sure they can’t have it or pay dearly for it. That’s obviously oversimplified, and it’s not to reject the reality that sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes it doesn’t seem right that one group has it so good when another group doesn’t.

But envy is a foundational idea behind Marxism, and building ideology on top of sinful desire is a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, Marxism is increasingly the ideology undergirding American leftism and the Democrat Party.

AMERICAN NEWS Mar 15, 2022 6:35 PM EST

Boston BLM leader charged with fraud in federal indictment

Monica Cannon-Grant and her husband are charged with three separate schemes: defrauding donors, illegally collecting about $100,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits, and lying on a mortgage application.

A prominent Black Lives Matter leader in Boston was arrested Tuesday, and she and her husband were charged in an 18-count federal indictment.

1-year-old Monica Cannon-Grant and her 38-year-old husband, Clark, were charged in connection with three separate schemes outlined in the indictment: defrauding donors, lying on a mortgage application, and illegally collecting an estimated $100,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits, Boston Globe reported

The pair allegedly raised more than $1 million in donations and grants for those in need, but used a substantial amount on themselves for expenses like rent on their Boston apartment, and buying a car for a relative.

In one case, Cannon-Grant was handed a $6,000 grant for her nonprofit, Violence in Boston Inc., to take a group of at-risk young men to a retreat in Philadelphia.
The trip never happened though, and she used the money to take a vacation to Maryland with her husband, dining at restaurants like Bubba Gump Shrimp, paying for groceries and car rentals, and visits to a Boston nail salon, federal prosecutors allege.
“While Cannon-Grant reported to the IRS and the state attorney general’s charity division that she received no salary, prosecutors said that in October 2020 she started paying herself $2,788 a week,” according to the Boston Globe.
This marks the first time that Cannon-Grant has been implicated in the schemes, and brings additional charges against her husband, who was arrested in October by federal agents after a raid on their Taunton home.
Her husband was previously charged with illegally collecting unemployment benefits and making false statements on a mortgage application.
After appearing before US Magistrate Judge Judith Dein on Tuesday, Cannon-Grant was released on personal recognizance, and was told that she could continue working at her nonprofit, but cannot handle the organization’s finances.
Cannon-Grant will be arraigned on the charges next week.
“VIB [Violence in Boston] and Monica have been fully cooperating and their production of records remains ongoing. Drawing conclusions from an incomplete factual record does not represent the fair and fully informed process a citizen deserves from its government, especially someone like Monica who has worked tirelessly on behalf of her community. We remain fully confident Monica will be vindicated when a complete factual record emerges,” said her lawyer, Robert Goldstein.
“We are extremely disappointed the government rushed to judgment here.”
Really?
Current Events

Finally!

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FINALLY!  Generals from all services are beginning to speak out against what CMC is doing to the Marine Corps. Many have met with him, but state, he took notes, asked no questions, and changed nothing. This first article is from a Marine I know very well. I was his Company GySgt for a short while, until I was commissioned and  stayed in the same company; he was a Capt at the time. I served with him again when he was a Colonel and  G-1 of the 2d Marine Division. Then again when I had 2/6 and was going to become 2/8, he was my regimental CO. Then yet again when he was a fresh caught  BG at LFTCLant. So, I know him fairly well.

I and several others pegged him as a future general when he was nothing but a captain at 8th & I. The smartest, most capable Marine officer I ever met throughout my career. When he made four star he was assigned as  Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic and Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command. Consider the significance of that assignment. The first time ever that a non-naval officer was assigned to that billet. He controlled all the  forces, including the navy ships throughout the Atlantic!

General Jack knows his stuff, so I am heartened by the fact he has finally come to life. Someone had  best listen to him, specifically another four star named Berger!

Wasteful Spending, a Shrinking Force and the Marine Corps’s Big Bet

The Marines may be “the only branch adapting fast for the future” (“U.S. Defense After Ukraine,” Review & Outlook, March 8), but what future and how wisely? The military’s poor record of predicting the next war urges maintaining flexibility. This has long been a strength of the Marine Corps, which maintained itself for decades as a combined-arms force in readiness, rapidly deployable, balanced and able to organize for any mission. This has proved its worth to the nation at all levels of crisis and conflict.

Yet today the Marine Corps is betting all on a conflict with China in the Western Pacific, to the neglect of other contingencies, creating littoral regiments to be scattered in small units across island chains to engage Chinese ships with missiles as part of a campaign for sea control. To pay the bill for this new vision of war, the Marine Corps has already got rid of all its tanks. It is reducing cannon artillery from 21 to five active batteries, eliminating three infantry battalions and reducing those remaining by a third in manpower, and reducing air power and other combat support commensurately. The war in Ukraine shows the folly of this. Or should someone tell the Russians and Ukrainians these systems are all obsolete?

These initiatives risk turning the Marine Corps into a niche force optimized for one conflict that is unlikely to occur, while hobbling its ability to meet security challenges that are certain. This is not what the nation needs or expects from its Marine Corps.

Gen. J.J. (Jack) Sheehan, USMC (Ret.)

Alexandria, Va.

Mr. Sheehan was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (1994-97). How dare the WSJ refer to this Marine as “Mr.”

Another general speaks out in the same WSJ article.

The editorial board has been right on its defense analysis for months. Now it is correct about our defense-budget outlook, especially the relationship between the creeping inefficiencies that have plagued the Pentagon and our need to modernize.

If Vladimir Putin is successful, he will not stop at Ukraine. Nor will Xi Jinping stop at Taiwan. America must be ready to combat these threats and adjust to the end of the post-Cold War order. That will require more defense spending—a reality that our NATO allies are coming to grasp as well. But if we don’t get more bang for the buck, these spending increases won’t yield the capabilities we need to defend our freedoms, which are at risk.

Though we spend more today in constant dollars than we did at the peak of the Reagan buildup, we have a smaller force by all measures. The largest drivers of this ever-shrinking fighting force are a broken acquisition system that costs more, takes longer and produces less; the excessive amount of money tied up in the Pentagon’s massive, layered overhead and support functions; and the fully burdened and life-cycle costs of the all-volunteer force, with its outdated personnel management, compensation and retirement programs.

Without reforms, we will not improve our capabilities in either the quality or quantity necessary. The Pentagon and Congress need to establish performance goals that ensure we are better, faster and cheaper than our adversaries. The focus needs to be on outputs, not only inputs.

Congress should also fund the government through a regular process instead of the insanity of never-ending continuing resolutions, which already cost the Defense Department close to $40 billion in purchasing power in this fiscal year. The Pentagon and defense-industrial base need steady, predictable funding. Budget chaos is no way to deter our adversaries.

Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret.)

McLean, Va.

Mr. Punaro is author of “The Ever-Shrinking Fighting Force.”

Your editorial observes that President Jimmy Carter “did a 180-degree turn . . . and began a defense buildup.” This is a bit generous. Alarmed by the enormous Soviet military program and the overthrow of the shah, NATO countries agreed to each undertake a 3% increase in real defense spending. Yet when Mr. Carter offered his budget for fiscal year 1980, his defense numbers were closer to half that, which his spokesmen rationalized with the fatuous claim that the part relevant to NATO had met the target.

In the face of this foot-dragging, two “defense Democrats,” Sens. Ernest Hollings and Sam Nunn, took matters into their own hands, introducing an amendment to raise the overall number by 3%, as pledged, and by 5% the next year. The Carter administration lobbied strenuously against this, yet it passed 55-42. This began the buildup that was carried much further by the Reagan administration, contributing to victory in the Cold War.

Joshua Muravchik

Wheaton, Md.

Mr. Muravchik was executive director of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (1977-79).

STRENGTH    RESPECTS    STRENGTH. Always has, always will, Amen

Current Events

Is it NATO or ATO?

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Another informative and thought provoking treatise from my good friend and our Marine Brother. Thank you Greg.

Holding the bag.

By Greg Maresca

While many Americans would have trouble finding Utah on a map, let alone Ukraine, they would equally struggle with the acronym, NATO, that if we are being truthful means: Not Able To Operate (without the U.S.). They need to drop the “N” and make it ATO – American Treaty Organization, a synonym for American expeditionary forces.

NATO was established in 1949 to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union. Its mission according to the alliance’s first Secretary General, Lord Hastings Ismay, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.”

The post-Soviet Union Russia retained its formidable military that includes thousands of nuclear warheads, so disbanding NATO was out of the question. Besides, alliances, like government bureaucracies, rarely disappear. More importantly, peace through strength is no cliché. Tyrants will always exploit weaknesses and it’s naïve to believe otherwise.

In his historic 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington made it clear how he opposed alliances. Defense treaties always work to the advantage of one country and to the disadvantage of another.

The other always being the United States and as the most powerful member we will continue to pay for ensuring its effectiveness.

NATO protects Europeans from having to provide for their own defense. It is a lot easier to let the American taxpayer pick up the tab, while also keeping the sea lanes free and open. Granted, it’s in my interest if my neighbor’s house doesn’t go up in flames. However, that doesn’t mean I must pay his house insurance.

The well-intended but fossilized NATO is more bark than bite when it comes to any support that is not American in origin. Our southern border is under siege but do not count on any NATO member to come to our aid. We can’t even count on some NATO members to vote with us at the United Nations, where we also pay the majority of the U.N.’s bill.

NATO’s first supreme commander, Gen. Eisenhower, said if U.S. troops were still in Europe in 10 years, NATO would be a failure.

Article V of the NATO treaty says any attack on a NATO member will be treated as an attack on all. NATO’s sole Article V intervention was in 2001 in Afghanistan – a long way from Europe and the North Atlantic and its founding objective.

Any member that fails to meet their obligations betrays the alliance by being strategically and ethically negligent and by escalating their dependence on Russian gas and oil only magnifies their irresponsibility.

NATO members prefer to invest in the socialist welfare state than in the necessities of defense where allegiance to the alliance and to one another is debatable. Regarding military contingency, NATO would rather conduct summits where the English would make the reservations, the Germans the strudel and the French hors d’oeuvres. All the while, Uncle Sam does the heavy lifting with the troops, tanks, planes, and ships.

During a Bold Guard/Northern Wedding NATO exercise, the only NATO trooper I interacted with was a drunk Dane who approached our armory of which I was one of two sentries. It is sobering to behold what a sliding bolt can do for the language barrier. I suppose the Carlsberg beer that was three for a dollar was just too good to pass up. The Danes did provide a hot meal in one of their air bases’ chow halls that the salty grunts of the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade promptly cleaned out to the dismay of our hosts. Without a doubt, Uncle Sam was billed accordingly.

Lack of accountability has bred imprudence like unionized troops throughout NATO. One Air Force captain told of a NATO exercise where he was walking with a couple of Dutch officers when they passed two generals. The Americans saluted, while the Dutch, who were wearing hair nets to cover their shaggy hairdos, waved. The Dutch explained how their union claimed saluting was humiliating.

Yet, historians still debate why it took the Nazi’s four days to eliminate the Dutch from World War II.

If our NATO allies took their defense seriously, they would be a formidable neutralizer to Russia and assuage their reliance upon the U.S., while saving Uncle Sam plenty of money and headaches.

 

Current Events

EV or ICE?

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Recv’d this via email from a friend this morning. Very Interesting. I have  a Navy buddy with whom I was stationed on the USS Chicago many years ago. Met with him a few years ago and we were talking about auto makers. Because of his job when he left the Navy, he knew several of the auto maker heavies. He related a lunch he had a few weeks earlier with the retired CEO of Ford, Jim Farley. He asked him who he thought would be the big three in 10 years. Without hesitation Farley replied Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford. As my friend did, I found that interesting, yet when I look at the stats today, I see it coming to fruition.

In case you are considering a move to EV, read this!!!

Depending how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.

GM, America’s largest automaker, is about half Toyota’s size thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring. Toyota is actually a major car manufacturer in the United States; in 2016 it made about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. right here in its nearly half a dozen American plants. If you’re driving a Tundra, RAV4, Camry, or Corolla it was probably American-made in a red state. Toyota was among the first to introduce gas-electric hybrid cars into the market, with the Prius twenty years ago. It hasn’t been afraid to change the car game.

All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports it perhaps better than any other manufacturer on the planet. It hasn’t grown its footprint through acquisitions, as Volkswagen has, and it hasn’t undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades.

When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it’s probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.

Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”

Wimmer’s remarks come on the heels of GM’s announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035. Other manufacturers, including Mini, have followed suit with similar announcements.

Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world’s largest engine manufacturer when you take its boat, motorcycle, lawnmower, and other engines it makes outside the auto market into account. Honda competes in those markets with Briggs & Stratton and the increased electrification of lawnmowers, weed trimmers, and the like.

Wimmer noted that while manufactures have announced ambitious goals, just 2% of the world’s cars are electric at this point. For price, range, infrastructure, affordability, and other reasons, buyers continue to choose ICE over electric, and that’s even when electric engines are often subsidized with tax breaks to bring price tags down.

The scale of the switch hasn’t even been introduced into the conversation in any systematic way yet. According to FinancesOnline, there are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered. Toyota’s RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the U.S. market in 2019, with Honda’s CR-V in second. GM’s top seller, the Chevy Equinox, comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. This is in the U.S. market, mind. GM only has one entry in the top 15 in the U.S. Toyota and Honda dominate, with a handful each in the top 15.

Toyota warns that the grid and infrastructure simply aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. A 2017 U.S. government study found that we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charge stations to support a fleet of just 7 million electric cars. That’s about six times the current number of electric cars but no one is talking about supporting just 7 million cars. We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years, if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.

Simply put, we’re gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids. A LOT bigger.

But instead of building a bigger boat, we may be shrinking the boat we have now. The power outages in California and Texas — the largest U.S. states by population and by car ownership — exposed issues with powering needs even at current usage levels. Increasing usage of wind and solar, neither of which can be throttled to meet demand, and both of which prove unreliable in crisis, has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline. Wind simply runs counter to needs — it generates too much power when we tend not to need it, and generates too little when we need more. The storage capacity to account for this doesn’t exist yet.

We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we’re all going to be forced to drive electric cars. Whether we’re charging them at home or charging them on the road, we will be charging them frequently. Every gas station you see on the roadside today will have to be wired to charge electric cars, and charge speeds will have to be greatly increased. Current technology enables charges in “as little as 30 minutes,” according to Kelly Blue Book. That best-case-scenario fast charging cannot be done on home power. It uses direct current and specialized systems. Charging at home on alternating current can take a few hours to overnight to fill the battery, and will increase the home power bill. That power, like all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using natural gas, petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. I left out biomass because, despite Austin, Texas’ experiment with purchasing a biomass plant to help power the city, biomass is proving to be irrelevant in the grand energy scheme thus far. Austin didn’t even turn on its biomass plant during the recent freeze.

Half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend at an electron pump. It’s about 5 to 10 times longer than a current trip to the gas pump tends to take when pumps can push 4 to 5 gallons into your tank per minute. That’s for consumer cars, not big rigs that have much larger tanks. Imagine the lines that would form at the pump, every day, all the time, if a single charge time isn’t reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements, but those won’t come without cost. Nothing does. There is no free lunch. Electrifying the auto fleet will require a massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation. Elon Musk recently said we might need double the amount of power we’re currently generating if we go electric. He’s not saying this from a position of opposing electric cars. His Tesla dominates that market and he presumably wants to sell even more of them.

Toyota has publicly warned about this twice, while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be virtue signaling to win favor with those in power in California and Washington and in the media. Toyota’s addressing reality and its record is evidence that it deserves to be heard.

Toyota isn’t saying none of this can be done, by the way. It’s just saying that so far, the conversation isn’t anywhere near serious enough to get things done.

Postscript: As part of an RV club rally, I toured the new Toyota plant in Chattanooga several years after it was up and running. What an experience. You could eat off the damn floor, workers were smiling, waving at us, happy, polite, and it was obvious they loved their job. After the tour we were taken into a large conference room and showed a Toyota  propaganda video. One of the other guests asked the woman why isn’t Toyota unionized. She laughed and said the company welcomes  UAW to come give their pitch at the plant about once a year. They allow them to put up posters all over the plant announcing the upcoming UAW meeting. They even allow the workers time off to attend the meeting. She said the last meeting had four attendees. He asked how many employees the plant had and she said” A little over 4,000.”  This plant made the Camry, and she told us every part of their Camry is made right in the US, nothing comes from Japan, Nuff said.