Dear ANS group -- Just a reminder to vote! It's very important that we vote for democracy over fascism.
I already voted.
--Kim
Saturday, November 02, 2024
Fwd: Green tidbit
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Joyce Segal <joyceck10@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 2, 2024 at 9:05 AM
Subject: Green tidbit
To: Kim Cooper <kimc0240@gmail.com>
From: Joyce Segal <joyceck10@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 2, 2024 at 9:05 AM
Subject: Green tidbit
To: Kim Cooper <kimc0240@gmail.com>
Polestar on Friday confirmed its first customer deliveries of U.S.-built electric vehicles.
Every Polestar model to date has been manufactured in China, but the 2025 Polestar 3 is assembled at a South Carolina plant shared with Volvo. Production started there in August following software-related delays.
Polestar has said it will pass on a $7,500 credit for leases, following the approach of other automakers in exploiting what's being called the EV leasing loophole. This allows use of a provision intended for commercial vehicles by automakers with captive financing arms to claim a credit and pass the savings on to customers even if vehicles don't otherwise qualify.
Building cars in the U.S. does at least avoid recently-hiked tariffs on Chinese EVs. In a more complex solution to the same problem, U.S.-market versions of the coupe-like Polestar 4 will be built at a Renault plant in South Korea. That's scheduled to start in the second half of 2025.
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Every Polestar model to date has been manufactured in China, but the 2025 Polestar 3 is assembled at a South Carolina plant shared with Volvo. Production started there in August following software-related delays.
Polestar has said it will pass on a $7,500 credit for leases, following the approach of other automakers in exploiting what's being called the EV leasing loophole. This allows use of a provision intended for commercial vehicles by automakers with captive financing arms to claim a credit and pass the savings on to customers even if vehicles don't otherwise qualify.
Building cars in the U.S. does at least avoid recently-hiked tariffs on Chinese EVs. In a more complex solution to the same problem, U.S.-market versions of the coupe-like Polestar 4 will be built at a Renault plant in South Korea. That's scheduled to start in the second half of 2025.
ANS -- How to Vote if You’re Worried About Groceries, Gas and Rent
Here is an article about which side is really better "for the economy". It makes some good points.
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--Kim
POLITICS
How to Vote if You're Worried About Groceries, Gas and Rent
It's the opposite of what most people think
President Joe Biden is presently sitting in his secret Price Room, where he has a dazzling wall of knobs, dials and faders. With these, he controls the price of everything: milk, gas, bread, rent and all other consumer goods, right down to socks and underwear.
"Let's increase the price of … oh, let's do peanut butter today!" he says, gleefully turning the peanut butter knob all the way to the right. He cackles with glee.
This is apparently what a lot of Americans believe
Plenty of people who acknowledge that Donald Trump is a convicted felon, a racist and rapist, a traitor to the Constitution and an all-around odious pig nevertheless believe he has some secret power to lower prices. People say they'll hold their nose and vote for him because of inflation and the economy.
It's absolutely true that prices, especially oil prices (which affect the price of absolutely everything) dropped during Trump's term. If you recall, there was a little thing called a Covid-19 pandemic that happened during that time. People who are stuck at home and either unemployed or scared of losing their jobs don't spend a lot of money. Oil actually hit a negative price!
Are gas prices really so high right now? They go up and down. This chart shows the price over time. You'll see the dip during the pandemic, and then you'll see the spike as things opened back up, and then you'll see that they're dropping again. Interestingly, as of right now, prices are lower than they were in 2012. Nobody seems to realize that.
The world had a double whammy with the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot of Americans pay no mind to international news, and are unaware that inflation hit everywhere.
It's not, in fact, just a Biden issue. Every leader of every country has had the same issues. No leader actually has a Price Room where they control these things. Biden only wishes he had such a room. He'd have turned down every price, everyone would love him and nobody would have whispered a word about his age.
Do you know who Lina Khan is?
She's the president of the Federal Trade Commission, and she's busy busting up monopolies.
Competition is good for everyone. It's central to how the free enterprise system and capitalism itself is supposed to work, but when we let one or two big players control a market, we don't have competition and prices rise.
Khan is kicking ass and taking names. The big boys don't like this, of course, but so far they haven't been able to stop her.
There's a reason billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have thrown their support and their money toward Trump — they want policies that are friendly toward big business, not consumers. They don't like competition. They like having markets all to themselves, so they can set prices high without fear of a competitor.
If you want prices to go down, you want more competition, not less.
The rent is too damn high
And so are housing prices. There are lots of reasons for the crazy housing market, but one of them is that investors are snapping up homes, making them unavailable for families.
The two presidential candidates have different approaches. Kamala Harris wants to provide $25,000 in down payment assistance. Trump wants to round up immigrants, even though immigrants aren't what's causing the housing shortage. (Trump has never found an issue he can't blame on immigrants.)
Do you know what the zoning and construction permit laws look like in your community? Unless you're in the construction business, you probably don't. But these things are local, not federal, and they have a lot to do with how much new housing is going to be built in your area.
No president can address thousands of local ordinances. We need lots more housing, but you'd be better off talking to your mayor and county board chairperson about this.
Oh, also, keep in mind that the construction business depends heavily on immigrant workers, and that rounding them all up is going to mean that building new housing will become even more expensive than ever.
We all have to eat
You can stop going out. You can switch from steak to beans and rice. But you have to eat something, and now everything in the grocery store is more expensive.
Do you want to know why? Here's a pretty good primer that explains a lot of it. Some of it is supply chains. Some of it is greedflation. But mostly it is complex and multifaceted and not something that any one leader can control, certainly not instantly at the turn of a dial or with one new law.
We do know that agriculture depends heavily on immigrants. Rounding them all up and leaving farmers without workers is not going to lower the price of any food, so good luck finding Americans to milk your cows, pick your apples and butcher your chickens.
He is not the working class friend
I'm a working class woman and I understand that this man with a gold toilet is not our friend. He is, in fact, our enemy. Do not believe his running mate when he sells himself as a hillbilly. He is no more a hillbilly than Bezos or Musk.
Pandering to the working class and to Christians just proves how little respect he has for either group.
I'm scared to death
I'm afraid our nation is going to devolve into a nightmare fascist regime, all because too many Americans think — for no logical reason at all — that Trump can magically lower inflation. He's a former reality TV star who inherited millions and then kept going bankrupt who has somehow sold himself as a gifted businessman. You'd think people would be smarter than this, but here we are.
Our prices will not drop — they might actually spike, especially if he manages to do what he says he will with tariffs, which he in no way understands. But our freedom will plummet.
I'm expecting higher housing, gas and grocery prices with a side order of fascism — and if it happens, it will be because we did it to ourselves.
About Michelle Teheux
I'm a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe! I also write a Substack called Untrickled, about income inequality, and have a new book, Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class.
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Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Fwd: Green Bit and bank fraud
Dear ANS group -- just a couple of tidbits for you.
--Kim and Joyce
--
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Joyce Segal <joyceck10@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:00 AM
Subject: Green Bit and bank fraud
To: Kim Cooper <kimc0240@gmail.com>
From: Joyce Segal <joyceck10@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:00 AM
Subject: Green Bit and bank fraud
To: Kim Cooper <kimc0240@gmail.com>
Japan's iconic Mount Fuji has yet to see snow this winter
The peaks of Japan's highest mountain are still snowless, marking the latest date without a snowcap since records began 130 years ago.
Chase ATM fraudsters may soon have to pay up
Customers who allegedly withdrew money fraudulently from Chase Bank ATMs using an illegal scheme that blew up on TikTok over the summer could soon have to cut hefty checks back to the bank.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Fw: October 27, 2024
Dear ANS group -- Here's another one of Heather Cox Richardson's articles. Trump may have gone off the deep end this time.
--Kim
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com>
To: "kimc0240@yahoo.com" <kimc0240@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2024 at 11:36:44 PM PDT
Subject: October 27, 2024
I stand corrected. I thought this year's October surprise was the reality that Trump's mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way. It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign's fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight. There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump's base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that "true Americanism" event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas. Like that earlier event, Trump's rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence. Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024. On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric's wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump. Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York's competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: "The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive." Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no. Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, "in a strange way the papers did perform a public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would feel like." Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started his career in the U.S. Musk "did not have the legal right to work" in the U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants. The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump's outrageous statements, but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump's threats in the center of the front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels "in potential violation of international law," and use federal troops against U.S. citizens. It added that he plans to "upend trade" with sweeping new tariffs that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies. "To help achieve these and other goals," the paper concluded, "his advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive legal theories about the scope of his power." On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in giant capital letters: "DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/ ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/ PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM." And then, inside the section, the paper provided the receipts: Trump's own words outlining his fascist plans. "BELIEVE HIM," the paper said. On CNN's State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to permit Trump's running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers. Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S. military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the very things Vance denied. Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: "There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico." He went on: "And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country." Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris "the Antichrist" and "the devil." They called former secretary of state Hillary Clinton "a sick son of a b*tch," and they railed against "f*cking illegals." They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller's claim that "America is for Americans and Americans only" directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that "Germany is for Germans and Germans only." Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights, notably undermining Vance's argument from earlier in the day by saying that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are "the enemy within." But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. "I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over," Trump said. It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote. Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his likely plan. But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him. Tonight's rally badly hurt that plan. As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for strengthening Puerto Rico's energy grid and making it easier to get permits to build there. After the "floating island of garbage" comment, Puerto Rican superstar musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram, posted Harris's plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is endorsing Harris. Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from Hinchcliffe's set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: "This is what they think of us." Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250 million Instagram followers, posted Harris's plan. Later, singer-songwriter and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million followers, also called out the "constant hate." The headlines were brutal. "MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump's MSG rally," read Axios. Politico wrote: "Trump's New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks." "Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump's Madison Square Garden Rally," the New York Times announced. "Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults," read CNN. But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially. The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the "floating island of garbage" quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out that Hinchcliffe's set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters. As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia, 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020. In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them back from storming the venue. — Notes: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-proudboys/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/us/politics/kamala-harris-philadelphia-voters.html New York Times, October 26, 2024, p. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/25/opinion/what-trump-says.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/ https://kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fact-Sheet_Puerto-Rico_EN.pdf https://www.axios.com/2024/10/27/trump-madison-square-garden-rally https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/27/trumps-madison-square-garden-racist-00185770 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/27/us/harris-trump-election Imperial Valley Press, February 21, 1939, p. 4. X: TeaPainUSA/status/1850277855135183022 LibbeyDean_/status/1850225746310320291 lifesafeast/status/1850541530685067715 AOC/status/1850649252642591209 juliettekayyem/status/1850545726423450102 MaxwellFrostFL/status/1850649928202375183 KamalaHQ/status/1850636070137762225 letsgomathias/status/1850612734347411953 shannonrwatts/status/1850628929113174477 Carrasquillo/status/1850643405971263796 cmclymer/status/1850647657662013587 yashar/status/1850656835575169145 AndrewLSeidel/status/1850702535159398527 DJJudd/status/1850692868265910436 Acyn/status/1850687521593962881 KateSullivanDC/status/1850650641640948181 Victorshi2020/status/1850701734706020556 BMeiselas/status/1850683055385534531 jason_kint/status/1850677514005336323 brianstelter/status/1850667210987241569 maddenifico/status/1850653571206811979 You're currently a free subscriber to Letters from an American. If you need help receiving Letters, changing your email address, or unsubscribing, please visit our Support FAQ. 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