The goal of the Democratic Party is to use open borders and the welfare state to do to the whole country what it has been doing to California. This gives an idea of what that would mean for gas prices:

California is set to lose two major oil refineries, bringing the total decline in refining capacity to 21% in three years.

The refineries are closing because Gavin Newsom et al. oppose energy production on the grounds that it offends the climate according to their ideology.

California’s gas prices are already much higher than in neighboring states, with a gallon of gas creeping up to $5/gallon, as much as nearly $2 a gallon more than in cheaper states. The national average price, according to AAA, is $3.15/gallon.

This is largely due to taxes. Where you have single-party rule by the Party of Big Government, you have excessive taxation.

Due to those refinery closures, prices may rise by as much as 75%.

That would mean $8.43 per gallon. No doubt liberals regard this as a small price to pay to signal their virtuous obeisance to the weather gods — although it is doubtful that even liberals believe this will have any perceptible effect on the weather.

But why complain about $8.43/gallon? One study found that driving an EV is the equivalent of paying $17.22/gallon. EVs are slated to become mandatory in the erstwhile Golden State.

On a tip from WDS 2.0.

Electric vehicles are not just excessively expensive and bad for the environment. They are also a safety hazard — and not only because they spontaneously burst into flames (and people get locked inside them).

From Kansas:

A Kansas school has stopped using its electric school buses out of an abundance of caution after reports of the buses losing steering and braking, posing a threat to student safety.

Guess who paid for the buses? That’s right: you did. Federal funding was used to purchase them from Lion Electric.

Kansas was not the first state to have problems with the buses:

In May 2024, the Winthrop school district in Maine reported it took four of the Lion Electric school buses out of commission after a bus suddenly stopped working while driving. Another superintendent in Maine reported the buses can have critical battery failures, blown compressors or loss of power.

Despite the US taxpayer money flushed down this Canadian company,

In its Q3 2024 financial report, Lion Electric reported it had nearly $500 million in debt and liabilities. In December 2024, the company filed for creditor protection under the Canadian Companies Creditor’s Arrangement Act. The company also announced it would seek recognition of those proceedings in the USA under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.

All’s well that end well. Liberal virtue was successfully signaled. No doubt the climate appreciates the gesture.

The Washington Free Beacon reported the Biden administration had awarded Lion Electric nearly $160 million to produce electric school buses.

Our money was flushed away righteously, because until they started setting fire to them in an attempt to intimidate Elon Musk, liberals regarded electric vehicles as a means of saving life on earth from the existential threat of harmless carbon emissions.

On a tip from Steve T.

At first Democratic politicians tacitly endorsed the terror campaign to destroy Tesla so as to punish and make an example of Elon Musk for challenging the liberal establishment. Now their support is becoming more explicit.

From the libs at Politico:

An upstate New York lawmaker who’s said she’s “disgusted” with Elon Musk is targeting Tesla’s operations.

State Sen. Pat Fahy, an Albany Democrat who’s championed electric vehicles, introduced a bill Wednesday that would yank permits for Tesla’s five in-person sales locations in New York. …

“No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk,” Fahy said.

Her fellow Democrat, New York State Assemblyman Bobby Carroll, wants an outright ban on Tesla direct sales.

Democrats used to sing a different tune:

Fahy in previous years championed legislation to fully lift restrictions on direct sales by EV makers. That would have benefited Tesla and other EV makers. Fahy said she wanted to see electric vehicle sales take off to cut emissions in New York and help achieve the state’s climate goals.

However, supposed existential crises like climate change are not as important as destroying political enemies who help to scale down Big Government.

Their war on Tesla has made it clear that not even Democrats believe in the global warming hoax, much less that the EVs they subsidize with our money and plan to mandate have any effect on the weather.

Gone are iron-jawed strongmen like Mussolini. Pat Fahy demonstrates what the face of tyranny looks like now (note the moonbat crazy eyes):

On a tip from ABC of the ANC. Hat tip: Modernity.

Americans are getting a taste of what life must have been like in China during the Cultural Revolution, as freelance thugs run amok terrorizing those they deem to have deviated from absolute moonbattery. They target Tesla drivers, who are now regarded as counterrevolutionaries.

Leigh was driving her Tesla to a doctor’s appointment Wednesday in suburban Seattle when this occurred:

It started when another driver began honking behind her as she approached a red light. The second car, a white SUV, then cut her off and stopped in the middle of the road.

The American equivalent of a Red Guard goon jumped out of the SUV, wearing a camouflage jacket and a ski mask.

“He gets out and walks straight up to my door window. So I cracked my window and I said, ‘What? What is the problem?’” she told FOX 13. “He goes, ‘You need to sell your car. This is a Nazi car. You’re driving it, you need to sell your car.’”

It is a Nazi car because the CEO of the company that made it has been helping to scale down the excessive size of the US government by exposing waste and fraud.

“Being in Seattle, climate’s important, our footprint’s important,” Leigh told FOX 13, explaining why she chose to buy a Tesla.

Because driving an electric car around Seattle will make the local weather stop being too hot.

Until just the other day, Teslas were the vehicle of choice of well-to-do virtue-signaling moonbats. Now, diehard dingbats are donating their pricey vehicles to NPR. Hopefully, others are rethinking their ideological allegiance.

The terror campaign is achieving its intended effect. Leigh says driving a Tesla “feels like a huge risk; it’s scary.”

As with the Black Lives Matter riots, what is really scary is that the thugs on the street are cat’s-paws for the radicalized liberal establishment. Despite leftists’ setback in last November’s election, they are still determined to achieve absolute power. It won’t be pleasant for any of us if they succeed.

On a tip from Dennis G.

Not all moonbats who resent Elon Musk for exposing Big Government waste and corruption firebomb Tesla dealerships like the transsexuals Lucy Grace Nelson and Adam Lansky. Some go after charging stations — with financial assistance.

Per Elon Musk:

An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla “protests”: Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America.

ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix.

The sinister George Soros is a prominent donor to the Democratic Party. In addition to Democrat pols and pro-criminal DAs, here’s what he and other liberal donors have been getting for their money:

Let’s hope the smoke doesn’t cause global warming. The wokesters responsible will be crippled by guilt.

Looks like planet-saving Teslas are no longer in vogue among liberals. NPR ought to give out t-shirts to Tesla donors like Sheryl Crow and Elvira so they can continue to virtue signal. They might read something like, I GAVE MY TESLA TO NPR BECAUSE LIMITED GOVT IS EVEN WORSE THAN GLOBAL WARMING!

Nobody will be surprised if it turns out ActBlue has been getting $billions laundered through the Swamp like Stacey Abrams.

On a tip from Wiggins. Hat tips: Right Scoop, Pirate’s Cove.

When Lucy Grace Nelson, who dresses in women’s clothes, was arrested for vandalizing a Tesla dealership so as to punish Elon Musk for exposing Big Government’s waste and fraud, he may have started a fad within a fad among wokesters. Presenting Adam Lansky:

Via Oregon’s Fox 12:

A man was recently arrested for having Molotov cocktails and attempting to destroy property at a Salem Tesla dealership, according to the Department of Justice.

Adam Matthew Lansky, 41, has been charged by criminal complaint with illegally possessing an unregistered destructive device.

Lansky evidently attacked the dealership twice, once with Molotov cocktails and a second time firing bullets into a building and vehicle.

Not that Democrats have to be a transvestites to have a grudge against cars.

Most Teslas on the streets are probably owned by well-to-do liberals who bought them to showcase their pious belief in the global warming hoax. Until a few weeks ago, driving a Tesla was peak political correctness. But now silly moonbats like Sheryl Crow and Elvira virtue signal by giving them away on behalf of NPR.

On tips from Wiggins and WDS 2.0.

Reasons to avoid the electric vehicles Democrats want to force us into continue to accrue. As of yesterday in Wisconsin:

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue says an excise tax of 3 cents per kilowatt-hour will be due on the electricity delivered or placed into the battery or other energy storage device of an EV by a Level 3 charter, or a Level 1 or Level 2 charger installed after March 22, 2024 of an EV charging station, as stipulated by 2023 Wisconsin Act 121.

Anyone with a charging station must register with the Wisconsin Department of Confiscation I mean Revenue.

The registration and excise tax [apply] regardless of whether the charging station is available for public use and whether there is a charge to the consumer for the electricity from the EV charging station.

So as with EV subsidies, wealthy liberals’ enviromoonbat posturing will be subsidized by others.

[T]he tax does not apply to residential EV charging stations.

Until such time as insatiably greedy Big Government wants more money.

On a tip from Steve T.

In Germany, a ferry is required to cross an inlet of the Baltic Sea called the Schlei. The diesel-powered Missunde II did the job fine. Then bureaucrats decided to save the planet by replacing her with the solar-powered Missunde III:

Missunde III’s glorious solar roof acted like a great sail in the face of those stiff northern winds. Her small electric motors had trouble overcoming the force, such that she took twice as long to cross the Schlei against the wind as her drab and dirty older sister. The Missunde III’s greater weight also placed too much strain on her guidance cables, and she had trouble mooring at the dock.

Trying to get the electric ferry to work entailed environmental damage in a nature preserve.

All the while, the automobiles that normally would’ve ridden the ferry across the Schlei had to take lengthy detours approaching 30 kilometres to the nearest bridge.

This of course produced more harmless but politically incorrect carbon emissions.

In March, after months of no ferry and pointless 30km detours, the mayor of Brodersby-Goltoft, Joschka Buhmann, had had enough. He demanded that authorities recommission the outmoded Missunde II and resume ferry service.

However, since having been sold, Missunde II had been left to rot away, and would require €1.8 million in renovations to make seaworthy again.

But they still couldn’t get Missunde III to work, so…

…the Office for Coastal Protection finally went limping back to the not-so-dim buyer who purchased the Missunde II for 17,000 Euros, and struck a deal to buy it back from him for 100,000 Euros. The Missunde II has been given a new permit to sail until 2028, because nobody believes that the hyper-advanced super-silent Missunde III will be up to the simple task of ferrying automobiles across 100 metres of water anytime soon.

Thus concludes another lesson in green posturing.

On a tip R F.

The moonbats at Phys.org had almost caught up to Scientific American when it comes to subordinating science to wokeness. Then they went and admitted that EV owners sin against their own godless religion by having larger carbon footprints:

A pair of psychologists and an economist at the University of Turku, in Finland, have found that because the average electric vehicle (EV) owner is wealthier than the average person, they still have a bigger than average carbon footprint.

So it is not transportation that offends the weather but wealth. Don’t worry, leftist politicians have a cure for that.

Despite EV owners being wealthy enough to waste money on expensive green posturing, their playthings are heavily subsidized by those of us who do not. EV manufacturers naturally raise their prices to match the subsidies.

On a tip from Steve T.

While wasting other people’s money on green idiocy, moonbats often spin it as a way to lower costs. For example:

Electric buses were supposed to save money for Maryland’s largest school district. …

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 326 electric buses in October 2022, Montgomery County Public Schools projected the shift would save 6,500 gallons of fuel per day and cut costs by 50%.

Then came reality, prominently featuring mechanical failures:

These mechanical and charging issues resulted in buses not being able to complete their routes 280 times between February 2022 and the end of March 2024. … The average time it took to repair an electric bus was 13 days, according to the report.

As a result, in October 2023, the school board approved the school system’s request to buy 90 diesel school buses “in light of the electric bus shortfall” at a cost of more than $14.7 million according to the report.

Diesel buses are haram in the liberal religion but have the advantage that they work. Plus they save money over electric moonbatmobiles. The report found the electric buses “led to millions of dollars in wasteful spending.”

It is intuitively obvious that electric vehicles are not economically efficient, because if they were, leftists in the government would not need to use subsidies and coercion to get people to drive them. But try telling that to educrats.

On a tip from Franco.

Yet again we see that the batteries used in the electric vehicles Democrats want to force us to drive are not safe:

An 18-wheeler overturned on I-15 South Friday afternoon, causing a 75,000 lb load of lithium-ion batteries to spontaneously combust (because of course it did). Emergency first responders were forced to shut down the freeway, which serves as basically the only efficient ground artery between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Never mind all the toxic fumes that went into the air.

Emergency responders were concerned about the fire causing the release of a number of deadly toxic chemicals, including hydrogen cyanide, chlorine and sulfur dioxide.

Also never mind the hundreds of vehicles emitting away while stuck for hours in the blistering desert heat in the massive traffic jam this caused. The important thing is that EVs allow Democrats to virtue signal about how willing they are to sacrifice our interests for the environment.

On tips from R F and Steve T.

Here’s yet another reason not to buy an electric vehicle, no matter how much of other people’s money Democrats provide in subsidies. You might get locked inside:

[O]ver this summer alone, there have been numerous reports of people being trapped inside EVs due to dead batteries. In some of these cases, toddlers have been locked inside of sweltering cars.

In one example, on June 20, Renee Sanchez was eager to take her two-year-old granddaughter to the Phoenix Zoo. Early that morning, Sanchez strapped the toddler into the backseat of her Model Y Tesla. After closing the rear door, Sanchez attempted to open the front door. However, it would not open because the battery was dead.

The forecasted high for today here in Phoenix is 116°. Within an hour, the temperature inside parked cars can reach 160° — hot enough to fry an egg. Every year there are tragic news stories about children killed by the heat because they were left in cars.

You don’t need to live in Phoenix to get cooked inside a car. EVs are so infamous for spontaneously bursting into flames that one jurisdiction has mandated fire blankets at charging stations. Imagine getting locked inside this moonbatmobile:

Democrats want to force us into them. That’s all you need to know to steer clear of EVs.

On tips from WDS 2.0 and Mr. Freemarket.

Electric vehicles are such a good idea, they require massive (strategically targeted) subsidies and strongarming from the government to get anyone to buy them. They are so safe that fire blankets are needed at EV charging stations:

The city of Milton [Georgia] will now place fire blankets at its non-residential electric vehicle charging stations. …

Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Marshall Alex Fortner told the council the measure was a “proactive attempt” to limit the damage if an electric vehicle catches on fire.

According to Fortner, cars with lithium-ion batteries can need up to 30,000 gallons of water if they catch fire. That’s 60 times as many as the average vehicle with a combustion engine.

What a great time to buy stock in whatever company makes fire blankets. The Biden Regime is building 500,000 mostly unwanted charging stations at an estimated cost to us of $400,000,000,000.00.

Some might worry that forcing everyone into EVs will burden a destabilized electrical grid that will be under increasing stress as Democrats incrementally impose inefficient green energy. Actually, the reverse is true; the government can use EVs to take energy out of our cars. Naturally, California has been out front on this.

On tips from R F, ABC of the ANC, and Mr. Freemarket.

To the many reasons to resist coercive pressure to drive an electric moonbatmobile, let’s add motion sickness:

Motion sickness in EVs “is a real thing,” said Dr. D.J. Verret, an ear, nose and throat doctor in Texas, according to ABC.

“The brain sets up a model for what it expects in certain situations,” he said. “In combustion cars, you hear the engine revving and know someone is stepping on the accelerator. The car moves forward. In an EV, the auditory and visual inputs don’t fit the model that you are actually moving.”

The result is that those inside feel sick — unless it is realizing they spent way too much on an unreliable, inefficient, dangerous, environmentally harmful glorified golfcart, thereby signaling not virtue but foolishness, that makes them feel sick.

No wonder so many unsold Teslas are piling up in parking lots.

Anecdotally, driving an EV has been blamed for extreme fatigue; debilitating shoulder, collarbone, and neck pain; nosebleeds; nausea; and hair loss. On the positive side, driving one improves the weather according to liberal doctrine, which presumably someone somewhere takes seriously.

On tips from Stormfax and The Great Cornholio.