Yearly Archives: 2021

“The general election is not an organizational exercise. It's a mass media exercise.”

– Roger Stone

All aspects of our lives were upended by the 2020 pandemic. The media reminded us daily of the violent social unrest and alleged racial injustice. They failed to cover abuses of our core democratic voting practices which cast long shadows over the efficacies of our election process. At a time so much went wrong and so little went right, when we needed unity, the media divided us even more.

Debates were postponed or canceled. Candidates missed events, and held others on the internet or TV. Joe Biden hid in the basement of his Delaware home for days, and refused interviews. The media did Kamala Harris’ campaigning for her while Biden remained AWOL from most of America.

President Donald Trump, Gallup poll’s most admired man in the U.S. the last two years, campaigned like a new age rock star. During the pandemic, he defied anyone to stop him. His whistle stops were more charismatic than any religious revival. Unlike Biden, he was all over the map until COVID-19 slowed him down. But during quarantine at Walter Reed Medical Center, he campaigned to the voters outside.

America was not prepared for mass mail-in voting, and questions remain how ballots were counted or made it to the polls at all. Many questioned the accuracy of voting software, while others wailed disenfranchisement and fraud. And the media fanned the flames for this yet blamed the president.

Contrarily, this election was a walk in the park compared to some the media has been a part of in the past. They have a history of disrupting presidential races by making accusations of fraud, covering up backroom deals, ignoring voting problems, and creating political chaos. They were a key player in fueling the U.S. Civil War.

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."

– John Kennedy

The 1800 contest saw Thomas Jefferson tie with his Democratic-Republican running mate Aaron Burr. Both had 73 votes. Congress was called upon to break the tie. Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalist Party, despised John Adams. He seduced Federalists to vote for Jefferson and make Aaron Burr the VP. The media continued to publicize this rivalry between Hamilton and Burr for over three years, until a frustrated Burr, the sitting vice president, killed Hamilton in a duel.

The highly publicized 1824 election saw four candidates from the same party competing. Andrew Jackson got 99 Electoral College votes, John Quincy Adams secured 84, William Crawford won 41 and House Speaker Henry Clay 37. Since none won the majority, the House decided the election.

House speaker Clay had the dubious honor to pick the winner. Adams promised Clay the job of Secretary of State if he gave the election to him. Jackson was so furious he accused Adams and Clay of “election corruption” and resigned his senate seat.

The 1860 election was notorious for many things as newspapers nationwide tried to derail Abraham Lincoln, which further divided the nation over slavery. The New York Herald claimed if he won, “hundreds of thousands” of slaves would invade the North. And the press in the south convinced southern states to remove Lincoln from their ballot. In the end, Abraham Lincoln beat John Breckinridge, due to the Republican Party’s firm anti-slavery platform. And weeks after the election, South Carolina voted to secede; followed by six more Southern states. In February 1861, delegates from Southern states formed the Confederate States of America and selected Jefferson Davis as their official president.

In the election of 1872, one of the candidates never saw the final Electoral College vote. Misguided New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, a Democrat critical of Reconstruction, had tried to unseat Ulysses S. Grant. He didn’t stand a chance of winning and died before the election was finalized.

In 1876, when Democrat Samuel Tilden defeated Republican Rutherford Hayes, electorates in the College were tied. Democrats, influenced by Southern media on a bipartisan commission, made a shady deal to award Hayes the election if he would return power to the Democrats in the South.

The 1920 election featured two newspaper publishers, Democrat James Cox and Republican Warren G. Harding. Harding defeated Cox handily with strong media support. But the media completely ignored the candidate who finished third. And he was the most newsworthy.

Bernie Sanders’ predecessor, Socialist Eugene Debs who ran for president five times, ran his 1920 campaign from the most eccentric campaign headquarters: a prison cell. He was convicted for high crimes against government and sentenced to spend a decade in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

“The most heroic word in language is revolution. I am a proletarian revolutionist.”

– Eugene Debs

By 1948, the media felt they were now qualified to start calling presidential elections. Segregationist Southern Democrats pitted Strom Thurmond, their first Dixiecrat candidate, against the incumbent Democrat Harry S. Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. NBC, CBS and Gallop all predicted Dewey would win. Led by the Chicago Daily Tribune, they took the pollsters’ bait and signed off on one of the most blunderous media headlines in the history of journalism: “Dewey defeats Truman.”

We all recall the fiasco in Florida in 2000. Again, the media forgot they don’t pick the winners, the voters do. By 8 p.m. eastern, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the API declared Al Gore the winner over George H.W. Bush. But when Bush won Florida, their newsrooms were covered with egg. The next day, they began a campaign to change the election results to vindicate their amateurish reporting.

Five weeks of recounting and ballot harvesting was highly publicized by the media, who favored Gore. When the Supreme Court ended this debacle, the media refused to let it go. As a result, our nation never recovered from the media’s Election Eve blunders. Judging by our latest election, we still haven’t learned; the media is a greater danger to elections than the voters who listen to them!

Topix’s Chris Tolles said, “People don’t trust politicians because of the media.” The media is no longer a watchdog over government. They’ve turned elections into high-priced advertising. In the 1800s when papers were in bed with favorite candidates, voters could read and decipher agitprop from both sides of the aisle. But each year, as the media has moved so dramatically left, this is no longer the case.

“Political candidates are products, and we sell the winners today.”

– Newsweek

Long before the pandemic, no presidential election was without conflict or adversity. This discord is fueled by the media to increase circulation. With today’s media appealing to identity groups and gullible Millennials, the media will have more influence over the future of our nation than voters will ever have.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

– Thomas Sowell

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(The Center Square) – Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James P. McGovern announced new rules for the 117th Congress, which will be introduced and voted on after the new Congress convenes.

The rules include “sweeping ethics reforms, increases accountability for the American people, and makes this House of Representatives the most inclusive in history” – including eliminating the words, “father, mother, son, and daughter,” from federal code.

The proposed changes reflect “the views and values of the full range of our historically diverse House Democratic Majority,” Pelosi said in a joint statement with McGovern.

McGovern said the new rules were a result of months of consultation “across our caucus and Congress.”

Tucked inside the package is a proposal to use “gender-inclusive language.”n The goal is to “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral,” their joint statement reads.

McGovern issued a separate announcement about “Changes [to] pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral or removes references to gender…”

Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, the House’s Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the new proposal include “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, [and] granddaughter.”

The terms would be replaced with “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, [and] grandchild.”

The proposal also establishes a Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth “to prioritize our commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind in the 21st Century economy.”

Proposed reforms also include changing the process by which bills go to the floor, and making House documents more electronically storable and available.

They would also remove floor privileges for former members convicted of crimes related to their House service or election; make it a violation of the Code of Official Conduct for a member, officer, or employee of the House to disclose the identity of a whistleblower; make it a violation of the Code of Official Conduct for a member, delegate, resident commissioner, officer or employee of the House “to disseminate manipulated media, including photos and videos, known as ‘deepfakes,’” among other measures.

A section-by-section summary of the rules package is available online.

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(The Center Square) – The fate of which party holds power in the U.S. Senate for the next two years is in the hands of Georgia voters.

Heading into the next session of Congress, Republicans hold a 50-48 advantage over Democrats with Tuesday's U.S. Senate runoff elections looming in Georgia.

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue faces Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff, and Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is being challenged by Democrat Raphael Warnock. The runoff elections materialized after no candidate in either race garnered a majority of the vote in November's general election.

If Republicans win one or both of the elections, the GOP will retain control in the U.S. Senate. If Democrats win both elections, the chamber will be split, 50-50, with Democrat and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaker vote.

"We've got a job to do here in Georgia," Loeffler told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "America is counting on us. If you vote, we will win. If you don't, we will lose America."

"This election is about the difference that we can make in our lives when we elect people who care about the people more than they care about themselves," Ossoff said.

Perdue, who won 49.73% of the vote to Ossoff's 47.95% in the general election, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014. Before winning public office, Perdue was in business, and his previous jobs included serving as CEO at Reebok, Dollar General and Pillowtex.

Ossoff, an investigative journalist and media executive, ran for Congress in 2017 in the special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

Loeffler and Warnock emerged from a pack of 21 candidates in the general election, where Warnock won 32.9% of the vote compared with Loeffler's 25.91%.

Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler, a businesswoman and co-owner of Atlanta's WNBA franchise, in December 2019 to fill the seat vacated by former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired.

Warnock is senior pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The circus surrounding Georgia's presidential election and Perdue and Loeffler's support for President Donald Trump have dominated the conversation regarding the runoff elections, pushing policy to the background.

Perdue and Loeffler have framed the runoff elections as saving America versus radical socialism.

Perdue has said an Ossoff victory would lead to illegal immigrants voting, police being defunded, higher taxes, private health insurance being taken away, small businesses going out of business and the U.S. Supreme Court being packed.

Republicans need to win the two Senate seats "to protect everything that Donald Trump accomplished in these first four years," Perdue said.

Ossoff has attacked Perdue for his stock dealings in the aftermath of learning about COVID-19 and his opposition of Medicaid expansion, which Ossoff said would help keep rural hospitals afloat and make health care more affordable.

"We've lost nine rural hospitals in 10 years here in Georgia," Ossoff told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "Where's David Perdue been? While the people are forced to move hours across the state just to get to the emergency room. That's not right."

Loeffler has painted Warnock as a radical liberal and Marxist who "wants to raise taxes, socialize health care, rip away our rights, and crush our economy with the Green New Deal." She has attacked Warnock for failing to support law enforcement.

"Violent crime in Atlanta is the highest it’s been in 20 YEARS – yet [Warnock and Ossoff] are totally silent," Loeffler tweeted. "By refusing to stand with law enforcement – and instead supporting defunding the police – they’re enabling the violence."

Warnock also has questioned Loeffler's stock trades after a senators-only briefing in January regarding the coronavirus, and he said Loeffler helped stall a second round of coronavirus aid for Americans for nine months.

"[Loeffler] made her priorities clear when she sold $3 million of her own stock, called unemployment relief 'counterproductive,' and stalled relief for nine months," Warnock tweeted. "Georgians learned long ago they can't trust Kelly Loeffler to look out for anyone but herself."

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(The Center Square) – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, one day after Vice President Mike Pence and members of the U.S. House objected to it.

District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a nominee of President Donald Trump, said that Gohmert didn’t have standing to bring legal action.

The lawsuit requests the court to grant Pence as the president of the Senate overseeing the Joint Session of Congress “the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State” on Jan. 6.

Gohmert “alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives,” Kernodle wrote. “Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”

In response, Gohmert told Newsmax, “If I don’t have standing to do that, nobody does.”

Kernodle ruled that the 11 other plaintiffs, including Arizona Republican Electors, claimed an injury that is not “fairly traceable” to Pence.

Gohmert said the attorneys representing the plaintiffs will appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He later asked, “When no one ever has standing, what good is a court system?”

In their 43-page reply to the judge on Saturday, Gohmert and other plaintiffs argue, “Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit. He may count elector votes certified by a state’s executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.”

The day before the judge’s ruling, Pence’s attorneys filed a brief arguing that the plaintiffs “have sued the wrong defendant,” adding that Gohmert’s lawsuit objects to procedures in the law and “not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,” therefore he should not be the one being sued.

Pence’s brief states, “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction.”

Kernodle replied that Rep. Gohmert “… alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”

“The other Plaintiffs, the slate of Republican Presidential Electors for the State of Arizona (the ‘Nominee-Electors’), allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to the Defendant, the Vice President of the United States, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief,” he added.

Republican Electors in seven battleground states cast Electoral College votes for President Donald Trump on Dec. 14, asking Congress to reject the votes certified in their states for former Vice President Joe Biden.

Gohmert and the other defendants argue that Pence acting as the president of the Senate has “exclusive authority and sole discretion under the 12th Amendment to determine which slates of electors for a state, or neither, may be counted.”

Gohmert says that he and 140 Republican members of the House will formerly object to some states’ Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

Joining them in the U.S. Senate are 12 senators, four of whom are new members. The first to state his objection was Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, on Dec. 30.

(The Center Square) – Eleven U.S. Senators now say they will challenge some states’ Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 when the Joint Session of Congress begins.

“America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law,” they wrote in a joint statement.

“When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power. The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations, and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.”

The group includes seven sitting Republican senators: Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., James Lankford, R-Okla., Steve Daines, R-Mont., John Kennedy, R-La., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. and Mike Braun, R-Ind.

It also includes four senators-elect who were sworn-in on Sunday: Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

Their announcement comes several days after U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was the first senator to announce he planned to object. “I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley tweeted Dec. 30.

The allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 Election “exceed any in our lifetime,” they wrote, arguing that Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission with full investigative authority to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of election irregularities in several disputed states.

Once the audit is completed, the states would then evaluate the commission’s findings and hold special legislative sessions in their states to certify the votes, and changes to their votes, if the audit warranted it.

“Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed,” the group said.

“… support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue,” they added. “A fair and creditable audit – conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20 – would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.”

So far, roughly 140 U.S. Representatives have indicated they will object on Jan. 6.

Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden’s team downplayed the announcement, stating that the Joint Session of Congress’ vote count was “merely a formality.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s confident Biden will be sworn into office as the 46th president on Jan. 20.

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(The Center Square) – State unemployment compensation trust funds continue to struggle, a new report published by the Tax Foundation reveals.

As of Dec. 17, 20 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have taken out loans from the federal government – totaling roughly $44.3 billion in Title XII Advances – that are required to be paid back with interest.

States entered 2020 with aggregate trust fund balances of $75 billion, which on net now stand at $25 billion. Now 17, states and the Virgin Islands are in the red, the report found.

The states and territories in the worst financial shape include the Virgin Islands, New York, California, Hawaii, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Mexico.

State unemployment compensation trust funds are in the best shape in Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Mississippi, Utah and Wyoming.

“A faster-than-expected jobs recovery has helped many states remain solvent,” the report notes.

In July, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the U.S. would return to 6.7 percent unemployment in the first quarter of 2023, a level already reached by November 2020, two years ahead of schedule.

“These significantly lower unemployment levels have stretched unemployment compensation trust funds further than many would have initially expected,” the report adds.

“Unemployment insurance taxes are imposed on a taxable wage base that is generally fairly low, so in many states, the majority – sometimes the overwhelming majority – of all UI tax revenues arrive in the first quarter of each calendar year,’ the report states. “States can, therefore, look forward to a substantial boost in trust fund balances in the early months of 2021. Nevertheless, outlooks in some states remain gloomy.”

The Tax Foundation notes that states ultimately will need to raise unemployment taxes to pay back their advances and replenish their trust funds.

As a local government reporter, I watch a lot of public meetings – from city councils and county boards, to criminal intake hearings and public listening sessions, to basically everything in between.

It has not been a walk in the park.

Many meetings have cut-out mid-livestream, with those in the meeting carrying on anyway, essentially operating behind closed doors for several minutes or longer.

Other meetings are hard to understand because of the cluster of screens, voices or background noise coming from unmuted mics. Often it’s unclear who cast which vote on an item.

Some meetings have mistakenly been posted under an incorrect streaming link, and one meeting required me to download a new program that crashed my computer several times.

I recently wanted to tune in to an important meeting, but could not find the streaming information anywhere, even though the agenda told me the meeting was open to the public through Zoom.

I emailed someone for the login information, and was discouraged from attending.

“It’s usually a long meeting,” they wrote. (Eventually, they gave me the info and I joined and watched the very long meeting – which is my right.)

Early on in the pandemic, the Wisconsin Department of Justice laid out guidance for making sure virtual meetings comply with the state’s Open Meetings Law. It calls for providing alternatives to those without internet access or who are hearing-impaired, and it encourages officials not to speak over each other and to identify themselves each time they speak.

There are some public bodies who do a phenomenal job, taking roll-call votes for every action item, or streaming meetings live to platforms like YouTube or Facebook that store the videos for later viewing.

But there’s still much more that can and should be done.

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Electric-powered cars are now the rage. Tesla’s market capitalization is seven times larger than that of General Motors and 14 times larger than Ford’s, though it builds a fraction of the vehicles that those companies do. Many politicians are even considering banning gasoline-powered cars within a few years in favor of electric vehicles (EVs), all in the name of saving the planet.

This has significant meaning to me. As a third-generation automobile dealer, I need to get ahead of the curve and prepare for what is next. I want to sell what people want to buy. I have driven the Volkswagen Golf EV, the Honda Clarity plug-in (PEV), and now the Hyundai Kona EV. All have good road characteristics and operate similarly to gasoline-powered cars, with the exception of how they are powered.

I installed a Level II charger at my home. The cost: about $850. I am fortunate that my fuse box is located in the garage, so I did not need much additional wiring. The garage is where I charge these EVs overnight.

Some say that a 250-mile range is a must for an EV, and I agree. Charging one with a normal 120-volt plug requires about 54 hours so a Level II, 240-watt charger is needed – the same voltage that a home drier uses. To fully charge the Kona with its 64 kW battery requires up to ten hours. Plug in when you come home, and it is ready by the time you leave for work in the morning. A 250-mile range gets me just about anywhere I want to go.

The question remains: What is it like to have to depend upon a public charging station? Tesla has a robust, nationwide rapid-charging infrastructure, but Tesla uses a proprietary charging plug that does not work with other makes of vehicles. Volkswagen, as part of its diesel settlement, has constructed a large charging network under the name of Electrify America. Electrify America has the closest rapid chargers to both my home and my office.

Driving from my home and with about 25 miles of battery range (10% of capacity), I headed off to the Reston Virginia fast charger, located in an office park. It is a few miles farther than the local gasoline station that I normally use. It had three charging towers, each with two cords. One of the cords fits only the Nissan Leaf. There were four 350 kW chargers and one 50 kW charger to select from. I chose the 50 kW charger, plugged in the cord, inserted my credit card, and experienced my first public fast charge.

How long it takes a battery depends upon four things: the capacity of the charger, the capacity of the battery, the battery discharge condition, and the rate of charge that the battery will accept. The Kona will accept up to a 75 kW rate of charge.

Fast chargers will bring the battery only to an 80% total charge due to the limitations of lithium batteries. Charging above 80% will damage the battery. Since I arrived at the charging station with ten percent capacity remaining, I received an additional 70% charge, which gave me about 190 miles total range. It required one hour and ten minutes. The cost was $21.07, or 43 cents per kW. The cost would be about 34 cents per kW if I joined Electrify America for four dollars per month. Filling my gasoline vehicle for the same range would cost less – about $13. Charging an EV at a fast charger costs more per mile of range than filling up a gasoline-powered vehicle.

What struck me first was how this could possibly work for me if I had to rely entirely on fast chargers and instead of my home charger. I drive at least 80 miles each day, which means I would have to recharge my Kona every other day assuming that I did not do more driving than just between my home and the office. Since it required over one hour to charge the battery, I would have to spend over 200 hours annually charging my vehicle – the equivalent of 25 eight-hour working days. And this assumes that I never had to wait in line for another vehicle to finish charging and that the charging station was nearby when I needed one. If I lived in a town home, or an apartment, without access to a Level II home charger, I would have to rely entirely on the public fast-charging network. And instead of a 250-mile range, I would have only about a 190-mile range to work with.

I later charged with a 150 kW and 350 kW charger, but the time expended was no less. It was quite cold when I used the 350 kW charger. The charging time was actually about five minutes longer than when using the 50 kW charger. Perhaps the periodic cycling of my car’s heater was the reason. Using fast chargers can be quite boring, so make sure that you bring something to do.

Next, I used the nearest fast-charging station from my office. It is 12 miles distant, a 20-minute drive each way. If I had to rely entirely on this charger, it would require one hour and 40 minutes every other day, or 300 hours every year. This would be equal to 37 eight-hour work days annually.

I know that some EV drivers combine shopping and other activities while they charge their vehicles. This might work with the more common, publicly accessible, and slower Level II chargers, but probably not with the Electrify America charging network, since there is only a ten-minute grace once the 80 percent charge is achieved. Otherwise, 40 cents per minute is tacked on to the cost of charging.

Questions also arise about how many chargers would be needed to keep cars like mine on the road. One electrical cord could charge only about 20 cars each day (80 miles per day driving and 170 miles available driving range). Perhaps a more realistic capacity would be 12 cars a day, since it is doubtful many would be doing this in odd hours. Ten thousand cars like mine would require 416 charging cords (or 208 towers with two cords each). It would require only about 14 gasoline hoses (or seven towers) to fuel the same number of gasoline-powered vehicles at 50% capacity. One hundred thousand EVs would require over 4,000 available charging cords.

The other drawback to EVs is their higher cost. The MSRP of the 2021 Hyundai Kona Ultimate I have been charging is $46,985. The same model powered by gasoline has an MSRP of $31,370, or over $15,000 less. I have read that one reason for the price differential is that to manufacture a 1,000-pound battery requires the processing of 50,000 pounds of ore, and one must move 500,000 pounds of overburden to get the ore. The lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare-earth minerals required to manufacture the battery largely come from overseas. Eighty percent of battery manufacturing takes place in China, so this is likely to have an impact on our trade imbalance and energy independence.

EVs start their lives with a larger carbon footprint than gasoline vehicles. Another question is how these batteries will be charged, since electricity mostly comes from non-renewable energy sources such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. Some speculate that EV costs will decline with mass production, and that battery-charging times will be reduced with newer technologies. If this does not occur, then affordability, lack of range, and charging times will be major handicaps.

Besides the extra cost to purchase an EV and the larger carbon footprint, the greatest drawback by far will be what to do with all those hours spent waiting while one’s car is charging.