#European car policies

[diagnozabam]

Tesla contestă taxele UE pentru mașinile electrice produse în China

Tesla a anunțat că a depus o contestație la Curtea de Justiție a Uniunii Europene (CJUE) împotriva taxelor vamale impuse vehiculelor electrice fabricate în China. Prin această acțiune, Tesla se alătură unor producători auto de renume, inclusiv BMW, care contestă noile tarife impuse de Uniunea Europeană. Taxe vamale de până la 35.5% pentru mașinile electrice din China Uniunea Europeană a introdus…

[head-post]

EU: China’s EV overcapacity will get worse

On Thursday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen reiterated the need for the European Union to investigate China’s state subsidies for the production of electric cars, POLITICO reports.

Von der Leyen believes that China’s economic slowdown will lead to an increase in overcapacity.

Speaking three weeks before her visit to Beijing for the EU-China summit, the European Commission President urged China not to have a “race to the bottom” in green technology. Von der Leyen said:

Europe is open to competition, but it is not open to a race to the bottom. We will go to China in good faith. We will never shy away in raising our concerns. There is a clear overcapacity in China, and this overcapacity will be exported for sure, especially if overcapacity is driven by direct and indirect subsidies. This will worsen as China’s economy slows down — and as its domestic demand does not pick up. This in the very end affects and distorts our market.

The summit will take place on 7-8 December. 

Read more HERE

[3liza]

I don't know how many times we have to say this but this is because the United States of America does not have public transit in any form that a European would recognize as such outside of a few very small, highly-dense municipal locations like NYC and Chicago, and having used both those systems and the U-Bahn i can firmly assert that the U-Bahn blows American subways into smithereens. we especially do not have accessible interstate passenger train service outside of that one commuter Amtrak loop in the northeast. the country is designed to force its citizens to use cars and only cars, and the government has made it policy to incentivize car ownership since the 1940s and punish any other form of transit, including just walking around. do you understand? the vast majority of roads here do not have bike lanes. when we do have bike lanes they are not protected by a curb or divider, they are just white lines painted on the asphalt. you will regularly encounter roads and streets--inside of cities and suburbs, not just in rural areas--that do not have sidewalks

[gwydionmisha]

Before you say no duh, remember that we need studies like this to quantify things for planning, government policy, and court cases, and also to help convince people who's minds aren't already made up.

I know I struggle to breath in heat like this, and hypoxia kills, especially when cars are involved.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

How Russian colonialism took the Western anti-imperialist Left for a ride

Blindness to Russian colonialism distorts Westerners’ view of the Ukraine war

"Fucking shit Russian car," my driver spat as a Lada sedan passed us on the highway from Georgia's capital of Tbilisi to Stepantsminda during my trip there in 2019, shortly after our long conversation touched on Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia.

His momentary flash of anger was an eye-opening glimpse at the consequences of Russia's steadfast refusal to let go of the 14 nations whose independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union dictator Vladimir Putin infamously called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" – not to mention the ethnic minorities still under Moscow's yoke – and its brutal punishment of Georgia and Ukraine for daring to seek a bright future outside of Russia's sunless orbit.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has cast a long-overdue spotlight on Russian imperialism and colonialism, yet many Westerners fail to grapple with how Russia's colonial legacy continues to this day and is part and parcel to its war against Ukraine and descent into fascism. Consequently, many end up whatabouting, excusing and even overtly sympathizing with an empire whose colonial practices mirror those of historical Western European empires in cruelty, chauvinism, thievery, exploitation, cultural erasure, racism and genocide and that is now ruthlessly attempting to conquer one of its neighbors.

Russia displayed that ruthlessness last week when it lobbed missiles at Odesa, damaging port and grain storage facilities as well as its historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

"They're interested in lands and influence and a buffer zone between them and the West, in sea access – but not in people and not in culture," said Ukrainian Parliament adviser Yuliia Shaipova who, together with her husband, Aspen Institute NextGen Transatlantic Initiative member Artem Shaipov, was at home in Odesa after hiding in a nearby bomb shelter.

Yet, Westerners safe from bombardment like long-shot third-party presidential candidate Cornel West continue to accommodate Russia. In a July 13 interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, West called Russia's invasion "criminal" but insisted it was "provoked by the expansion of NATO" and is a "proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation," adding Neville Chamberlain-esque icing on the appeasement cake by proposing Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia.

The tell in West's remarks was calling the U.S. an empire but referring to Russia by its de jure name, implicitly erasing its imperial, colonial character. It's a common tendency among the segment of the left to which West belongs, one that Kazakhstan-born Pitzer College sociology professor Azamat Junisbai attributes to ignorance and a myopic, know-nothing focus on American imperialism to the exclusion of imperialism by other nations.

"They're kind of imperial about their anti-imperialism," Junisbai said. "There's something very provincial and strange about it where you literally do not know anything about what's happening beyond this one issue you care about."

While West and other leftists blame "NATO expansion" for provoking Russia, Junisbai compares NATO membership – which, after all, the former Warsaw Pact and Baltic countries all sought voluntarily – to a restraining order against an abusive partner.

"People don't recognize that there was an abusive relationship, that there was colonialism," he said, speculating that blindness to Russian colonialism could be due to a failure of Western education systems as well as Soviet propaganda and leftist valorization of the Soviet Union as a foe of Western imperialism. Another potential culprit is knee-jerk distrust toward American foreign policy popular among some leftists and alternative media that leads to a simplistic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" worldview.

"People, I think, just get so wedded to their vision of themselves as fighting 'The Man,' fighting the power that they are blinded and taken for a ride by Russia, in this case serving as useful idiots," Junisbai said.

Both Yuliia and Artem Shaipov pointed the finger at academic studies of Russia in the West that view it through Moscow's imperial lens. The two have published articles advocating for a "decolonization" of Russia studies and greater attention to how veneration of the "great Russian culture" – such as the genocide- and conquest-glorifying literature of Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Pushkin – has provided a conduit for Russian imperialist ideology to sneak into the Western mind.

"Part of the reason is that it's Western academia that kind of perpetuates this imperial understanding of our region that benefits Russia's imperial policies," Shaipov said, pointing to how Western academic institutions place Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations under Russia's geopolitical umbrella of "Eurasia." "It speaks volumes about the reasons why still many people in the West see Ukraine and other independent states as the sphere of influence of Russia."

The resulting sympathy for Russia's imperial worldview finds expression among Western academics, media personalities and activists who deny Ukrainians' agency in repeating the Kremlin conspiracy theory that Ukraine's 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a "U.S.-backed coup" – as if Ukrainians couldn't have removed outrageously corrupt Kremlin stooge Viktor Yanukovych from office after his security forces murdered over 100 peaceful protesters without foreigners pulling the strings – or characterize former communist nations' NATO membership as provoking Russia rather than protecting them from it.

And it's a mindset rooted in over 400 years of imperialism and colonialism that caused atrocities as horrific as those of Spain or Britain.

Russia's conquest of Siberia starting in the 1580s, for instance, included the enslavement of indigenous peoples whom it forced to pay tribute in the form of furs known as yasak on pain of death, resulting in starvation as people struggled to meet yasak quotas instead of feeding themselves in a system some historians have compared to Belgian King Leopold II's enslavement of the Congo. Russian Cossack gangs raped and murdered while Orthodox missionaries stamped out native religions and alcoholism and smallpox decimated local populations. Today, indigenous people in Siberia and the Russian Far East frequently live in poverty while Moscow strips their lands' rich natural resources to line the pockets of oligarchs and fuel the glitz of cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, while their men disproportionately make up the cannon fodder that Russia sends to the Ukrainian front.

"If we take the Russia that is situated behind the Urals – the Central Asian part of Russia, the far East Asian parts of Russia, the [northernmost parts of Russia] – the cities are just being used for extractive purposes, so [the Russians] don't care even about their own people and minorities that are in Russia itself," Shaipova said, noting how nearly all of their enormous wealth goes to the Russian metropole. "So basically, take Norilsk or Irkutsk – those cities look like an atomic bomb has exploded there."

In the Caucasus, where Russia vied with the Ottoman and Persian empires for power, the Muslim Circassians, who had inhabited the area for millennia, resisted Russian domination. So in 1857, Tsar Alexander II ordered their expulsion to the Ottoman Empire under a proposal by Count Dmitri Milyutin, who said it would "cleanse the land of hostile elements" and open their farmland for Christian settlers. The result was the Circassian genocide in which nearly the entire Circassian population was killed or expelled to the Middle East, where most Circassians live today.

Junisbai's own life is a testament to Russia's thorough colonization of his country, which began in earnest in the 18th century after Russia conquered it. His mother tongue is Russian rather than Kazakh thanks to generations of Russification that made learning Russian essential to get ahead while casting indigenous languages by the wayside. That led to him being conditioned to look down on Kazakhs who could not speak Russian properly while growing up in Almaty, whose population during the Soviet era was about four-fifths Russian and had only two Kazakh-language schools in the early 1980s, while Kazakhs largely lived in rural areas. Meanwhile, his great-grandfather was a member of the Kazakh intelligentsia, for which the Soviets executed him at Omsk in 1935 during Stalin's purges. Consistent with Russia's pattern of extractive relationships with its colonies, Moscow picked Kazakhstan as the place to test nuclear weapons, Junisbai's mother growing up only a couple hundred miles from a testing site.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine brought to the forefront the issues of language and Russian colonialism that Junisbai had been thinking about for a while. Today, he spells Kazakhstan's name as "Qazaqstan," reflecting the native pronunciation, rather than the more common Russian-based spelling.

"This invasion – just the scale of it and how blatantly imperialist it was – was a point of no return," he said, regarding how it got him thinking more about those issues. "Like how strange and horrible it is that I am stuck with Russian, and it's like having something stuck in my body, and I cannot remove it."

In contrast with its terrestrial empire building, Russia didn't have as much luck overseas, as its North American and Hawaiian colonies proved unsuccessful, along with its lesser-known attempt to partake in that most infamous example of European colonialism, the 19th-century Scramble for Africa.

Russia's covetousness toward Ukraine differs somewhat from its other colonization activities, but comes from the same underlying desire to subjugate. It stems from the popular myth that Russia is the legitimate heir to the medieval state of Kyivan Rus, centered on modern-day Kyiv, which Putin cited in a July 2021 pseudohistorical essay denying Ukraine's right to sovereignty, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians." But as Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy points out in his new book, "The Russo-Ukrainian War," although the Grand Principality of Moscow – later called Muscovy – derived much of its culture from Kyivan Rus, 15th-century ruler Ivan the Great invented the myth of Muscovy's inextricable link to it by declaring himself the sole legitimate heir to the Kyivan princes in order to justify his conquest of the Republic of Novgorod.

"The independent Russian state, born of the struggle between Moscow and Novgorod, resulted from the victory of authoritarianism over democracy," Plokhy writes.

Shaipov said Muscovy inherited its political culture not from Europe, but from the Mongol Empire of which it had long been a vassal.

"This is their political tradition of authoritarianism, oppression and continuous imperial conquest," he said.

Ukrainians learned that the hard way in the mid-1600s when Ukrainian Cossacks rebelled against their Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rulers and established an independent state, seeking protection from their Orthodox co-religionists in Muscovy. But after helping them achieve victory, their Muscovite allies sought to dominate them, leading to another Ukrainian Cossack rebellion in 1708 that soon allied with Sweden. Muscovy defeated them at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, and in 1721, under Tsar Peter I, Muscovy became the Russian Empire.

In other words, Russian claims of lordship over Ukraine are about as credible as if British leaders called decolonization a "geopolitical catastrophe" and then dredged up medieval manuscripts to make the case against Irish independence.

The Russian Empire collapsed with the 1917 October Revolution, but that tradition of authoritarianism, oppression and imperial conquest persisted as the empire got a new coat of paint, trading tsars for commissars and rebranding as the U.S.S.R.

Numerous nations under Russian rule for centuries declared independence – including Ukraine as well as Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, the Tatar-led Idel-Ural State and others. But the Bolsheviks quickly invaded nearly all of them, forcing them into the newly established Soviet Union, which reoccupied the Baltic nations after World War II, leaving only Finland independent. In Ukraine, Stalin caused the Holodomor, a genocidal famine that depopulated most of the country's east, allowing its resettlement by Russians. In 1944, he accused indigenous Crimeans – for whom even the term "Crimean Tatars," Shaipov noted, is a misnomer with colonialist undertones – of collaborating with the Nazis and deported them all, allowing Russians to become a majority in Crimea too.

Those malign political traditions continued after 1991 as Russia crushed the fledgling Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and Tatarstan and sponsored pro-Russia breakaway states in Moldova's Transnistria region and the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where Russia used false accusations of genocide as a pretext for its 2008 invasion, a tactic it would rehash in Ukraine six years later.

And they live on today in Russia's nationalist, imperialist, bloodthirsty and downright genocidal "Z" propaganda for domestic audiences.

Even Russian liberals remain far from untainted. While Westerners lionize Alexei Navalny as a freedom fighter, Junisbai highlighted his history of racism toward Central Asians.

"Navalny is not really well-liked in Central Asia because he's the person who contributed to hate crimes against Central Asians in Russia," Junisbai explained, lamenting how many Westerners continue to see that part of Navalny's past as marginal.

Navalny also drew scorn for a series of tweets on July 25 in which he called Russian war criminal Igor Girkin a "political prisoner" following his arrest for criticizing Putin.

Shaipov and Shaipova pointed to how Jan Rachinsky, the head of Memorial, rejected the idea of Russian repentance for waging war against Ukraine in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture last year.

"This understanding of themselves as an empire is part of their national identity, and this is also what concerns the so-called Russian liberals," Shaipova said.

At the same time, Junisbai said people inside Russia consistently fail to acknowledge their nation's colonial history.

"The surest way to offend a Russian person is to talk about colonialism or Russians as colonizers," he said

Instead, Russians overwhelmingly view themselves – in true colonialist form – as having civilized Central Asians, believing they were illiterate before Russia introduced Cyrillic, despite Junisbai's grandfather having written in Arabic script, and that if not for Russia they would still be riding horses and living in yurts.

"It's just like, 'we built your schools, we built your hospitals – how dare you be disrespectful, how dare you not appreciate us,'" he said.

This lack of self-awareness stands in stark contrast with European nations that decolonized and, although in fits and starts, today seek to atone for past injustices. In 2021, Germany formally apologized for genocide in Namibia in the early 1900s, while Queen Camilla declined to wear a crown at King Charles' coronation bearing the Kohinoor diamond, which Britain plundered when it ruled India.

Shaipov and Shaipova said Russia must also undergo decolonization, a process the world should not fear.

"In order for them to heal, they need to go through this healing process and repentance so that they can reconcile with neighboring countries and with the peoples that populate the Russian Federation," Shaipov said.

But Russia must first remove the Harry Potter-like invisibility cloak that has long allowed its colonial legacy to go unnoticed.

"Once you tear it off, then people can see the horribleness – like, how could people side with an abuser and against someone who's trying to take out a restraining order against this abuse," Junisbai said.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

WaPo: How car bans and heat pump rules drive voters to the far right

Shannon Osaka at WaPo:

More than a decade ago, the Netherlands embarked on a straightforward plan to cut carbon emissions. Its legislature raised taxes on natural gas, using the money earned to help Dutch households install solar panels. By most measures, the program worked: By 2022, 20 percent of homes in the Netherlands had solar panels, up from about 2 percent in 2013. Natural gas prices, meanwhile, rose by almost 50 percent. But something else happened, according to a new study. The Dutch families who were most vulnerable to the increase in gas prices — renters who paid their own utility bills — drifted to the right. Families facing increased home energy costs became 5 to 6 percent more likely to vote for one of the Netherlands’ far-right parties. A similar backlash is happening all over Europe, as far-right parties position themselves in opposition to green policies. In Germany, a law that would have required homeowners to install heat pumps galvanized the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, giving it a boost. Farmers have rolled tractors into Paris to protest E.U. agricultural rules, and drivers in Italy and Britain have protested attempts to ban gas-guzzling cars from city centers.

That resurgence of the right could slow down the green transition in Europe, which has been less polarized on global warming, and serves as a warning to the United States, where policies around electric vehicles and gas stoves have already sparked a backlash. The shift also shows how, as climate policies increasingly touch citizens’ lives, even countries whose voters are staunchly supportive of clean energy may hit roadblocks. “This has really expanded the coalition of the far right,” said Erik Voeten, a professor of geopolitics at Georgetown University and the author of the new study on the Netherlands.

Other studies have found similar results. In one study in Milan, researchers at Bocconi University studied the voting patterns of drivers whose cars were banned from the city center for being too polluting. These drivers, who on average lost the equivalent of $4,000 because of the ban, were significantly more likely to vote for the right-wing Lega party in subsequent elections. In Sweden, researchers found that low-income families facing high electricity prices were also more likely to turn toward the far right. Far-right parties in Europe have started to position themselves against climate action, expanding their platforms from anti-immigration and anti-globalization. A decade ago, the Dutch right-wing Party for Freedom emphasized that it wasn’t against renewable energy — just increasing energy prices. But by 2021, the party’s manifesto had moved to more extreme language. “Energy is a basic need, but climate madness has turned it into a very expensive luxury item,” the manifesto said. “The far right has increasingly started to campaign on opposition to environmental policies and climate change,” Voeten said.

The pushback also reflects, in part, how much Europe has decarbonized. More than 60 percent of the continent’s electricity already comes from renewable sources or nuclear power; so meeting the European Union’s climate goals means tacklingother sectors — transportation, buildings, agriculture.

[...] Some of these voting patterns have also played out in the United States. According to a study by the Princeton political scientist Alexander Gazmararian, historically-Democratic coal communities that lost jobs in the shift to natural gas increased their support for Republican candidates by 5 percent. The shift was larger in areas located farther from new gas power plants — that is, areas where voters couldn’t see that it was natural gas, not environmental regulations, that undercut coal.

Gazmararian says that while climate denial and fossil fuel misinformation have definitely played a role, many voters are motivated simply by their own financial pressures. “They’re in an economic circumstance where they don’t have many options,” he said. The solution, experts say, is todesign policies that avoid putting too much financial burden on individual consumers. In Germany, where the law to install heat pumps would have cost homeowners $7,500 to $8,500 more than installing gas boilers, policymakers quickly retreated. But by that point, far-right party membership had already surged.

The Washington Post explains what may be at least partially causing the rise of far-right extremist parties in Europe, Conservatives in Canada, and the Republicans in some parts of the US: rising energy costs that low-income people are bearing the brunt of.

In the US, right-wing hysteria about gas stove bans and electric vehicles are also playing a role.

[alpaca-clouds]

Public Transport COULD Be Great

Americans visiting Europe, especially those more left-leaning Americans, will always be so impressed when it comes to our public transport. And it does not matter where they visit here. Netherlands? "Amazing Public Transport!" France? "Amazing!" Germany? "Amazing!" Even in the UK they will be impressed.

And I kinda get it. While once upon a time the US made a conserted effort to get people moving via train, that has been almost two centuries ago and by now they just decided that people having cars is making more companies more money, so who needs cheap public transport? And while I personally actually kinda liked the public transport on the east coast while I was visiting the US... Yeah, I am well aware that the east coast (especially the area between New York City and DC) is not quite representative for the US.

However, here is the thing: If you ask most Europeans about their public transport... Well, we'll complain as well.

Because they fucking ruined it!

See, here is the issue, in a lot of parts in Europe, at some point or another the government privatized some or all of the public transport. This hit some countries like the UK especially hard, but Germany was hit also quite a lot.

Because of that a lot of things happened that happened when you try to use capitalist logic onto something that cannot work under capitalism.

For example a lot of rails have been removed in areas where it was not "cost efficient" to run trains. Or if they have not been removed, they are at least no longer used. In Germany you will find that in the area where I am living (North-Rhine-Westfelia) we have somewhat good running public transport. Meanwhile a friend of mine is living in former East Germany. And something you gotta understand about former East Germany: After the reunification a lot of people from East Germany tried to move away from there, thinking they would do better in "West Germany". So you will find a lot of mostly empty villages and towns there. And you know what does not pay under capitalism? Right: Running trains to fairly depopulated villages and towns. So... This friend is forced to use a car all the time. Because the next train station that is actually still in use is 45 minutes by car away.

Sure, technically there is a bus running through her village... It comes 3 times a day mondays to fridays, 2 times a day on Saturday and not at all on Sunday. Also to reach the aforementioned train station, the bus connection would take her almost two hours.

Now mind you: There is a train station about 10 minutes by car from her. But that one has not been in use for almost 20 years. Because, again: It just does not pay. It is not profitable for the company, so it is no longer in use.

And here we get to the issue: Public transport is an amazing thing... But we see again and again, that it really only works in those cases where it is state-run and paid for with taxes. As soon as it is privatized it will just not work. Because, well... In general public transport really is not a thing that will be paying for itself. It is fairly expensive, and to keep it profitable you need to keep raising the prices. (As a German: Believe me, I know!)

Not to mention that company policies will lead to weird stuff happening with the trains. Here in Germany? Well, the biggest train company (that is kinda partly state-owned, but not state-run, so it is run under capitalist ideas) has promised their investors that the trains will not be as delayed as before. But given the piss-poor state in which the rail network is, this is just not feasible. So, what will they do? Simple! If a train gets too delayed they will just cancel it. Will that fuck everyone travelling over way more than letting the train delay for 20 minutes? Yeah. But they do not care. They only care about the investors.

And this is the general issue.

For public transit to work, you need to design the transit network to serve the people - and not to make money. Because it does not matter that there are only some old people left in some depopulated little town in eastern Germany or western England... Those old people deserve to be able to get from their depopulated little town to the next big shopping center and cultural center as well.

As long as you do not design the stuff with those people in mind...

Sure, it is better than no public transport. But it still sucks.

[regina-bithyniae]

Finished The Wages of Destruction.

Solid 9/10.

Core ideas to take away:

work creation was a minor element of Nazi economic policy, a distant secondary concern after rearmament

rearmament had widespread public support in germany

shifting to autarky took extremely hacky and likely long-run unsustainable export controls, and even *export subsidies* because imports were still an inescapably vital input to industrial production in

controlling big business was largely a "soft co-opting" project while the agriculturalists were insane morons who were much more staunchly pro-nazi

once at war, Germany was going for broke from the very beginning and there was near-zero slack they could've squeezed out more war production from

truly pitiful productivity rate from Germany's conquered continental empire - the workers were far far more productive if deported to Germany than working in home countries

German surface navy seems useless, they didn't even have the oil to run the ships, and metal would've been better used elsewhere

Speer was a shit, Tooze hates hates him

bombing campaign actually was successful! specifically taking out the Ruhr

"blitzkrieg" doctrine was developed as they went; original 1940 invasion of France battleplan was to go "right up the center" not through the Ardennes and pre-battle production focused on heavy artillery ammunition

Bigger points: German "Strategy"

Germany escalated from diplomatic crisis to war with Poland/UK/France, and to war with the Soviet Union, and then America, out of a series of perceived closing windows of opportunity. First one was seeing UK/French production overtaking them in rates and catching up on stocks. In 1940 the US fully commits to aiding Britain, creating sense of "the bombers are coming eventually" and need to gain immediate advantage by conquering the Soviet Union.

Bizarrely, German production was focused on the Luftwaffe in preparation for fighting US/UK air war as Germany was getting ready for Barbarossa!

Declaration of war on US pitched as confirming alliance with Japan, but still feels stupid. Germany could just stay quiet and force US to either engineer entry to European conflict another way or stay out. Still seems less stupid, considering this is at a time when Barbarossa is coming apart.

But overall, a sound if massively risky plan assuming you accept the insane basic assumptions. Hitler's strategic vision often gets assumed to be terrible out of disgust for the consequences of his actions and their failure.

I really do wonder what the vibe was among German economic elite from 1942 onwards, it's obvious the war is not winnable, that you're very fucked, and that everyone is coming to kill you.

Anyways, good book and worth reading/listening to. Tooze could've slimmed down on the pre-war stuff. I find him vaguely irritating with how he brings up irrelevant things just to show how smart he is but that's probably just envy.

P.S.

The original Volkswagen was just a massive scam with no actual civilian cars being produced despite taking all the payments for the vehicles. Possibly suggests two dominant strains of conservatism? Former is old aristocratic conservatism of the nobility or classic US elite; latter is the populist oppositional culture right-wingism which is about 64% scam artists.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week

1. Woman who was walking to work because her car was broken finds $14k in a bag and turns it in to police, who return it to newlyweds who lost it. Crowdfund for a new car up to $14k so far.

Dianne Gordon was walking home from work on Jan. 21 when she saw a plastic bag on the ground and inside the bag she could see piles of money. Although she was in need of a vehicle-- her car broke down last year -- Gordon contacted police and returned the money immediately.

Police were able to track down who the money belonged to and discovered it belonged to a newlywed couple and have since returned the money to the couple. As for Gordon, her good deed wasn’t overlooked by people who heard her story, as the spouse of one of the police officers involved launched a crowdfunding campaign to help secure a car for Gordon. As of Thursday morning, the campaign has raised $14,500

2. Washington D.C.’s free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

Washington, D.C., has enacted a zero-fare bus bill into law.

The policy eliminates the $2 fare for all the city’s buses starting this summer.

It is the largest city to institute a fare-free transit system and part of a growing movement nationwide.

3. Mom and son graduate college together, fulfilling 18-year promise

Carolyn and Immanuel Patton, a mother-son duo from Maryland, have graduated college together, fulfilling a promise the younger Patton first made to his mom when he was 5 years old.

Two years after they started the path together and about 18 years after Immanuel Patton vowed to graduate alongside his mother, they realized their collective dream.

4. A homeless mother left a note with her dog for whoever found her. An animal shelter reunited them.

This pup named Lilo came to McKamey Animal Center off the street - with an added surprise – a note.

"Please don't abuse me." Cool, totally wanted to be crying at work right now.

The shelter staff posted about Lilo on social media, hoping to connect with her owner when they got a call from someone saying they were Lilo's mom. While centers like McKamey provide shelter for dogs, they also provide resources for families who love their pets, but might not be able to keep them due to cost. Mann said they'll give food and supplies to families struggling to pay for their pets' needs. They'll even help the family find a pet-friendly home.

5. Campbell Johnstone reveals himself to be first openly gay All Black.

In a momentous moment for New Zealand's rainbow community, Campbell Johnstone has outed himself as the first openly gay player to have represented the country's most influential sporting brand.

All Black No. 1056 has publicly revealed his sexuality – in a brave bid to “open up that door and magically make that closet disappear” – for the first time on TVNZ's Seven Sharp programme on Monday evening. Johnstone, who played three tests for the All Blacks all in 2005, did confide in some teammates and his family during his playing days.

6. 92 year old flood victim reunited with lost cat

Valerie Axtens thought she had seen the last of her beloved cat Mendelson as she was being rescued through a window from rapidly rising floodwater. Valerie Axtens was rescued during the February 28 flood.

After the floodwater receded and one of her sons was able to return and check on the mud-covered house, he discovered — much to everyone's surprise — the cat had survived.

7. Slovenia becomes first eastern European country to recognise same-sex marriage

The legalisation of same-sex marriage has officially come into effect in Slovenia, in a huge win for LGBTQ+ rights in eastern Europe. 

The bill, which saw Slovenia’s Family Code updated, officially took its place amongst the country’s other laws on Tuesday (1 February). The historic moment followed a decision by the country’s top court in July, which found that banning same-sex marriage and adoption violated the country’s constitution, which prohibits discrimination

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Have a great week ahead :)

[bighermie]

European Consumers Reject Electric Vehicles - Sales in Germany Collapse by 70% - Manufacturers Warn Against EU’s Insane Petrol Car Ban in 2035 | The Gateway Pundit | by Paul Serran

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Nation of Change:

China’s largest automaker, BYD, is selling its Dolphin hatchback EV for a low-low $15,000, complete with a 13-inch rotating screen, ventilated front seats, and a 260-mile range. Here in the U.S., you have to pay more than twice that price for the Tesla Model 3 EV ($39,000) with lower tech and only 10 more miles of driving range. In case $15K beats your budget, the Dolphin has a plug-in hybrid version with an industry-leading 74-mile range on a single charge for only $11,000 and an upgrade with an unbeatable combined gas-electric range of 1,300 miles. Not surprisingly, EVs surged to 52% of all auto sales in China last year. And with such a strong domestic springboard into the world market, Chinese companies accounted for more than 70% of global EV sales.

It’s time to face reality in the world of cars and light trucks. Let’s admit it, China’s visionary industrial policy is the source of its growing dominance over global EV production. Back in 2009-2010, three years before Elon Musk sold his first mass-production Tesla, Beijing decided to accelerate the growth of its domestic auto industry, including cheap, all-electric vehicles with short ranges for its city drivers. Realizing that an EV is just a steel box with a battery, and battery quality determines car quality, Beijing set about systematically creating a vertical monopoly for those batteries — from raw materials like lithium and cobalt from the Congo all the way to cutting-edge factories for the final product. With its chokehold on refining all the essential raw materials for EV batteries (cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel), by 2023-2024 China accounted for well over 80% of global sales of battery components and nearly two-thirds of all finished EV batteries.

Clearly, new technology is driving our automotive future, and it’s increasingly clear that China is in the driver’s seat, ready to run over the auto industries of the U.S. and the European Union like so much roadkill. Indeed, Beijing switched to the export of autos, particularly EVs, to kick-start its slumbering economy in the aftermath of the Covid lockdown.

Given that it was already the world’s industrial powerhouse, China’s auto industry was more than ready for the challenge. After robotic factories there assemble complete cars, hands-free, from metal stamping to spray painting for less than the cost of a top-end refrigerator in the U.S., Chinese companies pop in their low-cost batteries and head to one of the country’s fully automated shipping ports. There, instead of relying on commercial carriers, leading automaker BYD cut costs to the bone by launching its own fleet of eight enormous ocean-going freighters. It started in January 2024 with the BYD Explorer No. 1, capable of carrying 7,000 vehicles anywhere in the world, custom-designed for speedy drive-on, drive-off delivery. That same month, another major Chinese company you’ve undoubtedly never heard of, SAIC Motor, launched an even larger freighter, which regularly transports 7,600 cars to global markets.

Those cars are already heading for Europe, where BYD’s Dolphin has won a “5-Star Euro Safety Rating” and its dealerships are popping up like mushrooms in a mine shaft. In a matter of months, Chinese cars had captured 11% of the European market. Last year, BYD began planning its first factory in Mexico as an “export hub” for the American market and is already building billion-dollar factories in Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia. Realizing that “20% to 30%” of his company’s revenue is at risk, Ford CEO Jim Farley says his plants are switching to low-cost EVs to keep up. After the looming competition led GM to bring back its low-cost Chevy Bolt EV, company Vice President Kurt Kelty said that GM will “drive the cost of E.V.s to lower than internal combustion engine vehicles.”

So, what does all this mean for America? In the past four years, the Biden administration made real strides in protecting the future of the country’s auto industry, which is headed toward ensuring that American motorists will be driving $10,000 EVs with a 1,000-mile range, a 10-year warranty, a running cost of 10 cents a mile, and 0 (yes zero!) climate-killing carbon emissions.

Not only did President Biden extend the critical $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of an American-made EV, but his 2021 Infrastructure Act helped raise the number of public-charging ports to a reasonable 192,000, with 1,000 more still being added weekly, reducing the range anxiety that troubles half of all American car owners. To cut the cost of the electricity needed to drive those car chargers, his 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocated $370 billion to accelerate the transition to low-cost green energy. With such support, U.S. EV sales jumped 7% to a record 1.3 million units in 2024.

Most important of all, that funding stimulated research for a next-generation solid-state battery that could break China’s present stranglehold over most of the components needed to produce the current lithium-ion EV batteries. The solution: a blindingly simple bit of all-American innovation — don’t use any of those made-in-China components. With investment help from Volkswagen, the U.S. firm QuantumScape has recently developed a prototype for a solid-state battery that can reach “80% state of charge in less than 15 minutes,” while ensuring “improved safety,” extended battery life, and a driving range of 500 miles. Already, investment advisors are touting the company as the next Nvidia.

But wait a grim moment! If we take President Donald Trump at his word, his policies will slam the brakes on any such gains for the next four years — just long enough to potentially send the Detroit auto industry into a death spiral. On the campaign trail last year, Trump asked oil industry executives for a billion dollars in “campaign cash,” and told the Republican convention that he would “end the electrical vehicle mandate on day one” and thereby save “the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration.” And in his victory speech last November, he celebrated the country’s oil reserves, saying, “We have more liquid gold than anyone else in the world.”

[odinsblog]

[re: this this post and this post]

Let’s keep it 💯: Joe Biden did a terrible fucking job of managing post-COVID healthcare. And before I anger all of the but-he-was-better-than-the-alternative liberals, yeah, sure, he is better than Trump, but that is a laughably low bar. Aim higher, demand fucking better from our elected leaders.

So a while back I agreed that today I would take someone to get their latest COVID shot, but I got a frantic phone call from them saying that they don’t have the money to pay for their shot and they are uninsured and don’t qualify for Obamacare. And I was like, “No dude, you can get your shot for free at CVS or Walgreens or someplace like that,” and just to reassure them, I called CVS (with them on the phone), and unfortunately we learned that CVS is now charging $166 per vaccination shot.

After a little digging, I did find some places that offer free vacations, but they have long ass lines and limited hours of availability that don’t match up with my friend’s work schedule … so I’m gonna bite the bullet and just pay for their shot myself.

I am so mf mad rn.

This is what happens when you elect conservative ass “Democrats” who side with big pharmaceutical companies like Gilead and value cAPitALism over people’s health.

Vaccines should be fucking free. All vaccines. Every fucking one of them. And I mean free to anyone who wants them. Periodt.

And just because I know how annoyingly asinine sycophantic liberals can get if you aren’t constantly and profusely praising whoever the democratic president is, lemme remind you that not only did Biden declare, “The pandemic is over - Back to normal, back to work!” while walking around without a mask at an international car show, but in capitulating to conservatives, Biden also made an unprecedented change to America’s immigration policy by forcing asylum seekers to wait in other countries until we get around to processing their paperwork, and Biden also deported a shit ton of non-European asylum seekers (especially Haitians; see also: Title 42).

And Biden proudly and repeatedly announcing that he is a “proud Zionist” as he allowed funded Israel’s genocide against Palestinians was probably not too helpful for Harris defeating Trump. And now that I think about it, waiting so damn long to step aside for Kamala to run wasn’t very helpful either—she had about 100 days to run a campaign against Trump (and I’m not saying her campaign was perfect, but Biden’s waiting so damn long absolutely hobbled her).

And speaking of waiting too long, Biden constantly waiting to arm Ukraine wasn’t thee most helpful thing either—like damn, what’s the difference between arming them with long range weapons now (when you have only 2 months left in your term), versus arming Ukrainians 2 fucking years ago when it would have made a bigger difference, and would have saved more Ukrainians?? If it’s safe to arm them now, then it was probably safe to arm them at the beginning of Putin’s colonialist war of aggression.

I’m sorry, yes, I voted for him (and Kamala), but Joe Biden was a shitty ass president. I do not want another Republican-lite, cop loving “Democrat” who values chasing conservative white voters more than trying to listen to and at least pretend to placate the Democratic base.

At the end of the day, Joe Biden will have helped move the Democratic Party further right, just as Bill Clinton did in the 90s.

Oh, and remember when Biden promised to waive copyright patents so that other countries could make their own COVID vaccines? He never did that, did he?? But many of y’all insisted on giving him credit just for saying that he would. But he didn’t.

If Biden had any damn nads, and if he wasn’t sO addicted to following all the rules that Republicans have and will continue breaking, he would go buck wild in his last two months and forgive all student debt, pardon people, and just do whatever good he can while he still has the power to do so.

Anyway, I said what tf I said.

If you don’t like it, you know where the block button is.

[3liza]

a looooooooooot of American leftist perspective on what is good or possible with basic policy about land use, recycling, public transit etc is so fucked up purely because we are completely unaware that much of Europe has been doing stuff we consider pie in the sky laughable dreamerism (like effectively and safely going home from shift work or from a nightclub at 3am on the subway, or recycling anything instead of strip mining a mountain every time we need to bottle beer, or turning vacant office buildings into apartments, etc) for decades or centuries.

you do not find out about it unless you're fortunate enough to visit and stay long enough to actually interact with the infrastructure, not just as a tourist, because likewise the Europeans just assume we can take buses everywhere or get 25¢ for a beer bottle and simply choose to live in suffering and profligacy out of simple American degenerate preference for driving cars and smashing bottles until an American tells them exactly how bad everything is here, which they can hardly believe

[mariacallous]

Researchers found a vulnerability in a Kia web portal that allowed them to track millions of cars, unlock doors, honk horns, and even start engines in seconds, just by reading the car's license plate. The findings are the latest in a string of web bugs that have impacted dozen of carmakers. Meanwhile, a handful of Tesla Cybertrucks have been outfitted for war and are literally being-battle tested by Chechen forces fighting in Ukraine as part of Russia’s ongoing invasion.

As Israel escalates its attacks on Lebanon, civilians on both sides of the conflict have been receiving ominous text messages—and authorities in each country are accusing the other of psychological warfare. The US government has increasingly condemned Russia-backed media outlets like RT for working closely with Russian intelligence—and many digital platforms have removed or banned their content. But they’re still influential and trusted alternative sources of information in many parts of the world.

And there's more. Each week, we round up the privacy and security news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

New Digital Identity Guidelines Strike Back at Dreadful Password Policies

A new draft of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's “Digital Identity Guidelines” finally takes steps to eliminate reviled password management practices that have been shown to do more harm than good. The recommendations, which will be mandatory for US federal government entities and serve as guidelines for everyone else, ban the practice of requiring users to periodically change their account passwords, often every 90 days.

The policy of regularly changing passwords evolved out of a desire to ensure that people weren't choosing easily guessable or reused passwords; but in practice, it causes people to choose simple or formulaic passwords so they will be easier to keep track of. The new recommendations also ban “composition rules,” like requiring a certain number or mix of capital letters, numbers, and punctuation marks in each password. NIST writes in the draft that the goal of the Digital Identity Guidelines is to provide “foundational risk management processes and requirements that enable the implementation of secure, private, equitable, and accessible identity systems.”

DOJ Indicts Alleged Iranian Hackers Over Trump Campaign Breach

The US Department of Justice unsealed charges on Friday against three Iranian men who allegedly compromised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and leaked stolen data to media outlets. Microsoft and Google warned last month that an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group known as APT42 had targeted both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump presidential campaigns, and successfully breached the Trump campaign. The DOJ claims the hackers compromised a dozen people as part of its operation, including a journalist, a human rights advocate, and several former US officials. More broadly, the US government has said in recent weeks that Iran is attempting to interfere in the 2024 election.

“The defendants’ own words made clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Friday. "We know that Iran is continuing with its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the US electoral process, and advance its malign activities.”

Irish Regulator Fines Meta More Than $100 Million Over 2019 Password Lapse

The Irish Data Protection Commission fined Meta €91 million, or roughly $101 million, on Friday for a password storage lapse in 2019 that violated the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. Following a report by Krebs on Security, the company acknowledged in March 2019 that a bug in its password management systems had caused hundreds of millions of Facebook, Facebook Lite, and Instagram passwords to be stored without protection in plaintext in an internal platform. Ireland's privacy watchdog launched its investigation into the incident in April 2019.

“It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," Irish DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement. “It must be borne in mind that the passwords, the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users’ social media accounts.”

The Tor Project and the Tails Privacy Operating System Are Merging

The digital anonymity nonprofit the Tor Project is merging with privacy- and anonymity-focused Linux-based operating system Tails. Pavel Zoneff, the Tor Project’s communications director, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the move will facilitate collaboration and reduce costs, while expanding both groups' reach. “Tor and Tails provide essential tools to help people around the world stay safe online,” he wrote. “By joining forces, these two privacy advocates will pool their resources to focus on what matters most: ensuring that activists, journalists, other at-risk and everyday users will have access to improved digital security tools.”

[bulletin-attal-sejourne]

A Oui for Stephane; the Nons for Gabriel

When the executive head met the parliament head in Brussels and Paris, respectively. It's interesting how the roles of the duo have switched ever since Q3 2024.

Time: 241125 - 241127

Bonjour à tous! It's Wednesday, 27 November 2024, a big day for the Eurocrats as the MEP voted for the European Commission for a very slight margin; Meanwhile, the budgetary tightrope walk in Paris could boil down to a motion of censure thus the downfall of the government

Welcome to BAT, for the mid-week recap of manoeuvres, and challenges of the former couple at the heart of power.

STEPHANE SEJOURNE

This morning, the European Parliament has just given Ursula von der Leyen's new Commission the green light. That's...that's it. Regardless of how marginal the approval votes was, after weeks of nail-biting hearings, France's very own Stéphane Séjourné is officially part of the team.

Big shoes to fill. The real challenges begin after the appointment, as Séjourné steps into the crucial role of overseeing Europe's industrial strategy. It's a high-stakes game with Russia, China, and the US all jostling for position. Delivering on VDL's promise of a "holistic simplification" approach (with the sheer annoying amount of Euro-red-rapes we have) and making Europe a global industrial powerhouse (our version of MEGA but less toxic), will not be an easy job.

Green industry is the name of the game. Séjourné will work closely with Spain's Teresa Ribera, the new competition and green transition chief. Together, they'll need to find a way to balance economic growth with climate ambitions, all while navigating the tricky waters of EU competition policy. Expect fireworks! (And not the romantic and fun one this time.)

Speaking of (unromantic) fireworks, some MEPs weren't too thrilled with the Commission's rightward tilt. French Socialists voted against the entire college, protesting the inclusion of Italy's far-right Raffaele Fitto as one of the vice presidents. Not a good sign for the future 5 years of cooperation, really.

Again, this is just the beginning. Séjourné has a busy 100 days ahead of him. He'll need to craft a plan to boost Europe's digital startups and help the continent secure its supply of critical raw materials. Plus, there's that little thing about making sure Europe's car industry stays in Europe. He really needs to get it working, with no effort spared, as he claims so!

(I just realised these three sources are written in 3 different languages. Speaking of European diversity!)

GABRIEL ATTAL

Sainte-Catherine agricultural fair! It was Monday, November 25th. While the budget brouhaha continues to consume the Parisian political class, the former Prime Minister and current Renaissance maestro, might as well recharge himself and ventured into the heartland of France, the Orne region to be precise. Was it a desperate attempt to escape the censure storm brewing in the capital or a cunning move to woo the rural vote? Let's examine the evidence, shall we?

The Scene: Attal arrived fashionably late, a mere 45 minutes behind schedule, but hey, even in the world of cattle auctions, a bit of Parisian flair is to be expected. Upon arrival, he was greeted with the full pomp and ceremony befitting a political heavyweight: local officials beaming, senators nodding sagely, a "parade of television cameras" jostling for the best angle, and the local député, Jérôme Nury, looking particularly pleased with himself1.

The Gifts: Attal was showered with local delicacies: a charming basket of regional produce from the mayor and, the pièce de résistance, a vintage bottle of calvados from Nury, who quipped: "It's the Élysée's official supplier, you need to start getting used to it". Was Nury hinting at Attal's presidential ambitions? ●

The People's Champion: Attal worked the crowd like a seasoned politician, charming the locals with selfies and fielding questions from farmers with ease. Whispers of "You're handsome," "He's so good looking" and "He's really young" followed him as he navigated the fairgrounds. Even the normally stern-faced president of the FNSEA Normandie, Anne-Marie Denis, seemed to soften in his presence.

Master of the Moment: Attal showed a willingness to engage with the issues that matter to rural voters, discussing bovine tuberculosis, agricultural regulations, and the ever-controversial Mercosur trade deal. He even tried his hand at the traditional Sainte-Catherine game of guessing the weight of an ox, displaying a playful side that likely resonated with the fairgoers.

Verdict: The mayor of Briouze, Jacques Fortis, who had previously threatened to resign over the town's exclusion from a rural revitalisation scheme, seemed positively smitten with Attal. He declared the streets "full" for Attal's visit and described the former PM as "very friendly, very simple". High praise indeed from a mayor who, just a few months ago, was ready to walk away from it all.

So, was Attal's agricultural adventure a success? Judging by the smiles, the selfies, and the mayor's glowing review, it seems the former PM made a positive impression. Whether this translates into actual votes in future elections remains to be seen. But one thing's certain: Attal is a master of the political stage, and he knows how to play to his audience of Norman farmers.

It is however a bit more complicated when he is playing 3D chess with a broken board – battling rebels in his own camp, haggling over budget crumbs, and trying to keep a government that looks shakier than a Jenga tower in a windstorm. Former pals? They're already plotting their great escape, eyeing up alternative political real estate. Another day, another drama for our young maestro of mayhem! To let us understand the complexity we shall begin with the topic flying all over TV and newspaper headlines:

Budget Battleground

We need to save!: Prime Minister Michel Barnier, facing a record deficit and mounting debt, has proposed a budget characterized by austerity measures. These include cuts to public spending and, most controversially, a reduction in employer contribution relief.

Opposition from All Sides: The budget has been met with fierce opposition from various political factions. The left, led by the Socialist Party and La France Insoumise, condemns it as "austeritarian" and damaging to social welfare. Meanwhile, even members of Barnier's own "socle commun" coalition, particularly Gabriel Attal's EPR group, are pushing back against specific measures.

Sounds boring right?: Well, let's talk about the stakes. The budget fight goes beyond mere numbers. It represents a struggle for political power and a clash of ideologies. The outcome will have a significant impact on France's economic trajectory and the social well-being of its citizens.

The Censorship Sword

Threat of a No-Confidence Motion: The left has explicitly threatened to table a censure motion if Barnier fails to address their concerns regarding the budget. This motion, if successful, could lead to the government's collapse and potentially trigger early elections.

Marine Le Pen's Crucial Role: The outcome of the censure motion hinges on the stance of RN, which holds the largest opposition bloc in the Assembly. Le Pen has expressed strong criticism of Barnier's budget, threatening to vote against it. Her decision could make or break the government.

A High-Stakes Gamble for Everyone: The censure threat creates a complex strategic dilemma for all parties involved. For the left, it's an opportunity to topple the government and potentially gain power. For Le Pen, it's a chance to assert her influence and advance her own agenda. For Barnier, it's a battle for survival, requiring him to carefully navigate the demands of his opponents and his own allies.

Attal's Role: While Attal is primarily seeking concessions, not a government collapse, the line between the two is blurry. His aggressive stance could be interpreted as a calculated gamble: pushing Barnier to the edge to extract maximum concessions, but risking a censure motion that could empower the RN. Adding to the complexity, Attal needs to manage internal disagreements within EPR. Some members are eager for a showdown with Barnier, while others are more cautious. A misstep could alienate potential allies and weaken his leadership. The management of disagreements is particularly essential when he is facing this problem of:

The traitors

A Resignation With a Message: Martine Madelaine and Sélim Denoyelle, former leaders of the Renaissance party in Charente-Maritime, resigned, citing the movement's "rightward shift." They specifically objected to the government's policies on pensions and immigration, arguing that these measures betrayed the party's original values. This resignation highlights the growing discontent among some Macronists who feel the party has abandoned its centrist platform in favour of a more right-wing agenda.

Minister of Ocean Seeking a New Horizon: Hervé Berville, who served as Secretary of State for the Sea in both the Borne and Attal governments, is also charting a course away from the Macronist core. While he maintains loyalty to Macron, he's looking beyond the current administration, expressing a desire to return to his social-democratic roots. Berville has reportedly been in contact with former President François Hollande and former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, figures associated with the traditional left and plotting for a solid left wing presidential movement in 2027. He's openly critical of the Macronist alliance with the right, particularly on the budget, which he sees as a drift towards "an Orléanist and bourgeois right."

Your ex's bestman, The Justice Crusader: Gone were the days in the Moines Oyster yard, now Sacha Houlie, still invited Stephane Sejourne as his bestman on his own wedding, emerged as the lead dissenter of the formerly Renaissance AN group, and sat as an independent (after the failed attempt to pull more deputies from EPR) and voiced strong opposition to Gabriel Attal's proposed law on juvenile justice, calling it a "very bad text" that undermines the principles of specialized justice for minors. This time, he was successful. With EPR elected officials Stéphane Travert, Belkhir Belhaddad and Lionel Causse, he significantly amended the text in commission, aligning himself with the left and pushing for a more preventative approach, a move that dealt a major blow to Attal and the EPR group, when the person concerned, very interestingly, was not present in thorough the voting process...

Gabriel Attal would like to make this text a marker. He himself did not show up to defend it. 

And why betray? As the saying goes, "There are no permanent friends or enemies; only permanent interests." Some started with genuine convictions, believing in a transformative vision, but found themselves gradually disillusioned. Others, always pragmatic, view political parties like career elevators – when one falls, they're quick to find a more promising route.

A classic cocktail blend of opportunistic moves with genuine ideological differences. For our future RE Secretary General, the challenge is clear: craft a compelling vision that speaks to the post-Macron era. It's about creating a narrative and direction that resonates with current members and potentially attracts new supporters. The goal is to provide enough clarity, inspiration, and strategic direction to keep the party united and motivated through this transitional period...And possibly even for a new presidency.

fin.

[vegance]

Many Europeans are alarmed by the climate crisis and would willingly take personal steps and back government policies to help combat it, a survey suggests – but the more a measure would change their lifestyle, the less they support it.

The seven-country YouGov survey tested backing for state-level climate action, such as banning single-use plastics and scrapping fossil-fuel cars, and individual initiatives including buying only secondhand clothes and giving up meat and dairy products.