THE MORNING RANT: Buck Shots – November 4, 2024

A blessed Election Day Eve to everyone! If you haven’t already cast your vote for Donald Trump and down-ballot Republicans, please plan to do so right when the polls open tomorrow morning, especially if you live in a blue precinct or county. It’s important to get your vote cast before all the vote-suppressing shenanigans are deployed.

Reviled Republicans for Kamala

Twenty years ago when the left was screaming that Dick Cheney was a war criminal and that George W. Bush was literally Hitler, I wouldn’t have predicted that the 2024 Democrat nominee’s closing argument would effectively be, “A vote for me is a vote to defend the honor and integrity of the Cheney family,” nor would I have thought a Bush family endorsement (“George W. Bush's Daughter Barbara Breaks Silence on Election to Campaign for Kamala Harris”) would be anything but an albatross, but here we are.

If obtaining endorsements from the family members of formerly-hated Republicans is how Democrats are trying to obtain crossover votes this election, what about Richard Nixon’s progeny? In the midst of worsening inflation back in 1971, Nixon famously - and unsuccessfully - tried to impose price controls.

Certainly, there is a Nixon descendent somewhere who can vouch for Kamala’s price-fixing / anti-price-gouging proposal.

Speaking of Republicans endorsing Kamala, role-model and husband-extraordinaire Arnold Schwarzenegger is offering his support for putting Harris and her nanny-impregnating husband, Douglas Emhoff, in the White House.

To be fair, Mr. Schwarzenegger may have slapped around some girlie-men in his day, but he was never accused of slapping actual women as Mr. Emhoff has been credibly - and repeatedly - accused.

Bombshell Trial Revelation – Daniel Penny’s Chokehold Did Not Kill Jordan Neely

Daniel Penny’s manslaughter trial is all based on a fraudulent premise – that Mr. Penny’s chokehold on Jordan Neely (to protect fellow passengers) killed the homeless man.

With Mr. Penny on trial, we are only now finding out that Neely was very much alive when the police showed up, but because he was “filthy” and drug-addled, the responding police officers chose not to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation.

“Daniel Penny trial bombshell: Homeless man still had a pulse after chokehold that prosecutors say killed him” [The Daily Mail – 11/01/2024]

Police detected a pulse on homeless man Jordan Neely after he was put in a chokehold by Marine veteran Daniel Penny, bombshell new bodycam footage reveals. The video became public today as Penny's manslaughter trial began in Manhattan.

NYPD officers arrived on the train at Fulton Station at 2:33pm. Two police officers confirmed that Neely still had a pulse when they arrived. “I got a pulse,” one said. A second police officer confirmed that he too felt a pulse. Neely was unconscious, lying on the subway car floor.

The police did administer Narcan to try to reverse Neely’s apparent drug overdose, and then paramedics arrived 15 minutes after the police, with Mr. Neely still alive.

A NYPD Segreant testified as to why none of his team performed mouth-to-mouth on Neely.

“He seemed to be a drug user…he was an apparent drug user. He was very dirty. I didn’t want them to get… hepatitis. If he did wake up he would have been vomiting. I didn’t want my officers to do that.”

“He was filthy. He looked like a homeless individual. You have to protect your officer, I wouldn’t want my officer to get sick if the person throws up,” he said.

This trial is a disgraceful prosecution of an American hero for defending innocents in a pro-crime jurisdiction. Until New York stops coddling criminals and prosecuting crime victims, it should be considered an unsafe place to travel or do business.

The Price of Gasoline Is Way Down…Hooray?

Do you remember how gas prices plummeted in 2020 during the Covid hysteria, during which time the political class was striving to shut down almost all economic activity?

That plunge in gasoline prices was because – despite all the sustainable green nonsense – petroleum products power our economy. When economic activity slows down, the demand for petroleum products decreases, causing gasoline prices to decline.

Gasoline can now be purchased for less than $2.40 per gallon where I live.

There was an awful jobs report last week. Auto dealer inventories are getting bloated. Retailers are closing stores. Trucking is suffering. Unemployment is ticking up.

We are in an economic downturn.

If/when Donald Trump is inaugurated, the media and the dishonest statisticians at the Labor Department will no longer feel compelled to provide fraudulently positive economic data. Of course, I expect the politicized permanent bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to start producing reports that are just as fraudulent as before, except in the other direction, so as to harm President Trump.

Lithium Ordnance Batteries

There was a massive explosion at a lithium battery recycling facility outside of St. Louis last week. Beege Welborn at HotAir covers the story well if you’d like more information. Take a look at this horrifying video of the fire:

������ Meanwhile in Missouri

Huge explosion at Lithium Battery Plant

Toxic smoke & local evacuations reported pic.twitter.com/CzXM8abxhM

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) October 31, 2024

Large lithium batteries with the charging capacity to propel a vehicle are effectively unstable ordnance. A collection of such batteries is a very large and dangerous weapon just waiting to be detonated.

Hertz’s Struggle to De-Transition from EVs

The nightmare at Hertz due to its regrettable commitment to EVs just keeps getting worse.

As you may recall, Hertz brought in Stephen Scherr as CEO a few years ago. He is a left-wing, Goldman Sachs alum with impeccable eco-globalist credentials. To impress his buddies in Davos, Scherr committed heavily to re-making Hertz as an EV rental company. He was clearly oblivious to both the product Hertz has historically provided as well as who Hertz’s customer base is. And of course, he looted the company and its shareholders with an obscene compensation package valued at $182 million in 2022 alone.

Hertz still cannot pull out of its EV-induced tailspin. JP Morgan has just downgraded Hertz stock again, as its stock price continues to sink. In February 2022 when Scherr took the helm, Hertz stock was trading at around $20 per share. It is now trading at below $3 per share, and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. Mr. Scherr’s commitment to enviro-communism has cost Hertz’s shareholders over $5 billion in lost market capitalization, with losses continuing to mount and no prospect for profitability in the near future. Communists, be they the economic type or the environmental type, destroy others’ wealth. They also enrich themselves on that which they destroy, as Mr. Scherr did.

“Hertz Struggles with $1 Billion EV Losses and Delayed Recovery” [Yahoo – 10/21/2024]

Hertz Global Holdings (NASDAQ:HTZ) took a hit on Monday as J.P. Morgan's Ryan Brinkman downgraded the stock to Underweight, sending a clear message: the road to recovery just got longer. Hertz's ambitious pivot to electric vehicles, initially hyped as a game-changer, is now a $1 billion headache. The fallout is realized EV values are tanking, repair costs are climbing, and a shortage of spare parts for damaged Teslas is making matters worse.

JP Morgan sees no prospect for Hertz to turn a profit until 2026 at the earliest as Hertz tries to clean up the EV mess, nor does it see Hertz having the capability of generating enough cash to service its debt at any time in coming years, with “no positive free cash flow in sight.”

Hertz is in for a tough slog. The firm's three straight quarters of Earnings Per Share losses and mounting headwinds signal a longer-than-expected recovery. While partnerships and price strategies may offer some upside, Hertz needs more than just optimism, it needs a clear-cut strategy to turn things around and weather this transitional period.

For years we’ve been hearing about the “EV Transition.” If Hertz is in a “transitional period” away from EVs, maybe we should say that Hertz is ”de-transitioning” from EVs.

My Latest at The Blaze

My latest piece at The Blaze has been published. It looks at the threat from left-wing “legal watchdogs” trying to intimidate lawyers into not providing counsel to Donald Trump.

“How the left seeks to ruin Trump’s lawyers, Sixth Amendment be damned”

The left should consider the consequences of this precedent carefully, as a two-tier justice system where only one side is entitled to legal counsel cannot exist in this country.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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