May 20, 2024

"Is Gavin Newsom trying to help Donald Trump?..."

"California’s [gas] prices are the highest in the country—$5.21 a gallon on average vs. $3.59 nationwide—owing to hefty taxes and burdensome regulations, such as its cap-and-trade program and low-carbon fuel standard. The difficulty of operating refineries in the Golden State has caused many to shut down. More than 60% of the refineries that opened in California during the past 100 years are reportedly no longer operating. Econ 101 teaches that reduced supply increases prices.... California refineries supply nearly 90% of Nevada’s gasoline and half of Arizona’s. Gasoline prices in Nevada ($4.38 a gallon) and Arizona ($3.90) tend to rise in tandem with those in California....."

Writes Allysia Finley, in "Gavin Newsom’s Battleground Gift to Donald Trump/The governor’s war on gasoline will hike prices in California, but also Arizona and Nevada" (Wall Street Journal).

37 comments:

Michael K said...

It helps that the new Governor of Arizona is a Democrat elected by fraud.

Joe Smith said...

There is a large complex of oil refineries 20 miles from my house, and gas prices here are among the highest in the state and nation.

Thanks, democrat assholes!

Leland said...

Nevada is not a battleground state in 2024, where Trump carries an average poll lead over 7%.

Gavin Newsom is doing what California politicians have been doing for decades. You might as well claim that California's destruction of dams was a gift to Trump, but the decision to remove them was years before Trump ran for President. The headline accusation is simply a trick to gain clicks, because there is hardly a story that Gavin is screwing over the poor in California and elsewhere.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Gavin "hair gel hero" Newsome is the best candidate I've ever seen for proof that lizard people may actually exist. It says a great deal about California leftists that they actually voted for Newsolini...and they call conservatives fascists. The fucking gall.

Hassayamper said...

Lest the usual suspects accuse Michael K of hyperbole, I can attest that my son had to wait for over two hours to cast his vote in a conservative part of Phoenix. Someone made the decision to print ballots on non-standard sized paper so they couldn't be scanned by the Dominion machines, but curiously, the problem seems to have occurred only in Republican leaning precincts. And nobody seems to be able to say who made the decision, and the Attorney General is a communist tyrant cunt who has already started prosecuting people for questioning the official government line on the elections.

We are living under an illegitimate enemy occupation government in Arizona, just as in DC. These people are not Americans. They are enemies. I hope I live long enough to see the scum dealt with as they deserve.

Iman said...

Governor Hair Gel is one of the WEF’s Future Fuckers of America.

French Laundry Swine.

FullMoon said...
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FullMoon said...

And, $.50 increase on the horizon, not to mention only electric cars allowed to be sold after 2034.

The popularity of electric vehicles here means less money from gas taxes, obviously.
So, raise gas tax raises taxes on working class and poor.

Also on the table, tax by miles driven rather than tax on gas. Naturally, somehow mileage tax will take effect and gas tax will somehow remain in place.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Hassayamper said...
Lest the usual suspects accuse Michael K of hyperbole, I can attest that my son had to wait for over two hours to cast his vote in a conservative part of Phoenix.

I will second this. My precinct skews on the conservative side and I saw several people who were in line ahead of me have their ballots rejected for no apparent reason. Mine was not even though it was printed on the same printer. I am suspicious that this is because I have always been registered as an Independent in Maricopa County.

Dave Begley said...
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Static Ping said...

California is what you get when you have one party Democratic rule. Please note for future reference.

The idea that they consider the repercussions for their actions is laughable. When their minimum wage hike resulted in the expected job losses and business closings, their solution was to ban automation. They are very much the bungling villains of a thousand different dystopian novels. If not for Silicon Valley and Hollywood propping them up, we would be looking at a failed state. Silicon Valley is currently relocating, and Hollywood has forgotten how to make entertainment anyone wants to see, so good luck!

Howard said...

California is the most regressive state in the Union. Been 5+ years since we moved to central Massachusetts. Don't miss it. It's not the state I grew up in.

Joe Smith said...

'California is the most regressive state in the Union. Been 5+ years since we moved to central Massachusetts. Don't miss it. It's not the state I grew up in.'

Good riddance.

Now you can stew in the communist shithole that is Massachussetts.

Same shit politics but without the natural beauty and perfect weather.

Enjoy!

Wince said...

Democrats find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.

Evidently, Democrats believed they could acculturate the masses to a future of diminished expectations without the people noticing or caring enough along the road to serfdom to object to their subjugation.

mikeski said...

I spent a month in central Massachusetts one weekend.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"they could acculturate the masses to a future of diminished expectations without the people noticing or caring enough along the road to serfdom to object to their subjugation."

Didn't you hear that the chocolate ration has increased from 6oz to 3oz Wince? I don't know about the rest of you serfs, but I've got big plans for that extra 3oz. And don't go trying to correct my math either. Math is a lie told by the devil and sanctified by satanists at UCLA.

Joe Smith said...

'Math is a lie told by the devil and sanctified by satanists at UCLA."

No, math is racist.

Ask any black 'educator.'

But be sure to ask in Ebonics so you'll be understood.*

*Jive would work in a pinch if Barbara Billingsley is around to translate.

Howard said...

You have no idea what you are talking about, Joe. New Englanders are an old breed. Karen's like you get shit on as soon as you open your filthy cocksucker, so it's best you stay with your own kind.

Besides the seasons and the year round variety of outdoor recreational activities, the best thing about New England is the people. Outside Boston, not many Flatlanders around. People are genuinely friendly, but just appear rude because everyone is in a hurry getting shit done.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Gas prices are going up in CO too. June first 1.00$ more for fancy special brew that will save the planet and probably make some Rich white leftist even richer.

n.n said...

Gas prices are going up in CO too.

That, too, is progress (i.e. monotonic change).

Butkus51 said...

lie

there is no inflation

bidenomics is working

Skeptical Voter said...

Most of the refinery damage was done before the Brylcreem Boy got his start in politics.
The California Air Resources Board gets most of the credit. Smog has been a problem in California since when the Indians were still here. There's an inversion layer over the Los Angles Basin that tends to capture and hold whatever smoke or emissions are in the air--and it's a warm day, cooks that stuff up.

In the mid 1980s CARB was considering banning all motor fuels in the state other than ethanol. Good for Iowa, not so good for California refiners. The industry proposed reformulated gasoline. CARB ordered that they make it in so called CARB Phase II regulations. In the late 1980s California had close to 20 refineries making motor fuels. Their total output was about 116% of average daily fuel demand. Modifying your refinery to make CARB Phase II gasoline was expensive.The smaller refiners couldn't afford the modifications. Some of them shut down entirely; others topped making motor fuel. One Los Angeles basin refiner (which supplied about 25% of the gasoline used in the Los Angeles area) spent $2 billion on capital improvement to make the new gasoline. That expenditure did not increase the volume it could make by as much as a single barrel.

California refineries motor fuel out put went from 116% of daily consumption to ~101 %. Which meant the the slighest upset in production caused a shortage of supply and a spike in prices.

Thirty some years on CARB (and Gavin Newsom) continue to add additional regulations making it ever more expensive to satisfy California's gasoline needs. The only saving grace is that the average miles per gallon of the vehicle fleet has gone up--so refiners are able to satisfy the demand from the larger number of vehicles on the road. Meantime the state government collects the highest taxes per gallon of any state in the nation. But California doesn't use that gas tax money to fix the roads--which was the original stated purpose for the gas tax. Instead it diverts (or more accurately steals) gas tax money to the general fund.

rehajm said...

Outside Boston, not many Flatlanders around

To Vermonters you and all the other Massholes are flatlanders and will always be…

rehajm said...

Outside of Las Vegas there are a smattering on enclaves in Nevada where conservative refugees from California are moving…and wondering why they didn’t do it sooner…

rhhardin said...

Watch Scott Adams get Chatgpt to tell him how to hack the 2020 election, an event that absolutely never happened but is entirely possible, indeed plausible.

Marcus Bressler said...

CALI- register as a Dem but vote Republican. Ballot scanning problem eliminated

Mikey NTH said...

Kitchen table issues are losing out to Left/Green ideology. May that ideology get the drubbing it deserves such that both major parties seek the mainstream.

Deep State Reformer said...

Substitute "America" for "California" below and there's the thing stated plain.
"America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." (Claire Wolfe) It's not dark yet, but it's getting there. Especially true of CA.

boatbuilder said...

Here's the thing: If you make gas artificially expensive in one place--say, the State of California--the people who sell the gas are going to sell it someplace else, where they will sell more of it and make more money for themselves instead of for the State of California.

And that gasoline that gets sold elsewhere will be used.

So you are not "saving the planet." You might be lessening smog by lessening gas use in coastal California. Maybe. You are certainly making life harder for the residents of California.

But don't kid yourselves. Gas is plentiful, cheap, portable and powerful. It isn't going to be abandoned as the world's primary energy source any time soon.

rhhardin said...
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Bruce Hayden said...

“Lest the usual suspects accuse Michael K of hyperbole, I can attest that my son had to wait for over two hours to cast his vote in a conservative part of Phoenix. Someone made the decision to print ballots on non-standard sized paper so they couldn't be scanned by the Dominion machines, but curiously, the problem seems to have occurred only in Republican leaning precincts. And nobody seems to be able to say who made the decision, and the Attorney General is a communist tyrant cunt who has already started prosecuting people for questioning the official government line on the elections.”

As I understand the scam the ballots (primarily in Republican precincts in Maricopa county) were printed at one size, and attempted to be scanned back at a different size. It was probably changed in an unauthorized update of the software after the machines had been tested and certified. The expected result of tat is that te allots would only marginally scan. It might take a dozen tres to get them to scan. That took time, tie that many did not have. There was an alternative for having their ballots scanned later at the central location. They apparently never were. Compounding all the people who couldn’t wait in Iine hours to vote, a judge ordered the polling places closed on time, despite, in some cases, hundreds of people being in line.

Of course, the Democrats mostly voted by mail. Republicans tried to video record the drop off boxes. A judge squashed that. Turns out that there were a number of cars that toured the drop off boxes every day dropping off bundles of ballots. Of course, highly illegal, since you can only drop off ballots of close family members under AZ law. But then, it turned out that there was no compete end to end, audit trail for >600k mail in ballots in Maricopa County, and evidence that employees of the company processing the ballots slipped their ballots in the stream there. None of them legally should have been counted. Plus, there was effectively no signature verification - one election official certified that he certified thousands of ballots, at better than one per second, with no rejections.

And with that many fraudulent votes in Maricopa County, none of the rest of the counties in the state counted at all.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Outside of Las Vegas there are a smattering on enclaves in Nevada where conservative refugees from California are moving…and wondering why they didn’t do it sooner…”

I lived for maybe 5 years in Minden, NV, maybe 15 miles S of Carson City. It’s the county seat for Douglas county, which includes part of Lake Tahoe, and abuts South Lake Tahoe, CA. It was idyllic. Winters similar to, but a bit milder maybe than, Denver/Boulder. Beautiful views of the Sierras, including the NV end of Hidden Valley Ski Area - less than a half hour from work. It’s horse country, with horse and cattle pastures filling the valley. I could walk bike, or skate to/from work most days. And when I was there, a bit over a decade ago, it was still heavily Republican.

Iman said...

“You have no idea what you are talking about, Joe. New Englanders are an old breed.”

—- signed, Hissing Hysterically in Hyannis Port

Wince said...

RideSpaceMountain,

What is this opulence you speak of?

The chocolate ration is measured in grams not ounces.

Clyde said...
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Clyde said...

"We want you to all drive electric cars by 2035, but we won't charge the criminals... er, 'entrepreneurs' who steal the copper cables from the EV charging stations and traffic lights."

This is why you can't have nice things in blue cities.

Joe Smith said...

'Outside Boston, not many Flatlanders around. People are genuinely friendly, but just appear rude because everyone is in a hurry getting shit done.'

Flatlanders? The highest point in the state is 3,489 feet.

You are hilarious mountain man. A regular Grizzly Adams : )

There is a tiny mountain at the base of my neighborhood that is about that size.

I hiked to the top from the base and back in one day a few years ago.

Keep your shithole state and your racist Boston Mayor.