THEY’RE BAD FOR BUSINESS AND OTHER LIVING THINGS: CEO steps down after being hit with expensive EV repairs and low resale prices following purchase of 100,000 Teslas.

Stephen Scherr, who ran Hertz for just over two years after three decades at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has decided to step down, the rental-car company said late Friday in a statement. It’s replacing him with Gil West, the former chief operating officer of General Motors Co.’s Cruise robotaxi unit. West also will join the board of directors on April 1, according to the statement, which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report.

Scherr, 59, joined Hertz several months after it emerged from bankruptcy and started making splashy wagers on electric vehicles. Under new owners Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management, the rental company announced plans to order 100,000 vehicles from Tesla Inc., sending the automaker’s market capitalization soaring past the $1 trillion mark at the time.

Business is oftentimes no more immune to popular fads than individuals are, sad to say. But you have to wonder if, in Hertz’s case, bringing in a finance guy from a Democrat-friendly Wall Street firm made them extra susceptible to the EV frenzy.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Now More Than Ever, the Left Is Terrified of Free Speech. “This all gets back to the Democrats’ disinformation fairy tale. They would prefer to be able to label any truths that interfere with their false narratives as disinformation and to lean on social media platforms to censor conservatives. Traditional media is already doing their bidding, so they don’t need any help there. Dems are also nervous about not having Twitter/X in their pockets anymore.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE/ELON MUSK’S INSURANCE POLICY AGAINST DEEP STATE EFFORTS TO SHUT DOWN SPACEX: SpaceX building hundreds of spy satellites for US government, report says.

SpaceX is “building a network of hundreds of spy satellites” for a US intelligence agency under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021, Reuters reported on Saturday. Reuters cited “five sources familiar with the program” in its report on SpaceX’s classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a Defense Department agency that deploys surveillance satellites and calls itself the “global leader in space-based intelligence.”

“The satellites can track targets on the ground and share that data with US intelligence and military officials, the sources said,” according to Reuters. The newly reported details are consistent with a Wall Street Journal report in February 2024 that said SpaceX had “entered into a $1.8 billion classified contract with the US government in 2021.”

Reuters wrote that it “was unable to determine when the new network of satellites would come online” but stated that about a dozen prototype satellites have been launched in the past few years. The prototypes reportedly launched “among other satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets.”

SpaceX, of course, has deployed thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites for its Starlink division that provides broadband service to consumer, business, and government customers. The spy satellites for the NRO also operate in low-Earth orbits, the Reuters report said.

“The plans show the extent of SpaceX’s involvement in US intelligence and military projects and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low-Earth orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces,” Reuters wrote. “If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the US government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.”

Combine that ability with “rods from God” and other rapid-delivery systems and you’ve really got something.

On the other hand, after everything else we’ve learned about Washington these last several years, I hope Musk built in a single kill switch for the entire constellation.

KNOW YOUR PLACE, PEASANTS! Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘concerned’ First Amendment is ‘hamstringing’ government from censorship.

Or in other words:

And:

SCHLICHTER: Stunning! There Is Some Very Good News for Republicans.

We’re not used to hearing it, but for the last week or so, the RNC has done everything right. The organization has totally failed for seven years under the rule of the dumbest member of the Romney family. People like RedState’s own Jennifer van Laar and superlawyer Harmeet Dhillon would point out how she was wasting tons of money on useless fluff, donors would stop giving, and she would just continue wasting tons of money on useless fluff. She studiously ignored the grassroots and imagined that her role was to go on TV and talk about policy as if anyone cared what some party bureaucrat thought. But now she’s gone, and good riddance.

Her replacements have, astonishingly, done the right things, and they have done it right away. First, they clearcut a bunch of the deadwood at the RNC, firing tons of people. Some characterize that as a purge of unbelievers, but what it really is is a purge of unachievers. Have you seen a lot of election integrity lately? People who do a bad job should be fired. This used to be basic knowledge and understood by Republicans. But apparently, some people think we ought to have a tenure system in our party apparatus. No. Party flacks and functionaries ought to live in perpetual fear that they will be canned should they fail to perform adequately. These mass firings are a great sign. The new leadership has even started to build an election integrity team.

The best time to build an election integrity team was four years ago. The next best time is right now.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY:  The Wheels Run Truly: A Science Fiction Lost Colony Adventure.

#CommissionEarned


Two brothers fight for freedom. A lost colony’s governor strives to reinvent the feudal state. Can Martha’s sons escape to liberty and a future?

Thaddeus Dawe is a patient man. On a planet where only the valley of First Landing is fully terraformed, he waits for spring’s agonizingly slow arrival. He plans to take the colony’s last terraseeder to fortify a secret northern enclave outside the governor’s control. When the palace loses power in late winter, Thaddeus scrambles to save his and his brothers’ hopes for independence.

Peter Dawe suffers under another secret. When he receives his brother’s call to return from exile to save the terraseeder, Peter forces himself to disclose his long-planned departure to those who sheltered and befriended him, including the woman he wants in his life. None of that goes as planned, and he heads north responsible once again for too many lives.

With the terraseeder losing power, a promise he has yet to fulfill, and the governor’s men against him, Thaddeus fears the new chaos marks the imminent death of the essential terraforming microbes and the failure of the new world he plans to build. Peter has spent the winter learning skills for his brothers’ northern plans, but joining Thaddeus’ team puts not only his own life at risk, but that of the woman he gives up to friendship.

Can the Dawe brothers escape the governor’s dominion with the life-giving terraseeder in time, and with their friends and loved ones alive?

The Wheels Run Truly is the final installment in the gripping science fiction colonization series, Martha’s Sons. If you like driven heroes, deep bonds of love and friendship, and a fight for freedom, you’ll need to read Laura Montgomery’s thrilling adventure tale.

OUT: SOCIAL JUSTICE. In: Sexual Justice.

“We don’t like the word ‘force’,” said Darcy. “We prefer to say that the state prohibits the withholding of sex from the underprivileged.”

“But isn’t that… rape?”

“No, it’s not rape, because it’s done through the democratic process. So you’ve already consented to it by being a part of a democracy. We as a society agree that it’s the right thing to do, so to think of it as ‘rape’ is incorrect. It is Sexual Justice.”

Just like taxes aren’t theft because people don’t take the money directly from you and use it themselves, the state does so with democratic approval and then gives the money to people. Totally different.

IRREDUCIBLE MIND (Part 4): You’ve heard of Quantum Mechanics. How about Quantum Biology and the Hard Problem of Consciousness? It’s up on HillFaith today.