Odds and ends number 82

It’s time once again to go through my e-mailbox and share some of the more interesting things I saved for just such a purpose.

There wasn’t much play from this in the national media, but recently the Americans for Limited Government group released a poll they commissioned from pollster Pat Caddell that showed wide opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement:

Republicans are even more likely to oppose bad trade deals than Independents or Democrats. Once they find out what’s in it, Republican voters overwhelmingly oppose TPP, 66 percent to 15 percent. Democrats only oppose it 44 percent to 30 percent, and Independents oppose it 52 percent to 19 percent.

TPP does sound like a bad deal, but the key words are “once they find out what’s in it.” To me, it’s a little bit of a push poll but in reading some of the other findings we can deduce that Americans are a little pissed off about the state of their affairs, blaming the politics of Washington for their plight. I’ll come back to that in a bit, but as for the TPP and its opposition the ALG group has put together a website with their thoughts on the deal.

While as I noted the national media didn’t make much of it, the question did make it into the Miami GOP debate.

I noted that the voters Caddell surveyed were upset with inside the Beltway politics, and in a recent column at Conservative Review Dan Bongino discusses why.

Whenever government tries to pick economic winners and losers, it usually picks the losers, while the political winners continue to get re-elected because their campaign coffers are filled with business lobbyists eager to get their snouts in the taxpayer-funded trough.

In so many ways this explains the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to the left of center and Ted Cruz (who Bongino has endorsed) to the right. For years I’ve known that the object of government is not to solve a problem but to perpetuate the solution to make the agency tasked to deal with it indispensable, yet those whose livelihood depends on big government continue to stay close to the seat of power. In Maryland it’s no surprise that the wealthiest areas are those right outside Washington, D.C. I’ve contended for about as many years that if not for the nation’s capital Maryland would be in the same boat as West Virginia.

Speaking of Trump, I suppose I’ll add my couple pennies to the nearly $2 billion of free media he’s received. But staying on the subject of Bongino, he discusses the protests Trump is enduring, most famously in Chicago but after Dan went to press with his column Trump had more strife in Arizona yesterday.

What these far-left mobs are seeking is known as the “heckler’s veto.” The heckler’s veto occurs when an organized group of far-left protestors actively cause unrest and violence at an event, and then use the threat of violence at the event to call for future events to be shut down and the speaker to be silenced. This scam has been going on for a long time. I’ve seen it again and again. As a supporter of Senator Cruz for the presidency, I’m asking all conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and fed-up Democrats to do the right thing and stand against these tyrannical tactics, regardless of who you are supporting for the presidency.

Trump isn’t the only one who has endured the heckler’s veto. Just ask speakers like Ben Shapiro – who, by the way, is slated to be at Salisbury University Monday, March 28.

But Trump supporters and Ben Shapiro may not be on speaking terms considering Shapiro’s recent resignation from the Breitbart website. In fact, the #NeverTrump forces seem to be coalescing behind Erick Erickson and his Resurgent website. There we find the “Conservatives Against Trump” statement, which reads in part:

We are a group of grassroots conservative activists from all over the country and from various backgrounds, including supporters of many of the other campaigns. We are committed to ensuring a real conservative candidate is elected. We believe that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump, a Hillary Clinton donor, is that person.

We believe that the issue of Donald Trump is greater than an issue of party. It is an issue of morals and character that all Americans, not just those of us in the conservative movement, must confront.

We call for a unity ticket that unites the Republican Party.  If that unity ticket is unable to get 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, we recognize that it took Abraham Lincoln three ballots at the Republican convention in 1860 to become the party’s nominee and if it is good enough for Lincoln, that process should be good enough for all the candidates without threats of riots.

We encourage all former Republican candidates not currently supporting Trump to unite against him and encourage all candidates to hold their delegates on the first ballot.

Lastly, we intend to keep our options open as to other avenues to oppose Donald Trump.  Our multiple decades of work in the conservative movement for free markets, limited government, national defense, religious liberty, life, and marriage are about ideas, not necessarily parties.

Right now the Republicans have a leader who hasn’t cracked the 50% barrier in any state (and only has done so among the few dozen voters in the territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.) In fact, Trump has received about 35% of the Republican primary and caucus vote, with some of his broadest support coming in open primary states. Is it not conceivable that there’s a reverse Operation Chaos going on from Democrats to elect the weakest possible GOP nominee, one that regularly gets thumped in head-to-head polling against Hillary Clinton and has negatives over 60%?

It’s obvious Erickson and his group realizes people are fed up, but they realize the answer is not Trumped-up populism but the bold colors of conservatism. Of the remaining candidates, Ted Cruz is the best example.

There’s also the question of whether people are ticked off enough to remove their Congressman. I haven’t heard about any major primary upsets so far this campaign (most states have only done Presidential preference) but Maryland First District voters will have their chance to hear from the most serious challenger to Congressman Andy Harris several times over the primary campaign’s last month. Former Delegate Mike Smigiel is in the midst of a series of townhall meetings around the district: he had his Salisbury meeting while I was on my honeymoon and was in Easton yesterday, but there are several remaining dates. Next Saturday Smigiel will be in Carroll County for a 1:30 meeting at the Taneytown Library, but more important to local readers are upcoming gatherings in Cambridge at the Dorchester Library on Friday, April 1 and two meetings on Saturday, April 9: 11 a.m. at the Somerset County Library in Princess Anne and 2 p.m. at the Kent County branch library in Chestertown. (That may involve some fast driving.)

Finally, the rancor even extends to the local level. Smigiel and Harris have had bad blood over the years in Cecil County (which Smigiel represented in the House of Delegates) but that county – which is almost the same size as Wicomico County, so it’s not a greatly populous county compared to others in Maryland – seems to have an outsized share of political infighting. The most recent instance came to my attention a few days ago when their Campaign for Liberty chapter attacked local County Council candidate Jackie Gregory in an e-mail I received. Her cardinal sin? Supporting what the C4L considers “establishment politicians.” On their Facebook page C4L sneers, “Gregory’s desire to become part of the Cecil County political establishment apparently outweighs the tea party principles she claims to adhere to.” (Gregory is a founding member of the Cecil County Patriots TEA Party group.)

Well, let me tell you about this “establishment” candidate: she is a supporter of mine and has been for some time. The time C4L should have acted was finding a candidate to oppose Gregory in the primary – at least one who has more than the 2.9% support he received when running for County Executive there in 2012. (Note that Paul Trapani may not be the Campaign for Liberty’s choice, either – but they are the only two on the ballot. Unless an independent bid crops up over the summer, the winner of the GOP primary will become the County Council member after the November election since no Democrat ran.) So I have made a modest donation to Jackie’s campaign and encourage more people do so.

Perhaps what is annoying to the C4L crew is Jackie’s stance on the County Executive race:

I am supportive of all of the candidates having a good, positive race which highlights the issues important to the county and their vision regarding how to deal with those issues. Each of them has a history, a record, and a voice. It is up to each of them to convince the voters that he is the best person to lead Cecil County for the next four years. I am confident that the voters will choose wisely.

Seems fair to me, since there are four running on the GOP side.

Here’s the thing about groups like the Campaign for Liberty: they’re great at bringing up issue advocacy but not so good at getting people elected. Sure, they will say that the establishment stacks the deck against them but at least Gregory has made the step of putting her beliefs into action by stepping forward to run for office rather than use her candidacy to create a hit piece to beg for money.

So ends this cauldron of trouble I have now stirred up. The other day I was called an “ass” by a Trump supporter, but as I told him I have been called far worse by much better people. Then again, I still sleep well at night so I must be doing something right. On that note, have a great week.

monoblogue music: “Dynamite Bouquet” by Guy Grogan

Prolific singer-songwriter Guy Grogan just put out his ninth release in five years last month, so you would think this one-man-band would find his distinctive sound. To an extent you would be right in thinking this way, but this effort is somewhat uneven.

First of all, listening to Grogan sing can be an acquired taste. Take a song like Now I’m Me From You, where he adopts a different key from much of the rest of his work. It made me wonder why he went in that direction; on the other hand I could appreciate the jazzy Moonbird. Grogan succeeds there in creating a distinctive sound.

Perhaps the other big miss is the ballad A Ghost Too Soon, which is an earnest effort but doesn’t come off as well as the song which closes the collection, the emotional What If I Told You. Grogan also provides a distinctive voice to slower songs like Waterfalls and the more midtempo River Like A Cry.

What puts this album on the good side of the ledger, though, is bread-and-butter rockers like the rollicking opening track My Own Way Out or the next song, Metafixation, which featuring a snarling guitar/bass combination which gives the song body. Pop-rock is well-represented by songs in the middle of the album like Nowhere Is Paradise and Pseudo Euphoria.

Given his body of work and my unfamiliarity with where he came from I took a little time to check out Grogan’s earlier albums. He has definitely evolved his songwriting in a more straight-ahead direction, eschewing a lot of studio tricks to put together a sound that’s more honest and true to his ability to play all the instruments on the album. (Grogan elected to get assistance with mixing and mastering the compilation, though.)

Guy is coming into his own as a songwriter, though, winning commendations in the UK Songwriting Contest for two of the songs on this CD: My Own Way Out and Metafixation. I would agree that these are two of the better songs on “Dynamite Bouquet” but you may feel differently – as always, when I get the opportunity I encourage the readers to listen for themselves.

There are many, many musicians who toil in the shadows, making music on their own in the hope to get mass appeal. This won’t be the album that puts Grogan over the top but based on the earlier work I heard he is getting closer to the mark.

A coalition of agitators

By Cathy Keim

The cancelled Trump rally in Chicago last week has caused many people to worry about what lies ahead in the months leading up to the Presidential election. As one friend put it, “It has that 1968 feeling.”

For their part, Cleveland police are preparing for a contentious GOP convention:

Both parties’ conventions are eligible for $50 million in federal spending for event safety. The news website Cleveland.com reported that the city’s police will call on suburban forces to boost staffing to about 5,000.

(snip)

City officials on March 9 opened bidding for the purchase of 2,000 sets of riot-control gear, including batons, upper-body and arm protectors, shin guards and reinforced gloves.

A look at Craigslist job ads in Cleveland today showed this interesting new employment opportunity:

Cleveland screen shot

That sounds like somebody in Cleveland is getting ready for political action.

Next we have Breitbart’s Aaron Klein reporting on “Democracy Spring”:

With little fanfare and almost no news media attention, some of the same radical groups involved in shutting down Donald Trump’s Chicago rally last week are plotting a mass civil disobedience movement to begin next month.

Klein adds that “the group is backed by numerous organizations, including the George Soros-funded groups MoveOn.org, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Demos.” The Democratic Socialists of America and the AFL-CIO also support the group.

In addition, CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups are jumping on the bandwagon by pledging to join Black Lives Matter, Hispanics, and other people of color. Watch this video clip to see Khalilah Sabra, the Executive Director and Project Developer for Muslim American Society Immigrant Justice Center, ask the audience why can’t we have that revolution in America?

The protests that started with the Occupy movement morphed into the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Now we are seeing protests coalescing around the Trump rallies. While Donald Trump has been more vocal in his comments about immigration than other candidates, it is probably his position as front runner that is adding to the attention he is receiving. If Cruz is able to grab the lead from Trump, I believe that the protests would just shift to Cruz rallies. Indeed, no matter who wins the position of Republican candidate for President at the convention in Cleveland, he will be faced with ongoing protests as long as the groups feel that it is worth their while to stir up trouble.

Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, makes the case that:

Friday night in Chicago, at the site of the Donald Trump rally, we were awakened to what America will be like if we continue to kowtow to the radicalized left and their violent intimidation tactics to shut down Constitutionally protected speech. Theirs is not a protest movement. It is pure anarchy.

Please read his whole piece as it is right on target with what we need to do to stand our ground. The protestors in Chicago were jubilant when they succeeded in shutting down the Trump rally. It is not surprising that many of the protestors were students from the University of Illinois at Chicago on whose campus the rally was scheduled to be held.

Haven’t the students at universities across the nation been shutting down guest speakers that they disagreed with by screaming and interrupting them until they gave up trying to give their speech? Even better, they have protested and successfully forced their college administrators to cancel the speakers before they could even get on campus.

Our First Amendment rights to free speech have already been seriously curtailed on colleges across the country. The students at elite universities have to have safe spaces where they are protected from hearing anything that might upset them.

Political correctness is causing people to self-censor for fear of retribution or social alienation (shunning). If that is not sufficient, then there are also classes offered by employers to re-educate the employees into the correct attitudes. If an employee is sufficiently contrary, they can be forced into anger management remediation to help them overcome their anti-social behavior.

The most violently enforced censorship is that of sharia where a joke about Mohammed can result in your execution. While we are not at that point in the USA, there are plenty of groups pushing for speech codes about all things Muslim.

Our right to freedom of speech is only there if we continue to exercise it. Sheriff Clarke adds:

Law-abiding Americans must not and cannot back down to these freedom-squashing goons. It is time for all of us to understand just what our enemies want to achieve – chaos and fear — and to rally around the fundamental truths of the Constitution.

Get ready for a long, hot campaign season. Brace yourself for what is coming. The anarchists, CAIR, unions, Black Lives Matter, and assorted other groups will not back down unless forced to do so. If we equivocate and wobble, then the next step to losing our freedom of speech will be taken.

David Horowitz explains:

Battles over rights and other issues, according to Alinsky, should never be seen as more than occasions to advance the real agenda, which is the accumulation of power and resources in radical hands. Power is the all-consuming goal of Alinsky’s politics. This focus on power was illustrated by an anecdote recounted in a New Republic article that appeared during Obama’s presidential campaign: “When Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: ‘You want to organize for power!'” In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote: “From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always building the army. The issue is always the revolution.

We had better get this concept in our minds, because our opponents most certainly have.

“Green” – the status symbol the affluent can afford that costs the poor

Commentary by Marita Noon

Researchers have found that some buyers are willing to pay for environmentally friendly products because those products are “status symbols.” A report in the Atlantic states: “Environmentally-friendly behaviors typically go unseen; there’s no public glory in shortened showers or diligent recycling. But when people can use their behavior to broadcast their own goodness, their incentives shift. The people who buy Priuses and solar panels still probably care about the environment – it’s just that researchers have found that a portion of their motivation might come from a place of self-promotion, much like community service does good and fits on a résumé.”

With “green” having become a status symbol, the affluent can afford it. Yet, their desire to “broadcast their own goodness” actually results in higher costs to those who can least afford it.

Solar power is a great example. On the website for SunRun, a solar panel leasing company, through the story of customer “Pat,” they even encourage the “green status symbol” as a sales feature. While Pat may be happy with her solar panels and “hopes that all her neighbors will go solar, too,” her “green status symbol” costs all the utility’s customers who mostly can’t afford to “go solar.”

As I’ve written on many times, the idea of solar leasing works because of tax incentives and a system called “net metering.” First, those tax incentives are paid for by all taxpayers. Anytime the government gives something away, everyone pays for it. Net metering is a little harder to understand. In short, the utility is required by state laws to purchase the extra electricity generated by rooftop solar panels at the full retail rate – even though they could purchase it at a fraction of the cost from the power plant. As more and more people sign up for these programs, it increases the overall cost of electricity. Remember, however, those with solar panels could have a zero dollar utility bill but they are still using electricity from the utility company at night and generate additional customer service costs such as transmission lines. Ultimately, the cost of electricity goes up on the bills of non-solar customers. Due to this “cost shifting,” many states are changing the net metering policies so solar customers cover the unpaid grid costs. However, as has happened recently in Nevada, the revised programs change the economics and make it unprofitable for companies to operate in the state.

This is clear to see in overall rising electric costs – about 3 percent per year according to the Institute for Energy Research – despite the main fuel costs (coal and natural gas) being at all-time lows.

Earlier this month, Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) addressed another interesting angle: “Green energy can’t compete with $30 oil.” The only way for “green” energy to survive, it says, is: “by the government forcing people to buy them and jacking up electricity and heating prices to families and businesses.”

A new study from the University of Chicago, referenced by IBD, concludes that for an electric vehicle to be cheaper to operate than the modern internal combustion engine, “the price of oil would need to exceed $350 a barrel.” The IBD states: “without massive additional taxpayer subsidies to companies such as Tesla, the price of oil would have to not just double or triple, but rocket more than 10-fold before battery-operated cars make financial sense.”

Yet, sales for the Tesla Model S, the International Business Times (IBT), reports: “actually rose 16 percent last year, in part because they serve as status symbols or appeal to the environmental concerns of well-to-do drivers.”

On March 11, in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Holman Jenkins writes: “Voters should be mad at electric cars.” Why? Because, as he explains: “how thoroughly Tesla’s business model depends on taxpayer largess.” Jenkins states: “Tesla’s cars have status cachet, yes. Even some middle-class customers might be attracted, notwithstanding low gas prices, as long as helped by an enormous dollop of taxpayer favoritism.” As he lays out for the reader the “absurdity of their subsidy regime,” Jenkins concludes: “And you wonder why, on some level voters sense that our political class has led America into a dead-end where the only people doing well are the ones who have subsidies, regulation and political influence stacked in their favor.”

Alternative fuels have also taken a hit with low oil prices. According to IBT: “corn ethanol and algae-based diesel need oil prices at around double today’s levels – or higher – to compete with fossil fuels.”

Another fixture of the “green” social movement that has taken a toll in the low oil-priced environment is, surprisingly, recycling. Calling recycling a “$100-billion-a-year business,” National Public Radio reporter Stacy Venek Smith, points out: “Plastic is made from oil, so when oil gets cheap, it gets really cheap to make fresh plastic. When the price of oil gets really low, using recycled plastic can actually be more expensive because it has to be sorted and cleaned.” In Salt Lake City, KUTV reported: “Many businesses are finding it cheaper to manufacture new plastic than to use recycled materials.” In Montana, according to the Philipsburg Mail, plastics are no longer being picked up for recycling “because the price per pound was so low, it didn’t cover the cost of gas and mileage to make the trip.”

The problem is international. Germany has a reputation as a recycling model with a goal of 36 percent of its plastic production coming from recycled materials and “German consumers finance recycling via licensing fees, which are added on to the price of the products they purchase,” says Deutsche Welle, Germany’s leading organization for international media development, in a report titled: “Low oil prices threaten Germany’s plastics recycling.” It states: “For manufacturers with eyes firmly fixed on costs, opting for cheaper new plastics would be the more economically attractive option.” However, many companies, wanting to appear “environmentally friendly” will still “pay up for recycled plastics, despite higher costs” – meaning higher consumer prices for the plastics they produce.

Addressing the recycling problem, The Guardian states: “Recycling only works when there’s someone on the other side of the equation, someone who wants to buy the recycled material.”

Fortunately for the recycling industry, but bad for consumers who pay higher prices for plastic products, the Philipsburg Mail concludes: “A lot of Fortune 500 Companies still want to purchase recyclables to meet sustainability goals.”

Despite claims of “green prosperity” that implies such policies can “fight poverty and raise living standards,” the opposite is true. Everyone pays more – even those who can least afford it – so the elites, seeking green status symbols, can feel good and appear to be community leaders.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc., and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column. Follow her @EnergyRabbit.

A reversal of our possible fortune

Flip-flopping like a fish on a hook, Barack Obama once again turned the spigot off on the prospect of oil and natural gas exploration offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. It proves once again that the claims he’s made advocating an “all-of-the-above” energy policy are just more lies and that he’s not interested in helping our nation prosper by tapping into its vast energy resources.

It also proves that those who use the scare tactics of making people believe that oil spills are a daily occurrence, rendering the Gulf of Mexico a permanently fouled body of water, have managed to grab the attention of the powers that be. Consider the opposition that was drummed up to offshore seismic testing over the last few years as oil exploration was considered – but not a peep when it was done to locate sites for wind turbines. Either marine life is important or it isn’t.

It’s been my contention that the defense of “well, there really isn’t that much oil out there to bother with” is conveniently based on information that’s 30 to 40 years old, and as technology has improved the amount of oil believed to be recoverable invariably goes up. We could have far more available to us than we have been led to believe, and I think that is what scares the environmentalists more than the (very remote) prospect of an oil spill. The larger the oil supply, the more reasonable the price and the less incentive to turn our energy future over to unreliable solar and wind power.

So why does this tick me off so much? As I see it, America is in a position where we can be energy-independent to the extent that we need not import from overseas. Our continent has plenty of resources if we just get the desire to use them to both power our capitalist system and create thousands of good-paying jobs. It’s all about creating value, and a resource that is useless to us if kept in the ground becomes the fuel for our economic engine once extracted. A barrel of oil could be used in so many ways – as fuel, a lubricant, raw material for plastics, and so forth. Our usage of it assigns its value, and we use that resource to create still more value, whether through transport, extending the life of components, molded into consumer products, or traded as an export. We also use natural gas to create electricity, particularly as a backup fuel for those frequent times when wind or solar power is unavailable. For all its uses, electricity is not as easily transported as oil or natural gas is – normally there’s a loss of a few percentage points for long-distance electricity transport.

Taken to a local level, anything that can diversify the economy from chicken, government jobs, and tourism should be encouraged. We have been sold the pie-in-the-sky promise of being a leader in building wind turbines, but there’s no real market for that without a hefty subsidy. So we’re not building them. I don’t think we will have the saturation level of energy jobs that are present along the Gulf Coast, but even if it’s in the hundreds that would be an economic shot in the arm for the region. Thus, the news this week of yet another delay in Atlantic drilling means a longer economic drift for the region. It also gives the environmentalist wackos – most of whom are from out of the area and don’t care about anything but our financial support – more of a platform to try and drive other businesses away, such as the poultry industry. Their ultimate goal is Delmarva as a “wildlands corridor,” because as you know people are a burden to this earth.

Here’s hoping the new administration points things back in the right direction and allows the energy companies to get a foothold offshore. Let’s see what’s really out there.

Another tribute to greed and power

I bet you thought I was going to write about Donald Trump – but not this time.

Instead, I’m looking to point something out. You know those highway projects we never could seem to get done around here? Things like replacing the old Dover Bridge between Talbot and Caroline counties, widening the remaining seven miles or so of U.S. 113 that is still a two-lane road, or repairing the bridges that were first built with the U.S. 13 bypass decades ago? I wasn’t crazy about increasing the gasoline tax (and still believe the sales tax component should be eliminated, as well as the automatic indexing to inflation) but at least this administration is using that money as it was intended, to improve and maintain roads and bridges. (With the exception of the Purple Line, of course.)

Millions of dollars are being spread across Maryland to fix and enhance the transportation needs of residents who don’t have a handy bus line and don’t live a stone’s throw from the Metro stop. So leave it to those who are close to bus lines and Metro stops to make a bid to game the system their way with this legislative proposal currently in committee.

In a nutshell, the Maryland Open Transportation Investment Decision Act of 2016 (MOTIDA) creates a scoring system that critics charge gives too much weight to projects in urban areas with mass transit. The point scale has a total of 800 points, and it’s subdivided into eight parts: safety and security, system preservation, quality of service, environmental stewardship, community vitality, economic prosperity, equitable access to transportation, and cost effectiveness/return on investment. The latter two are new; the first six are already addressed to some degree with existing transportation plans.

MOTIDA further breaks this point scale down, and what I will do is list the items given in order of their point rank. To me it’s very telling about the priorities of the sponsors, who seem to have gulped down the so-called “smart growth” Kool-Aid:

50 points apiece:

  • reduction in fatalities among all affected modes of transportation
  • expected change in cumulative job accessibility (based on a 45-minute commute – 60 minutes for public transit)
  • enhancements of access to “critical intermodal locations”
  • enhancements vs. per capita costs

40 points apiece:

  • increases lifespan of affected facility
  • advances state environmental goals
  • increases cumulative job accessibility
  • increases job accessibility for the “disadvantaged”

30 points apiece:

  • increases functionality of facility
  • renders the facility “more resilient”
  • promotes multiple transportation choices
  • revitalizes and enhances low-income communities
  • promotes economic development in low-income communities
  • enhancements of access to “critical intermodal locations” – this is counted twice, for a total of 80 points.
  • limit or reduce emissions
  • avoids impact on state resources
  • furthers state/local economic development strategies

25 points apiece:

  • compliance with “complete streets” policies
  • reduce vehicle miles
  • increase usage of walking, biking, or transit
  • enhances existing community assets
  • furthers community and state plans for revitalization
  • supports compact development and reduces sprawl

20 points:

  • cumulative job accessibility for the “disadvantaged” – similar to a 40-point bullet above, so call this 60 points

Then there’s the kicker: not only is the points system biased toward mass transit projects, but then there’s a multiplier involved where scores are increased by a factor of taking the population of the affected area and dividing it by the state’s population at large. Naturally most of the Montgomery County delegation likes this because it adds up to 138 “extra” points on their score while Wicomico County could only get an additional 13. (Poor Kent County can only pick up 3.) Never mind we’re helping MoCo to build their boondoggle of a Purple Line, although to Hogan’s credit he is insisting the county help out more.

Because Hogan is very popular among the voters – in part because he’s working for the whole state, and not just the handful of Democratic strongholds which propelled his predecessor to victory – the Democrats in the General Assembly are doing their level best to tie Hogan’s hands. But the question is whether this bill can get out of committee, and it’s likely the legislators who represent the areas outside the urban cores are working hard to kill this bill. It’s the individual counties and legislators who know what the priorities are in their areas, and considering the last administration balanced its budgets on the backs of those Maryland drivers who fill up their gas tanks it’s time to do that maintenance that’s long been promised.

This bill needs to find a desk drawer someplace and stay there until May.

Update: As is often the case, the bills that need to die live on. According to Delegate Christopher Adams (and verified moments ago) the amended bill passed committee on a party-line 15-8 vote.

Some thoughts on tomorrow’s election

For Maryland’s election six weeks hence to have any national significance, it’s very likely that Donald Trump would have to lose Ohio and at least one other state. We’re now getting to the point where more delegates have been awarded than remain at stake, with the RCP count now showing we’ve just passed the halfway point. Tomorrow a total of 367 delegates are at stake in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and the Northern Mariana Islands, with all but North Carolina “winner-take-all” states. With four candidates in the running, it’s possible over 300 delegates can be attained by getting just 30% of the vote (if all five WTA states fell the same way with slim victories for the winner.) Donald Trump is doing a little better than 30% in four of the five states, with John Kasich leading in his home state of Ohio.

After this week the race will get something of a breather. Next week the remaining contenders will do battle for Arizona, Utah, and American Samoa, then we skip to Wisconsin on April 5. New York will have its week on April 19, and then its our turn on April 26 (along with Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.) At this point, even if Trump won everything he could not clinch the requisite number of delegates before Maryland votes. (Let’s hope he doesn’t ever get to that point.)

It’s been sort of lost in the maelstrom surrounding the cancellation of Trump’s Chicago rally, but there were two other endorsements in the race recently. I can’t say I was surprised by Ben Carson’s selection of Donald Trump since the bridge between him and Ted Cruz was burned back in Iowa, but I was surprised by Carly Fiorina backing Cruz. She never impressed me as that conservative when I was doing my dossiers.

Now I can update the tier map. I suspect after tomorrow it will be down to three and possibly two remaining.

  • Bottom tier: George Pataki (Marco Rubio), Donald Trump
  • Fourth tier: Chris Christie (Donald Trump), John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina (Ted Cruz)
  • Third tier: Rick Santorum (Rubio), Jim Gilmore, Ben Carson (Donald Trump)
  • Second tier: Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham (Jeb Bush)
  • Top tier: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal (Rubio)

The endorsement poll stands at Marco Rubio 3, Ted Cruz 2, and Donald Trump 2. John Kasich has none.

I should take a few moments to update you on where I stand with my Senatorial questions. So far I have heard back from five of the fourteen, with three responses (Richard Douglas, Mark McNicholas, and Dave Wallace.) Each of the three has put together thoughtful responses.

But I also have just a few weeks to decide, so I am going to look at other sources as well. These won’t get the dossier treatment, but it’s likely that someone who responds will get my vote and endorsement, just so you know.

The chicken wars

By Cathy Keim

Your worldview shapes how you see everything about you, and a great deal of that is shaped by your parents and the times in which they lived. I do not think it’s unfair to say that for older Americans our baseline assumptions about animals, food, and farms were less idealized than today’s vision of the family farm – particularly as much of the population had a rural background. My father grew up plowing behind mules and was eager to get away from the hard work by becoming a civil engineer. His mother told of plucking feathers from geese and chickens to make pillows. She was hilarious in her description of how mean the geese were and how they scared her when she was little. She also explained that during the Depression the only food they had to eat some days was what they got from her garden. There was genuine food insecurity in the everyday lives of average Americans less than one hundred years ago.

Since those days the explosion of technology has propelled the farmer into a world where the mule is replaced by mechanized equipment and the actual crops are genetically modified to produce many times the yield that my grandmother would have expected. Gone are the chickens pecking in her backyard for bugs, replaced by the much-maligned concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). Where she enjoyed a Sunday dinner of a tiny chicken that took weeks to mature, we now have massive chickens weighing in at 8 pounds or more after a few weeks in a CAFO.

Americans have been so blessed with abundant food and are so far removed from the actual process of producing their food that we have begun to see a number of trends that are only possible due to our blessed abundance.

The demand for organic fruits and vegetables, locally sourced produce, heirloom tomatoes, and free range beef and chicken is all well and good for a financially independent society. However, a vast number of Americans with less financial flexibility are quite pleased to obtain their food at the local megastore at lower prices made possible by those terrifying “factory” farming methods.

It is rather amusing to see the same progressive crowd that is demanding that global warming deniers be shut up for their “anti-science” beliefs are the same progressives pushing to shut down the science-intensive, high-tech “factory” farms. The progressives loudly proclaim themselves to be the defender of science against the barbarians, i.e. conservatives. However, in the case of farming, they appear to be the ones who want us to retreat to archaic farming methods.

They show the same cognitive disconnect that the animal rights zealots exhibit. Their claims are correct, no matter the evidence against them, and other people are wrong. (They often dismiss the evidence as being bought and paid for by the agricultural mega-corporations, such as ADM or Monsanto. In their minds only the activists have pure motives.) Both groups ascribe to the time-tested progressive method of push as far as you can to achieve your goal, making any temporary alliances you need to succeed, drop back if the goal is unachievable, and then attack again at the next opportunity.

Thus we arrive at the current Chicken Wars on the Eastern Shore. Family farms are redefined as factory farms, which has a connotation better suited to rouse the troops. The new chicken houses that are being proposed are larger than older chicken houses. This is due to several reasons.

Maryland is a highly regulated state and those regulations cause people to change their behavior. Due to stormwater regulations, it may now be more advantageous to build several very large chicken houses together. Consider the local case of proposed chicken houses outside Salisbury, which is raising the ire of local neighbors and environmentalists:

The family considered permitting the two farms separately, (owner spokesman Basit) Zulfiqar said. But that would have doubled the amount of mandated stormwater structures and buffers areas, reducing the number of buildings they could put on the property.

Also, the demand to reduce the use of antibiotics in the poultry industry results in the need for additional space per chicken, thus larger chicken houses. Farmers, whether the family that lives down the lane or a person that is investing their life savings into their new venture, have to make a profit or they go out of business just like everybody else. You can be sure that farmers are looking to maximize their production and minimize their risk just like every other businessman, so if it is in their best interest to build larger chicken houses they will.

Their choice as to how to run their business on their own property and to feed hungry people in the process has been recast into a horror story of wicked businessmen abusing chickens in warehouses and polluting the earth. It is not to any farmer’s benefit to pollute his own property, nor is it beneficial for him to raise chickens in an environment that would not ensure the best growth with the best outcome.

Why are some groups so eager to impugn farmers with evil motives? Could it be that there is a larger agenda?

Progressives are infamous for using people to achieve their goals. In this case, the families that are protesting the building of the new chicken houses near their property are helping the progressives in their agenda. These families are using whatever “data” they can get to declare their concern for the paleochannel, their children’s health, and so forth. This really comes down to the “not in my back yard” argument dressed in the best clothes they can find.

Rather than grasping at these arguments, perhaps they should reflect on their decision to live next to zoned farmland. If we remove all farmland from use because somebody builds a house next to it, then we have two choices: we make people move into the city core, or we starve. Either of these two choices are in line with the progressive plans.

Take a look at Agenda 21 approved by the United Nations and our own elites and you will find that all the current rage to build in the city core so that no citizens will need a car is really the beginning of insisting that all citizens live in the city core and cannot have a car. Only those deemed worthy of having their own transportation, such as government workers, will be allowed to.

The push for organic sustainable farming works into their plans also since they wish to decrease the world’s population significantly. If we turn back from using the GMO crops we will rapidly revert back to the food insecurity that is not such a distant memory.

But back to the Eastern Shore Chicken Wars of today. For those who believe that this is only about stopping mega-sized chicken houses next to family houses, just think back to the unsuccessful but prolonged attack on the Hudson family and their farm a few years ago. The same entities that are joining in this attack were there to drag the Hudson family through the mud for years.

Kathy Phillips and the Assateague Coastal Trust, John Groutt and the Wicomico Environmental Trust, and others will continue to agitate against farmers on the Eastern Shore even after this incident is settled.

Take some time to look at the principles involved and find out the facts rather than depending on the emotional arguments being presented. There will be an informational meeting on March 22, 2016, at 6pm at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. Radical Green will be there – will you?

monoblogue music: “The Wild” (single) by Paul Maged

Back in 2014, the first year I did monoblogue music, you may recall that Paul Maged’s release “Diamonds & Demons” was my pick for the best album I reviewed during that year. When I did the review I noted, “(T)his is perhaps the best example of straight-ahead rock and roll I’ve come across.”

So when I got word that Maged had put out a new single last week, I was pleased to get the opportunity to take a listen. In “Diamonds & Demons” Paul had a nice share of songs that were somewhat harder and edgier, and this is the path he’s chosen on “The Wild.” As Maged writes, it’s a single that “bridges his last album and his forthcoming album.” Assuming this is so, we may not have to wait a very long time for the new music: according to a Tweet Maged put out on February 20, he is working on the eighth song for the album, a tune he described as “quite Beatlesque.”

So what did I think of “The Wild”? Yes, it’s very edgy and it does rock out. I think some may quibble that he oversings it just a little bit, but bear in mind that he describes the song as one “in which he dives in head first to explore the mind and the brain at the exact moment we lose control; the state of anger and despair we reach when we lose command of reasonable thought.” In that context, being a little frenetic is good and I’m sure he will tone it down for the ballads and pop-rockers he will surely feature on his forthcoming release, whenever it comes out.

Because Paul put out a music video simultaneous with the release of the single you don’t have to take my word for it but you can listen for yourself.

So I’ll have to keep an eye out for the next Maged album to see how it stacks up. While I don’t consider singles for my top 5 end-of-year list, if this single is any indication of how the album will be my take would be so far, so very good.

Ehrlich brings book tour to Salisbury

It was an event which was supposed to occur on a Monday night back in January in a completely different venue, but as has been the case before with Bob Ehrlich we all had to wait until the weather thawed before Wicomico County Republicans could hear from him.

As part of what he billed as a 16-state tour for his third and newest book, Turning Point: Picking Up the Pieces After Eight Years of Failed Progressive Policies, the former governor made brief remarks then commenced to signing copies for a crowd of close to fifty people.

Calling the book an “eight-count indictment of the Obama administration,” Bob remarked that some of his favorite stories, which come from a volume that’s a compilation of his writings over the last several years from a number of sources (with a couple of original, previously unpublished portions added in) were the open letter he wrote to his son about marijuana laws and his interactions with some of the offenders. Two common elements he found among those who had been caught and imprisoned for drugs were the lack of a father figure at home and that they got their start with marijuana. However, Bob was careful to note that not everyone who used marijuana was a criminal.

A second favorite was the chapter on political correctness that he wrote to be humorous, but are instead being reflected in today’s headlines. He implored the college students in attendance not to placate those who get overly worked up about “safe spaces” on campus.

As you may expect, Bob showed a passion and zeal about the subject matter which should make these chapters great reading. (My plan is to eventually review the book once I get a chance to sit and digest it all.)

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There were a lot of books being signed and plenty of people had their chance to pose for a photo with Bob. I’m going to borrow Dave Snyder’s picture here, which I got from social media – the snapshot I got of Bob signing came out too blurry.

Those in attendance also got to meet one of the Republican candidates running for Senate, a man who once worked for Bob Ehrlich. Chrys Kefalas was in the area today on what he described as a “listening tour” of local manufacturers, although he was also at Fratelli’s for lunch. (I was invited to that event but couldn’t attend.)

My chat with Kefalas was rather brief, as he was obviously concentrating on circulating around, but in conversations I had with his campaign staff I gained a little perspective on his ideas and shared some of my own. To me, Chrys’s job if he wins is to concentrate on making conditions better for the country as a whole: more beneficial trade pacts, a decrease in taxation and regulation on a federal level, and working to leave government as the least of our worries. It would then be incumbent upon the Hogan administration to make Maryland more competitive against its neighbors and other states because the federal government would simply create the best possible conditions for any American company to succeed.

Once Ehrlich left, the party began to break up. But if I may make one observation regarding a summerlike evening in the midst of an early spring: walking out of Roadie Joe’s they had a musician outside. I turned the corner and could faintly hear something down at Brew River only to arrive at the parking lot where I had parked and hear some very good band over at Headquarters Live. I was standing at my car literally listening to three different venues, all opened up.

Downtown Salisbury’s not just alive on 3rd Friday anymore, folks. And speaking of music, it gives me a good segue into letting you know monoblogue music will be back tomorrow after its winter hiatus. It’s someone you’ve heard from before with something new.

Both parties are fractured, but on energy, each is unified

Commentary by Marita Noon

There is no shortage of news stories touting the splits within each party.

The Democrat divide is, as NBC News sees it, between dreamers and doers—with the International Business Times (IBT) calling it: “a civil war over the party’s ideological future.” The Boston Globe declares that the “party fissures” represent “a national party torn between Clinton’s promised steady hand and Sanders’ more progressive goals.”

The Republican reality is, according to IBT, a battle between moderates and conservatives. The party is being “shattered” by the fighting between the establishment and the outsiders. The New Yorker said the days following the Detroit debate have “been the week of open civil war within the Republican Party.” Former standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, laid the foundation for a floor fight at the party’s Cleveland convention. Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal, states: “The top of the party and the bottom have split.” She describes the party’s front runner this way: “He is a divider of the Republican Party and yet an enlarger of the tent.”

Candidates from both sides of the aisle claim to be unifiers. But when it comes to energy issues, each party is already unified—though each is totally different.

Generally speaking, the Democrats want more government involvement—more government-led investment and federal regulation. In contrast, Republicans want the free market—consumer choice—not government to determine the winners and losers.

The next president will have a significant impact on how America produces, uses, and distributes energy.

In response to frequent questions from talk show hosts regarding the candidates’ energy plans, now that the field has winnowed, I set out to write a review. However, my research revealed that a candidate-by-candidate analysis would be repetitive. Instead, I’ll lay out the distinctive direction each party would drive energy policy and highlight the minor differences within the candidates.

First, one must look at climate change, as, despite repeated failed predictions, it has been the driver of energy policy for the past decade.

The Democrat candidates believe that climate change is a crisis caused by the use of fossil fuels. Therefore, both Senator Bernie Sanders and Secretary Hillary Clinton opposed the Keystone pipeline and lifting the oil export ban. Each supports restricting drilling on federal lands and federal hydraulic fracturing regulations to supersede the states’ policies. At Sunday’s CNN Debate, both opposed fracking—though Sanders was more direct about it. Sanders and Clinton favor increased Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to encourage the use of renewable energy sources.

They would continue the policies, such as the Clean Power Plan, advocated by President Obama—with Sanders being more progressive than Clinton. He wants to institute a tax on carbon emissions, ban all drilling on federal lands, and has sponsored the “keep it in the ground” bill. She would “phase out” hydraulic fracturing on public lands, end tax credits for fossil fuels and increase government fees and royalties. Both support tax credits for renewable energy.

In the transition away from fossil fuel use, Clinton would utilize nuclear power, while Sanders would put a moratorium on nuclear plant license renewals. She supports hydropower.

Over all, the Democrats approach can be summed up as anti-conventional fuels—resulting in higher costs for consumers.

USNews states: “Clinton and Sanders also have expressed frustration with their political colleagues who deny the link between fossil fuel combustion and climate change.”

The four remaining Republican candidates have slightly differing views on climate change—though, unlike their “political colleagues,” none bases his energy policies exclusively on it.

Donald Trump is the biggest opponent of climate change having called the man-made crisis view a “hoax” and tweeting that the Chinese started the global warming ruse “in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” In his book, Crippled America, Trump opens his chapter on energy with a tirade on climate change in which, talking about historic “violent climate changes” and “ice ages,” he acknowledges that the climate does change, but concludes: “I just don’t happen to believe they are man-made.”

Senator Ted Cruz is next. He’s stated: “If you’re a big-government politician, if you want more power, climate change is the perfect pseudo-scientific theory … because it can never, ever, ever be disproven.” He, too, supports the view that global warming is a natural phenomenon rather than man-made.

Senator Marco Rubio believes the climate is changing. He’s said: “The climate’s always changing—that’s not the fundamental question. The fundamental question is whether man-made activity is what’s contributing most to it. I know people said there’s a significant scientific consensus on that issue, but I’ve actually seen reasonable debate on that principle.” He’s added: “And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except it will destroy our economy.”

Governor John Kasich’s views cut “against the grain in the Republican Party” in that he believes climate change is a problem—though he doesn’t support curbing the use of fossil fuels. His state, Ohio, is rich with coal, oil, and natural gas and he believes low-cost reliable energy is “the backbone of America’s economy.” The Hill quotes him as saying: “I believe there is something to [climate change], but to be unilaterally doing everything here while China and India are belching and putting us in a noncompetitive position isn’t good.”

Regardless of their specific views, none of the Republican candidates sees climate change as an “existential crisis,” as Clinton called it on Kimmel Live—and their energy policies reflect that.

All four agree the Keystone pipeline should be built, are critical of the EPA’s aggressive regulations (instead, they support the regulation of energy production at the state and local level), and want to spur economic growth by increasing American energy production and reducing our reliance on foreign sources.

Though Kasich signed legislation freezing Ohio’s law requiring increasing use of renewables, Kasich is the most supportive of them saying: “I believe in wind and solar, there are big subsidies on it but that’s okay.”  He also acknowledged that mandating 20-25 percent renewables by a set date is “impossible” and will “throw people out of work.” Cruz and Rubio have voted against production tax credits for wind and solar and against setting a national renewable energy standard. In Iowa, Cruz stood up to the ethanol lobby (he’s repeatedly called for an end to the ethanol mandate), while Trump pandered to it. Rubio and Kasich would allow the ethanol mandate to sunset. In his book, Trump states that the big push to develop “so-called green energy” is “another big mistake” that is “being driven by the wrong motivation.” He calls renewables: “an expensive way of making the tree huggers feel good about themselves.” In contrast, he’s promised to “revive Kentucky’s coal industry.”

Overall, the Republicans views can be summed up as embracing the positive potential of America’s energy abundance—resulting in lower energy costs.

If you believe that effective, efficient, economic energy is the lifeblood of the American economy, you know how to vote in November. The contrast is obvious.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc., and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column. Follow her @EnergyRabbit.

Radio days volume 20

I really had to blow a lot of dust off this series – its last installment was in July of 2013 – but I will be on the internet radio tomorrow morning at 11:00 thanks to radio hostess (and new monoblogue contributor) Marita Noon. She asked me to come on this week’s installment of her “America’s Voice for Energy” program to discuss a post I did last year.

It came about because she was doing a piece on where the candidates stood on energy (which will be her debut post here tomorrow morning) and I noted to her via social media that I had done quite a bit of research last summer on that very topic as part of my “Dossier” series. She wanted to discuss that piece and other thoughts I had on the subject, thus early this morning we recorded my segment of her show, which will be the opening segment. Thirteen minutes may seem like a long time to fill on the radio, but we were rolling so well I almost didn’t get to promote my site.

Yet there are some other things which were sadly left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. Something I would have liked to fill her audience in on further but didn’t have the time to this morning was the unique situation we have here in Maryland with regard to energy. I did get to discuss a little bit about the proposed offshore wind that Martin O’Malley was trying to push, but I wanted to mention that there are hundreds of other jobs at stake in Maryland’s energy industry. (I actually did a little looking up last night because I was curious.)

According to the most recent state report available (2013) there are 401 coal mining workers in the state of Maryland, all based out of Allegany and Garrett counties in Maryland’s western panhandle. No, we’re not West Virginia or Kentucky by any stretch of the imagination but the Obama administration’s “war on coal” isn’t going to help their employment situation, particularly since these coal fields lie close to shale deposits ripe for fracking – unfortunately, a short-sighted General Assembly and Hogan administration put that resource development on hold until 2017.

The other fascinating thing I didn’t get to was the fact that cities up and down the coast are being intimidated into opposing seismic exploration of the ocean floor for the purposes of oil and gas exploration – but had no objection when they went out and did the same thing to map the ocean floor for siting wind turbines. Apparently that was a noble enough cause to kill a few fish over. Honestly, I think the opponents are very aware what is really out there and that’s billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, all within easy reach of our shoreline and extractable at a cost that would blow the renewables out of the water. (Yes, the pun was intended.)

So take a listen, either live as it happens or later on when it becomes available as a podcast. I believe there are three other guests on the show, so I’ll be curious to see what they have to say as well when I catch the podcast (I’ll be at work when it’s on live.)

Let’s just hope that the long radio slump is over. Thanks to Marita for having me on as a guest, albeit a little reluctantly since I have been under the weather the last few days. But I managed to avoid a Hillary-style coughing jag and pushed through.