Here are my observations on some of the news of the day.
PERHAPS YOU’VE NOTICED that I have expressed my displeasure with a number of Republicans over the past couple months, including Senators McCain, Collins and Murkowski. While my slogan above includes “keeping progressives honest,” that goes for conservatives, too. I am indignant with members of Congress who are squandering their opportunity to get behind President Trump’s agenda. Proposing legislation (Sen. Graham) to prevent their own president from making recess appointments is disgraceful.
It’s too bad they weren’t on hand to hear the president’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, echo the credo of the Marine Corps – God, Country and Corps – when he spelled out to about 200 White House staffers that he expected them to put “country first, the president second, and themselves last.”
In my view, too many Republicans, in their own way, are willing participants in the Trump resistance movement, impeding his effort to make America great again.
LARRY KUDLOW GOT IT RIGHT appearing on New York AM 970 on Sunday. While ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the record stock market gains, Kudlow, a regular on CNBC, credited President Trump for the gains and economic growth. “I do think there’s a Trump factor here. He has made good on his promise to roll back hundreds of regulations: energy, finance, labor laws, you name it. That’s a huge cost savings for businesses, particularly the smaller businesses. And that has instilled a lot of confidence.”
President Trump has reason to be happy. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
TRUMP ACCOMPLISHMENTS RECOGNIZED – The Atlantic magazine’s headline, “Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears,” got my attention, and so too the editorial board of Investor’s Business Daily, which duly noted the piece on its editorial page with the headline, “Someone Just Noticed That Trump Is Getting Staff Done.”
“There is so much attention paid to the chaos in the executive branch that it’s easy to come to believe that Trump is getting nothing whatsoever accomplished,” writes David Graham in The Atlantic piece, “Even for people who don’t support the president’s agenda – especially for them, in fact – it is useful to step back occasionally and take stock of what his presidency is doing to work toward its goals.”
Graham’s article is by no means a puff piece, but it is fairer than much we have seen in the media in the president’s first six months. Click here to read the entire piece.
WHO NEEDS THE PARIS ACCORD? Several U.S. mayors, at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, unanimously adopted a resolution setting a target of 100 percent clean power by 2035. States, too, are making unbelievable pledges. Hawaii plans to go entirely renewable by 2045. California intends to get half of its electricity from renewables by 2025.
It sounds good, but Charles McConnell, executive director of the Energy and Environmental Institute at Rice University, reveals that “there’s no method to designate electrons on the grid as originating from one source or another. Power generated by fossil fuels and wind turbines travels together over poles and underground wires before reaching cities, homes and businesses. No customer can use power from wind and solar farms exclusively.”
McConnell cites that “Texas generates more wind and solar power than any other state. Yet more than 71 percent of its Electric Reliability Council’s total electricity still comes from coal and natural gas.”
The mayor of Denton, Texas is shooting for 70 percent renewable, and calls a target of 100 percent unrealistic. “You don’t know exactly when the sun is going to shine or when the wind is going to blow,” he said.
“Wind and solar generators ride free into the grid on the back of fossil generators that have installed and paid for the infrastructure on which all Americans depend,” writes McConnell, “The rise in renewable generation is made possible by fossil fuels, not despite them.”
McConnell makes the point that while we celebrate the growth of renewables, we shouldn’t swallow the false claims made by cities and states stating that they are fossil-free.
