Ohio energy legislation: northern Ohio impact

image credit: 123rf

Energy consumers in Northern Ohio will probably see lower monthly bills, but environmentalists insisting on renewables will not be happy. The Institute for Energy Research reports at the Canada Free Press:

Ohio’s New Energy Bill

Lawmakers in Ohio have chosen to rescue two existing nuclear plants and two existing coal plants in lieu of mandates on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and as a result, lower electricity prices are expected for electricity consumers. Renewable energy will have to enter the market on its own merits once renewable energy reaches 8.5 percent of electricity generated in the state—up from about 3 percent today—and once federal subsidies expire. Residential charges will be lowered by over $2.00 per month by the legislative change and grid reliability is expected to be enhanced. The Ohio bill is contrary to what most states are doing and it will be an interesting exercise to contrast future electricity prices here and in surrounding states that are continuing their renewable mandates and forcing new capital expenditures because of mandates and subsidies.

The new law in Ohio subsidizes two nuclear power plants. Residential customers will pay an 85-cent charge on their monthly bills and large industrial customers will pay up to $2,400. The surcharge will produce about $170 million a year; $150 million of that will be used to subsidize the two nuclear power plants‚Äî908 megawatt Davis-Besse, outside of Toledo, and 1,268 megawatt Perry, northeast of Cleveland, which will close within two years without the subsidy. The remaining $20 million will be divided between six existing solar projects in rural areas of the state. The subsidies are approved through 2026 and would total about $1 billion. The charge will start January 2021. Nuclear power accounts for 15 percent of the state’s energy generation and generates 85 percent of its carbon-free energy.

Read the rest here.

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Google and the Whistleblower

American Thinker contributor Peter Barry Chowka has the update (“Whistleblower: American Thinkerwas on Google’s blacklist of news sites”):

Buried deep in the extensive trove of internal documents documenting Google’s onerous censorship policies is this gem: American Thinker was on the dominant tech giant’s list of “blacklisted” news websites.

The source of the leak is identified as “Google Insider Zachary Vorhies.” On August 14, Vorhies outed himself as the leaker in a video posted at Project Veritas, which published the documents. Among the hundreds of documents is one identified as a news “blacklist” -- titled “Manual list of sites excluded from appearing as Google Now stories.” Sure enough, among the list of 400 or so sites (mostly from the conservative right but some on the left) -- under the subhead “sites with high user block rate” -- is americanthinker.com.

. . .

Vorhies had been providing Project Veritas with documents he downloaded as a Google engineer for more than a year. He decided to go public this week “after he says Google allegedly called the police to perform a ‘wellness check’ on him.” The story, including a 20-minute long video of Vorhies, is a compelling one and is documented in the August 14 release from Project Veritas.

According to Vorhies:

I gave the documents to Project Veritas, I had been collecting the documents for over a year. And the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company and I realized that there were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States.

Hyperbole? I don’t think so. More at American Thinker here. The list of blacklisted blogs is here. Many of my favorite bookmarked blogs are on the list. The report with video at Project Veritas is here. Google’s attempts to intimidate the whistleblower are chilling.

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74 years ago today

USS Missouri (pat dooley photography)

On this day 74 years ago, Japan surrendered to the United States, ending World War II. A few weeks later, a formal surrender ceremony took place on the USS Missouri battleship, in Tokyo Bay. From our visit to the USS Missouri, now a museum at Pearl Harbor:

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Leaving The Democrats

cartoon credit:  granitegrok.com

Anthony Keith contributed a piece entitled “Leaving The Democrats” at American Thinker. He concludes:

I never went to college, I am totally self-taught.  I am a doer of many trades and master of none.  I have had a great life in the greatest country on earth.  All along the way, the Democrats have stepped on me, taxed me more, lied to me, called me names, and demanded I give up my rights.  Democrats were the ones pushing environmental causes at the expense of humans and government takeover of healthcare.  They have mismanaged everything they get their hands on, and then blame others for their own deeds.  I watch them lie and cheat and twist words.  

Democrats have alienated their own base to the point they have to argue for foreigners to come into this country illegally in order to vote for Democrats, mainly by calling those of us opposed to this "racist."

In all fairness, the weak Republicans in our government have hardly stood in their way.  But that is another day, another rant.

I am now called racist, homophobic, misogynist, and Islamaphobic.  A gun-toting, Bible-believing bitter clinger.  A deplorable.  A white nationalist.  Nazi. I can’t remember all of my Democrat party subtitles.

But I am middle class. I have been given nothing by our government and have given too much to it.  And it always wants more, telling me I have to pay my fair share.  It is a sad state when you get to a point in life of maximum dollars earned that it is taken away by higher tax brackets and the loss of deductions.

I will never vote for anyone advocating for more government control.  Or for anyone who is trying to denigrate me by name-calling or label-making.  The reason is my life.

The entire column is here, and it is particularly useful since it traces his family’s background as “Roosevelt Democrats” and their underlying values.

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Bernie's idea of a Grand Slam

How socialism works (via Power Line)

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Medicare is going broke

image credit: nextavenue.org

Betsy McCaughey has been one of the most informed critics of healthcare policy ever since Obamacare reared its ugly head. Her latest column at American Spectator sounds the alarm over Medicare Part A and the Democrat candidates’ promises of Medicare For All (titled "Democrats To Seniors: Drop Dead”):

Medicare is going broke,
and the Dems’ presidential candidates couldn’t care less

Baby boomers beware. If you’re in your 50s or 60s and you’re counting on Medicare to pay your future hospital bills, you’re in for a shock. Medicare Part A — the fund that pays hospitals and nursing homes — is running out of money. A mere seven years from now, it will no longer have enough to pay your providers’ bills in full. 

The Medicare Trustees sounded the alarm in June, urging Congress to act “as soon as possible” to protect people “already dependent” on the program.

Good advice, but don’t expect most politicians to take it. The Democrats running for president are in fantasy land, proposing to expand Medicare to millions of younger people or even to the entire population through “Medicare for All.” Never mind Medicare’s insolvency. That’s like a family that can’t pay its mortgage out shopping for a mega-mansion.

. . .

Currently, Trump is using his only option. He’s reducing benefit costs. Any other remedy would require Congress’ cooperation, which is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other backers of Medicare for All are making big promises with no way to pay. 

Read the rest here.

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Protect your rights against those claiming a crisis

Our First Amendment rights are at risk because of corruption in Big Tech, and our Second Amendment rights are at risk because progressives are using crises and tragedy to go for the guns. Prof. William Jacobson puts both risks in perspective at Legal Insurrection:

Every time I think the media-Democrat frenzy could not get any more frenzied, it gets more frenzied.

How seamlessly they have transitioned from almost three years of Russia-collusion-mania to the current frenzy claiming that anyone and everyone who supports Donald Trump is a white supremacist.

Trump supporters now, according the narrative, are both Putin-puppet traitors AND Hitler-wannabees. It’s all so dishonest by design; the leaders of this charge don’t actually believe it, they cynically manipulate their media and social media power to drive their supporters, many of whom do believe it, into hating political opponents as an ideology. MSNBC is ground zero for this manipulative denigration of half the population.

If it only were dishonest, it would be bad enough. But it’s worse because it now has become a hunt to find heretics for public shaming. This is not new, but now it is legitimized as an anti-Trump strategy by the Resistance. Congressman Joaquin Castro naming names in his community, including retirees and homemakers, is a symptom of a culture of total political war on the left. Other symptoms include the attempt to deplatform non-liberal voices from the internet and airwaves, led by well-funded groups like Media Matters.

More here. And the Action Alert from my previous blog on proposed red flag legislation is here.

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