Odds and ends number 127
Since I'm using the concept from monoblogue, I'm keeping the numbering system, too. Here are thinner slices of bloggy goodness.
A new year, a new odds and ends. As always, I have the interesting stuff that stuck around in my inbox and bookmarks.
One lump or two?
There’s an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs pours out two cups of tea then asks his hapless victim whether he wants one lump or two, only to give him a beating.
Over the next couple months we will have to endure something of a beating as Congress considers a reconciliation bill, or two depending on who you talk to. Those who want one “big, beautiful bill” like President Trump think it will be easier to pass, but others (like House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris) support a second bill carved out to deal with funding for border security and enforcement of deportation laws. “The president needs some funds now and that’s the quickest way to do it, and that’s the way, again, a group of us think we should do that,” Harris stated. “Saving the large, big, beautiful bill till the summer because it will take time to iron out.”
However, those like Newt Gingrich argue the Trump agenda needs to pass quickly, by late spring, because these sort of bills take about 18 months to achieve full effect.
When President Reagan got his three-year tax cuts through the Congress in the summer of 1981, he allowed it to be written so the tax cuts would only kick in in 1983. The economic result was no real stimulus in 1982. The political result was the House Republicans lost 26 seats in the 1982 off-year election.
Similarly, in 2017, the congressional leaders convinced newly-elected President Trump that they could not get to the tax cuts until they abolished Obamacare. They spent months focusing on Obamacare – and failed to repeal it. The lost months meant that the Trump tax cuts only passed in December 2017. The result was little economic impact in 2018. House Republicans lost 40 seats that year.
I would like to see this all over and done with as quickly as possible. Trump is going to have one of the shortest honeymoons on record if you believe the media. So maybe one big, beautiful bill is the way to go since they seem to have found some money for immigration enforcement.
Removing the Department of Education
It’s something that I’ve talked about doing for years, but the impetus goes all the way back to Ronald Reagan. One of the late Jimmy Carter’s legacies of failure was the creation of a separate Department of Education, split off from what used to be known as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
At the Capital Research Center, their Senior Fellow Kali Fontanilla came up with a great four-part series talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of getting rid of the DoE. I don’t worry about the bad or the ugly because there should have never been a federal DoE, which means I only consider the good.
The likely compromise according to Fontanilla, though, may be a defunding of certain parts of the Department. It would be difficult to untangle ourselves from Pell Grants, for example, and student loans would be another thorny issue that could wander over to the Treasury Department.
But we certainly fret a lot over an agency that provides less than 10% of the budget for most school districts yet shackles them with excessive rules and regulations. Losing the Department of Education would help untie the Gordian Knot of mediocrity schools are tied down with.
Fighting back against Big Wind
Back in December, the Sussex County Council voted 4-1 to deny a conditional use permit to US Wind, leaving the company huffing and puffing that they will see the county in court. (Worth noting: this was the “old” County Council and the lone vote in favor of the company was one of three who was leaving. It’s likely the vote if taken today under the new Council would remain 4-1 though.)
The Caesar Rodney Institute recently put out a press release that outlined other problems with the wind farm worth passing along:
The US Wind project is only 4% of the total offshore wind goal, so it will have no measurable impact on global warming and sea level rise.
The planned transmission line investment is entirely related to connecting project power to the regional grid and does not impact local grid reliability.
An economic model calculates a $9 per year reduction in residential electric prices in the second decade of the project. However, the model has an error bar of +/- $22 per year, so the stated savings have no statistical significance.
The proposed grants total about $4 million annually for twenty years in current dollars. That is completely wiped out by just a 3% loss in tourism in one year.
That third point is the most important to me, because I’ve found through experience that for projects like this that fit in with an agenda, government oversells benefits and underplays liabilities. And what happens to the project if the Trump administration pulls the plug on wind project subsidies?
Although the state doesn’t have a great track record of listening to us, I doubt the taxpayers of Delaware want to take up that slack.
Should there be a Biden Square?
CRI also weighed in on the prospect of creating a Biden Square in Wilmington, an idea floated by new mayor (and former Delaware governor) John Carney, who told a Philadelphia newspaper:
The du Ponts and [their early CFO John] Raskob made it Rodney Square. I'd like to create a Joe Biden-centered square. I can't think of a better way to honor the first Delawarean to be president of the U.S., who has served our country for 50 years.
There are already four places in Delaware named for Joe Biden. If Carney wants a Biden Square, the first move he needs to make is to restore the statue of Caesar Rodney that was removed in the summer of 2020. Place that statue back in Rodney Square where that belongs, then put Biden Square in a different location. Might I suggest 1706 East 12th Street?
The ones who get the flak
It’s an old saying that you know you’re over the target when you catch the most flak. With that in mind, who is the most important to get confirmed as Cabinet picks by the Trump administration? Well, let’s allow Indivisible to tell us:
While Trump has nominated 54 individuals, we’re zeroing in on four nominees whose appointments would have catastrophic consequences. These aren’t just bad picks -- they’re calculated moves to advance a MAGA agenda of extremism, disinformation, and dismantling democracy:
Kash Patel, FBI Director -- A Trump loyalist with a history of undermining justice. Patel’s confirmation would politicize the FBI and weaponize it against political opponents.
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense -- A right-wing propagandist with no qualifications. His confirmation would endanger national security and push divisive ideological agendas.*
Russell Vought, OMB Director -- The architect of Project 2025, designed to dismantle federal programs and concentrate power. His confirmation would supercharge MAGA authoritarianism.
RFK Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services -- A notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist whose nomination would threaten public health and safety.
Looks like three good Cabinet members and secretaries to me, although I’m more inclined to agree with the commie libs about RFK, Jr. - not for his stand against mandatory vaccination but more for his pro-abortion stance and for being an environmentalist wacko. I’m sure if I wanted to look back in my Indivisible archives, I’ll bet I can find where they were singing his praises for his well left-of-center philosophy.
These are the kind of votes where I will be watching my Senators, particularly the one who likes to play up her bipartisanship, as the rubber hits the road. A new broom is sweeping clean, so don’t end up in the gutter.
One less hockey arena
It was just dumb luck that I have news that follows the photo I used a few weeks back for TER, but here you go.
On Thursday, the Delaware State Fair board announced that they were permanently closing the Centre Ice Arena where that hockey photo was taken, citing issues with required maintenance and equipment that would cost too much to repair. Unfortunately, the Salisbury University college club hockey squad, youth hockey teams, and skating clubs that the Delaware Thunder pro hockey team was broomed for (so the kids had more time to play and practice) will have to either travel north to the Newark area or across the state line to Easton, Maryland - in either case having to compete for time and space with the other entities using those rinks.
The funny but sad thing is that so many people want the state to step in despite the fact the State Fair is its own entity, and it’s not like the state of Delaware is swimming in funding anyway. There is the prospect of the city of Dover building its own center, but we’re not holding our breath.
Therefore, it looks like pro hockey is dead in Delaware. Maybe it’s something the Wicomico Civic Center can look into?
Poaching from TikTok
If I have ever been on TikTok, it was an accident. I’m not a big short-form video fan to begin with, and once I found out just how infested it was with Chinese spyware then it was a no-go for me.
But the potential ban on TikTok - which may now be in effect since I write these a few days in advance** - means others are angling for the business, including Substack. This comes from a Substack called The Talentless Writer:
The upshot is that Substack is promoting a “$25,000 TikTok Liberation Prize.” And it got him (and I) to thinking - what about the rest of us? What do we get out of it but the cheapening of our collective reputations?
George notes:
I've watched writers stop writing because their short-form content gets more engagement. Seen photographers add more filters until reality tests better with focus groups. Heard musicians slice their symphonies into dopamine-friendly chunks because algorithms can't monetize patience.
That's what these platforms do. They don't just kill creativity. They erase your memory of what it felt like to create without permission.
Artists forget how to make art that doesn't beg for validation. Writers lose the ability to string words together without checking if they're trending. Musicians can't hear music over the sound of their analytics.
We're not just losing art. We're losing the memory of what it meant to be human. To create because your soul would burst if you didn't. To tell stories because stories are how we survive, not because they tested well with the algorithm.
Guess what? I just write what I feel like.
My sister website to this is called The Knothole, and it feeds my passions about my (adopted) hometown ball team, my Detroit Tigers, and baseball history in general. It has barely a dozen subscribers, but I don’t care because it’s my outlet.
I write this one for much the same purpose in the political and occasionally religious realm although it has many more subscribers. Even so, I have never consulted an SEO guide or worried about a damn algorithm. And I never will.
Until my next edition of odds and ends, you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.
*Pete Hegseth made it by the skin of his teeth last night, 51-50. Three Republicans and all the Democrats voted against him, but JD Vance said yes and that’s all that counts. By the way, that’s one strike against my new “bipartisan” Senator LBR.
**President Trump gave Tik-Tok a 90 day reprieve, so the can has been kicked down the road.
Speaking of Trump, the Wednesday post will be thoughts on his first week back in office. I thought about doing it for last week, but decided a week would be a better barometer (and it’s been crazy here anyway.)