Odds and ends number 131

Since I'm using the concept from monoblogue, I'm keeping the numbering system, too. Here are thinner slices of bloggy goodness.

Turns out I’m doing Oxford, Maryland for the second month in a row - this is at the Tred Avon Yacht Club where we watch fireworks as a family. Took this photo back in 2016, but it looks the same.

As always I have the interesting stuff that stuck around in my inbox and bookmarks. One item on my initial list, however, is getting promoted to a full future piece. Here are the best of the rest.

A backwater town that moved up

We don’t really consider the 23rd Amendment too often, but since 1964 it’s provided three almost guaranteed electoral votes to the Democrats. It’s the amendment that allowed Washington, D.C. to vote in Presidential elections for the first time.

As writer Jakob Fay notes, quoting James Madison:

(T)he Framers intentionally eschewed a governor or state legislature. Why? James Madison explains in Federalist 43:

“Without [complete authority at the seat of government],” he wrote, “not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy. This consideration,” he continued, “has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of public improvements at the stationary residence of the government would be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single State, and would create so many obstacles to a removal of the government, as still further to abridge its necessary independence.”

Fay also adds the part about the District of Columbia’s license plates stating “with a hint of petulance” that they are taxed without representation. But I think there’s a simple solution: the Constitution states the District can be no larger than ten miles square but dictates no minimum size. Simply retrocede the residential areas to the state of Maryland and create a District that includes the Capitol, Mall, assorted other monuments and public buildings, and the White House. Problem solved, since adding that much population to Maryland guarantees the erstwhile District a Congressman of their own. It would also make it 268 to win as we lose the District’s three electoral votes, which is why it will likely never happen.

(Although - maybe this is an idea for a Donald Trump executive order.)

Another loss for The First State

I don’t often go to Truth Social, but this was worth sharing based on an article I did a few weeks back.

Yet another business has left Delaware, as Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes explains: “We’re thrilled to reincorporate our Company in Florida. With its pro-business orientation and respect for the rule of law, Florida is a great place for Trump Media to officially call home.”

Perhaps Delaware won’t miss them, but it reiterates the idea that Delaware is losing its reputation as a business-friendly state.

Losing even more ground

And if that wasn’t enough, CRI’s Charlie Copeland makes another comparison:

For decades, Delaware enjoyed a reputation as a high-performing state -economically sound, educationally competitive, and relatively stable. In contrast, Mississippi was often portrayed as lagging behind the rest of the country on nearly every metric. However, recent data tells a different story: Mississippi is making notable gains, while Delaware is losing ground. The economic and educational gap between the two has narrowed or reversed.

While Mississippi hasn’t caught up to our per-capita income yet, they’ve narrowed the gap considerably based on a strategy of lowering taxes for The Hospitality State, which is living up to its nickname in this case.

And if that wasn’t enough, even the schools in the benighted Deep South state have surged to a top rating in the country (1st in 4th grade math and reading, and 1st in 8th grade math and 4th in 8th grade reading) while Delaware has plunged to bottom-10 scores in all four categories.

Yet our legislature seems to want to double down on failure. Figure that one out.

Under the microscope

I’ve come to appreciate Just the News as a site to find items that aren’t really covered by the mainstream but are of importance. One recent example is the declassification of a “Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” (You have to remember that under the regime of President Autopen, even traditional Catholics were viewed as a threat.) Pay particular attention to Pillar Four.

For example, the article by John Solomon and Steven Richards noted:

The long-term goals of the strategy also identify areas important to combating domestic extremism that clearly overlap with key Democratic Party priorities, including calls for increased gun control measures, centering “hate crimes” in law enforcement and “increasing faith in democracy and government.”

The memo directed the Biden Domestic Policy Council to “drive…executive and legislative action” to ban assault weapons, ban high-capacity magazines, rein in “ghost guns,” and encourage states to adopt red-flag laws, in order to eliminate the “means for perpetrating acts of domestic terrorism.”

That was part of Pillar Four. See, I told you to pay attention there.

This was another step in rebuilding trust in our government, and it was an important one.

Rogue agents

Unfortunately we have a long way to go in trusting the government when a vast majority of bureaucrats state they would disobey a lawful order from President Trump that they don’t agree with. Again, from Just the News and writer Amanda Head:

The Napolitan Institute survey conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen and released last week found that just 16% of government managers who voted for Kamala Harris last November would follow a legal order from Trump if they disagreed with it.

A staggering 76% would not. But that’s not the only tidbit worth reading in this piece, as it goes into employees admitting they’re directly ignoring Trump directives in abolishing DEI, disregarding so-called climate change, and not asking pertinent citizenship questions.

As the Institute concludes:

This report shows that the underlying premise of the Administrative State is false. Rather than thoughtful and non-partisan experts carefully deliberating over policy details in a neutral manner, the leadership of the Administrative State is actively engaged in hyper-partisan activity.

When compared to a survey conducted before President Trump took office, the results show that there has been no softening of partisan attitudes and polarization. This suggests that there is likely to be an ongoing battle within the federal bureaucracy throughout President Trump’s second term in office.

Seems to me the whole lot should be fired. Now I’ll grant that there is some small percentage of conservatives who would have done the same for a Democrat administration, but their rebellion would have been ineffective in light of the crushing majority of statist government workers overall. I’m sure they would have been called out and exposed in the media.

Putting an end to Big Wind

As you likely know if you’ve read my site for a sufficient length of time, there has been a longstanding debate about putting massive wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland and running the cable from those turbines to a point along the Delaware coastline.

Now weighing in are the state representatives from the affected area:

In a joint effort to keep pressure on to halt the development of offshore wind energy off Maryland’s Coast, Senator Mary Beth Carozza (District 38) and Delegate Wayne Hartman (District 38C) sent a letter on Friday urging U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to file motions pertaining to the Town of Ocean City’s lawsuit to bring the Maryland Offshore Wind (Marwin) project into compliance with President Trump’s executive order.

“Our constituents in Ocean City and other coastal communities along the Atlantic were grateful for this order; however, it did not change the status of Maryland’s Marwin project, which was hurriedly approved in the final months of 2024,” Senator Carozza and Delegate Hartman wrote. “We firmly believe that you have the ability via the Ocean City-Worcester County, MD lawsuit to send this project back to BOEM to bring the project into compliance with the President’s executive order. By filing motions and proposal orders to the court that agree with the allegations and deficiencies presented in this lawsuit and requesting the court to refer the permit issuance back to BOEM, it would trigger required compliance with the President’s executive order and effectively halt the project.”

Both Senator Carozza and Delegate Hartman live in the Ocean City area, although their districts extend westward into portions of Somerset and Wicomico counties. It’s a sure bet they’re getting an earful from their neighbors who don’t want those expensive eyesores. Moreover, their point about rapid approval is a valid one, as it appears the previous administration was rushing this out the door knowing that current Maryland governor Wes Moore is also behind the boondoggle, which could be trumped (no pun intended) if it is included in the President’s Executive Order putting a halt to new turbine construction - a case that’s already in federal court.

Over the years, we’ve found out that wind power - while tantalizingly a “free” resource for the taking - has issues with reliability and the expense of getting the electricity from the point of collection out in rural America or in the ocean to the point of need. We can do so much better with reliable, domestically supplied resources.

And always remember - there’s a reason rural America abandoned wind power once the electrical power lines showed up back in the 1930s.

That’s enough for now. We’ll see what I come up with next month.

Until my next edition of odds and ends, you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.