1) “Crazy” Carries The Day In Virginia Legislature
You’ve probably heard the news of the absurd policy in 16 public schools in Northern Virginia to NOT notify the families when their kids win a national merit recognition award.
Apparently winning a national merit prize is not to be applauded, but kept top secret because the process is racist, or would make the winners feel superior to the other kids, or some such egalitarian tripe and nonsense.
Virginia parents and students are rightly enraged by the arrogance of the school administrators who unilaterally decided not to alert the families with the good news that their children had achieved a high level of academic excellence.
Now here’s the part where the story gets so much more infuriating. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin took immediate steps to rectify this outrageous practice and recommended a bill to the State Senate requiring schools to immediately notify the parents and kids of national merit awards.
The Virginia Senate Democratic majority blocked the bill from going forward via a straight party-line committee vote!!
We had hoped that this policy in the Virginia schools was simply the product of some nutcase woke educators. No, the nutcase brigades have now taken over complete control of the Democratic caucus Caucus in the VA state Senate.
This is both pitiful and scary.
Oh, and by the way: a large percentage of the kids who win these awards in Virginia are Asian or of Asian descent. Wait, aren’t they “people of color?”
2) Will West Virginia Become The 10th No Income Tax State?
Now for some good news from the states: Add Jim Justice to the list of exceptional Republican governors - the real talent pool of the GOP.
On Monday Justice released a plan to reduce the state income tax rate by 50% from 6.5% to 3.25%.
“My goal is to eliminate the state income tax altogether and get to a rate of zero,” the Governor tells us. Thanks to the gas and coal boom in West Virginia, the state has a hefty surplus. The Mountaineer State is rich with natural resources - from timber to shale gas - but what it lacks is… people. In the last two years though West Virginia has become a net out migration state.
In recent years, West Virginia has also adopted a right-to-work law and enacted a universal education savings account bill giving parents a $4,600 scholarship to send their children to the private school of their choice.
Ending the income tax would give WV the economic growth trifecta. Here is a list of the states with no income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. New Hampshire and Washington State only tax investment income.
Here is a photo at yesterday’s roundtable lunch with Governor Jim Justice and Stephen Moore, and our friend Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform.
Last year electricity costs surged by 14.3%, double the 6.5% rise in the CPI.
How can states lower their energy costs? One easy way is for the blue states to repeal foolish Renewable Energy Standards (RES) that require utilities to purchase up to half of their power generation from expensive wind and solar power - and not cheaper natural gas and coal.
Consumers in states with RES policies pay a green energy “tax” that can raise their utility bills by sometimes twice what other states pay. For example, New Yorkers pay roughly 23 cents per kilowatt hour while Virginians pay 15 cents and Tennessee residents pay 13 cents.
We were struck by this admission from the leftwing National Council of State Legislators that much of the wind and solar market only exists because utilities are forced to buy it:
“Roughly half of the growth in U.S. renewable energy generation since the beginning of the 2000s can be attributed to state renewable energy requirements.”
In other words, if consumers had a choice, they would buy cheaper power.
That's why a big priority for CTUP this year is to promote a “freedom to choose” energy policy in all the states.
4) Don’t Worry About The Balloons Falling From The Sky…Watch Out For The Toppling Windmills
We’ve been told for years that wind power is environmentally sound and safe.
But experts admit that hundreds of thousand birds die in collissions [Peter Roff] collisions with wind turbines. New Jersey officials are investigating whether the increased ship traffic and intense sonar mapping associated with building offshore turbines have led to 10 dead whales landing on local beaches in the last two months.
Now we have a rash of turbine collapses all over the world. Last June, a huge GE turbine collapsed in Oklahoma, followed a few days later by another of the same model in Colorado. A massive 784-foot-tall turbine in Germany buckled in September 2021. A big new turbine in Lithuania toppled in March 2022. Blades have fallen off turbines off the coasts of both Denmark and Sweden.
“We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the newer turbines, and that’s quite concerning,” says Fraser McLachlan, the CEO of GCube Underwriting, which insures about $3.5 billion in wind assets.
5) The BBC Is Now So Woke It Says NO To Monty Python-Type Comedy
John Cleese, 83, is a British comedy legend. American audiences know him as a star of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” and “Fawlty Towers,” where he played the idiotic owner of a resort hotel. Cleese is now preparing to revive “Fawlty Towers” for a new generation of fans.
Cleese is a devout believer in free speech. He has long worried that “cancel culture” is leading to a “neurotic society” where creativity is “stifled” and “self-censored.” For that reason, he is refusing to bring the remake to the woke BBC, where the original aired.
Asked if he wanted to work with the BBC, Cleese says: “No, because you wouldn’t get the freedom.” Indeed in 2020, the network pulled the classic “Fawlty Towers” episode “Don’t Mention the War,” from reruns. Believe it or not, it was viewed as offensive even though its main theme satirized Nazis and racists.
Cleese is already being attacked by critics, with the left-wing Guardian newspaper huffing that any remake of “Fawlty Towers” will be an “anti-woke nightmare.”
“They obviously know better than I do what’s going to be in it,” Cleese told GB News. “Maybe they should write an episode for me that they would find acceptable. Might not be very funny, but I’m sure it would really please some of their readers.”
We are reminded of Cleese's 1987 classic on extremism:
