1) Why in the World Would Americans Want America to Look Like a Blue State?
Of the 15 fastest-growing states since 2020 in terms of jobs, only ONE, Colorado is a blue state. Nevada is growing fast and is a purple state. Every one of the other high-flyers is a solid red state.
Idaho is now #1 in growth rate, having recently surpassed Florida. Keep an eye on Montana, which just passed Texas.
Of the laggers with only about 1 to 2% job growth over five years, almost all are blue with the exceptions of West Virginia and Louisiana.
Those of us over the age of 50 remember the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident in Pennsylvania that along with the Hollywood movie The China Syndrome did more than anything in the 1970s and after to scare Americans about the risks of nuclear power. A lot of it was anti-nuclear media hype. The joke back then was that more people died in Ted Kennedy’s car than at Three Mile Island.
Nuclear power remains one of the safest, cleanest (no greenhouse gas emissions), and cheapest forms of power generation.
So it is welcome news that Microsoft is bringing Pennsylvania's dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant back to life. The plant is set to reopen by 2028 and will provide 835 megawatts, enough to power 800,000 homes.
The restart of Three Mile Island comes as the tech industry reports it will need massive energy sources to support its boom in artificial intelligence. Microsoft will purchase all the power the restarted reactor produces for the next 20 years, contributing $16 billion to the state's economy.
Nuclear power is increasingly accepted by the public. A new Pew Research poll reports that "Americans in both parties now see nuclear power more positively" with support among Democrats up 12 points since 2020 to 49 percent, and up 14 points with Republicans during the same period.
The big question now is: why don’t the climate change fanatics see the advantages of clean and affordable nuclear power? Could it be they don’t want clean and abundant energy? See item 4 below.
Speaking of nuclear power, it currently provides over 18% of US electricity production. It’s a bigger source of electric power than over-hyped wind and solar power. We think that nuclear power could and should be a major part of America’s energy future – perhaps doubling its share of the market as the nuclear reactors get smaller and safer.
4) Is the Climate Change Agenda Really a War on Economic Progress?
Climate change fanatics love to talk about saving the planet, but many of them eventually slip and say the quiet part out loud – the war on energy is all part of a revolutionary plan to restructure Western civilization and restrain individual freedom
Take Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Rosanna Xia, who just wrote a piece with this headline:
Xia believes the Earth is so doomed that she wonders "whether I could ever justify bringing my own children into this world."
She says we must "reimagine the systems that got us into such a devastating crisis in the first place," by which she means capitalism. (She is apparently unfamiliar with the woeful environmental records of Communist nations.)
She’s not alone. Christiana Figueres, one-time executive secretary of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change, says her priority is "to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."
Noted author Naomi Klein believes the world must "change, or be changed" because an "economic system" – free markets – has caused environmental "wreckage."
"The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn't originally a climate thing at all," former Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti told the Washington Post. "We really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing."
5) This is What Progressives Do When They Have a Monopoly on Power
Regular readers of the HOTLINE are by now familiar with the dismal record of school performance in the state.
The latest data dump from the Illinois State Board of Education shows more of the same.
Illinois has more than 400(!) schools where less than 10% of kids can read at grade level, and 800 (!!) schools where just 1 out of 10 kids are proficient at math.
That's nearly one in four of the state's schools that get an F. And they are mostly located in low-income areas of Chicago.
So what have the Illinois legislature and Governor JB Pritzker (i.e. the teachers' unions) done to fix the schools?
They shut down the Illinois Invest in Kids Scholarship program – the one initiative that was actually helping thousands of kids.
The program offered a 75% tax credit to individuals and businesses that donate to a scholarship program so kids can attend private schools.
Kids in the program saw big educational gains according to the Illinois Policy Institute. But Illinois politicians are intent on outlawing success and rewarding failure. When we've asked our friends in the know why this happens, the standard answer is: that the school systems are primarily job programs for the adults. Kids come second. It shows.
