Jon Reisman

It was gloomy and raining when I went to the Cooper Community Center (the former Grange) to vote. I brought some cake for my neighbors who were working the polls and defending democracy, hoping to give them a little cheer on what would be a long, dark, and stormy day. If Election Day was somber, at least most of the results in Maine were not. The results across the nation were more of a mixed bag.

Election results Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were prefaced with the welcome news that the House would censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib “(D-Hamas)” for spreading anti-Semitic pro-Hamas propaganda. Hamas’s charter calls for exterminating Jews and Israel, as does the oft-repeated progressive chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.” On the flip side, the Biden administration continues to wiggle and waffle on Iran and Israel, declaring Islamophobia a more urgent concern than the surging anti-Semitic Jew-hatred that DEI and our universities have wrought (because Marxist DEI ideology holds that Jews are an oppressor class).

In the wake of violent insurrectionist protests at the White House and around the country and on the eve of a worldwide pro-Palestinian day of action and protest, the online Jewish magazine Tablet carried a series of short essays with good advice and opinions on what to do next, including Abolish DEI (from former New York Times editor and Free Press entrepreneur Bari Weiss), Buy a Gun, End the Iran Deal Delusions, Speak Out, and reject hyphenated-America identity politics. Check it out at What Now? - Tablet Magazine.

The best news in Maine was the decisive 2-1 defeat of Question 3, the climate alarmist dream of bringing the electric grid and Mainers’ electricity and energy use under their total control. The other side is that the climate cult remains undaunted and convinced of its righteous responsibility to make energy more expensive and less reliable while pursuing deindustrialization and impoverishment. For political and cowardice reasons, the winning no side declined to challenge the climate alarmists, so they -- the climate alarmists -- will continue to threaten freedom and prosperity. Some of us with long memories remember repeated failed referendum attempts to close Maine Yankee until the carbon-free nuclear plant was finally demolished; although, the nuclear waste remains in Wiscasset subject to allegedly dangerous rising sea levels. However, if climate alarmists Michele and Barack Obama have close to sea level multi-million dollar estates in Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard, why should we worry? 

The upcoming climate, alarmist-inspired ban on gasoline-powered cars in Maine should not be of any concern either, especially since we will have the right to repair all the electric vehicles with their $10,000 or more Chinese Communist party batteries created by slave Muslim labor. At least we will not have any of that dirty lithium and copper mining in Maine. Let the Chinese and African children handle it.

The Maine Constitution will once again be printed with the portions reflecting our treaty obligations to the sovereign Abenaki people. That is good. I hope, but am not optimistic, that the referendum might result in greater acknowledgment of the importance of Constitutions for both Maine and the United States. I believe our failure to respect and adhere to the Constitution is a major reason ¾ of the country thinks we are on the wrong track. 

An early test of that hypothesis will occur when the legislature takes up LD 1587, the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact, backed by the Democrats and the League of Women Voters. LD 1587 seeks to end the Electoral College with a too-cute-by-half end around the constitutional amendment process. It will have the practical effect of disenfranchising every right-of-center voter in the 2nd Congressional District. Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution requires that interstate compacts get the consent of Congress, but somehow that requirement is not required of progressive enterprises like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) or the NPV Compact. I have asked Senator Collins to submit legislation authorizing the NPV, just as I asked her to do the same for RGGI. She has not responded, but I am not optimistic. On the other hand, the NPV has the potential to be a big issue in the 2nd CD GOP primary. I might even ask Rep. Golden to sponsor enabling legislation. Let us see how he feels about the Constitution and an effort to disenfranchise the right of center voters he represents.

Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Selectman and a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].