Jon Reisman

National Popular Vote Compact Karma

The League of Women Voters, the progressive left, and the Democrats passed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact last session, and Governor Mills courageously let it become law without her signature. The NPV Compact does an end run around the Constitutional Amendment process and would have Maine assign its electoral votes to the National Popular Vote winner, regardless of how the people of Maine voted. The NPV is an effort to neuter and disenfranchise the right-of-center voters in the 2nd Congressional District, who have demonstrated a deplorable garbage mentality in voting for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and, apparently, 2024. The Compact is not in force yet and hopefully never will be.

There is a possibility that Trump will win the national popular vote, and that should cause some heartburn for the 1st Congressional District leftists who imposed NPV on the 2nd Congressional District. I have asked Senator Moore to submit a bill to repeal the Compact. Republicans who resent the leftist effort to disenfranchise us should follow Michele Obama’s advice to not go low but instead offer to repeal the Compact to protect Democracy in the 1st Congressional District.

Electric Vehicle Kool-Aid Acid Test

Ford lost more than $1.2 billion in just the 3rd Quarter down the electric vehicle rat hole/pothole that the climate alarmists are pushing. Gov. Mill’s Climate Alarmist Council will be submitting an updated Climate Action Plan after the election. The plan calls for an EV in every garage and a fleet of electric school buses to deliver our children to their indoctrination sessions on gender, equity, and climate.

They will have to pry my gas engine car keys out of my cold climate contrarian fingers. (with apologies to Charlton Heston: https://youtu.be/5-niZl_hmxA). Cars are closely linked to freedom, and government policies that threaten that freedom are not well advised, even to save the planet … and especially when the alleged efforts to save the planet will do nothing of the sort but will enrich the alarmists and beggar the rest of us. 

One thing about lithium-ion batteries: they have some spontaneous combustion issues that are somewhat akin to having an unpredictable firebomb in your possibly attached garage. On the other hand, lithium is used as an anti-depressant, so maybe all those enslaved Muslim workers working in Chinese lithium mines and battery manufacturing are happy. We certainly would not want any of that nasty lithium mining in Maine.

Hopes and Fears

• I hope that Donald Trump is our next President, but I fear the leftist riots and protests that will commence immediately.

• I hope we know the election results on Wednesday morning, but I fear there will be no resolution for weeks.

• I hope that the left’s shameless effort to promote “equity” without defining it will be exposed and ended, but I fear they will continue to promote DEI fascism and government-sanctioned racial preferences and discrimination. After all, that is the affirmative action record of the last fifty-plus years. If Kamala is elected, I am sure of it. For all the complaints about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, I do not think it calls for the total elimination of DEI in higher education — if it did, I would sign on today.

• I hope that the people of Maine will tell the climate alarmists to pound sand, but I fear the alarmists have not finished extracting their pound of flesh. Several people have asked me what I think their real agenda actually is since their policies to allegedly save the planet will do nothing of the sort. My best guess is a combination of green religious faith and a hatred of capitalism, but climate commies is also a possibility.

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].