Articles

Posted to Politics February 16, 2020 by Jessica R. Towhey

Republished from InsideSources.com

Michael Bloomberg’s billions aren’t just buying ads. In at least two Super Tuesday states, his money funds private lawyers working inside attorneys general offices, advancing his political agenda on the environment.

One Democrat AG compares accepting this private funding from a political candidate with federal funding from “President Trump’s” Department of Justice.

Bloomberg Philanthropies gave $6 million in 2017 to create the New York University School of Law’s Environment and Energy State Impact Center to provide lawyers to state attorneys general whose sole focus would be on environmental and climate change lawsuits and regulatory actions.

Massachusetts and Minnesota, whose Democratic voters will go to the polls on Super Tuesday, are among at least 10 states where activist attorneys are working for the state AGs offices but are paid through the Impact Center. Their mission is to promote state legal action to advance Bloomberg’s political views, such as lawsuits against energy companies.

“Candidates who are approved by the attorneys general and the State Impact Center will receive offers to serve as SAAGs (or the equivalent appropriate title within the office) from the attorneys general, based on an understanding that they will devote their time to clean energy, climate change and environmental matters,” Impact Center Executive Director David J. Hayes wrote in an email inviting attorneys general to apply for the program.

Hayes is a former deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the Department of the Interior for Presidents Clinton and Obama.

The email, obtained by Climate Litigation Watch, was sent to attorneys general offices in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C., on Aug. 25, 2017. The email noted that the State Impact Center would pay the law fellows’ salaries and explained that each would be an experienced attorney in environmental or related law.

New York participates in the program, and in December lost what environmental activists had dubbed “the trial of the century” against ExxonMobil. Originally brought by former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the three-week trial ended with state Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ruling that the energy giant had neither misled investors about the impact of climate change nor broken any state laws.

In the run-up to the trial, lawyers for ExxonMobil objected to what they saw as a conflict of interest in having “two employees of private parties who are currently working in the [New York] Attorney General’s Office … selected and paid for by private interests who were pursuing an agenda” involved in the case, according to a court transcript. ExxonMobil attorney Justin Anderson said the lawyers are “compensated entirely by this third-party … that’s funded by Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropy.”

Kevin Wallace, acting chief for the Investor Protection Bureau for the New York Attorney General, accused ExxonMobil of “picking on an individual, a young lawyer.” Emails from Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh obtained by Climate Litigation Watch, however, indicate that the legal fellows are experienced attorneys.

“Do you know anyone five to 10 years out of school who would be interested in saving the planet from the predations of [former  EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt and [former Interior Secretary] Ryan Zinke?” Frosh emailed to the dean of Yale Law School. Frosh served as a recruiter for the State Impact Center program, frequently exchanging emails with Hayes.

A spokesman for the State Impact Center declined to answer questions about the program, including whether anyone other than Bloomberg Philanthropies has provided funds for the legal fellows program. The spokesman also declined to comment on whether there was a conflict of interest with Bloomberg running for president while funding assistant attorneys general in at least 10 offices.

“The nonpartisan State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law brings academic rigor and independence to its mission of supporting state attorneys general who are protecting existing environmental regulations, addressing climate change and respecting the law,” spokesman Tom Lalley said in an email. He also declined to name any participating attorneys general who are Republicans to back up the “nonpartisan” description of the program.

Most of the attorneys general offices known to be participating in the program declined to comment either on the program or on the potential conflicts of interest accepting funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office participates in the program, is suing ExxonMobil in a case that bears several similarities to New York’s. Healey’s office declined to comment.

A spokesman for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas compared private money given through an individual’s foundation to federal tax dollars.

“Our office accepts fiscal support from President Trump by way of the Department of Justice, as well as NYU, because the Attorney General is independent and only focused on representing the interests of New Mexico,” said spokesman Matt Baca.

Although Bloomberg is a late entrant to the Democratic presidential primary, he has already far outspent his opponents. According to Advertising Analytics, he has spent $209.3 million on broadcast television, $13.7 million on cable, $1.1 million on radio, and $27.2 million on digital ads. His Super Bowl ad reportedly cost $10 million.

Bloomberg’s campaign is entirely self-financed, and he is presenting himself as a centrist in a field crowded with candidates from the progressive left. The Democratic National Committee recently dropped a requirement that candidates receive a minimum number of donors to qualify for debates, prompting an outcry from some former candidates who were unable to meet the arbitrary thresholds that Bloomberg was using to buy his way to the nomination. Bloomberg skipped the Iowa Caucuses to focus on Super Tuesday states.

Steve Milloy, founder of JunkScience.com and a senior fellow with the Energy & Environment Institute, severely criticized Bloomberg’s donations to New York University and the legal fellows program.

“God help anyone on the right who tried to do that,” Milloy said. “The Left and allies in the [mainstream media] would be in total outrage mode if they discovered that the NRA or pro-life movement had funded state AGs to carry out the groups’ political agenda.”

A spokeswoman for the NRA scoffed at the privately funded program.

“No one should be surprised,” said spokeswoman Amy Hunter. “This is yet another example of billionaire Michael Bloomberg using his money to impose his personal agenda on the American people. He wants to be emperor of America, and make every citizen his subject.”

What everyone should know about the practical and moral failures of the socialist project

March 11, 2020

Republished with permission from Independent Institute.

(Oakland, CA)—A list of about forty books on the folly of socialism has been downloaded thousands of times and has been endorsed by economists, scholars, and journalists around the world.

More than 30 years after Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev implemented reforms that helped burn the ideal of a planned economy to the ground, socialist doctrines are once again gaining in popularity, especially among young people.

The list was compiled by Independent Institute Senior Fellow Williamson Evers, Ph.D., who offers this “counter curriculum” highlighting some of the most insightful critiques of socialism ever written. The list of books highlights the necessity of competition and voluntary free markets, rather than coercive monopolies of industries such as energy, banking, and technology in a socialist society.

“If you can read just one book on this list, then make it Red Plenty, by Francis Spufford,” says Evers. “If you can read only two, make your second pick Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, by Ludwig von Mises.”

Evers tells young people enamored with Scandinavian-style socialism, that most so-called democratic socialist countries are actually capitalist countries with high income taxes but also with no price controls such as minimum wage laws, and actually have freer trade than the United States in many cases. Real socialism, says Evers, usually promises the public that it will be democratic socialism, but soon puts into effect dictatorship and the crushing of constitutional liberties.

Books on the list include; The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, and The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek.

The complete list of books can be found at this link on the Independent Institute’s website.

Published on InsideSources December 23, 2019 by Robert F. Graboyes

Telemedicine challenges the established order of medical licensure in the United States. Medical treatment with a physician in one place and a patient in another raises questions about the efficiency and constitutionality of state-by-state licensure.

Generally, a physician can only practice medicine in states where he or she holds a medical license, regardless of whether the doctor and patient are meeting in person or via electronic means (video conferencing, remote monitoring, online prescriptions, asynchronous consultation, email, or telephone conversations). Some states have partially lowered state-line barriers via mechanisms like the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact.

Fragmentary licensing makes it difficult for telemedicine providers to serve the entire country. A recent CNBC article said that a doctor who wished to practice telemedicine across the entire United States would have to spend around $90,000 and countless hours to obtain licenses in every state—followed by permanent efforts to maintain the licenses.

To minimize queuing and capture economies of scale, it’s important for telemedicine providers to have broad, multistate reach. If I take ill at night while a flu epidemic rages here in Virginia, I might have difficulty reaching an overburdened Virginia telemedicine doctor. But, with access to doctors in all 50 states, there’s a far better chance that I’ll get rapid, potentially lifesaving service. State-by-state licensing inhibits this capability. Presumably, nationwide reach also increases competition, with the potential for cost reduction and quality improvement.

I live in Virginia, and it’s perfectly fine for me to visit a doctor in Texas. However, if I wished to consult with the same doctor via video link from Virginia, the doctor would presumably require a Virginia license as well as a Texas license. Present-day law somewhat arbitrarily presumes that an encounter occurs where the patient sits—not where the doctor sits.

And suppose I engage with the Texas doctor while I’m visiting Florida and the doctor is in Hawaii? Is our encounter deemed to occur in Virginia, Texas, Florida, or Hawaii? Perhaps there’s a simple legal answer, but I’ve raised the question before enough audiences to think the answer isn’t crystal-clear.

Telemedicine adds a powerful new element to America’s health care system. It provides near-instantaneous access to care from any location, at any time, on any day. Cost-benefit analysis requires us to ask how often state-by-state licensing prevents, delays, or heightens the cost of care, along with asking whether state-by-state licensing somehow protects patients better than, say, a regime of national licensing.

This matters, because telemedicine increases access to care in ways that were unimaginable before the digital era. Imagine a Spanish-speaking migrant family whose child becomes ill on a remote ranch in the middle of the night. With telemedicine, a cellphone allows them to reach a Spanish-speaking doctor within minutes. Think of the access challenges faced by members of other linguistic minorities, Native Americans on reservations, people with mobility problems, people in neighborhoods lacking public transportation, those busy with work and childrearing, and individuals who take ill at odd hours and in isolated places.

I once wrote about a physician who saved a woman’s life because she was able to call him at night from her home, rather than waiting for a regular in-person appointment. At age 92, my own mother likely survived a potentially fatal illness because her grandson, a physician, recognized her illness in the course of a social video call on FaceTime. Ever since, I’ve thought that one shouldn’t require a physician in the family to enjoy such care.

When state-by-state medical licensing was devised, these weren’t issues. If you saw a doctor, you were face-to-face in the same state. Telephone calls or mail would likely have been the only potential exceptions. But today, sophisticated communication at a distance is omnipresent in our lives.

There is virtue in the principle of allowing states to manage economic activity within their individual boundaries—“laboratories of democracy,” in the words of Justice Louis Brandeis. But there is also virtue in erasing those lines for some purposes, a principle enshrined in the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause. Philosophically, I grapple with the tension between these two principles. I also wonder whether that tension may ultimately find its resolution at the Supreme Court.

Virginia Institute for Public Policy’s President Lynn Taylor speaks at the January 7th press conference during which Delegate Lee Ware (R) and Delegate Mark Keam (D) announced the Virginia Energy Reform Act as part of the legislative package to be submitted for the 2020 General Assembly session. The goal of the legislation is to lower consumer energy costs by ending monopoly control and creating competition in the retail market of Virginia’s electricity system.

The sudden flood of resolutions to protect gun owners will soon envelop most of the state.

This article is re-posted with permission from Gun Rights Watch.

Gun owners are demanding local government protection from the state – and getting it.

By: Scott D. Cosenza, Esq.

This article posted December 8, 2019, was re-posted with permission from the author.

A sea change came to Virginia on election day.  Democrats won majority control of both houses of the legislature – for the first time in over 20 years.  The new power brokers have taken their win to move the state markedly left on many issues, but especially gun control.  Prefiled bills in the statehouse would make Virginia swing from a state that broadly respects gun rights to one of the most restrictive if passed.  Gun owners have risen to challenge the proposals, not in the legislature just yet, but at the county and city levels.  Under a massive pressure wall, those local governments have, at a furious pace, adopted Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions, forbidding local officials from acting in opposition to the Second Amendment.

Let No Good Crisis Go to Waste

On May 31, 2019, a Virginia Beach employee went on a shooting spree, massacring a dozen people at a municipal building.  Days later, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) ordered a special session of the legislature to be convened.  The legislature, which had adjourned for the year, would be recalled to Richmond to consider previously rejected gun control bills.  The rundown of proposals reads like a letter from Sarah Brady to Santa, including universal background checks; bans on “assault weapons,” sound suppressors, and bump stocks; red flag laws; one gun a month laws; and granting local governments increased authority to issue their own new measures hostile to gun rights, among others.

While legislative leaders had no control over the convening of the session, they asserted their power just after it started, ending the farce within 90 minutes of its beginning.  Republican Speaker of the House Kirk Cox accused Northam of “an election-year stunt.”  That may be just what it was, and effective too, given the results in November.

From Red to Blue

The Democrats last controlled both houses of the legislature in 1994.  While the state was recently considered a swing state, that has changed too; it now seems ever bluer.  Democrats now control all three statewide elected offices, both U.S. Senate seats, both chambers of the General Assembly, and seven of Virginia’s 11 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Quite a list, and driven in large part not by a change in attitudes of Virginians, but the additions of many new Virginians hostile to gun rights.

In a post-election profile called “How Voters Turned Virginia From Deep Red to Solid Blue,” The New York Times tells us that immigrants, both from other states and other countries, are a big cause.  “Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.”  That’s not all. Those voters are not like the countrified Democrats who may understand and value the right to keep and bear arms:

“Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,” said a 38-year-old software engineer from southern India, Vijay Katkuri, 38, as he explained why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections. “There are lots of other issues, but you can only fix them if you are alive.”

Mr. Katkuri, we learn, had been a resident of New Jersey before he decided to make his home in the Old Dominion.  Alas, that state had crime levels that were too high, among other factors, to keep him.  The Grey Lady doesn’t mention if Katkuri understood that unsafe New Jersey has had highly restrictive gun control laws for generations, while safer Virginia has honored the right to keep and bear arms.  Liberals who move from high tax, high regulation lefty states in favor of greener pastures in more conservative jurisdictions seem unable to draw the connections that seem plain as day to the rest of us.  Could adopting New Jersey style gun control laws make Virginia less-safe?  Mr. Katkuri doesn’t seem to have considered this possibility.

Not Lying Down

Virginia gun owners have, and they have responded swiftly and intensely to the coming onslaught against their rights.  Over 40 counties and independent cities in Virginia have passed Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions so far, and the list has grown rapidly.  Led by the Virginia Citizens’ Defense League*, one of the strongest single-issue state policy organizations, they have mounted a massive backlash against new gun controls.  Liberty Nation spoke with VCDL President Phillip Van Cleave about the resistance and sanctuary movement.  He said the idea behind the resolutions is to send a message:

“It’s a whole bunch of localities standing up and telling the Democrat leadership in Richmond we don’t want any more gun control.  These things affect only the law-abiding, and what they’re suggesting doesn’t do anything for criminals.”

He said no county official needs to enforce an unconstitutional law and called the AR-15 the most popular rifle in the U.S. and Virginia. Van Cleave explained that they were gearing up for a huge showing at the legislature on January 20 for VCDL Lobby Day, when they encourage everyone who cares about maintaining the right to keep and bear arms to come to Richmond and show their support.

Before then, however, many, if not most, counties will be Second Amendment Sanctuaries.  Lynn Taylor*, who heads the commonwealth’s leading pro-liberty public policy organization, the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, had this to say about the budding movement: “The 2A sanctuary is a political stance, not a legal protection. Everyone needs to be ready for this reality. Virginia is becoming a battleground for stripping away the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. We will need some strong men and women out there willing to take this issue to the mat, and even more to support them financially and with their prayers for freedom.”  Asked if she knew of a movement that has previously animated Virginians so vigorously, she replied, “not since the Founding.”

*This author has been a member of VCDL.  Ms. Taylor sits on the board of Liberty Nation’s parent organization, One Generation Away.

By Brennan Gilmore & Lynn Taylor
Virginia Energy Reform Coalition

This article was first published June 30, 2019, by The Virginian-Pilot. It was re-posted with permission from the authors.

ONE OF US was chief of staff for Tom Perriello and runs an environmental nonprofit. The other worked for the Koch brothers and facilitates a monthly meeting of Virginia conservative and libertarian activists. Needless to say, we do not exactly subscribe to the same political philosophies.

Here’s where we do agree: The energy sector in Virginia is broken.

An energy sector whose rules were written by monopoly utilities and their well-funded political allies has given us the 11th highest electricity bills in the nation when energy demand in Virginia is flat and energy itself is getting cheaper. It has kept businesses and families across the commonwealth from choosing their electricity provider. It has allowed Dominion Energy to run roughshod over property rights and plow ahead with a ratepayer-backed $7 billion gas pipeline without demonstrating any actual need for it. And it has stifled innovation and the deployment of cleaner, cheaper energy sources.

Virginia — including vast Dominion service territory in the Hampton Roads region — deserves better than this monopoly regulatory system designed to maximize profits for shareholders and greased by donations to politicians.

When faced with a problem this insidious, it is remarkable how quickly two opposing ideologies can find common ground.

The answer to this is simple: Give people a choice. Break up the monopolies, remove the barriers to competition, and remove the constraints preventing Virginia from leading the transition to a 21st century energy economy that is better for our bank accounts, our jobs and our environment.

No matter who they vote for, every Virginian should have the ability to choose their energy provider, just like they choose their car, phone provider, or grocery store. Currently, most Virginians who pay utility bills are stuck with one utility monopoly, and one with a track record of acting in bad faith to enrich shareholders on the backs of mostly unknowing ratepayers.

The core of our system’s rot is a skewed incentive system that allows utility profits to hinge on political gamesmanship rather than customer interest. A utility that both owns and operates the electrical grid has a conflict of interest that inhibits the development and deployment of the cost-effective energy resources of the future.

A utility earns a rate of return on infrastructure like wires and transformers, so it has a financial interest in huge infrastructure investments rather than resources owned or services provided by other entities — large-scale distributed energy storage systems, consumer-owned rooftop solar, or energy efficiency programs, for example — even though they are often cheaper.

Switching to a competitive market with performance-based rules and an independent grid operator will ensure energy providers only get rewarded for being the best on reliability, cost and customer satisfaction and that one monopoly’s special interests cannot hold customers captive.

Virginia’s potential to recharge our economy with 21st century energy is truly untapped. The Department of Energy ranks us a dismal 37th out of 50th for renewable energy production.

North Carolina has seven times as much installed solar as Virginia, and thousands of jobs in the fastest-growing energy sector along with it. On the other hand, Texas moved to a competitive market in the early 2000s and has since seen reduced energy bills, enhanced consumer choice and steady innovation. It is simple. When an energy market is competitive and monopolies are contained, the entire state benefits.

Luckily, this insidious problem is not beyond repair. Energy market reform may sound complex, but this issue is about Virginians paying their utility bills today and choosing the energy that will power their tomorrows. We want to build a statewide movement towards consumer choice and protection, a competitive and innovative economy, and a 21st century energy grid — and movements need people.

Candidates and legislators need to hear from their constituents and voters on this issue and demand that Virginia’s General Assembly advocate for hardworking people across the commonwealth paying their utility bills, not for utility giants whose political influence has allowed them to write the rules of a rigged game.

Take it from a political odd couple. When you take a chance to come together and reform something truly broken, it’s amazing what we can achieve.

Brennan Gilmore is executive director of Clean Virginia. Lynn Taylor is president and co-founder of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. They are both members of the nonpartisan Virginia Energy Reform Coalition.

Republican legislators were successful in ending the special legislative session without new restrictions on gun rights of Virginians.

This article posted July 11, 2019, was re-posted with permission from Liberty Nation.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam instituted a special session of the state’s legislature Tuesday, July 9 for the stated purpose of enacting new gun control laws.  Gun rights supporters won the day as Republican lawmakers, who tenuously control both houses of the law-making body, were able to stop it in its tracks, suspending consideration of the bills until the regular session in the fall.

Well over a dozen different bills were filed, offering a Vegas-sized buffet of anti-gun rights advocates’ wishes and wants.  A limited sample includes a “Red Flag” law that allows police to seize firearms with little to no due process, one gun a month purchase limits, and legislation that would allow counties and municipalities the right to enact their own gun control laws.  Legislators introduced several pro-gun rights bills, but this session was to be about restricting the rights of Virginians, not expanding them.

Special Session

Northam announced the emergency session in the wake of a Memorial Day massacre in Virginia Beach, where 12 people were murdered by a municipal employee on a rampage.  “If we can save one life because we acted now, it is worth it.”  The Virginia legislature starts sessions in January and finishes no later than 60 calendar days afterward, but there is a provision in the commonwealth’s constitution for the Governor to institute a new one:

“The Governor may convene a special session of the General Assembly when, in his opinion, the interest of the Commonwealth may require …”

Republicans hold a 51-48 majority in the House of Delegates and a 20-19 edge in the Senate, with one vacancy in each chamber.  That was enough to put a stop to the special session on party-line votes in both houses.  They referred the various pieces of legislation to appropriate committees.  Those bills will be voted on in the 2020 session if they are passed out of committee – which they are unlikely to since so many have already been voted down in committee this very year.  From January:

A Republican-led subcommittee in the Virginia House of Delegates voted down more than a dozen Democratic gun control bills Thursday, including a red-flag proposal endorsed by President Donald Trump’s school safety committee.

In a packed hearing room, Republicans on a House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee used their 4-2 majority to methodically defeat the gun bills over the course of more than two hours.

Governor Northam became nationally known earlier this year when his medical school yearbook seemed to show him in blackface.  That, combined with the legislature’s recent consideration of often identical legislation, fueled criticism that politics was the prime motivator behind the session rather than public safety.  Virginia Institute for Public Policy president Lynn Taylor* called it a political move, noting that “not one of the proposed laws would have changed the outcome in Virginia Beach.”

 

GOP Drama – Tempest In A Teapot

Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) shocked his fellow Republicans by filing a bill just before the session that would ban guns in local government buildings in Virginia.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League**, a powerful gun rights advocacy group, sent out an email in the wee hours before the session, announcing “VA-ALERT: LEGISLATIVE ACTION ITEM: Senator Tommy Norment stabs gun owners in the back!”  Norment had introduced a bill that would treat all local government buildings like a courthouse, generally banning firearms for everyone but government officials.  That sentiment seemed to be completely reversed by the end of the day, when the group sent an email stating:

Senator Norment explained that the bill was incorrectly drafted due to a communication issue between himself and Legislative Services.  VCDL thanks Senator Norment for doing the right thing and striking that bad gun-bill from the docket!

Norment said Tuesday, “As currently drafted, the legislation represents neither my views nor my intention. I do not support – nor will I support – any measure that restricts the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”

*Ms. Taylor sits on the board of LibertyNation.com’s parent company.

**The author has been a member of VCDL.

Giving Tuesday is around the corner, and the Virginia Institute for Public Policy wants to partner with you for the future of Virginia. This year we are looking forward to the next big battles in the home of American Liberty.

As healthcare costs begin to rise beyond expectations following the expansion of Medicaid, discussion begins in Richmond on where the money will come from. Increased taxes, however, will further depress business and population growth in Virginia. New and decisive answers are needed to get Virginia’s economy back on track. As always, the Virginia Institute is at the forefront, proposing bold solutions, educating legislators and advocates, and bringing people together in support of our home, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the birthplace of American exceptionalism.

We can’t do it without your help! Get involved by donating to the Virginia Institute for Public Policy on Giving Tuesday. Help us to fight for the brightest future for Virginia; one of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and constitutionally-limited government. Support courageous policies in healthcare, taxation, education, and good governance.

Together we can make Virginia the # 1 state in the # 1 nation on the face of the Earth!

Donate Here