Wednesday Calls & Topics

I'm going to start with Chris. Chris, how are you? Good, sir. How are you? Very good. I just wanted to, you know, sitting there, we'll see the program, because I, you know, I'm a news junkie, and it's what I do. I want to get your perspective on how. And don't answer right away. How embarrassed are you about our politics and the state of Maine right down to the town level of this is just, I mean, me and my wife, we're thinking about leaving the state. And I never thought I would. But it's like we're just diving down this crazy black hole where we are having a bunch of childless woman. and old woman and childless men and communist men tell us how we're supposed to live our life in Maine and has become such a burden upon yourself to even survive up here to do to like make a moniker of anything carve out any kind of living yeah anything and it's really tough and I just are you as embarrassed As I am. I'm not even mad. I'm just truly deep down embarrassed. Look at our candidates. Who would put a Nazi and a communist against each other? It's like crazy. But I'm not going to call a grand platinum or Nazi. I never got a Nazi. Which one's the communist and which one's the Nazi? It's just so. Periodic, sir. Yeah. But I'll leave you at that. Thank you, Chris. Yeah. I know you said not to answer you immediately, but I do actually think about this a lot, so I can. And thanks for the question and thanks for the call. Keep calling in. We'll do more calls, obviously. I will give you a very candid answer, which, you know, I'm very guarded about saying things like this often. But I think it probably is worthwhile to actually be candid in this particular instance. I've had the same feeling. And by the same feeling, I mean, you know, like, what's the point? I'm sick of this. This is unbelievable. I'm out of here. Am I going to do that? No, I'm not. I mean, my entire job is predicated, not this job, but, you know, obviously working at a policy think tank is predicated on taking a terrible situation or something that I'm displeased about and making it better. And I'd like to win the battle rather than abandoned ship. I will say, though, others have abandoned the ship. I mean, you know, former state senator Eric Brake, just as an example, rather famously moved to New Hampshire to head up the Free State Project and left because, you know, New Hampshire is a land of one of the freest states in the country right next door to one of the least, which is us now. I think one of my, I'm not sure embarrassed is the right word, although I think it probably is sort of apt. I think sad is certainly a word I would use. about what I've seen happen. The thing that's disappointing about it is that what we're seeing right now was just never really what Maine was when I was growing up or even a few years ago, even during the contentious years of the LePage administration. It just wasn't, it was not a place of extremism, politically speaking. It really wasn't. You might do things, like the Baldacci. I frequently go back to the Baldacci administration.

which is one that did many things I disliked. You know, it was a, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, you know, government programs and had a view of, of how, how things should be that was not what mine was. But I was disappointed when, like, say the Derigo health program was, was, was initiated. I wasn't irate. You know, like I was like bummed out that a bad idea was becoming a thing, but I wasn't apoplectic about the whole thing. Beside myself, despondent, depressed, sad, etc. And that's really because, you know, for all the bad ideas that I think that were there, there was still this sense of reasonableness to it. It was like a reasonable bad idea. It was definitely a bad policy, wasted a lot of money, didn't do what it said it was going to do. It was a bad idea. And that's just one idea of many. There's lots of others I could point at. School consolidation is obviously one of them. There's a lot of tax schemes I didn't like that were taking place at the same time. Regardless, I was not a big fan of them, but they were reasonable things to be not a fan of. It was like being, you know, following national politics in the 1990s. Like when you're mad at Clinton... In retrospect, looking back, like when he was giving his state of the union address and he would say something that a Republican would be like, that's annoying. Compare the annoyance you felt and the thing that he was talking about to the things today the national Democrats are talking about and how it makes you feel. It's not comparable. It's not even close to the same thing. You know, then it was like a... You know, my friend has done something that I dislike kind of feeling. Whereas today, it's like these people hate me and everything I care about and want to see it destroyed. And that's kind of where I'm at with the state of Maine is every decision that's made, every decision that's made in Augusta seems to be spiraling us down in that direction. And it fills me with a lot of sadness and a lot of depression. And sometimes when I don't control myself. feelings of hopelessness. So I get it why other people say, I'm moving. I'm out of here. Something keeps me here. And then I'll go to the phones and continue on with our conversations. And the thing that I think keeps me here, and it's hard, but it's the feeling that the temporary and immediate in today's... show today's world this year, et cetera, kind of problems that I see us having politically are not what I think the true character of the state is. I think we're living through a time of madness which makes the state look insane when fundamentally it's not and it needs to have corrective action taken politically speaking and sometimes things get in the way of that. Let me put it to you this way. If... Kamala Harris had won the presidential election in 2024. Right now, there would be very little doubt.

It would be barely worth talking about that the Republicans were likely to win the gubernatorial race, that it would probably be a blowout, that the State House and the State Senate would go with them, and that all the trends that we have seen in the most recent years, which have, for five years now, made the state more and more and more and more Republican, to the point where it's now getting close to basically being even money here, would manifest themselves in a rather big... statewide win. So is the fact that Trump won, and now the anti-Trump phenomenon, you know, sort of sweeps nationwide, is that... And the resulting maybe not so great year that's going to result. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen. I think a Republican can still win. I think the Republicans can still win the state house for sure. State Senate's a little uneven, but I mean, whatever. It's clearly going to be harder, though, right? It could still happen. But if you were putting money on the table, you would say that would be the less likely outcome this year. So is that the fault of Maine, is my point? Is it something fundamental about Maine? that would result in, say, let's just say, Shennebello's being the next governor and another Democratic trifecta. If that were to happen, is that because Maine people are dumb? Maine people are not politically in the right place? Maine people, whatever. Or is it other dynamics that ultimately lead us down that path? And I would just ask you to consider what you think would happen in Maine if Kamala Harris was the president instead. And a perfect example of this, and then I'll go to phones, is what happened to Canada. at the beginning of the first year of the Trump administration. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada for way too long, historically unpopular. Everybody hated the guy. Annoying beyond words. The Liberal Party had screwed Canada up and everyone knew it. No one wanted to vote for him or these people ever again. Pierre Poilievre, who was the conservative leader, had a lead of 20 to 25 points in every poll that was conducted for the better part of a year. And they were upcoming on an election. Trudeau ends up resigning. Mark Carney takes over. That didn't help initially. Trump coming into office, saying 51st state, basically calling Trudeau the governor of Canada, all these things, instigated a backlash which changed the fortunes of the fundamentals of that country so that ultimately Mark Carney won and won a strong victory. The liberals somehow preserved themselves, and Pierre Poilievre ended up going from 20 points up to losing. Did Canada change in the course of like, you know, a couple months? Their fundamental politics? No. Circumstances overwhelmed them. And that's kind of the thing that I'm, you know, with Mills, I can explain away the last eight years easily. I think the long-term trends for Maine are positive.

But you might have to live through some blips in the process. And that's one of the reasons I stay is that long term. Let me go to Al from Portland. Al, go ahead. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. You're welcome. I got into a political conversation, my baby brother, my lefty baby brother. And we got talking about Janet Mills because I know that you hate Janet Mills, but she got that 2% on those rich people. I said, that's not going to do what they think it's going to do. And what I would have liked to see Janet Mills do is stick with the big, beautiful bill about no tax on overtime, no tax on tips. Do you know what a sharp on the arm that would be for the economy for a man that's outworking and construction 50, 60 hours a week? Boy, that was, you know, and that would be for the working manner. of Maine and what few there I left. But he's how my baby brother's heartbroken that Mills isn't even going to make the nomination. So he's going to vote for Susan Collins, but I'm telling you, Mills, just, I'll be vote, like I've said before, I'm going to vote for the Republican governor, no matter who the nominee is. We can't take any more of this. insanity, make me insane again. Oh, Republican. Ken from Portland, nice enough to hang on through that break. Ken, how are you? Well, wake me up, way. How are you doing? Good. Thank you for taking the call. I wanted to chime in on the data center issue because I think the long-range solution is not on the surface of the planet. I think Elon Musk is planning on putting his data centers in space. in orbit around the planet. And that's unlimited supply of energy at almost zero cost, aside from the building the equipment and getting it up there, which he has a monopoly on. So I think it's right to ban the data center concept in Maine because we don't have the resources, the energy resources to feed that thing. And whatever you build to provide the energy for a large data center is going to be a problem with climate changers. I don't really care if it's a problem with the climate changers, especially since so much of their panic over it is false. I think that so many things that they talk about being afraid of with the data centers are incorrect. The energy thing, I mean, again, I come back to markets on this one. If indeed, just for the sake of argument, the energy hog problem would create a pricing issue that becomes a very powerful incentive to create and expand. energy production in the state so that you can do something about those prices. And that's one of the things that the state desperately needs. This is how markets work. I mean, ultimately, you have to attempt to do things like this, see what happens, and then adjust to them by having other things react and inside of a market.

And the energy picture is no different. I think the most likely scenario is that these types of things are going to come in with their own energy production because they don't want to pay the rates that already exist in New England. They want to generate it themselves and basically have freebies. So, I mean, I can't tell you 100% that that's going to be what takes place. But it seems like the very logical solution for a lot of these companies that want to do this kind of thing. Because otherwise... I mean, outside of the cold water and cold air, Maine is the last place, energy cost-wise, already today you would want to go. So I don't really view that as a credible reason to block it, Ken, ultimately. I think that 20 years from now, if you build it today, I think 20 years from now it will be obsolete and serve no purpose. I think putting something in orbit. with a longer lifespan and essentially free energy. The sun shines 24-7, 365 in space. I agree with that, but I mean, I don't care about its obsolescence. I mean, that's up to the people that are making the investments in these things. If it's not directed by government funds, I don't really particularly care if somebody invests in something that will eventually be obsolete. And I think largely can. I want to make sure I get to a couple other people. Thank you for the call. I think largely... you're going to be dealing with things that work in tandem. There's going to be plenty of data centers on Earth and there is likely to be an in orbit component, in the moon component, maybe even just in satellites spinning around the Earth kind of component. I don't know exactly what it will all look like, but I suspect they will work largely together. I don't know if it would be obsolete, if just less efficient. Let me go to Dennis from Casco. Dennis, go ahead. Quick one, I'm sorry if you were to talk about this. I haven't been able to listen. What is with the Trump picture? I mean, the religious thing. I mean, it clearly was. Any thoughts, unless you already said it. I'm sorry. Oh, I already said it. Yeah. Oh, it's crazy, man. Yeah. It's crazy. I found it to be disgusting and completely ridiculous. And I had no interest in it. It's not just over the top. It's not it's juvenile to the extreme. You know, even if his claim that he thought he was like a medic. which is ridiculous. It's obviously Jesus, right? But even if that claim was correct, the very fact that the White House and its social media team and the most professional and important job in the entire world is juvenile enough, juvenile enough to try to out meme lord, the meme lords on social media is silly and I can't. I'm just sick of it. I'm just sick of the childishness of modern politics. I want to be bored. I want people who are actually professional human beings to be in these jobs. And I don't want, I don't care about meming. I don't care. Oh, I get it. A lot of people share it. That's very funny. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. You need to stop it. It's pointless. And yes, it was offensive. That was my take on it, Dennis. Finally, Scott from Kennebunk. Scott, good.

Hey, man, quickly. They're looking for place for these. Carl sent us. We need more electricity. Most suggestion is to get in all those farms that are run by illegal Chinese down on electricity from the grow houses of marijuana. Because that takes a lot of electricity. There are a lot of illegal farms in Maine. Shut them all down and capture that energy. Thank you, Scott. Actually, that's a fairly good suggestion because I don't think people have a full appreciation for what is happening with most of those grow houses. The transition of the electricity. Like the transformers and whatnot that are nearby that ultimately bring the electricity to those homes, they have been upgraded significantly to drastically increase the amount of energy that those houses can even take in, which is actually one of the ways you might start identifying a lot of these things. And some law enforcement agencies are talking to the CMPs of the world and trying to get them to release suspected places based on this energy thing. If you could shut down 300 of those. perhaps stop those energy demands. There you go. That's one data center that you could easily put in without having to lose anything. How about that? How about that? I'm done for the day. See you guys tomorrow.