News and Views
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Julie Yang?? For County Council??
Read more: Julie Yang?? For County Council??Board of Education Member Julie Yang recently announced her candidacy for County Council District 1. What is her motivation? I’m running for the County Council to put Montgomery County back on track. Ms. Yang was elected to the Board of Education since 2022. Since that time— The Washington Post broke the Beidleman scandal (2023). Beidleman’s…
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OIG Proves It: MoCo Government Can be Courageous
Read more: OIG Proves It: MoCo Government Can be CourageousThe first time we critiqued the Office of Inspector General (OIG) was in June 2023 over its report about the county’s bag tax. In May 2024 we again critiqued the OIG over what appeared to be a lot of talented people spending a year doing (or forced to do) a mediocre job. Here we are,…
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MoCo’s SNAP decisions: Part 2—Can MoCo feed its poor?
Read more: MoCo’s SNAP decisions: Part 2—Can MoCo feed its poor?In Part 1 of this series, we explored the ethical nature of asking the entire American public—present and future—to subvent our county’s poor. In this installment we’ll show that MoCo doesn’t need to beg the federal or state governments to fund local poverty relief; we can do it ourselves. The Department of Agriculture publishes biannual…
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Central Planners from MoCo at the Root of State’s Energy Crisis – and Your Skyrocketing Energy Bills
Read more: Central Planners from MoCo at the Root of State’s Energy Crisis – and Your Skyrocketing Energy BillsMaryland’s beleaguered taxpayers are also getting smacked with energy rate hikes and the resulting large power bills this summer as the mid-Atlantic electrical grid operator (PJM Interconnection) struggles to ensure reliable power to homes, businesses and families across the region. Since reliable energy is a lifeblood for business operations and production (food, retail goods, transport,…
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MoCo’s SNAP decisions: Part 1—Should the feds pay for our less fortunate?
Read more: MoCo’s SNAP decisions: Part 1—Should the feds pay for our less fortunate?We’ve previously introduced Maria and Juanita: one an irresponsible alcoholic parent, the other a local version of Mother Theresa. I overheard them having a discussion at the Fort Totten Metro stop. “Maria,” said Juanita, “I’m not able to take care of your grandmother any more.” “Why not?” asks Maria. “Well, as you know, I travel…
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Mahmoud v. Taylor: Part 2—What Happened to the Administrative Burden?
Read more: Mahmoud v. Taylor: Part 2—What Happened to the Administrative Burden?There were two motivations for the coercive LGBT curriculum. One was inclusion, the other administrative burden. MCPS’s claim about administrative burden was reported in several news outlets, and unfortunately I can’t find a source document from MCPS itself. Fortunately, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor mentioned it in her dissent. …requiring schools to provide advance notice…
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Mahmoud v. Taylor: Part 1—Basking in the SCOTUS Victory
Read more: Mahmoud v. Taylor: Part 1—Basking in the SCOTUS VictoryImmediately after the Supreme Court’s proceedings in Mahmoud v. Taylor on April 22, 2025, it became clear that victory for the opt-out crowd was a matter of time. Who gets the credit for this victory? Brazenly, shamelessly, and undeservedly I’ll claim 0.00005% of the credit because I’ve been following this story since the first rally…
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How Badly is MCPS Red-lined?
Read more: How Badly is MCPS Red-lined?I’ve mentioned several times that MCPS is redlined based on affluence: affluent families live in areas where the schools are successful, and struggling families live in areas where the schools struggle along with them. In this post I present a visualization of this claim. Step 1: Identify the schools’ rankings Niche.com provides a succinct ranking…
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Leaf Blowers, The Sequel: a Call for Cooperation, not Coercion
Read more: Leaf Blowers, The Sequel: a Call for Cooperation, not CoercionWe are back to the gas-powered leaf blowers. Recall Bill 18-22, signed into law on October 9, 2023, prohibits the sale of gas-powered leaf blowers by July 1, 2024, and use of such equipment by July 1, 2025. Council Member Gabe Albornoz was the only dissenting vote at the time. Here we are, two weeks…
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David Stein, do you have one corpuscle of compassion?
Read more: David Stein, do you have one corpuscle of compassion?Within the last week over 1,000 employees were laid off from the State Department. More layoffs are coming at the Department of Education. According to “National Public” Radio (not much of either), as of June 6 this year 59,000 federal jobs disappeared since Trump entered office. There is surely more to come. For some of…