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Greg Abbott is embracing an industry that sees itself as a libertarian form of finance free from meddling by banks and governments

Author of the article:

Bloomberg News

Michael Smith

Last fall, Texas Governor Greg Abbott gathered dozens of cryptocurrency deal makers in Austin where they discussed an idea that, on its face, seemed almost upside down: Electricity-hungry Bitcoin miners could shore up the states power grid, a top priority after a deep freeze last winter triggered blackouts that left hundreds dead.

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The industrys advocates have been making that pitch to the governor for years. The idea is that the miners computer arrays would demand so much electricity that someone would come along to build more power plants, something Texas badly needs. If the grid starts to go wobbly, as it did when winter storm Uri froze up power plants in February 2021, miners could quickly shut down to conserve energy for homes and businesses. At least two Bitcoin miners have already volunteered to do just that.

Theres no guarantee anyone will build more generation or switch off just because theyre asked. Theres even a chance the idea could backfire and put more strain on the grid overall. But at last Octobers meeting at the governors mansion, Abbott made it clear that he was going to count on the miners assistance when the electricity grid faced colder months ahead. Help me get through the winter, the governor said, according to four people who attended the meeting.

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Getting through the winter may be key to Abbotts political fortunes as he stands for re-election. He faces two main opponents in a March 1 Republican primary and a tougher fight in November against Democrat Beto ORourke. The grid is one of the governors few weak flanks: The most recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, from October, showed that 60 per cent of Texans disapprove of how state leaders have handled the reliability of the grid.

There has to be a really thoughtful approach to bringing gigawatts worth of Bitcoin onto the system, said Doug Lewin, an energy consultant in Austin. He said regulators need to require miners to shut down during a crisis, instead of making it voluntary. Weve got to make sure that if were getting close to scarcity, people arent mining Bitcoins anymore.

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Abbott is embracing an industry that sees itself as a libertarian form of finance free from meddling by banks and governments an ideal that appeals to his core GOP voters. That support, and Texass cheap electricity and near-zero regulation, helped spur big companies like Riot Blockchain Inc., Singapore-based Bitdeer Group and the U.K.s Argo Blockchain Plc to build some of the worlds largest Bitcoin mines in the state.

We've got to make sure that if we're getting close to scarcity, people aren't mining Bitcoins anymore

Doug Lewin

In all, there are seven big miners and more than 20 smaller ones in Texas, according to the lobbying group Texas Blockchain Council.

Abbott and Republican lawmakers have taken some of the most aggressive steps in the U.S. to lure the industry. Last May, Texas became one of a few states to make it easier for businesses to hold crypto assets and use them as collateral for loans. Abbott also created the Work Group on Blockchain Matters, staffed by industry experts and insiders.

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He sees this huge opportunity, I believe, around the energy sector, said Christopher Calicott, a managing director at Austin venture capital firm Trammell Venture Partners whos on Abbotts crypto task force.

Texas is luring miners partially because other places dont want them. Governments from China to Kazakhstan to Iceland have outright banned or limited crypto mining because of their drain on electric grids.

Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, finds opportunity in these bans. Hes met with Abbott several times to promote Bitcoin minings benefits to the power grid, including at the governors mansion last fall.

Its really a healthy dynamic that brings tax revenue, brings job creation and also is a grid strengthening mechanism, Bratcher said in an interview. Governor Abbotts been very supportive.

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And Abbott isnt alone. State leaders, from Austin Mayor Steve Adler on the left to conservative Senator Ted Cruz, are pushing Texas as a crypto paradise. A few days before the governors crypto meeting in Austin, Cruz spoke for 38 minutes at a blockchain industry conference, keying in on the potential for Bitcoin mining to bolster the states power system. In five years, I expect to see a dramatically different terrain with Bitcoin mining playing a significant role as strengthening and hardening the resiliency of the grid, he said.

Depending on Bitcoin miners is risky because theres a chance they wont shut down or will take too long to power off, said Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of energy consultant Wood Mackenzies Grid Edge unit. As crisis looms, miners could vie for power with families and businesses. At those times, Bitcoin mining would be competing with basic core societal needs like heating or cooling homes or the functioning of hospitals and nursing homes, Hertz-Shargel said.

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Abbotts spokespeople didnt respond to multiple email and phone requests for comment.

The governors embrace of crypto mining goes back years. Gideon Powell, an oil wildcatter in Dallas, recalls pitching crypto to Abbott soon after he got into Bitcoin mining about five years ago. And at another meeting a few weeks after last years storm, the governor quizzed him about how the industry could help stabilize the grid.

He definitely seems to grasp it, Powell said. And its such a weird concept: Hey, were gonna put more energy consumption in an energy system, and thats going to stabilize the grid.'

Texass competitive power market is central to the miners pitch. Nothing is more important to Bitcoin mining than electricity. It powers the computers that hum nonstop to solve complicated algorithmic equations. This work is the source of all the worlds Bitcoins.

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Within two years, enough new Bitcoin mines will come online to require as much as 5 gigawatts of additional electricity in Texas, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. Thats enough to light up Austin, a city of almost 1 million, twice over.

Theres a risk those projections may need to be adjusted. Mining is only profitable when Bitcoin trades above the cost of the power and computers needed to create them, and prices are off almost 50 per cent from a record high reached in November. An extended slump could delay the mining expansion.

For now, the idea of putting further stress on the grid is anathema to Texans who lived through last years storm, when frigid weather swept across the state, freezing up gas wells and forcing power plants offline. The blackouts left more than 200 people dead and paralyzed the state for almost a week. Texans blamed Abbotts lax regulation of the electricity system, and lawmakers ordered hundreds of power plants to winterize.

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Everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid, Abbott said in June. The power grid operator also is optimistic Bitcoin miners can help the grid, a spokesperson for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, said in a statement.

But there are signs the risk of blackouts remains. Two arctic blasts in January shut down some gas production, exposing continued vulnerabilities for equipment that ensures the flow of fuel to electricity generators.

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Rivals are hounding Abbott over his handling of the power disaster.

Experts continue to warn that Texas could face another grid failure the next time we experience an extreme weather event, ORourke said on his Twitter account in December after the governor promised the lights would stay on this winter. Abbott and his appointees shouldnt be betting our lives on the weather.

Former state senator Don Huffines, a GOP primary challenger, announced a plan this month to do more than Abbott to stimulate crypto, especially to strengthen the power grid. I am committed to making Texas the Citadel for Bitcoin, Huffines said in a statement.

At the Oct. 13 meeting in the governors mansion, Abbott made it clear hes already all-in on crypto mining. His blockchain working group is looking for more crypto-friendly laws and incentives to pursue, and the industrys expansion plans have his support. When someone asked if Texas is Bitcoin Country, the governor smiled and agreed.

Bloomberg.com

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Texas governor turns to Bitcoin miners to bolster the power grid and his re-election - Financial Post

If you want to vote by mail, you have to request a mail-in ballot.The Maryland State Board of Elections is mailing ballot request forms for mail-in ballots to more than 3 million registered Maryland voters in advance of the state's 2022 primary election. Ballot requests forms will begin arriving in mailboxes later this week. Maryland's 2022 primary election is on June 28. This year, Maryland state law requires election officials send all voters a form to request a mail-in ballot. After filling out the request form, sign and seal it and return it in the postage-paid envelope that came with the form. To receive a mail-in ballot for the primary election, return envelopes must be received by June 21.Voters who want to vote in person should not fill out and return the form.Alternatively, voters can request a mail-in ballot online if they have a Maryland driver's license or Motor Vehicle Administration-issued ID card.Voters can also visit their local boards of election and fill out and return their ballot request form.This first phase of request forms for the primary election are addressed to registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Voters registered with other political parties, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, and unaffiliated voters will receive a request form in a second phase of mailers if there is a primary election in their school board district. Request forms for these voters will be mailed after the deadline for candidates to file for office, so that election officials will know where there are contested school board elections. There will be a final phase of mailers after the primary election for all other registered voters.To vote by mail, you must be registered to vote in Maryland. Visit elections.maryland.gov to register or update your voter record.

If you want to vote by mail, you have to request a mail-in ballot.

The Maryland State Board of Elections is mailing ballot request forms for mail-in ballots to more than 3 million registered Maryland voters in advance of the state's 2022 primary election. Ballot requests forms will begin arriving in mailboxes later this week.

Maryland's 2022 primary election is on June 28.

This year, Maryland state law requires election officials send all voters a form to request a mail-in ballot. After filling out the request form, sign and seal it and return it in the postage-paid envelope that came with the form. To receive a mail-in ballot for the primary election, return envelopes must be received by June 21.

Voters who want to vote in person should not fill out and return the form.

Alternatively, voters can request a mail-in ballot online if they have a Maryland driver's license or Motor Vehicle Administration-issued ID card.

Voters can also visit their local boards of election and fill out and return their ballot request form.

This first phase of request forms for the primary election are addressed to registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Voters registered with other political parties, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, and unaffiliated voters will receive a request form in a second phase of mailers if there is a primary election in their school board district. Request forms for these voters will be mailed after the deadline for candidates to file for office, so that election officials will know where there are contested school board elections.

There will be a final phase of mailers after the primary election for all other registered voters.

To vote by mail, you must be registered to vote in Maryland. Visit elections.maryland.gov to register or update your voter record.

See the article here:
Mail-in ballot request forms sent to Maryland voters ahead of primary election - WBAL TV Baltimore

Once upon a time when Knoxville was still a two-newspaper town, the Knoxville Journal sent me to Nashville to cover state government. I was expected to produce a couple of stories a day but wasnt given much guidance as to how to proceed. I arrived at the Legislative Plaza lost in the high weeds.

Then I ran into Carl Koella, whom Id met during the previous summer campaign season. I didnt love his politics, but found him smart, engaging and an endless source of interesting yarns. We had a cup of coffee and the next day I reported that he was fixing to introduce a bill to buy a desert island and turn it into a maximum-security prison for career offenders. This was, of course, preposterous, but I was pretty excited to get the scoop until I learned that every rookie reporter whod come to Nashville for the last decade had written about this bill of Koellas, which was more Fantasy Island than Devils Island.

Oh, well. I still liked Carl, who was considered the most right-wing member of the legislature. He was a Republican, but preferred to call himself a Libertarian, a label Id previously connected primarily to certain disciples of Ayn Rand Id known in college mostly born-on-third-base frat boys who considered her books about objectivism and enlightened self-interest affirmations of their own innate superiority. They bored me half to death, something I never said about the senator from Blount County.

My most enduring memory of Carl was an event I witnessed in his office late one Thursday after legislative business had ended. He hosted a weekly poker game in his inner sanctum at that time, and Id stopped by to ask him a question before I hit the road for Knoxville. The air was thick with cigar smoke and whiskey fumes. He came out to the reception room to talk to me, but our conversation was interrupted by a delegation of Blount County preachers bent on haranguing him about abortion. Their timing was as bad as their manners, and Carl wasted no time informing them that abortion was a matter between a woman and her maker not women and their lawmakers before he showed them the door.

That was a story I didnt write, much as I wanted to, and I remember walking down the long hall and thinking that maybe Libertarians werent just concerned with laissez-faire economics maybe they wanted the government to butt out of everybodys personal lives, too.

That was 30 years before I got to know my next Libertarian, a TV wrestling star who was running for county mayor. I was one of the few whod never heard of his alter ego, Kane, but Glenn Jacobs made a favorable impression on me. He was soft-spoken and much smarter than I expected a guy who wore a rubber mask and smashed people over the heads with folding chairs would be. I was further impressed that he visited local schools and talked to kids about being kind.

Whats not to like?

Well, I did have some misgivings when he bragged that hed been personally endorsed by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, the highest-placed Libertarian in public office, then, as now.

Rand Paul and Glenn Jacobs

This was years before we anticipated a pandemic, which was when I came to know Paul as a sawed-off bully whod gone swimming in the Senate pool after hed tested positive for Covid. His lack of concern for the health of his colleagues was a whole new take on the virtue of selfishness. The PR photo of big old Jacobs and little bitty Paul is kind of a hoot, although I doubt it was intentionally funny.

The appropriation of the word liberty is another unfunny thing. Libertarians like Paul and Jacobs approve of it when it works to their benefit. They love the Second and 10thAmendments, but dont have any First Amendment willies when it comes to censorship or theocracy. Mask mandates during a pandemic are affronts to their pursuit of happiness; vaccinations a massive assault on their personal liberty. Teachers and front-line healthcare workers dont have any rights at all.

I am clearly in the minority here: Jacobs appears set to walk into a second term as county mayor on his way to a run at the governors office. More immediately, hes going to be donning mask, wig and tights and heading for Mississippi to throw down some choke slams, untroubled by the notion that we are all entitled to enjoy the blessings of liberty, regardless of gender or political bent.

In the interest of accuracy, perhaps theyd consider changing their movements name to something that evokes their leaders philosophy. Jacobites? Nah. Too Catholic. Jacobeans? Too anarchist and, well, French. Its hard to think of a label theyd consent to wear. Maybe we should just call them Authoritarians.

Betty Beanwrites a Thursday opinion column for KnoxTNToday.com.

View post:
Give me liberty, but keep the Libertarians - Knox TN Today

Bill Maher says he's finding himself in a weird position these days ... a hero on the right and a villain on the left.

Maher, a libertarian who has been a reliable Democrat, skewered the Dems Friday night on "Real Time" for what he called "goofy s***," but he says it's not about embracing Republicans ... he says it's about teaching Democrats how to effectively fight them.

He seems amused members of George W. Bush's Administration -- which helped get him fired back in the day -- are now suggesting he run for President.

The message was laced with hilarity ... "I am still the same unmarried, childless, pot-smoking libertine I always was. Let's get this straight. It's not me who's changed, it's the left who is now made up of a small contingent who've gone mental and a large contingent who refuse to call them out for it, but I will."

And, then he did ... "People sometimes say to me, 'You know, you didn't use to make fun of the left as much.' Yeah, because they didn't give me so much to work with. The oath of office I took was to comedy. And if you do goofy s***, wherever you are in the spectrum, I'm going to make fun of you because that's where the gold is. And the fact that they are laughing at it should tell you something. It rings true."

Maher made his case by calling San Francisco "a shoplifter's paradise." He called out members of Congress who have advocated canceling rent and mortgages ... members who believe "capitalism is slavery."

Bill didn't mince words ..."It's not my fault that the party of FDR and JFK is turning into the party of LOL and WTF."

On the surface, it sounds like a Republican ad, but Bill's made it clear he thinks the Republican Party -- with its current configuration -- is a danger to the very existence of democracy. Buy it or not, he seems to be saying Dems need a course correction, or else.

Excerpt from:
Bill Maher Amused the Right is Urging Him to Run for President - TMZ

He finished at the back of the pack as a largely unknown in 2021 and is likely to get buried under the Democratic get-out-the-vote machine in November, but Adam Theo is keeping a positive attitude heading into his second consecutive County Board race.

Our county deserves better, Theo said in a Jan. 27 campaign-kickoff announcement, criticizing the all-Democratic County Board for a disastrous lack of leadership.

Board members spend their time rubber-stamping each others bad ideas and spending big on Band-Aids instead of investing in smarter, long-term solutions, said Theo, a Barcroft resident who has lived in Arlington for 11 years.

The new normal is looking just like the old normal, said Theo, who self-identifies as a progressive libertarian on the political spectrum. In his announcement, Theo said his entry into the race would throw it wide open. But he has a steep hill to climb, having garnered just 5.7 percent of the vote in the four-way County Board race of last year.

Democratic incumbent Takis Karantonis won the race with 60.1 percent of the vote, with Audrey Clement (18.4 percent) and Mike Cantwell (13.8 percent) well back. Once having his partys nomination in hand, Karantonis ran a low-key general-election race even by county Democratic-incumbent standards, avoiding any missteps that might have cut into his victory margin.

This year, the seat of Democrat Matt de Ferranti is on the ballot; de Ferranti has been actively fund-raising and is expected to formally kick off his bid for a second term on Feb. 2 before the Arlington County Democratic Committee. To date, he has picked up no intra-party opposition.

De Ferranti in 2018 defeated independent John Vihstadt, who had come to office in a 2014 special election and won that years general election, each time over Democrat Alan Howze. All five current board members are Democrats.

Clement, too, is likely to be in the race, as she has run nearly continuously mostly for County Board but twice for School Board over the past dozen years.

Unless someone within the Democratic ranks emerges to challenge de Ferranti which likely would be decided in a June primary the County Board race largely will be dormant in the eyes of voters until September, when organizations such as the Arlington County Civic Federation and Arlington Committee of 100 begin conducting candidate forums.

Theo serves as vice president of the Ballston-Virginia Square Civic Association and is a delegate to the Civic Federation. His campaign Website is https://www.theoforarlington.org.

[Sun Gazette Newspapersprovides content to, but otherwise is unaffiliated with, InsideNoVa or Rappahannock Media LLC.]

Link:
Arlington candidate hopes second time is the charm - Inside NoVA