{"id":4460,"date":"2026-05-01T08:49:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=4460"},"modified":"2026-05-01T08:49:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:49:06","slug":"keep-focused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=4460","title":{"rendered":"Keep Focused"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JPA546.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"411\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JPA546.jpg\" alt=\"Political Cartoon: Keep Focused\" class=\"wp-image-4461\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JPA546.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JPA546-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I realize that Michigan Speaker of the House, Matt Hall, is a Republican, that the President of the United States is a Republican, and that the Republican Party has succumbed to a complete mind meld with President Trump. So it&#8217;s no surprise that Hall has been leading efforts to kneecap&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/03\/24\/nx-s1-5684158\/trump-takes-aim-at-windmills-despite-increasing-energy-costs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">renewable energy<\/a>&nbsp;here in Michigan just as Trump has been actively doing the same at a national level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet, I&#8217;m still exasperated. With gas currently heading toward $5\/gallon, it seems particularly ill-timed to be looking for ways to limit our energy options. Especially because&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/michiganadvance.com\/2026\/04\/28\/bills-to-repeal-michigans-clean-energy-mandate-advanced-by-gop-controlled-house-committee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">renewables&nbsp;<\/a>(and especially wind and solar) are viable, low-cost sources of electricity now with great potential for technology and scaling to lower costs in the future. So even if you don&#8217;t believe in climate change (or science in general), the economics are enough to win the argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michigan has a lot of challenges that need our attention \u2014 stagnant&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/michiganadvance.com\/2026\/03\/09\/voters-being-misled-about-the-cause-of-michigans-economic-decline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wages<\/a>, poor quality&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americashealthrankings.org\/explore\/measures\/Outcomes\/MI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">healthcare<\/a>, dismal&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/bridgemi.com\/talent-education\/as-michigan-falls-further-behind-some-ask-time-to-overhaul-high-school\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">education&nbsp;<\/a>performance, the Pistons teetering on the edge of playoff elimination. Limiting our energy options should hardly be considered a priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I realize that Michigan Speaker of the House, Matt Hall, is a Republican, that the President of the United States is a Republican, and that the Republican Party has succumbed to a complete mind meld with President Trump. So it&#8217;s no surprise that Hall has been leading efforts to kneecap&nbsp;renewable energy&nbsp;here in Michigan just as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4462,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions\/4462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}