Yesterday here at the site, we ran an article from the Louisiana Freedom Caucus talking about an incident at a luncheon in Baton Rouge in which John Fleming, who hasn’t so much made opposition to carbon capture a key point in his campaign but is insisting, essentially, that he and only he is the voice of opposition to those projects.

Connie Hair, who is the state director for the Freedom Caucus – she’s officially the Louisiana director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, but effectively that means she’s the ED for the Louisiana Freedom Caucus – took after Fleming in an audience Q&A session after he’d given a campaign speech at the luncheon. Hair had a vote Fleming had taken back in 2015 which could reasonably be characterized as a pro-carbon capture vote, so she let him have it.

The point of this wasn’t to try to burn Fleming down as a fraud. It was to point out the inconsistency and lack of fairness behind Fleming’s thundering away at what he calls fake conservatives on the issue.

That he’s living in a glass house and he shouldn’t throw stones.

Let me insert myself into this, because when yesterday’s post hit social media, I got accused of lots of bizarre things. Somebody called me Bill Kristol, somebody else tried to say The Hayride is a pro-Bill Cassidy organ, I had one weirdo try to say the carbon capture people had bought us off. I got a kick out of all of this, but it was amazing to see how deep down the rabbit hole some of these people can go.

So I’m going to try to clear the air here.

Anybody who has read The Hayride over the past couple of years can’t escape the understanding that this site is opposed to this carbon capture stuff on principle. We think it’s a ridiculous waste of resources, financial and otherwise, and using our tax dollars to subsidize projects by which CO2 emissions from industrial plants are piped long distance to holes in the ground and then pumped down into the substrata offends us.

Most of the carbon capture critiques we’ve run at the site have come from state representative Chuck Owen, who represents Vernon Parish and other areas in the western part of the state. Chuck is the most vociferous opponent of carbon capture in the Louisiana legislature, and he’s pretty eloquent on the issue. So he’s carrying our standard on it.

But I’ve written about it, too, and I’ve trashed this as a corrupt boondoggle. What I’ve also written is that it’s a matter of time before this thing collapses, and I’m going to be right about that. Eventually the government subsidies for these carbon capture projects are going away, and when they do there will be no economic justification for them.

I could give you the full picture, but I wanted to keep this quick. The point being, I, and The Hayride collectively, have no use for this stuff. Maybe someday, somebody will come up with a true profitable use for carbon dioxide – there’s some company which says they can turn CO2 into cellulose to make paper with, for example, and perhaps they can figure out how to do that in a way that makes economic sense – and at that point we might go neutral on the issue because if CO2 then becomes a marketable commodity I don’t have any opposition to its capture and use.

And I – and we at The Hayride generally – try to hold up a standard for this site, which is that we’re unapologetically conservative but within that framework we’ll try to be objective. Or we try to be a forum to hash things out. For example, Nathan Koenig has a post today which takes Gov. Jeff Landry to task for what he calls “performative conservatism,” and Koenig talks, among other things, about Landry’s involvement in what’s happening at LSU as problematic. I, on the other hand, have defended Landry because what’s happening at LSU is a housecleaning the university badly needs and if a loud and obnoxious tone in public provides cover for the necessary reform at the Ole War Skule, I’m fine with that.

But where I’m not going to be objective is the Louisiana Freedom Caucus.

I’m the director for their PAC. And I’m going to back them to the hilt every chance I can.

Those guys are the people in the legislature who stand on principle, and they take every sling and arrow the status quo mob can throw at them. They catch hell at the Capitol even by Republicans and still they fight. So they deserve a champion, and if I can help to do that, then I’m happy to.

And John Fleming, who tells everyone within earshot that he was one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus when he was in Congress, has gone after members of the Louisiana Freedom Caucus on carbon capture – even though they’re the people actively fighting those projects by defending the rights of landowners, stopping the use of eminent domain to facilitate those pipelines and doing other things of substance.

Which is what Connie was pointing out when she threw that questionable vote in Fleming’s face to point out that he’s out of line trashing people like Chuck on carbon capture.

And yes, Blake Miguez is a member of the Freedom Caucus and he’s running for the Senate. Connie’s in Miguez’ camp. There is no appreciable difference between Miguez’ position and Fleming’s on carbon capture. Which hasn’t stopped Team Fleming from trying to trash Miguez as a RINO because of some vote or other years ago which is perfectly analogous to the one Connie tripped Fleming up about.

And it’s stupid, and it needs to stop.

This doesn’t mean I’m in the tank for Miguez, or Eric Skrmetta, or Julie Emerson. All three of them have been good friends of The Hayride, and myself, over the years. I don’t know which one I’m for, or even if I’m for any of them and not Fleming.

Assuming this current path he’s on can be corrected.

And I’m certainly not for Cassidy. Anyone literate and reading this site over the past five years knows that.

Fleming can, and should, run on putting a stop to carbon capture. But he ought to embrace people who join him in that cause rather than attacking them and making demands for contrition, or something, for blemishes on their records before the issue was well understood.