Interesting Items 5/25 by Alex Gimarc
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. CAFE 2. Guns 3. Credit Cards 4. California 5. Gitmo 6. Medicare *1. CAFÉ.* One of the things that you can do when you now own two of the three remaining American auto manufacturers is set the rules nationwide with impunity. Why? Because they will never again unleash their lobbyists on congress to fight your initiatives. Such is the case with the miles per gallon, CAFÉ fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. President Teleprompter last week announced new and significantly accelerated fuel standards for vehicles last week, moving the target for 35 mpg to 2016 from 2020 as set in the 2007 Energy Act. He had all the usual suspects with him at the announcement, along with the nodding, smiling representatives of GM and Chrysler, who he now controls. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the laws of physics still apply and there is only one way to get from where we are nationally with CAFÉ – about 25 mpg to 35 in seven years. That way is to simply make the vehicles, lighter, smaller, and ultimately more dangerous in accidents. Steven Milloy in Front Page Mag Wednesday wrote about the deadly impact of these new standards. He cites National Academy of Sciences linking current CAFÉ standards to about 2,000 additional deaths in traffic accidents in the smaller, lighter vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that for every 100 pound decrease in the overall weight of a vehicle, you will see about 715 additional deaths nationwide in traffic accidents. Milloy does the math, and demonstrates that this sop to Big Green will cost more American lives in a couple years than the nearly 4,300 deaths in the Iraq war over the last six years. Milloy then runs the costs in human lives and estimates that we will be killing five of our neighbors every day to save about a million dollars in gasoline every day. I thought blood for oil was a bad thing. Finally, Milloy points out that the 2007 new CAFÉ standards were passed with the assistance of the auto manufacturers and upon the assurance by both the greens and democrats in congress that this would be all they would want in the near future. That deal lasted less than two years before the greens and democrats were back for another bite of the apple. You cannot deal with bullies, fascists, or green religious zealots. And when all three things are true at the same time, you are in serious trouble. What do I expect to happen? I expect that conservatives will continue to purchase large vehicles. And I expect the ones currently on the road will be driven until the wheels fall off or until there is a significant change in politics. I also expect the trial lawyers to st art going after SUV and light truck owners, the people who survive accidents by virtue of owning larger, safer vehicles. Finally, I expect this administration to do everything possible to jack the price of gasoline up to the $4-5 per gallon level to force as many people into the Obama-mobiles a possible. ------------------------------ Editors note: The prez issued his “line item veto” to amend the Energy Act passed in 2007 to change the goal to 2016. What’s wrong with this pic? Rich Martin ------------------------------ *2. Guns.* It appears that when they are forced to stand up an vote, we have a clear majority in support of gun ownership in the senate. Evidence of this came last week with passage of the credit card legislation with an amendment allowing gun ownership in national parks, wilderness areas and national forests. The amendment was passed by more than a 2:1 majority. This does not mean that the leftists will not continue to do everything in their power to eliminate, harass and obstruct gun ownership in the future – for example, the firearms treaty in process. This also means that the democrats have successfully stumbled upon a combination of political beliefs that will put large numbers of them into power, much to the detriment of our liberty and property rights. The change in law will not go into effect for nine months, when the rest of the provisions of the credit card legislation goes into effect. ------------------------------ 3. Credit Cards. The Obama machine continues to roll on, crushing the marketplace and removing liberty and property rights from us all. Latest up for your consideration is the Credit Card Bill. This one claims to control unreasonable, unethical acts of credit card companies playing with interest rates, and executing the terms of the credit card agreement clearly, if not finely (and minutely) spelled out in the credit card agreements. It is not unethical to carry out the terms of the credit card agreement. Now that congress and the Teleprompter administration have stepped in to “help” out the citizenry, expect the rates for those of us who pay our bills on time to increase, as the companies have now been limited upon what they can charge by legislative fiat. The reaction will likely be for many, many people to cut up their credit cards, eliminate them completely and start going to debit cards. Also expect this to impact large ticket items such as plane reservations, trips, appliance purchases, and anything else that would be purchased on credit. Fixing yet something else that is not broken will once again create more problems than it intends to solve. But the people who are having credit problem are democrat supporters, likely the same sorts of people who got themselves into the home mortgage difficulties that triggered the current financial meltdown. ------------------------------ 4. California . Schizophrenic California voters rejected five spending and taxing ballot initiatives last week. The closest one lost by a 2:1 majority. The ballot initiatives were intended to repair a multi-billion hole in the state budget brought about by decades of exorbitant spending. The reason for the schizophrenia is that the very same voters have for decades been returning the same politicians to office in California that blew the hole in the budget. The other problem in California is that politics in that state are largely controlled by the unions and the greens, which have been quite successful in purchasing politicians that agree with their positions and goals. Lacking the ability to print money, which is currently the only thing saving the Obama administration and congress from bankruptcy on the national level; a state must balance its budget on something – anything. Limbaugh expects the feds to ante up with $6-8 billion in TARP funds to cover the shortfall. TARP has turned into a rolling slush fund for federal takeover of businesses – yet another reason that it should have never been passed in the first place, and an even better reason to repeal the enabling legislation sooner rather than later. Sooner or later the government at all levels will need to deliver fewer “services” and get significantly smaller in size, scope and power. The California vote may or may not be the first shot across the bow. It depends entirely on the follow-up by the same voters that rejected the tax and spending increases. ------------------------------ 5. Gitmo. Obama’s Gitmo follies continued apace last week as he fumbled with how to extract himself from the hole he dug for himself when he promised to close the facility. The latest exchange came when the senate voted against an $80 million request to transfer Gitmo prisoners into US prisons. The House voted to reject the funding a week earlier. Obama and former VP Dick Cheney exchanged speeches last week, with Cheney ripping Obama’s arguments in support of closing Gitmo to shreds. Obama in response spent a half hour blasting the Bush - Cheney conduct of the war as a grave mistake that created more terrorists than it killed. Obama was off message and looked weak and out of his element in his response. Cheney on the other hand, was on point, used facts, and was as straight forward as you could imagine. By weeks’ end, the Obama administration was floating various trial balloons suggesting that the very worst Gitmo prisoners be moved to Colorado ’s Supermax federal prison. The problem with moving these bozos onto American soil is that doing so will empower the judges to start mucking around in their care and treatment. The greatest mistake that President Bush ever made in the conduct of the war was not to tell the SCOTUS to go straight to Hell when they inserted themselves into the presidential conduct of a declared war via the outrageous and unconstitutional Boudemaine decision. People who choose to fight this nation without the virtue of being soldiers of any nation are conducting themselves outside of the bounds of the laws of armed conflict. As such, their lives are instantly forfeit. They have no rights anywhere. The SCOTUS overturned over 200 years of American history and judicial precedent with the Boudemaine decision, a decision that will go down in infamy. Do not look at the current infestation of the executive branch or congress to stand up to the court and solve this problem any time soon. ------------------------------ 6. Medicare. Finally, a pleasant little story for our aging readers. Medicare announced last week that they would not be approving virtual colonoscopies. Despite the procedure being cheaper, safer, less invasive, and more highly recommended by the medical profession, the feds decided that it was not sufficiently cost effective to approve. Their rationale is that if a virtual colonoscopy picks up something, the doctor will then have to go in with an old fashioned colonoscopy to remove whatever it is that was seen, doubling the cost. The logic is perfect, and perfectly wrong. It is yet another example of the sort of idiotic decisions we will all be subject to when congress and the Teleprompter administration take over health care. And yet another great reason why that takeover ought not to happen. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com District 28 http://www.dist28.com/ subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ ------------------------------ COMING SOON Flag * Day Tea Party* *June 14, 2009* *http://www.teapartyday.com/* <http://www.teapartyday.com/> *Independence Day Tea Party* *July 4, 2009* *http://www.teapartyday.com/* <http://www.teapartyday.com/> *March on Washington Washington DC* *Sept 12 Tea Party 3,467 registered* http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/05/912-tea-party-3467-and-growing.html * * ------------------------------ ** Shout Out ** *To any one organizing a Tea Party. Reply with your details (when where, etc) to this email with "TP" in the subject to be further posted to others on the Internet.* * ------------------------------ * You are welcome to join the [email protected] * Rich Martin** * *.* * * --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "APFN" group. 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