Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Aug 3, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Shutdown 2. Tea Party 3. EPA 4. Shootdown 5. Fuglvog 6. Wisconsin 7. Pebble 1. Shutdown. The House majority demonstrated over the last few weeks the path to hold this administration and the democrat majority in the senate accountable for their irresponsible budgetary actions. The House passed a small bill specifically targeted at funding the FAA and only the FAA for the remainder of the year. At issue were around $16 million in funding for rural airports mostly in Nevada, West Virginia and Alaska. The second and most serious provision was a rollback in a couple pro-union NRLB rule changes that would have made it much easier for unions to organize and hold very short notice elections to unionize a workplace. The democrat majority in the senate took issue with the rule rollback and refused to act on the legislation. As a result, the FAA partly shut down for a few weeks while the airlines collected taxes on ticket sales and did not forward them on to Uncle Sugar. Eventually the combination of “wasted” tax dollars (collected but not paid) and the tens of thousands of layoffs of FAA employees and contractors for no good reason took its toll and Harry Reid (D, NV) relented and put the legislation on the senate schedule. It was eventually passed. The game Harry and his democrat majority have played with legislation this year is to refuse to act on anything unless the House passes something that is acceptable to senate democrats. This is why two different budgets passed by the House have not seen the light of day. The technique used by the House majority of passing a small bill for every single executive department will allot the House to press its reforms on an unwilling senate democrat majority. Do not bundle the legislation. Do not combine anything. Fund the EPA but refuse to allow them to promulgate any new rules. Fund the NLRB, but refuse them the ability to promulgate any new rules. Fund Holder’s (In)Justice Department but refuse to fund the civil rights or the public integrity sections. Fund Interior, but refuse to fund anything that places anything on the endangered species list. There are thousands of opportunities. Time to get to it. 2. Tea Party. Poll-tested democrat talking points aimed at the Tea Party following the debt ceiling increase flamed out of control last weekend as Tea party conservatives were variously described as Hobbits and terrorists by democrats, RINOs, state-controlled media and their Beltway insider strap hangers. The only thing the Tea Party tried to do was inject some small amount of fiscal sanity into the frankly insane spending of the Obama administration and the democrat controlled congresses since 2007. We cannot spend 40% above what we take in every single month without destroying the economy in this nation. Nobody in DC wanted any fiscal control on their spending and they reacted precisely like addicts who have had their drug of choice removed for a few minutes. From this, it is clear that we do not yet have a critical mass of Tea party conservatives in congress. But we have far more than we did before last November. This will be a long, hard slog, with the Ruling Class doing everything possible to dispirit conservatives and make sure they do not turn out to elect more conservatives to office. Special reminder to John McCain (RINO, AZ) and others calling Tea Party folks Hobbits: Be careful what you wish for, as DC has turned into Mordor on the Potomac, and we conservatives are bearing the Ring of Power to Mount Doom. 3. EPA. The regulatory economic destruction machine that calls itself the EPA has accelerated its regulatory assault on jobs and property in recent weeks. Notable outrages include the EPA’s involvement in Obama’s ridiculous new auto efficiency standards – 56 mpg for all vehicles including vans and trucks. They delayed for a little while a “reconsideration“ of ozone emissions rules written in 2008. The expected rewrite is being shoved through the system at breakneck speed, breaking EPA administrator Jackson’s promises for transparency, science based analysis and adherence to the rule of law. The new ozone rules are expected to be released this summer and cost over $90 billion to implement with no measurable improvement in overall health and welfare. There is no scientific basis for a connection between ozone and health. The EPA added Texas at the last minute to a Cross State Air Pollution Rule scheduled to go into effect January 1, 2012. This rule limits sulfur dioxide emissions and is aimed directly at coal-fired electrical generation. Electric utilities in Texas have less than 6 months to comply, leading directly to rolling blackouts this winter. Interestingly enough, the EPA dropped CT, DE, MA, FL and LA from the new rule. PJ Tattler, Monday noted that the five states dropped are all blue or swing states and Texas is the most successful, most economically robust Red state. No politics in this decision. Nope, none at all. 4. Shootdown. Taliban finally took out a high value US target over the weekend with the shootdown of a CH-47 extracting a combined SEAL and Afghan Special Forces team. The operation was reportedly a rescue. There were 30 SEALs killed and 8 Afghan special forces lost in the crash. Speculation runs rampant afterwards with the requisite finger pointing and second, third and fourth guessing about the nature of the operation. The CH-47 is essentially a trash hauler, large and not particularly agile when landing and taking off. It’s not all that agile airborne either. Best guess as of this writing is that it was downed by a shoulder-fired rocket propelled grenade (RPG). Please keep these guys and their families in your prayers. 5. Fuglvog. Lisa Murkowski’s long time fisheries aide Arne Fuglvog pled guilty to taking about twice his limit in black cod / sablefish in 2005 and lying about it to federal regulators. Fuglvog was charged with a misdemeanor and is expected to pay a fine of $100,000 and spend around 10 months in jail based on a plea agreement. Murkowski, like she has in the past, claimed not to know of her aide’s illegality, but allowed him to serve on her staff for months after he made the plea agreement. Fuglvog was an incredibly powerful figure in the Alaskan commercial fishing community, having served on the National Marine Fisheries Council for a term starting in 2003. He was a finalist to head up the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2009 but abruptly withdrew his name. This event demonstrates the problem we have with commercial fishing here in Alaska. The resource is commonly held, supposedly for the benefit of all Alaskans. Unfortunately, the commercial fishermen have executed a regulatory capture of the resource, inserting themselves into the regulatory apparatus where they make decisions to benefit their businesses. They end up on the staff of a US senator. And they still take more fish than they are legally allowed to take, lying about it afterwards. 6. Wisconsin. The Wisconsin state fair saw a race riot the opening night of the fair. A mob of a reported 300 black youth formed and roamed the parking lots, hunting down whitey, grabbing whites off bicycles, motorcycles and out of cars and beating the tar out of them. The crowd was not an angry crowd. They were happy and joyous. This was a festive event. This is the largest and most recent example of a flash mob, racially based, going after non-blacks for sport. If the black community does not put a stop to this, I predict dead people, for someone is going to get grabbed by a mob and defend himself or herself with appropriate force. 7. Pebble. The latest NIMBY attempt to shut down the proposed Pebble Mine are ballot initiatives on October’s ballot in Lake and Peninsula Boroughs that will prohibit Borough planning and zoning commissions from issuing permits to any large scale development that will harm salmon streams. This sets up an interesting separation of powers argument between the State of Alaska and NIMBY-funded opposition to the proposed mine at the borough level. The Pebble Partnership has gone to state court to oppose the ballot initiatives. Their complaint will be heard in state court a month after the election in November. 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. Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/
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