The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Obama administration are preparing to put more regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. Since many in the scientific community blame carbon dioxide for causing global warming, Lisa Jackson, the new EPA administrator, wants to find the latest research and prepare documentation that will explain our need for such regulations.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I am personally a huge skeptic when it comes to whether global warming is actually happening and whether we are causing it, if it is. So, I don't believe that the new regulations would be necessary anyway.)
The fact is the new restrictions on carbon dioxide that have been proposed will raise the costs of energy like gas and coal. The price of manufacturing cars will go up as well because the manfactures would have to reinvent a car that will be able to comply with the new regulations.
This would be the last straw for the Big 3 in Detroit. If it costs Detroit more to make the cars, then, they will have to pass that higher cost onto the consumer in order to stay profitable. The already high price of cars will skyrocket, and people won't be able to buy the cars that they want, especially with the credit crunch in this country.
The three "too big to fail" pigs in Detroit will have to keep asking the government for more of OUR money because the Obama administration and the Democrats would be making it impossible for them to rebound and become profitable.
General Motors (GM), Chrysler, and Ford are getting attacked from both flanks in their fight for survival and profitability. The UAW is digging in their heels to demand that their workers continue to be paid way more than anyone else in the industry. They won't allow any of them to lower the wages. Although, they made some significant compromises. They eliminated jobs bank (which allows workers to receive 95% pay and benefits for a year after they were laid off from the Big 3), won't give automatic raises, and limited overtime that workers could get per week. Even with the compromises that they made, the UAW is still putting the Big 3 in a distinct disadvantage in their competition with other car manufactures.
Now that they were finally able to get the UAW to bend a little, why is the EPA wanting to make it even harder for them to turn around their businesses by making them retool all of their plans because of more restrictions that Lisa Jackson and most of the Democrats want to force them to comply to? These new requirements will make GM, Chrysler, and eventually Ford need more time and more of our money to make them viable again. GM and Chrysler have already asked for more money from the government this past week to stay alive. If Congress ever gets a backbone and says, "No" to them, it will guarantee bankruptcy and most likely bring about their fall.
The new EPA regulations would be the final nail in their coffin, if it comes to pass. They are already teetering on the verge of collapse without this kind of "help" of the administration. It is like a lifeguard trying to save the drowning man by giving him a ball-and-chain instead of a life jacket.
The automobile industry is not the only ones that would feel the effects of this ill-advised policy. Every industry will be hit with the higher prices of coal and gasoline. It will cost more to transport goods across the country and worldwide. Therefore, they will also have to pass the higher cost of transportation on to the consumers. As a result, consumers will buy less of their products or stop buying them altogether. After they stop selling, they will have to start laying people off because of a lack of sales. If sales dip too low, they will have to go out of business which will put everyone in the company out of work.
The rise in regulations will also hurt those of us that have the misfortune of having to live, eat, or leave the house. The cost of heating and air will skyrocket. Unless you want to live in the winter using just your fireplace in the winter (assuming the EPA won't try and regulate the carbon emissions coming from your fire), you will pay more to stay warm. Also, staying cool in the summer will also be much more costly.
It'll cost more to take the kids to school or go buy groceries. It'll also cost more to buy those groceries because of the higher transportation costs the companies will have to pay to get the food to the store.
This is just a bad idea any other time, but it could be a catastrophic one at a time such as this. The economy is holding on by a thread already. We don't need something like this to unravel that one string. The gross domestic product (GDP) will plummet, unemployment would go into the double digits, inflation will go nuts, and it could get us in a full blown depression.
Obama, just say no to the environmentalists. If the auto industry and the rest of economy rebounds, then you can try and get more regulations in gradually, but you can't sacrifice this nation's economy long term for the short term benefit of appeasing part of your base.
You need to put our money where your mouth is. You need to show that post-partisan spirit that you claimed to have throughout your campaign.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
American's Right to Defend One's Property in Jeopardy
Imagine that you are home minding your own business. You are a simple cattle rancher who wants to spend his days in peace in the Arizona countryside next to the border with Mexico. You are not near any major cities where crime runs rampant. You think that you are safe. However, you wake up one day and your property is getting vandalized. Your house is getting broken into and trucks are stolen. Your livestock is dying from eating plastic bottles that are littered all over your land. In fact, there is so much litter on the ground that it is starting to look like a garbage dump. There is a steady stream of illegal immigrants invading your own version of the Ponderosa.
What would you do to combat the vandals? Call the cops? They don't seem to what to do anything to help watch your land or taken any type of proactive actions to prevent any future occurrences. Would you call your congressman? Senator? Governor? You could, but they don't seem to care either. If no one cares, maybe you would give up and deal with it or move. Maybe you would fight back.
So many would cross his 22,000 acre ranch into the United States that the local and federal law enforcement agencies started calling it "the avenue of choice" of illegal immigrants. In 1998, Roger Barnett, of Douglas, Arizona got tired of waiting for the government to protect his land and chose to fight back. He began patrolling his own property and detaining illegal immigrants entering the country on his property while waiting on law enforcement to come and pick them up. Over the past 10 years, he has exercised his right to protect his property, home, and family by turning over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol.
Now, he is getting sued for $32 million by 16 people that he detained and had arrested back in March 2004. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) claims that Mr. Barnett violated the civil rights of the 5 women and 11 men he captured and held at gunpoint while waiting for law enforcement to come and apprehend them. They go on to accuse Mr. Barnett of "yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women." As he was waiting for law enforcement, MALDEF claims that he threatened them in English and Spanish while pointing a pistol at them and his large dog barked at the trespassers.
According to the Washington Times, "Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch's established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their 'clients' to keep them running."
I don't know about you, but I would not put up with all that he has put up with from the felons that have crossed his property over the years. The right to the ownership of PRIVATE property is one of the founding cornerstone beliefs in what makes this country great. He has an absolute right to protect his ranch, home, and family. According to the many comments on the "Douglas Dispatch" website regarding this issue, most people agree with me.
This lawsuit is an abomination to the Constitution of the United States and all of our rights. He has the perfectly legal right to apprehend and detain individual that are illegally trespassing on his property. It is nothing but a Trojan horse lawsuit to make this an open border country and amnesty for illegal immigrants in this country.
Many on the left will try to demonize Mr. Barnett. "The Barnett brothers have time and time and time again held people at gunpoint," Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said. "There were cases that may well have amounted to false imprisonment, which is a felony."
Well, this statement is misrepresenting the facts of the case. It is true that if he would hold a random law-abiding person at gunpoint it would be considered kidnapping or false imprisonment. However, they were in fact in the process of committing the federal felony of entering the country illegally and a misdemeanor crime of criminal trespassing. According to Arizona law, people are allowed to do a citizen's arrest when the suspect commits a felony that the arresting citizen witnesses or when a citizen knows that a felony has been committed and has reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect committed it. [See A.R.S. section 13-3884.] (The statute also permits an arrest for a breach of the peace) He was well within his rights to do what he did.
Last March, Judge John Roll denied the Barnetts' motion to dismiss and stated there was sufficient evidence of a conspiracy, denying the plaintiffs their right to interstate travel and the Barnetts' actions were motivated by race, to allow the matter to be presented to a jury.
The trial should have ended right there before it even started. Judge Roll been heavily criticized for his judicial activism. How could he totally ignore Barnett's property rights or the Arizona statue that allows private citizen's to make arrests of people committing felonies in their presence?
As the jury is currently deliberating the fate of Mr. Barnett, I sincerely hope that he is not found libel for violating their "civil rights". If he is, it will set a bad precedent and will basically make every American citizen's private property rights invalid.
A thug who is caught breaking into a man's house and assaulting his wife could claim that his rights were violated if the man protects his wife and apprehends the criminal while waiting for the cops. It would also make it a lot harder for us to prosecute illegal aliens.
How can a foreign criminal sue a U.S. citizen for preventing the criminal from committing another felony on said citizen's property? Something doesn't sound right with that picture.
What would you do to combat the vandals? Call the cops? They don't seem to what to do anything to help watch your land or taken any type of proactive actions to prevent any future occurrences. Would you call your congressman? Senator? Governor? You could, but they don't seem to care either. If no one cares, maybe you would give up and deal with it or move. Maybe you would fight back.
So many would cross his 22,000 acre ranch into the United States that the local and federal law enforcement agencies started calling it "the avenue of choice" of illegal immigrants. In 1998, Roger Barnett, of Douglas, Arizona got tired of waiting for the government to protect his land and chose to fight back. He began patrolling his own property and detaining illegal immigrants entering the country on his property while waiting on law enforcement to come and pick them up. Over the past 10 years, he has exercised his right to protect his property, home, and family by turning over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol.
Now, he is getting sued for $32 million by 16 people that he detained and had arrested back in March 2004. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) claims that Mr. Barnett violated the civil rights of the 5 women and 11 men he captured and held at gunpoint while waiting for law enforcement to come and apprehend them. They go on to accuse Mr. Barnett of "yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women." As he was waiting for law enforcement, MALDEF claims that he threatened them in English and Spanish while pointing a pistol at them and his large dog barked at the trespassers.
According to the Washington Times, "Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch's established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their 'clients' to keep them running."
I don't know about you, but I would not put up with all that he has put up with from the felons that have crossed his property over the years. The right to the ownership of PRIVATE property is one of the founding cornerstone beliefs in what makes this country great. He has an absolute right to protect his ranch, home, and family. According to the many comments on the "Douglas Dispatch" website regarding this issue, most people agree with me.
This lawsuit is an abomination to the Constitution of the United States and all of our rights. He has the perfectly legal right to apprehend and detain individual that are illegally trespassing on his property. It is nothing but a Trojan horse lawsuit to make this an open border country and amnesty for illegal immigrants in this country.
Many on the left will try to demonize Mr. Barnett. "The Barnett brothers have time and time and time again held people at gunpoint," Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said. "There were cases that may well have amounted to false imprisonment, which is a felony."
Well, this statement is misrepresenting the facts of the case. It is true that if he would hold a random law-abiding person at gunpoint it would be considered kidnapping or false imprisonment. However, they were in fact in the process of committing the federal felony of entering the country illegally and a misdemeanor crime of criminal trespassing. According to Arizona law, people are allowed to do a citizen's arrest when the suspect commits a felony that the arresting citizen witnesses or when a citizen knows that a felony has been committed and has reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect committed it. [See A.R.S. section 13-3884.] (The statute also permits an arrest for a breach of the peace) He was well within his rights to do what he did.
Last March, Judge John Roll denied the Barnetts' motion to dismiss and stated there was sufficient evidence of a conspiracy, denying the plaintiffs their right to interstate travel and the Barnetts' actions were motivated by race, to allow the matter to be presented to a jury.
The trial should have ended right there before it even started. Judge Roll been heavily criticized for his judicial activism. How could he totally ignore Barnett's property rights or the Arizona statue that allows private citizen's to make arrests of people committing felonies in their presence?
As the jury is currently deliberating the fate of Mr. Barnett, I sincerely hope that he is not found libel for violating their "civil rights". If he is, it will set a bad precedent and will basically make every American citizen's private property rights invalid.
A thug who is caught breaking into a man's house and assaulting his wife could claim that his rights were violated if the man protects his wife and apprehends the criminal while waiting for the cops. It would also make it a lot harder for us to prosecute illegal aliens.
How can a foreign criminal sue a U.S. citizen for preventing the criminal from committing another felony on said citizen's property? Something doesn't sound right with that picture.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Could the Democrats Be Starting to Overreach?
The biggest danger the Democrats could face would be overreaching to their leftist base. This is still a center-right nation. It won't take much to start turning their constituents away. Bill Clinton found that out when he tried to get Hillacare passed and instituted the "don't ask, don't tell policy" in the military. The Democrats got thumped in the '94 mid-term elections. After only the first two weeks in power, it looks as if they haven't learned that lesson yet.
Obama's first two executive orders were to overturn the "Mexico City policy", which funds abortions internationally with federal tax money, and to close Guantanamo Bay within the year. He is, also, championing the "stimulus" package that is going through Congress. However, all of these are very unpopular with the American people.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they disagreed with the president's decision to give overseas funding to family planning organizations that provide abortions, according to a recent Gallup survey. Only, 35% of Americans supported decision.
The closing of Guantanamo was closer but still more Americans were against it than for it by a 50-44% margin.
The most toxic issue today for Obama and his fellow band of merry liberals is the "stimulus" bill by far. The "porkulus" bill, as it as been called by conservatives, is full of goodies for left-leaning organizations like ACORN and programs like an increase in the amount of food stamps given out that will have little to no effect on stimulating the economy.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure. The support for the bill has skydived overall the past two weeks. Opposition was 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today. Even Democrats are starting to sour on the bill. Sixty-four percent of Democrats still support the plan. That is down from 74% a week ago, though. The more people hear about the bill, the more people don't like it. A recent Gallup survey found that 54% of those surveyed wanted the bill to be changed dramatically or killed altogether. Breaking down the 54% mentioned above: 37% wanted major changes made to the legislation, and 17% said that it should be rejected entirely.
The bill needs to be scrapped down all the way and rebuilt from the floor up. In fact, 45% favor a tax-cut only plan while 34% are opposed to the idea. On the other side of the coin, 72% of voters oppose a stimulus plan that includes only new government spending without any tax cuts.
More Americans seem to favor tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy versus government spending. Obama would be wise to listen those who voted him in.
Obama still enjoys an approval rating of 61.8% (RCP average), but it has been steadily declining since his inauguration. Now, there is a natural decline that happens to every president after the "high" of inauguration. However, it'll keep falling if they follow the same policies that kicked the Democrats out of power in the White House under Carter and the Congress under Clinton. The GOP is gaining ground on the Democrats in Congress already. The Rasmussen survey said that 42% of voters said they would vote for their district's Democratic candidate while 38% said they would choose the Republican. A week ago, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead, 42-35%.
It's still way too early to predict a mid-term backlash against the Democrats, but it is not off to a good start. If the bill goes through as is, and it the economy doesn't recover, there probably will be. Obama campaigned against the deficit spending of Bush. He criticized W. for ballooning the deficit over his years in office and claimed that McCain would be an extension of the Bush administration. However, he will be seen as a major hypocrite, if he doubles-down on the Bush style deficit spending. If he's not careful, it will be Obama that will be seen as Bush squared.
Obama's first two executive orders were to overturn the "Mexico City policy", which funds abortions internationally with federal tax money, and to close Guantanamo Bay within the year. He is, also, championing the "stimulus" package that is going through Congress. However, all of these are very unpopular with the American people.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they disagreed with the president's decision to give overseas funding to family planning organizations that provide abortions, according to a recent Gallup survey. Only, 35% of Americans supported decision.
The closing of Guantanamo was closer but still more Americans were against it than for it by a 50-44% margin.
The most toxic issue today for Obama and his fellow band of merry liberals is the "stimulus" bill by far. The "porkulus" bill, as it as been called by conservatives, is full of goodies for left-leaning organizations like ACORN and programs like an increase in the amount of food stamps given out that will have little to no effect on stimulating the economy.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure. The support for the bill has skydived overall the past two weeks. Opposition was 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today. Even Democrats are starting to sour on the bill. Sixty-four percent of Democrats still support the plan. That is down from 74% a week ago, though. The more people hear about the bill, the more people don't like it. A recent Gallup survey found that 54% of those surveyed wanted the bill to be changed dramatically or killed altogether. Breaking down the 54% mentioned above: 37% wanted major changes made to the legislation, and 17% said that it should be rejected entirely.
The bill needs to be scrapped down all the way and rebuilt from the floor up. In fact, 45% favor a tax-cut only plan while 34% are opposed to the idea. On the other side of the coin, 72% of voters oppose a stimulus plan that includes only new government spending without any tax cuts.
More Americans seem to favor tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy versus government spending. Obama would be wise to listen those who voted him in.
Obama still enjoys an approval rating of 61.8% (RCP average), but it has been steadily declining since his inauguration. Now, there is a natural decline that happens to every president after the "high" of inauguration. However, it'll keep falling if they follow the same policies that kicked the Democrats out of power in the White House under Carter and the Congress under Clinton. The GOP is gaining ground on the Democrats in Congress already. The Rasmussen survey said that 42% of voters said they would vote for their district's Democratic candidate while 38% said they would choose the Republican. A week ago, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead, 42-35%.
It's still way too early to predict a mid-term backlash against the Democrats, but it is not off to a good start. If the bill goes through as is, and it the economy doesn't recover, there probably will be. Obama campaigned against the deficit spending of Bush. He criticized W. for ballooning the deficit over his years in office and claimed that McCain would be an extension of the Bush administration. However, he will be seen as a major hypocrite, if he doubles-down on the Bush style deficit spending. If he's not careful, it will be Obama that will be seen as Bush squared.
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