Election Notes

Federal Agencies Holding Back Flood

Several times in recent months federal agencies, especially the EPA, have announced delays in proposed regulations.  It would be hard not to suspect there were political motivations in doing so.  Needing all the votes they could get, it behooved agencies not to further enrage groups like producers of energy, food and electricity or the workers who create those things.

But talk show host Mark Levin has really put a point on it.  Back in August, his Landmark Legal Foundation filed suit to try to force the EPA to reveal just how big a tidal wave of regulations it was holding back until after the election.  It also asked for expedited treatment of the request because of the short time frame until an election on which the information could have a bearing.

To no one’s shock, the EPA has not responded with information.  Part of Levin’s contention is that the EPA has habitually ignored Constitutional limitations and exceeded its authority.  Later filings noted that in a related case, EPA was held in contempt for violating a court order, erasing computer hard drives and backup tapes that could have contained related information.

At the recent North American Meat Association convention, Washington political observers indicated other federal agencies, including USDA and FDA, appeared to be pulling the same trick.  A whole raft of federal regulations is expected right after the election if the president is reelected.  But a veritable deluge would come if the president is defeated and it could be expected agency power could be reined in.

Barone Provides Perspective on Polls

Michael Barone, the election expert even Karl Rove willingly plays second fiddle to, provided some interesting commentary on the poll data we’re seeing in this election cycle.

Amid new polls by National Public Radio and CBS/N.Y. Times both indicating Mitt Romney has a 12-point lead over President Obama among independent voters, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Barone why this kind of data doesn’t seem to be reflected in swing state polls(11/01/12).

Barone explained that pollsters are struggling to adapt to new conditions.  They are operating under polling theory developed when Americans had a land line phone and answered it when it rang.  Now, government statistics show one-third of households are cell-phone only households, with a major effect on polling normally conducted primarily on the telephone.

Barone suspects pollsters are operating with a “loose screen” when qualifying voters.  That means when asking registered voters screening questions designed to find out whether they were likely voters — the subset which is a more accurate indicator group of election results — Barone thinks the questions are designed to make sure too many don’t get screened out.  The need for total survey numbers to validate polls is too urgent to turn many potential respondents away.  But the accuracy of the results may suffer from less stringent screening.

Barone also noted absentee requests and absentee votes by party have drastically shifted in Ohio, for example, as one of the indicators political observers are using to read shifting conditions.  He also said virtually all data has shown the enthusiasm among Republican voters is significantly higher than Democrats this year.  He added that there also is no evidence that if President Obama were to win, he would win by the margin he enjoyed in 2008.

Published in: on November 1, 2012 at 11:29 pm  Comments (1)  

Obama’s America: What Would It Be Like?

Some time ago we picked up a copy of “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.”  By Dinesh D’Souza, the book examines the fact that Obama’s autobiographical book is entitled “Dreams From My Father” not “Dreams Of My Father.”  That is, Obama’s book is not about remembrances of his father but it is explaining the dreams his father — a 1950s African socialist citizen of a British colony (Kenya) who hated Britain and the West — had for the future of the world.

Now D’Souza not only has a follow up book, “Obama’s America: 2016” but a movie based on the book will begin appearing in theaters this week.  We’ll be there opening night in Colorado Friday, August 17.  This book and the movie envisions what America will look like after a second Obama administration, with no re-election concerns to hinder his agenda.

The movie adds further movie screens to its list for each of the first few weeks.

Click here to go to the movie’s website, including release dates for your area and/or links to online ticket sales.

 

Published in: on August 15, 2012 at 5:38 pm  Leave a Comment  

Catching Up on the Flow of Events

We’re checking into reports that a certain tick, nicknamed the Lone Star tick because of a white mark on its back, may be the cause of sudden meat allergies.  Naturally, ABC jumped on the story very early.  You won’t believe their spin on it.  But you will want to know about this, as this tick is prevalent in the southern part of the country and we can foresee some concern among ranchers who have wildlife hunting operations.  The last thing one wants is to go on a great hunting expedition, celebrate with a big steak at the hunting lodge and then go into severe allergic reaction a few hours later because of a tick bite.  Several hundred people have reported occurrences and this is the first scientific information regarding the cause.

R-CALF has been parading former GIPSA Administrator J. Dudley Butler around the northern plains, having him tell his version of why the regressive, destructive and legal-friendly proposed GIPSA Rule stalled.  What is his story?  We’ll have some answers in our e-newsletter, the AFF Sentinel, in coming days.  Sen. Grassley of Iowa wanted to attach an amendment prohibiting packer ownership of livestock in the Senate Ag Committee version of the bill but he didn’t have but a few votes and it did not happen.  The Senate version was amended and passed this week.  The House is planning to take it up in mid-July.  More Farm Bill info on the way.

Of course, the coming week could be one of the most exciting in history, as it could mark the high tide of big government in America.  We’ve heard at least one pundit refer to it as the Gettysburg of the leftist movement, the high watermark and start of a receding tide of government interference in the marketplace and our personal lives.  Nothing has more symbolized overbearing government — in fact was the catalyst for many folks joining the Tea Party movement — than the Obamacare law.  That decision by the Supreme Court is widely expected this week.

In addition, just one part of the administration’s effort to slap down state governments’ attempt to serve their citizens is also due a reading from the Supreme Court.  Several states have been sued or received orders trying to stop efforts to properly determine the identity or the alive-or-dead status of voters.  This week will determine whether a state can require its law enforcement officers to uphold state law concurrent with federal law, in the case of Arizona’s government trying to serve its border citizens so abandoned and harassed by the federal government.

Published in: on June 24, 2012 at 5:14 pm  Leave a Comment  

New York Times: Is It Ethical to Eat Meat?

We’re not sure why they are doing it now — after all, when it comes to animal agriculture the New York Times has assuredly earned their anti-meat industry stripes — but they’ve decided to run an essay contest on, “…whether it is right to eat animals in the first place…,” 600 words, due by April 8, e-mailed to, get this, ethicist@nytimes.com.

Okay…who knew the New York Times had an ethicist?  Not that we question their need for one.  After all, about the only time we can recall paying much attention to the Times was when they had to fire that reporter whom they finally discovered was not reporting but for years was making up stories as he went along.  Then they avidly followed Michael Pollan’s attempts to smear every farmer and rancher who operated on more than a few dozen acres and utilized more technology than a pitchfork.  Ethics?  What ethics?  What did they run to tell the other side of Pollan’s antics?

In fact, we might begin our argument with the position that their assumptions are false to begin with.  Eating meat is not a question that has anything to do with ethics.  Proper care and husbandry of animals has to do with ethics.  What you eat for dinner does not — unless you really are a cannibal.  The very fact that those who believe in vegetarianism have to roam far afield to environmental, nutrition, legal and earth karma notions (mostly based on fallacies or emotional turmoil) to attempt to justify their positions, is illustrative of the difficulties in fighting nature’s way.

We’ll help you out as you begin pondering your essay.  The dictionary refers to ethics as dealing with, “moral principles,” “that branch of philosophy dealing with values,”  and dealing with right and wrong.  It is part of the vegetarian’s strategy to pose meat-eating as a moral issue when we believe it is not at all.  In fact, it is somewhat ironic that the strata of society which often casts aspersions at Christian religions, indeed, at most religions, regards most questions of morality short of murder as grey areas and cringes at words like right and wrong or good and evil, should trot out morality and ethics as having a bearing on eating meat.

We also wonder what the Times editors read.  They mention animal activists like Peter Singer and another vegetarian book immediately and claim vegetarians have “dominated the discussion about the ethics of eating” but then opine that, “those who love meat have had surprisingly little to say.”  We’ve had plenty to say, it just hasn’t been printed in the Times.  And, of course, it is revealing that the Times and their “ethicist” quickly cite HSUS’ Wayne Pacelle’s philosophy about people making an ethical decision whenever they eat . 

Anyway, just so you know what the Times is doing — even if you’re not sure what they have up their sleeves — here’s your chance to ponder and write.

Click here to see New York Times story.

Published in: on March 20, 2012 at 11:34 pm  Leave a Comment  

Factors Affecting Oil Prices & How

I’m surprised at how normally good analysts trip up on the subject of oil and gas.  President Obama has been blah-blah-blahing on the stump that the supply of oil has nothing to do with the price of oil and gas.  Some folks have chipped in that supply is not the problem because the demand for oil has slacked off.  Really, guys, this is not that complicated.

 
U.S. demand has slacked off for two key reasons: 1) we can’t buy as much gas as we’d like to because it’s so expensive.  We’d travel more and drive more but we can’t; 2) the economy is so bad: businesses who’ve gone out of business, people who don’t have jobs, businesses who aren’t growing and new businesses who aren’t being created don’t need gasoline for traveling, shipping goods, manufacturing goods or running their business.  We are actually exporting oil and refined products because stronger economies than ours can afford to pay for it and our economy is not generating that kind of strength.
 
People are screaming about speculators.  Why is there an opportunity for speculators?  Because the green enviro-zealots have taken control of our government, so that instead of supplying nearly all of our oil from our own sources like we could, we are in a position where significant percentages of our oil must come from great distances, through vital choke points like the Straits of Hormuz and from dictators and radical governments whose behavior is unpredictable and often hostile.  We don’t even have sense enough to maximize our purchases from friendly next-door neighbors, as evidenced by Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline after three years of “study.”
 
Does supply matter?  If we pumped or bought from Canada and Mexico 90-95 percent of our oil, our markets wouldn’t tremble when Hugo Chavez goes to Cuba for more cancer treatment, with no obvious reading of who will control Venezuela’s large flow of oil if Hugo checks out permanently.  Iran makes more money every time they rattle sabers over the Straits or snarl at Israel again.  We have voluntarily handed people like this the whip hand over our oil supplies; therefore, over a key economic engine.
 
Does supply matter?  Ask the natural gas folks.  For the first time in recent history we have ample supplies of natural gas because of technologies government hasn’t yet taken away and accidents of geography (private land vs. government land).  The price of natural gas has come down to relatively cheap levels.  Supply, and the nature of supply lines, does matter.
 
Does our woeful economic policy matter?  Yes, it does.  Oil is priced in dollars.  As our government continually weakens its financial position by spending money it doesn’t have, borrowing from less-predictable parts of the world, following an anti-free market economic policy that worsens our long-term economic strength for all the world to see, the dollar falls.  As our government accelerates the process by printing money with nothing behind it but more stacks of paper and barrels of ink, our currency’s value will continue to erode and the price of oil will rise in compensation.
 
Supply, more specifically, our own domestic supply and that from next-door, friendly neighbors, still matters.  For the president or anyone else to claim it doesn’t, is either a deceptive diversion or ignorance of the facts.
Published in: on March 3, 2012 at 5:01 pm  Leave a Comment  

Private Property Bill Passes House

H.R. 1433, the bill the would prohibit federal, state and local governments from seizing private property via eminent domain powers for purposes of economic development passed the U.S. House Tuesday on a voice vote, according to Humanevents.com. 

The next step will be the Senate.  We have heard nothing yet regarding whether Senate Majority Leader will be willing to consider the bill or if he will have to be coerced or gone around through legislative legerdemain.  It’s not too early to contact your senators to help build a movement to bring the bill up.

The bill would protect land owners from the efforts governments have been exerting to take over property to hand over to private developers so as to boost their tax revenue base.  Eminent domain had been originally intended only to make roads, airports and utilities construction possible, with proper payment to the land owners.  Instead, governments have been seizing land or, through regulation, devaluing land without any recompense to owners at all.

Sadly, the humanevents.com story noted that the Connecticut land involved in the landmark Kelo Supreme Court case, lies vacant after the city and state spent $78 million to bulldoze the homes and buildings that had been there (“House Passes Bill to Fight Unfair Seizure of Private Property,” 02/29/12) . 

This bill would not bring Susan Kelo’s little pink house back to its block in New London but it would make it significantly harder for governments that are supposed to protect property owners instead become the rapers and confiscators.

The Senate switchboard is 202) 224-3121; for the Senate web page, click here.

Published in: on February 29, 2012 at 3:02 pm  Comments (6)  

How Big Government Works

Something struck me the other day – another trick big government’s advocates use to further expand its reach.  When there appears an area where government advocates want the government to take over control and provide for the people, they plant the idea in the culture that this or that service or product is a “right.”

 It doesn’t matter to them if the law or the Constitution regards it as a right.  That is not the point.  Even if the product or service could more appropriately be termed a “want,” not even a “need” much less a “right,” the issue is described as a “right” over and over, in the media, in communities and by advocacy groups, until many folks believe it is so.  Just because some things might make life better or easier for some people, does not make it a right, something that the federal government is obligated to provide.

 Yet so many of the things that, in total, swell our federal budget are regarded as “rights” by some segments of the electorate, even though there is no possible Constitutional authority for providing such products and services.  It is many of these faux “rights” that not only overwhelm our ability to pay for them but cloud the culture’s notion of individual freedom and individually responsibility.

 A perfect example of this technique has been provided recently over the questions regarding the federal government’s attempt to provide contraception and abortion services through Obamacare.  First, the notion has been planted and nurtured over recent decades by the left and women’s groups that such services and products are “rights,” regardless of an absolute lack of any Constitutional underpinning for such a notion.  Secondly, the sweeping health care law the left championed mandates that the “right” shall be provided.  Thirdly, the question of forcing the unwilling to accept the provision of such services or paying for them is treated as an assault on others’ Constitutional “rights.”  Fourthly, the objection to the federal government providing and mandating these “rights” is twisted by the big government advocates as falsely claiming the conservatives want to abolish anyone’s availability to contraception, that they want to outlaw it.

Published in: on February 22, 2012 at 8:50 pm  Leave a Comment  

Measures of Our Distress

In a time of such economic turmoil, such volatility and such violently contrasting views of what is happening and how to make things better, economists are presenting some new angles of perspective all the time.

After recent unemployment numbers went up yet the official unemployment rate went down, the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore, delved into how that could be on Fox News.  Moore explained that, like the livestock and crop numbers we’re all used to, the unemployment numbers are survey numbers and projections, not actual counts.  Responders are asked whether they are employed, are you looking for a job or are you not looking for a job.

What isn’t talked about is the number of people who have quit looking for a job, have dropped out of the labor force.  Moore said the Journal regards a more important number the Workforce Participation Rate, that is, the percentage of people of working age in the workforce.  That number right now stands at 64 percent vs. 66-67 percent a few years ago.  That may not sound like a big difference, Moore said, but it represents 3 million jobs.

Another worrying figure that came up in the discussion was the long-term nature of much of the unemployed.  Moore said in January 2009, 2.69 million people had been unemployed for more than six months.  By January 2012, that number had climbed to 5.5 million.  We are 5 million jobs short of where we were in 2007, he noted.

Later on Fox News, financial commentator Eric Bolling noted another very compelling figure that not only affects our economic situation but also has a huge bearing on our political reality.  We have reached the point where 49.5 percent of our citizens are getting some payments from the federal government.  And the grand total of all those “entitlement” payments comes to $2.5 trillion – which is more money than the government takes in.

Published in: on February 21, 2012 at 5:52 pm  Leave a Comment  

Congress Fights Obama’s Attack on American Wallets

Americans’ frustration with the Obama Administration’s hard line policy of favoring the green enviro-zealot position on nearly all things has taken a new turn.

 Congress is searching for some way to get the Keystone XL pipeline under construction.  Obama, as part of his sincere and aggressive policy of raising the cost of energy for every American, rich or poor, announced last week he would not approve the pipeline.

 Left unsaid by him, of course, was that he had to oppose the pipeline because it would create jobs in America, would increase the supply of oil, put downward pressure on oil and gas prices, would import oil from next door from a friendly ally instead of from some dictatorship or terrorist-supporting nation and bolster national security.  Most importantly, he had to oppose the pipeline because it would make gasoline cheaper for American citizens and that was unacceptable.

 Obama instead used the excuse that there wasn’t enough time to study the project’s impact in the 60-day period Congress had set in the recent payroll tax bill.

 Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX.), however, countered that flimsy excuse, noting that we “fought and won World War II in less time than it’s taken to evaluate this project.”  Jim Angle, Fox News correspondent, noted that the government has spent 40 months studying the project (1/25/12).  Angle added that the State Department approved the project after all that study.  It was only then that green groups started protesting, using as an excuse the fact that a portion of the pipeline was routed over the eastern end of the Nebraska Sand Hills.

 Despite the fact that any of Keystone’s spills on its existing pipelines – including one which would closely follow the route of the new one except through eastern Nebraska – could be carried off in five-gallon buckets, Obama put his foot down.

 But there appears to be no limits to how far out on a limb the Democrats will go to stop energy development.  They’re trying to refer to the pipeline as a Republican “earmark.”  They also began raising the question as to whether the Koch brothers – conservative business involved in the energy industry and financial supports of conservative causes – should be subpoenaed about the pipeline.

 At today’s hearing on a bill to go around the White House and give a federal commission authority over the pipeline application, Chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee Ed Whitfield said he would not subpoena the Koch brothers because “Koch had nothing to do with this project.”  When Whitfield announce a hearing recess, Rep. Henry Waxman yelled out like he was part of an Occupy Washington protest.

 “ Are you going to call the Koch brothers during the recess?” Waxman yelled.

 The left must always resort to short slogans that will fit on bumper stickers, so their supporters can memorize the usually-illogical emotional reaction and have something to scream before security hauls them away.  Apparently, they have substituted the “Koch brothers” for “Halliburton,” as they are really chapped anyone would dare to oppose any of the myriad leftist public policy efforts funded by George Soros, numerous liberal foundations or unions.

 We doubt Waxman got hauled away but Whitfield didn’t roll over.  He responded to Waxman’s yell, as shown on Fox’s report.

 “Let me tell you something, “ Whitfield began with some heat, “if you want to talk about that, let’s talk about the millions of dollars the Obama Administration gave to companies like Solyndra…”

 We assume the committee got around to actually discussing the bill at hand, H.R. 3548, “North American Energy Access Act,” introduced by Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry.  The bill would remove authority to review and approve the pipeline from the State Department and authorize the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to review and approve with some route adjustments from the state of Nebraska.  While the State Department has already approved the pipeline, as an executive branch department, the White House can overrule its decision.  Apparently, FERC has more autonomy.

 Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX.) has also just introduced a bill dubbed the “Keystone for a Secure Tomorrow Act of 2012 or “K-FAST” that would immediately approve the pipeline.  Other bills introduced to get the pipeline going include one by Rep. John Hoeven, (R-ND.)

 It’s about some time someone aggressively tries to counter this Administrations fervent efforts to bleed American citizens’ wallets by deliberately boost the cost of gasoline – and any industrial, manufacturing, agricultural and transportation industry that burns fuel to operate.

Published in: on January 25, 2012 at 6:05 pm  Leave a Comment  

House Could Again Be Big Government Landmark

You may have noticed that our reflection of agriculture’s displeasure with the EPA has become a sentiment shared by enough citizens and businesses that politicians and the media – at least conservative media – have noticed.  Issues and principles that farmers and ranchers have argued for decades have finally become important to much of the rest of America.

 On Monday, Jan. 9, 2012, a case with far reaching implications for all will be heard at the U.S. Supreme Court, the first case this year for which oral arguments will be presented.  Just as a small pink house in Connecticut became the focus of private property rights in the Kelo case in 2005, a house not yet constructed in Idaho will again put the spotlight on property rights in 2012.  The case involves private property rights at a fundamental level and its favorable resolution could significantly bolster Americans’ rights, as they seek to get Constitutional rights back from a big government that has seized them.

 In 2008, an Idaho couple who purchased a lot in a platted subdivision already occupied with houses suddenly found the EPA telling them that not only were they forbidden to build a house on the lot but the substantial amount of gravel they had put on the lot must be removed.  The EPA had declared the lot that the county had given them a permit to build on a “wetlands.”  Michael and Chantell Sackett found out removing the gravel they’d already put on the lot would cost more than the lot itself.  On top of that, the EPA, unless they removed the gravel and returned the lot to its pristine state, would begin fining them $32,000 day.

 To add insult to injury, two levels of courts told the Sacketts they were not allowed to challenge the EPA in court.  Luckily for them – at least short-term – the Supreme Court is allowing them their day in court.  It is to be hoped that the Sacketts get justice much more in line with what Americans think are their rights under the Constituion than Susette Kelo did.

Published in: on January 9, 2012 at 12:07 am  Leave a Comment  
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