Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday March 28, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Wisconsin 2. Force 3. Brazil 4. Ethanol 5. Tax 6. Tester 7. Jet 1. Wisconsin. The Battle for Wisconsin has turned into a long war, as the unions and the political left and the DNC choosing to draw their line in the sand. Three events last week. The first was the publication of the union reform legislation and state budget by the Legislative Reference Bureau. Publication of the legislation by the Secretary of State was blocked by a temporary restraining order (TRO) by conflicted Judge Sumi. But the Legislative Reference Bureau is required by state statute to publish laws that have been passed and signed by the governor within ten days of his signature. It appears that the democrats and the unions outsmarted themselves and did not do a complete job blocking the legislation. Of course, this creates absolute chaos, as the legislature and the governor are now treating this as completed legislation that will be enforced, while there is a single county judge that has chosen to block it. Democrats and union droids reacted with predictable screams of outrage at the publication and immediately pushed for another restraining order against the legislation. Unfortunately for them, they ended up in front of another county judge who refused to do anything. Meanwhile, the state appealed Sumi’s TRO to an appellate court which refused to hear it, punting it to the state supreme court on an expedited appeal. At the same time, there is an upcoming election for state supreme court, with a runoff between a sitting judge who got around 55% in the primary and a union-friendly, green activist who got 25%. The election is April 5, and democrats have poured in everything into the campaign to defeat the incumbent, who normally votes with a conservative majority on the court. The unions and democrats see this as an opportunity to overturn the law by judicial fiat by packing the court with their friends. Finally, union and democrat efforts to collect signatures to recall eight Republican state senators continue. No word last week of a similar effort by the Tea Party to recall eight democrat state senators that fled the state rather than do their sworn duty. The elections of Scott Brown in MA and Christy in NJ in 2010 were harbingers of the Tea Party-fueled backlash against leftist overreach by congress and the Obama administration. There is no small concern that successful union and national democrat led recalls of Republican state senators and defeat of the incumbent state Supreme Court justice will be a similar harbinger for 2012. The Tea Party must be fully engaged in this war in Wisconsin and not flinch from the brutality, the name calling intimidation, or the thuggery. 2. Force. AJ Strata of the Strata Sphere wrote an article about an outrageous ruling by a federal judge in NY that upheld internal rules of the Social Security Administration that forces seniors into Medicare. The rules make receipt of Social Security checks contingent on enrollment in Medicare. The citizen now has no choice, and the plaintiffs were required to give up non-Medicare coverage and individual medical Savings Accounts. The plaintiffs had paid into Medicare and Social Security all their lives. They had other medical plans that they liked better and refused to enroll. Social Security Administration refused to allow them to opt out of enrollment in Medicare. The ruling goes farther by requiring anyone who withdraws from Medicare not only to not receive Social Security but having to pay back all benefits received up to the date of withdrawl. Note that both Social Security and Medicare are written as “voluntary” programs, allowing Americans the choice of opting out. Should this logic be applied to ObamaCare, we are in huge trouble. You can find the NY Post article here. Note that the web site has some nasty pop-ups embedded, so be careful when you click through: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/entitled_ to_chains_tqyOh9TXW49SLG5xwS3kvJ 3. Brazil. On his magical Mystery Tour to Brazil last week, Obama gushed about helping the Brazilians develop their oil industry, going as far as saying he wanted to buy oil from Brazil. This is the same administration that has imposed a seven year long moratorium on new oil leases offshore in the Gulf, both coasts and in Alaska and is ignoring a contempt ruling by a Federal Judge in new Orleans and slow rolling permits for oil exploration in the Gulf. Rather than creating new jobs for Americans and putting us in the position to export oil overseas, he is supporting the creation of a Brazilian oil industry, including Petrobras investments in the Gulf of Mexico, so that we can import oil from Brazil. This is one of the most outrageous things I have read in a very long time. And it is time for congress and the governors to do something about it. 4. Ethanol. The ethanol for fuel scam may end up being one of the decision points for selection of the next conservative candidate for President. Today, we are burning about 40% of our corn as fuel for our vehicles. As a 10% ethanol mix, this not only helps destroy our internal combustion engines and harms our gas mileage, but it creates food shortages and food price inflation overseas. This all has been done in the name of environmental sensitivity, yet ethanol is far less efficient than petroleum as a vehicle fuel and is therefore harsher on the environment. The decision to shut this scam down and stop the agricultural subsidies that keep it afloat must be made – sooner rather than later. Our candidates, as they make their way through the system must promise to pull the plug on this, and so far, it does not appear that there are many even willing to discuss it. Michelle Bachman has been quiet. Pawlenty and Daniels both support ethanol, and Gingrich was a barely closeted green while Speaker in the mid-1990s, who did nothing to shut this down. Use support for ethanol as an indicator of someone not to support in future campaigns. 5. Tax. Yet another “good idea” out of the democrat majority in the senate is the idea of a travel tax which will keep track of the miles you drive and where you drive and tax you accordingly. The farther you go, the more you get to pay. They plan on enforcing it via sensors on all vehicles to keep track of your movements. Land of the Free? Hardly. Read more here (from Fox News): http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/25/uncle-sam-considers-taxing-motorists-miles-driven/ 6. Tester. John Tester (D, MT) took advantage of an illegal indictment and prosecution of incumbent Conrad Burns to defeat him in 2006. Tester ran as the prototypical gun-toting conservative who happened to be a democrat. Once he got to DC, he was just another vote for Harry Reid and supported all the big pieces of legislation that have done so much to destroy this economy over the last four years. He is up for reelection next year and is feeling the heat, including being one of the 60 votes that passed ObamaCare. His response last week was that he was not the 60th vote; he was the 52nd vote, which was the number of the actual vote cast to pass ObamaCare. But this misses the point, as any single democrat could have stopped it by voting to uphold the filibuster. Tester chose otherwise, which is why he needs to be removed from office at the earliest opportunity. 7. Jet. Claire McCaskill (D, MO) who is also up for reelection in 2012 has a tax problem, failing to pay taxes and for trips on a private jet owned by her husband’s company for political purposes. She has billed the government for some political trips. She is now in the process of repaying nearly $400,000 in back taxes, reimbursing fees, pilot expenses, fuel, etc for political trips. McCaskill was the MO State Auditor for nearly eight years, so you would think she would be particularly sensitive to rules governing campaign donations, political trips, and required taxes. She may have some difficulty getting reelected next year. We can only hope. 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: 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/ -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
