Tag Archives: regulations

Mercury Rising (Freedom Falling) Reply

Congress, Uncategorized, White House • Tags: , , , ,

I like stealth. In military situations, stealth can be a great force multiplier. A small number of submarines strategically placed can mean the difference between victory and defeat against a far superior force. The only thing bad about stealth is that it can be used for good purposes or it can be used to overcome the will of a people for purposes of a small group of elitists.

As the current administration finds itself being made more and more like it is on the defensive, parts of the agenda driven fanatics have increased their push to leave a lasting progressive mark on the rest of us. Maybe it is because they see a potential loss of power over the course of the next year. The “Change” that was meant to be inflicted on an unwary populace has become very much more visible over the past few years and the people are becoming aroused against it.

Mercury was the god of commerce and abundance in the middle Roman empire. It has a number of meanings and has lent its name to a planet and of course to an element which has received a lot of attention over the years. Like many people, I remember playing with it in my bare hands and watching its physical characteristics with some amount of curiosity. Maybe that explains the strange way I think of things. Of course, if that would happen now, men with large hooded protective suits would show up with all manner of devices to handle the environmental tragedy.

The word mercurial has been used to refer to something or someone erratic, volatile or unstable, derived from Mercury’s swift flights from place to place. The stealth agency that seeks to destroy commerce and is relentlessly focused on an agenda that is far from being erratic. The Environmental Protection Agency is making great strides in putting all things related to Mercury in a protective place. This ultimate nanny state group will have more impact in the coming months than most of us have been aware of. The repercussions will be astounding.

Two articles have been brought to light within the last few days that highlight the “Fundamental Change” the administration promised.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-epa-rules-threaten-older-power-plants-050230182.html

Where does your electricity come from? For many, it comes from one of the largest sources of energy we have in this country: Coal.  But under the regulations still being shoved through the Senate and the EPA, we will lose over 60 coal powered plants in dozens of states in a very short period of time. In the staggering blow we all received as a result of the great recession, unemployment is higher than its been in years, tax revenues are down, and electricity costs are already through the roof. This agenda driven agency will rack up bills that will have to be paid by an unsuspecting public for years to come.

From the AP article:

The agency has estimated that 14.7 gigawatts, enough power for more than 11 million households, will be retired from the power grid in the 2014-15 period when the two new rules take effect.

The first rule curbs air pollution in states downwind from dirty power plants. The second, expected to be announced Monday, would set the first standards for mercury and other toxic pollutants from power plant smokestacks.”

As I said before, people at the EPA can read the polls too

They recognize that to get their agenda in place, it must be done now. The President has already started to put up his fire wall claiming that the opposition want nothing but dirty air, dirty water, starving grandparents, kids in chains and the return of the black plague. (Okay I might be exaggerating a little bit there).

In exchange for satisfying their progressive agenda, we will find an even higher unemployment level, whole industries will suffer causing a lessening in tax revenue, and your electricity bills could conceivable go up as high as 14% during a time when we are still struggling to keep ourselves afloat. Talk about tone deaf!

But the EPA is not just satisfied with one element of commerce. They are positioning themselves to take on a whole lot more:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/19/epa-ponders-expanded-regulatory-power-in-name-sustainable-development/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Expanding their control over wider segments of the economy will create a nightmare of new regulations for businesses. We will no longer be competitive in the world since we will be hobbled by countless new regulations meant to protect us from ourselves. I for one am not sure I am ready to live in a country with more governmental controls that the failed Soviet Union. Are you? The threat is very real and is magnified with the fact that whoever is elected in November will probably be making some critical replacements on the Supreme Court. Dandy. An out of control federal agency backed up by a potentially out of control Supreme Court.

The ultimate form of energy for this country is freedom.

Freedom ceases to be a source of energy when someone else controls its flow. The government should serve the people, not the other way around. Frankly, with 14 trillion in debt, I can think of one agency in particular that could carve out a great big chunk of that deficit.

Well, I’m going out to put up the last of my Christmas lights.
I figure we might as well enjoy them before the EPA Enforcement Squads start cruising the neighborhood.

Mister Mac

“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

http://www.mahalo.com/obama-coal-industry/

Yes, Virginia, elections do matter.

Wouldn’t it be grand? Reply

Leadership • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

After years and years of following a path set by others, I have thought recently how nice it would be to finally have my say about everything that touches my life. Wouldn’t that be grand? It’s an old saying from my Grandmother’s age, but her definition and the one of today’s world would probably be out of whack. In her day (early 1900′s) they would have thought that having enough food on the table was enough. Her family was pretty industrious and they grew almost everything they ate. There were also not so many needs since the television didn’t announce each and every day why their lives sucked. They went to Church every Sunday and the community was so well-connected, you knew when someone had a sickness of a death in the family. Plus, if the barn burned you could be assured that everyone in the immediate area would show up with hammers and picnic lunches to help rebuild it.

Government was much simpler then too. It cost the American taxpayer $5000.00 per year for their representative in Congress. That cost is deceptive too since there were probably no army’s of aides, no junkets on jet planes, operating costs were considerably smaller and generally, the congress met for much shorter periods and went home more frequently. Wouldn’t it be grand?

In the ensuing years, congress and the government have found more and more ways to regulate things. There isn’t an item in your house (including the internet you are now sharing this information with me on) that isn’t regulated or taxed. Your very life is now controlled or guided in some way by a federal or state regulation whether you think about it or not. Drinking milk? Yep, regulations for that. Coffee? More laws and rules than you can possibly imagine. Going to drive to the market later? You will be wrapped up in the cocoon of your over-loving government (for your own good of course). From the car you drive to the fuel it uses to the safety forced into every vehicle. Someone somewhere thought about your safety and said, “let’s make them do it”. And for that you need a big government.

How big? Well, to start with, the cost of each representative has gone from that $5000 per year (no benefits and no retirement) to a whopping $235,000 plus a generous retirement for life after just five years of service ($60,000.00 per year plus health care and access to insurance you and I can’t get). Last year alone it cost $5.42 billion just to run the house of Representatives. And that cost is deceptive because many of the costs are buried in appropriations bills that both party’s eagerly agree to in the darkness of back rooms.

Spending increases of 70 percent, 80 percent, 100 percent and even 868 percent took hold across major parts of the institution over the past 10 years. Even those that saw the smallest increases went up by almost 40 percent or more.

In contrast, inflation from 2000 to 2010 was 26 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Keep in mind that the same people who get these perks are the ones who vote on them. That’s right, they have the ability to legislate everything from hair color to health care and they are not subject to most of the rules you are. They regulate your 401′s and pension plans, but you have no say in theirs. By forcing more regulations on the workplace, they control your business’s ability to grow while they place no such restrictions on themselves.

You might ask yourself, why is it so expensive to run a country that is so well-regulated? It’s simply because in order to justify their existence and rather large increase in operating costs, they feel an unending need to continue to make up new regulations. Now other people noticed this obsession with regulations too so they banded together with people who had similar needs and they became “lobbyists” or special interest groups. What do you think congress did then? More regulations of course. Rather than banishing the practice altogether and listening to the will of the actual people they represent, they have created warm and comforting regulations which regulate how the lobbyists and special interest groups can influence them . Isn’t that grand? Not to mention that after you have your five years in for your retirement, you can practically rotate right into a lobbying commitment. Yes, it’s a little harder and trickier now, but even if you don’t get picked up by a lobbying group, there are special interest causes that are waiting to prop you up well into your old age.

And what do we get for all this money?

Crushing tax rates that artificially stunt the growth and recovery of our economy. Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Bailouts for bankers. An ill-conceived and overly regulated health care plan that no one truly understood including the people who voted on it. A permanent governing class with little or no connection to the people who elected them. Legions of staffers who work around the clock to make sure that their own jobs are secure.

The communities we once lived in are now just a collection of residences. People have to work two jobs just to keep up and both parents are frequently also forced to work. Churches are falling further and further behind as a center where morality is discussed. The very well-regulated television industry has now become the nanny and opinion maker and each day people are more and more indoctrinated as to what is important and what is not. If you still have a barn, you better pray that it doesn’t burn down. The EPA will probably show up demanding a penalty for releasing some kind of noxious fumes into the air causing a contribution to global warming (remember most of those old barns were painted with RED LEAD PAINT )(GasP)

Wouldn’t it be grand if someone could explain to us why they needed all this money to not solve the real problems we are facing? These same people are now talking about further destroying our national defence and fixing the “too generous” pension program for people who actually have put their lives on the line to defend this great country.

Wouldn’t it really be grand if they would start the austerity measures in their own house first?

I think it would be grand if you gave your congress person a call and let them know your thoughts.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/congress/phone-numbers-and-mailing-addresses-memb.html

Man Battle Stations!