Letters to the Editor
Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS
Published Letters: 161 Editor's Choice: 15
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Snoozefest in the Commonwealth
[Read the article: Will Clinton or Obama be voted off the island?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks to Salon for providing the info. Exhaustive searches I've made in the last couple of weeks found only a single, months-old poll.
Rather than possessing a huge Appalachian lead, Hillary is favored by four of every seven P.R. voters who could be bothered to express a preference. If delegates are awarded proportionately, that would represent a net pickup of only about eight delegates for her over Obama in an uncharacteristically low turnout. He'll recoup that a few days later in Montana and South Dakota.
Zzzzzzzz!
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Thank you Congress: You've screwed the pooch
[Read the article: Endangered species: The Tahoe, Suburban and Yukon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Congress, with its "Economic Stimulus Act of 2002 and the "Jobs and Growth Act of 2003," set the auto industry and the environment on parallel paths to destruction regarding competitiveness and fuel efficiency. It passed legislation that made dozens of luxury vehicles eligible for a $100,000 tax break. Only a Hummer H1, which cost $110,000, wasn't fully deductible (the last $4,000 wasn't) in the first year after purchase.
This tax break for the idle rich, orginally meant to help farmers purchasing vehicles weighing over 6,000 pounds, now went to wealthy owners of vehicles which appear to have been designed to weigh more to capture the tax break (but to use more fuel) than for any engineering rationale.
These included the:
BMW X5 (6005 pounds!)
Cadillac Escalade, ESV and SRX
Chevrolet Astro Passenger Van (6100#), Avalanche 1500 and 2500, Express Passenger Van, Silverado 1500, 2500 and 3500, Suburban 1500 and 2500, Trailblazer and Tahoe
Dodge Durango, Ram Cargo Van 3500, Ram MaxiVan 3500, Sprinter, Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500
Ford Econoline E350 Van and E350 Passenger Wagon, Excursion, Expedition, F150, Styleside F250 and F350 Super Duty
GMC Safari AWD Passenger Van (6100#), Savana Passenger Van-3500, Sierra 1500 (6400#), 2500, 3500 and Sierra Yukon and Denali
Hummer H1 and H2
Isuzu Ascender
Land Rover Discovery (6064#) and Range Rover,
Lexus GX470(at exactly 6,000#)and LX470
Lincoln Aviator, Navigator and Blackwood
Mercedes G and M Classes
Porsche Cayenne
So the ostensibly "fiscally conservative" Republican-dominated Congress passed legislation that would directly consume more fuel, lose $1.4 billion in tax revenues to the Treasury, and in the case of BMW, Porsche, Rover, etc., would contribute substantially to our trade deficit by subsidizing foreign manufacturers and OPEC states. It put wealthy taxpayers with a one-person home business into a 9-mpg behemoth rationalized perhaps by an occasional trip to the post office but used mostly to drop the kids off at day care. It has the slack-jawed noveau riche tooling around in mammoth pickups that will never carry a bale of hay. It drove down the value of the dollar and helped get us into hock to the Chinese.
Of course, now all that capital and training investment by the U.S. auto industry is swirling down the tubes. To use the language of addiction treatment, Ford, Chrysler and GM have been "enabled" by those who should have known better.
These boneheaded moves weren't entirely unnoticed and unprotested at the time the ripoffs were cruising through Congress on the way to the First Moron's signature. Outfits such as the Public Interest Research Group were raising holy hell.
Hopefully some challengers to incumbents will make these points before the primaries or the first Tuesday in November.
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There's money to be made, in those laws...
[Read the article: Kiss my ass]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here in Kansas, draconian oppression of sex offenders is a thriving industry, one teamed with the for-profit prison industry. GEO Group's lobbyists teamed with those promoting "Jessica's Law," a measure that would cause an estimated 15% increase in state prisoners by 2012. The corporation needed that to rationalize repeal of a law that kept them from building new prisons. It was as if they had poisoned the body politic, then offered the costly antidote: "Keep your eyes on the watch. You are getting very, very sleepy. We can take care of your increased prison needs."
Phill Kline, our former attorney general spent his time chasing abortionists and in illegal meetings with our fundy Board of Education members who wanted to forcibly insert textbook stickers denying evolutionary science (he offered to defend that clearly unconstitutional behavior). He appealed the case of Matthew Limon, a retarded boy who blew another, even after the Lawrence case was decided. Limon had already done three years for that B.J., but the A.G. wanted him to serve 12 more. Heterosexual oral sex would have earned a small fraction of that sentence.
The private prison water carriers did manage to pass a sexual offender registration law that virtually insures that such offenders will not register, otherwise they would not be able to secure employment, housing and be free from the lethal attacks by self-styled vigilantes. What's a "sex offender" in Kansas? Why that includes someone who has been convicted of adultery, patronizing a prostitute or perhaps a "miscegenator," convicted prior to the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case. Failure to register can result in probation and/or up to a $100,000 fine.
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Randy Scheunemann. This Century's Dr. Strangelove?
[Read the article: A "September 10th mindset"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Scheunemann and McCain have been inseparable since 1999. His influence was critical in the boneheaded effort to invade Iraq. He helped secure the financing that produced the bogus information from the Iraqi National Congress that played a central role into getting us into this mess. He is determined to expand the war to Iran and bring nukes into play.
He may well be the reason that Holy Joe Lieberman is so involved in promoting McCain's candidacy.
Why is the MSM disregarding Randy's nutcase's role in the McCain campaign? It's long past time to expose him.