Tag Archives: transportation

2012 Primary, Budget, Econ, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Jeep starting Cherokee production in China

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Bailouts rock….

Cherokee China

Truth About Cars:

The 2014 Cherokee could be the first Jeep produced in China in nearly 6 years. Jeep CEO Mike Manley said that the Cherokee was an “obvious choice” for local production, as Jeep looks to expand its customer base in China.

Manley noted that the Cherokee could double Jeep’s current 46,000 unit sales. Local production would allow Jeep to avoid import tariffs on the new model, which according to Jeep, has proved overwhelmingly popular in consumer clinics. Currently, the Compass accounts for just over 70 percent of Jeep sales in the country.

More from Chinese Car Times – LINK.

And while China has tariffs on our goods, they are suing us in the WTO to stop all of our tariffs (another treaty we should never have gotten involved in because international enforcement would be pretty much one way against the United States).


Washington Post:

China asks WTO to block U.S. tariffs

China has turned to the World Trade Organization to help block U.S. tariffs on 22 types of Chinese products, including solar panels, pipes for oil wells, coated paper and steel wheel hubs.

The Chinese appeal to the WTO takes aim at the U.S. Commerce Department, which has recently imposed stiff duties on Chinese products. The department has cited Chinese subsidies, especially those funneled through state-owned enterprises, that it says give Chinese firms an edge over American competitors.

Budget, Dirty Tricks, Health Law, Obama, Taxes, Treason, True Talking Points

Obama Medicare Cuts Raise Middle Class Premiums

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Of course “cuts” doesn’t tell the whole story. That money, $714 billion, was not returned to the taxpayer, nor was that money used to pay the debt, nor was it returned to those who have paid into medicare for decades. Instead, that money was robbed from those who paid medicare premiums. The Democratic Party leadership along with President Obama used that money to pay Obamacare bureaucrats and write the reams of regulations associated with it.

Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired as a city worker, Sheila Pugach lives in a modest home on a quiet street in Albuquerque, N.M., and drives an 18-year-old Subaru.

Pugach doesn’t see herself as upper-income by any stretch, but President Barack Obama’s budget would raise her Medicare premiums and those of other comfortably retired seniors, adding to a surcharge that already costs some 2 million beneficiaries hundreds of dollars a year each.

More importantly, due to the creeping effects of inflation, 20 million Medicare beneficiaries would end up paying higher “income related” premiums for their outpatient and prescription coverage over time.

Administration officials say Obama’s proposal will help improve the financial stability of Medicare by reducing taxpayer subsidies for retirees who can afford to pay a bigger share of costs. Congressional Republicans agree with the president on this one, making it highly likely the idea will become law if there’s a budget deal this year.

But the way Pugach sees it, she’s being penalized for prudence, dinged for saving diligently.

It was the government, she says, that pushed her into a higher income bracket where she’d have to pay additional Medicare premiums.

IRS rules require people age 70-and-a-half and older to make regular minimum withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement nest eggs like 401(k)s. That was enough to nudge her over Medicare’s line.

“We were good soldiers when we were young,” said Pugach, who worked as a computer systems analyst. “I was afraid of not having money for retirement and I put in as much as I could. The consequence is now I have to pay about $500 a year more in Medicare premiums.”

Academic Misconduct, Dirty Tricks, Education, School Indoctrination

Leftist teachers threaten walk out over Senator Santorum speech…

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How far will the left go to crush dissent and assault the First Amendment? How about walking out of class and not teaching the kids.

Read carefully.

Fox News:

A Michigan high school canceled a speech by former Sen. Rick Santorum after teachers became outraged over his opposition to gay marriage and threatened to stage protests and a possible work stoppage.

Santorum had been invited to deliver a upcoming speech on leadership by the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Gross Pointe South High School. But the speech was canceled on Monday after the school district’s superintendent heard from angry teachers.

Adam Tragone, a spokesman for Young America’s Foundation, told Fox News they were very disappointed in the decision to cancel Santorum’s address.

“Most of the teachers were outraged by some of the senator’s statements about marriage,” he said. “The superintendent took these concerns very seriously and said he found Mr. Santorum’s stances on marriage very divisive and extreme.”

Thomas Harwood, superintendent of the Gross Pointe Public School System, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Langston Bowens, 18, the president of the YAF chapter, told Fox News that he’s not surprised by the campus outrage.

“They flooded my principal’s office and complained about how this bigoted, racist homophobic speaker was going to come to our school,” he said. “They were very offended. They threatened protests. They threatened not to show up to work – because he’s a conservative.”

Bowens said the young conservative student worked hard to raise the money to bring Santorum to campus and the school’s principal actually signed off on the address.

It was the superintendent, he said, that pulled the plug.

“Our school is liberal and not very conservative-friendly,” the teenager told Fox News. “We’re called bigoted, racist and stupid because we are conservatives.”

Of course Senator Santorum is none of those things and the vast majority of the country well knows it. So how is it that once again, does such a high concentration of the worst form of radicals all but take control of almost any public school?

Dirty Tricks, Firearms, Gangsta Govt, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

Senate Universal Background Check Bill Designed To Land You In Prison

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This is not unusual for the left. As has been demonstrated again and again, such laws are not designed to stop crime, they are designed to put gun owners in jail, who are most likely the political enemies of Democrats. yes their intentions are that bad.

Examiner:

S. 374 just passed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday on a vote of 10-8. S. 374 bears the Orwellian title “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013.” With all of the talk about “Universal Background Checks,” it is time to see what Congress has in mind for you. In short, the bill is designed to land you in federal prison.

The act bans the transfer of a firearm without running a criminal background check on a transferee through the federal NICS system. This is the same system that is used for retail purchases of firearms now, whether at a gun store or a gun show. The bill would apply the check to transfers that are currently private and expand the definition of “transfer” beyond any reasonable conception of the term. The definition of a “transfer” in the bill is very broad, and it includes loaning a firearm. There are some exceptions, but the exceptions are very narrowly drawn.

Under S. 374 as it passed the Judiciary Committee, all transfers would first require a transfer to a federally licensed firearms dealer, who would then transfer the firearm to the recipient, after running a check through NICS.

Exceptions would include gifts to a spouse, sibling, parent-child, or grandparent grandchild.

Transfers within the home, say to a live in girlfriend, would be legal, but only if the firearm does not leave the home (or “curtilage”) and the transfer lasts less than 7 days. A temporary transfer at a shooting range would also be legal, but only if the firearm does not leave the shooting range. A loan for hunting would also be legal. Other loans would result in imprisonment for a year unless the NICS check is performed.

The term “transfer” specifically includes the term “loan,” so loaning a firearm other than in the situations outlined above would be a crime.

What about the following situations:

  • You leave on a trip for 10 days, with the firearm at home in possession of a room mate, fiancee, or lover.
  • You have a few acres here in Georgia. You step away from the “curtilage” of your home and permit a friend or relative to use your firearm to shoot targets or pests on your own property.

Both situations would land you in prison under S. 374.

It gets worse. What is a shooting range? Under the bill, it is only a shooting range if it is owned or occupied by a “duly incorporated organization organized for conservation purposes or to foster proficiency in firearms.”

Is the shooting range owned by a natural person? Prison.

Is the shooting range owned by a corporation dedicated to turning a profit, rather than conservation or fostering the aims in the bill? Prison.

What about loaning a firearm for shooting at a Georgia DNR range? Prison.

While there is an exception for shooting competitions organized by the Georgia DNR, there is no exception for loaning a firearm just for recreational target shooting practice.

There is much more to the bill. For instance, it does away with the Georgia Weapons Carry License as an exception to the NICS check. It permits Eric Holder to set the cost of the transfer fee when you loan your weapon. It mandates reporting the theft or loss of a firearm within 24 hours, the failure of which will put you in prison, and this part of the bill is a felony punishable by 5 years imprisonment.

The bill claims Congressional power to make these laws under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

Don’t take my word for it. Read S. 374 here for yourself.

Communications Theory, Gangsta Govt, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

IRS: We can read your emails without a warrant

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This is a direct violation of the 4th Amendment.

The Hill:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.

In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy.

Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, government officials only need a subpoena, issued without a judge’s approval, to read emails that have been opened or that are more than 180 days old.

Privacy groups such as the ACLU argue that the Fourth Amendment provides greater privacy protections than the ECPA, and that officials should need a warrant to access all emails and other private messages.

Traditionally, the courts have ruled that people have limited privacy rights over information they share with third parties. Some law enforcement groups have argued that this means they only need a subpoena to compel email providers, Internet service companies and others to turn over their customers’ sensitive content.

But in 2010, a federal appeals court ruled that police violated a man’s constitutional rights when they read his emails without a warrant.

Despite the court decision, U.S. v. Warshak, the IRS kept its email search policy unchanged in a March 2011 update to its employee manual, according to the ACLU.

Civility, Dirty Tricks, Editorial, Firearms, Treason, True Talking Points

Editor to Giffords: A terrible injury is not a license to lie

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The left has a long history of trotting out victims; those who will gladly use the victim card as a device to put politics over morality and truth in order to push an agenda most good people would otherwise never accept.

After observing how the far left politicized 9/11 this writer decided that he would never be intimidated into silence again by such underhanded tactics.

What politicization you ask? There are many examples, but the one that stands above the rest are the “four 9/11 widows” who claimed to speak for all 9/11 victims. These political operatives, often called the Jersey Girls, behaved as celebrities while engaging in the most histrionic demagoguery against President Bush. I remember one of them saying (paraphrasing):

It was President Bush’s fault that so many died on 9/11 because when we were under attack he was reading to school children. That’s where he was on the morning of 9/11.

These four women, opposed very vocally and often ridiculously, every action President Bush took to protect the nation and when called to back up their statements they would attack you for daring to be so insensitive to their victim-hood, as if these four political hacks were infallible.

The whole point of “the victim card” is to use the grief to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding. After the Jersey Girls wore out “their 15 minutes” with their antics Pulizer Prize winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz undressed the Jersey Girls in her famous piece in the Wall Street Journal.

A prominent Marxist once made the point clearly:

Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war.

And this brings us to former Member of Congress Gabby Giffords who had this to say in a recent op-ed piece she wrote:

What they will do is create one fair system for all gun buyers, instead of the giant loophole we have now. Right now, we have one system where responsible gun owners take a background check — my husband, Mark, took one just last month, and it took 5 minutes and 36 seconds. I remember waiting a lot longer than that for the subway to take me to my office when I lived in New York City! And then we have a second system for those who don’t want to take a background check. Those people — criminals, or people suffering from mental illness, like the young man who shot me — can buy as many guns as they want on the Internet or at a gun show, no questions asked.

That doesn’t make sense. We know how to fix it — by establishing a universal background check system. And yet some of our elected officials are not listening. Some even say this legislation shouldn’t get a vote in the United States Congress.

Giffords clearly states that the young man who shot her, Jarrod Loughner, did not go through a back ground check. That is not true. Loughner most certainly did pass a back ground check and she well knows it, as it has been widely reported.

Giffords is lying and pointing this out is critically important for several reasons. Everyone who buys firearm from an exhibitor at a gun show goes through a back ground check. Private sales between collectors at gun shows who are not licensed dealers are rare. Instances of private collectors selling guns to genuine criminals are so rare that it is not able to be statistically measured reliably.

The first elephant in the room that Giffords is lying about and helping to paint a false picture of to help conceal is this – what she is calling a “universal back-ground check” is in reality a civilian gun registration scheme.  A way to know what honest civilians has what guns, so that the database can be used to data-mine those people for political purposes, up to and including eventual confiscation. Such people tend to be the political enemies of far left Democrats. See ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Gun Owner’s Personal Info: ‘Assets, Relatives, Associates and More’.

One newspaper printed such a list in New York solely for the purpose of smearing gun owners, violating their privacy and endangering them. Quite simply, there is no reason to believe that such data will not be abused. The Patriot Act has strong provisions against the abuse of the tools it granted government, but we have all seen what has happened in its application.

The second elephant in the room that Giffords is concealing is just why Jarrod Loughner was able to pass the back ground check and buy the handgun that he used.

The case of Jarrod Loughner is especially egregious as he had multiple contacts with university police and the sheriff’s department. The police reports show that they knew Loughner was dangerously mentally ill. Arizona has the law in place to have people forcibly evaluated and all police and/or the sheriff had to do was dial a 1-800 number to get it done. The sheriff’s department did not do so because Loughner’s mother is a supervisor in the county parks department. That same sheriff, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, fellow Democrat and friend of Gabby Giffords, publicly blamed Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for the shooting.

If Sheriff Dupnik had simply done his job and used the tools the law gave him, Loughner would have been entered in to the national instant check system and would have failed his back ground check. He would also have had a real chance to get treatment for his severe mental incapacity.

If Giffords is genuinely concerned about the quality of back ground checks, where is her critique of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who is as responsible for her terrible injuries as anyone? Where is her critique of the Obama Administration who is failing to enforce the back ground check system we have now? It stopped 70,000 ineligible people from getting guns, over 15,000 of which were felons trying to trick the system, and guess how many the Obama Administration prosecuted for trying to get a gun  – 44.

If Giffords is genuine in her concern for guns on the street, where is her critique of the Obama Administration who sent thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels in an effort to blame the following bloodshed to “make the case for more gun regulations“? The administration was outed by their own ATF agents.

Maria Gamez fast n furiousInstead, Giffords is a willing participant in what is nothing more than a political attack on 80 million innocent gun owners, most of whom oppose what President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership is doing. Giffords can be sure that the vast majority of those 80 million gun owners, Americans, including this very writer, prayed for her speedy recovery again and again.

Today some of the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting victims were taken to Capital Hill on the taxpayers dollar to lobby members of Congress to pass this registration scheme. Parents of victims who were not fooled and do not support the gun registration scheme were not invited to speak. Are their dead children somehow less precious? Why are they denied the same opportunity to speak to Congress?

ATF, Breitbart is Here, Firearms, Gangsta Govt, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Personal Info: ‘Assets, Relatives, Associates and More’

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In light of the fact that the Obama Administration is pushing for civilian gun registration, this news becomes even more disturbing. So much for the “right to privacy”.

CNS News:

A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a “massive” online database capable of pulling up individuals’ personal information, connections and associates.

On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled “Investigative System.”  The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes.

The document says that the system will be utilized by staff “to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.”

The system is described as a “massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds.”

The overview of the solicitation states:

Staff will utilize “a number of internal databases as well as external sources to provide timely and relevant information and intelligence products to law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels.”

The system “provides a means to rapidly check records across the country” and is “necessary in assisting investigators, agents and analyst to find people, their assets, relatives, associates and more.”

The ATF says they will use this system to provide information to Intelligence Analysts, Special Agents, Inspectors, Financial Investigators and Law Enforcement.

The investigative system will allow ATF to “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches such as, incomplete social security numbers, address, VIN numbers, etc.”

The system will also have the ability to “link structured and unstructured data to find connection points between two or more individuals.”

Dirty Tricks, Editorial, Elite Media, Firearms, Lies, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

The Truth About “Universal Background Checks” On Gun Sales

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By Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton

UPDATE – ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Personal Info: ‘Assets, Relatives, Associates and More’

UPDATE – Comprehensive Law Enforcement Survey Shows Overwhelming Opposition to Proposed Gun Control Legislation

UPDATE – Senate Universal Background Check Bill Designed To Land You In Prison

UPDATE –Comprehensive Law Enforcement Survey Shows Overwhelming Opposition to Proposed Gun Control Legislation

UPDATE – Missouri Democrat political appointees illegally hand over all CCW information of citizens in the state to the Social Security Administration and the ATF and lied about it until caught – LINK.

The Obama Administration has admitted that the only way to have what they are erroneously calling a “universal background check” is to have total gun registration. The eventual purpose for such registration schemes is confiscation.

The left says that they do not want to take away guns from citizens. Fine, if you don’t want to take them than you don’t need to know what I have.

The left has always opposed putting mental health records in the current instant background check system called NICS (a system that the NRA pioneered and the left opposed).

Just a few months before the shooting there was a bill in Connecticut that would have allowed family and police to have someone forcibly evaluated for 48 hours – the left was able to defeat the bill. The ACLU said that people have a right to be mentally ill (no kidding).

The shooters mother was trying to get her son committed against his will and the political left stopped it from happening.

In the case of James Holmes and Jarrod Loughner, they had contacts with police and the police knew they were dangerously mentally ill and they refused to call it in. All of the laws in the world are useless when the police  fail to utilize them.

[Editor’s Note: In the case of Jarrod Loughner who committed the Gabby Giffords shooting, Loughner had multiple contacts with university police and the sheriff’s department. The police reports show that they knew Loughner was dangerously mentally ill. Arizona has the law in place to have people forcibly evaluated. All they had to do was dial a 1-800 number to get it done. The sheriff’s department did not do so because Loughner’s mother is a supervisor in the county parks department. That same sheriff is the one who came out to blame Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for the shooting.]

Speaking of background checks, How about the Obama Administration enforce the back ground check system we have now.  It stopped 70,000 ineligible people from getting guns, over 15,000 of which were felons trying to trick the system, and guess how many the Obama Administration prosecuted for trying to get a gun  – 44.

Obama lets 15,000 felons WALK and then says he needs to restrict you and me? Give me a break.

Why is it that Chicago has the worst gun crime and the lowest enforcement of gun laws against criminals? It is no accident.

The simple truth is this, Joe crack head with a .25 or an untreated paranoid schizophrenic with a stolen gun is not a threat to a leviathan state, good people with the ability to defend their freedom with effective means are.

Elite Media, Flashback!, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points

Armed guard disarms teen in Atlanta school shooting

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Obama and the elite media say that having an armed guard in a school is “nuts” – in spite of the fact that Obama and the elite media have armed guards  (and Secret Service protection) at their kids schools.

You wont see this on the elite media evening news….

Salt Lake Tribune:

A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

Multiple shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown around 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.

The wounded boy was taken “alert, conscious and breathing” to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. He was expected to be released Thursday night.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.

Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.

“The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?” Davis asked about the gun. “That’s something we do not know yet.”

Health Law, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points

IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Cost $20,000 Per Family

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Your employer might cover part of it, or the taxpayers may cover a part of it, but no matter who pays, the cost of insurance is going way up, while at the same time driving down the available resources for medical services.

Via CNS News:

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.

Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare–after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.

In the new final rules published Wednesday, IRS set in law the rules for implementing the penalty Americans must pay if they fail to obey Obamacare’s mandate to buy insurance.

To help illustrate these rules, the IRS presented examples of different situations families might find themselves in.

In the examples, the IRS assumes that families of five who are uninsured would need to pay an average of $20,000 per year to purchase a Bronze plan in 2016.

Using the conditions laid out in the regulations, the IRS calculates that a family earning $120,000 per year that did not buy insurance would need to pay a “penalty” (a word the IRS still uses despite the Supreme Court ruling that it is in fact a “tax”) of $2,400 in 2016.

For those wondering how clear the IRS’s clarifications of this new “penalty” rule are, here is one of the actual examples the IRS gives:

“Example 3. Family without minimum essential coverage.

“(i) In 2016, Taxpayers H and J are married and file a joint return. H and J have three children: K, age 21, L, age 15, and M, age 10. No member of the family has minimum essential coverage for any month in 2016. H and J’s household income is $120,000. H and J’s applicable filing threshold is $24,000. The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000.

“(ii) For each month in 2016, under paragraphs (b)(2)(ii) and (b)(2)(iii) of this section, the applicable dollar amount is $2,780 (($695 x 3 adults) + (($695/2) x 2 children)). Under paragraph (b)(2)(i) of this section, the flat dollar amount is $2,085 (the lesser of $2,780 and $2,085 ($695 x 3)). Under paragraph (b)(3) of this section, the excess income amount is $2,400 (($120,000 – $24,000) x 0.025). Therefore, under paragraph (b)(1) of this section, the monthly penalty amount is $200 (the greater of $173.75 ($2,085/12) or $200 ($2,400/12)).

“(iii) The sum of the monthly penalty amounts is $2,400 ($200 x 12). The sum of the monthly national average bronze plan premiums is $20,000 ($20,000/12 x 12). Therefore, under paragraph (a) of this section, the shared responsibility payment imposed on H and J for 2016 is $2,400 (the lesser of $2,400 or $20,000).”

Firearms

Indiana General Assembly Off to a Good Start with Pro-Gun Bills Introduced

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Indiana has three bills to make some technical fixes to Indiana’s firearm laws.

The problem with some gun laws is that they are designed, sometimes intentionally as in New York’s gun law, to trick legal gun owners into breaking the law simply by acting reasonably. This turns regular decent folks into criminals, Left wing prosecutors and politicians are all too willing to throw the interests of justice out the window to have a chance to ruin the life of a political foe.

Each one of these bills contain basic common sense changes that should be enacted into law.

Via Chris Cox at The NRA:

The 2013 session of the Indiana General Assembly is off to a great start with multiple pro-gun bills being filed. Some great strides have been made over recent years in Indiana and your NRA will continue working to move forward to protect the rights of the law-abiding gun owners in the Hoosier State.

House Bill 1473, sponsored by state Representative Jim Lucas (R-69), would allow a person who legally possesses a firearm to keep that firearm stored in a locked trunk of their vehicle, a glove box, or stored out of plain sight in the vehicle while on school property. This would allow parents to park on school property for a meeting with a teacher or principal to do so without the fear of breaking the law. HB 1473 has been referred to the House Committee on Public Policy.

State Representative Sean Eberhart (R-57) has filed pro-hunting legislation, House Bill 1563, which applies to fish and wildlife matters.  The Hoosier State maintains a rich hunting heritage and HB 1563 would make a few enhancements to Indiana’s wildlife laws.  HB 1563 has been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Sponsored by state Senators Jim Banks (R-17) and Jim Tomes (R-49), Senate Bill 97 prohibits a state agency, including a state-supported college or university, from regulating the possession or transportation of firearms, ammunition, or firearm accessories on land, in buildings and other structures that are owned or leased by the state. Please be advised that SB 97 would not affect prohibited places under federal law. SB 97 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Rules and Legislative Procedure.

Please continue to check www.NRAILA.org for updates on these and other issues.

Firearms

Fontana School District Purchases 14 AR-15 “Assault Weapons” To Protect Students

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There is a reason why the Department of Homeland Security refers to these guns as “Personal Defense Weapons” because that is what they are best used for.

It seems that the NRA is winning the PR battle…again.

CBS LA:

The Fontana Unified School District Police Department purchased 14 AR-15 assault weapons to protect students in response to recent shootings across the country, but some school leaders and citizens think it’s a step in the wrong direction.

FUSD Superintendent Cali Olsen-Binks approved the acquisition of the rifles, which are being stored on campuses in locked safes for responding police officers in the event of an attack.

Fontana Police Chief Rodney Jones and Mayor Acquanetta Warren supported Olsen-Binks’ decision.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to have that, but it’s the best message we can send to anybody that thinks to harm our children,” said Jones. “The message we’re sending is…not here, not now, we’re prepared for you. And if you seek to harm our children, we will neutralize that threat and you will most likely be killed.”

Editorial, Firearms

Editor’s Thought of the Day (2)

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So let me get this straight. When a police officer pulls over a car with possible illegal aliens in it he cannot ask certain questions because liberals say it’s racism. But liberals want gun owners to be registered, fingerprinted and data-based up and down, as well as having our names and addresses printed in the paper.

Who is preferred and who is treated as the non-citizen?

Budget, Elite Media, Lies, Obama, Pay to Play, True Talking Points

Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill Packed with Unrelated Spending & Goodies for Politicians

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But hey, lets worry about that so called “fiscal cliff” (it should be called taxmageddon)…. and by the way, YOU Need to pay more taxes….

Now if Bush had done this……

New York Post:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

Matt Mayer of the conservative Heritage Foundation slammed the request as an “enormous Christmas gift worth of stuff.”

“The funding here should be focused on helping the community and the people, not replacing federal assets or federal items,” he said.

Corporatism, Dirty Tricks, Obama, Pay to Play, True Talking Points

Obama Administration buying vehicles at furious pace to prop up GM

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Corporatism and cronyism at work.

Breitbart News:

This week, Jeffrey Zeints, Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he pled for a huge chunk of cash, supposedly to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. “As the impacted region addresses the damage caused by the hurricane,” he wrote, “the Administration believes additional Federal resources are necessary to fund response, recovery, and mitigation efforts.” All in all, the Obama administration asked for $60.4 billion. The letter stated, “the Administration proposes that controls be put in place to ensure that funds are used appropriately to protect against waste, fraud, and abuse.”

They don’t need another set of controls. The request itself is full of waste, fraud, and abuse. Zients’ proposal accompanied the letter. And, among other frivolous propositions, it requested tons of money … for cars. Yes, cars:

  • $300,000 to replace Secret Service law enforcement vehicles and other equipment;
  • $855,000 to replace Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles and other equipment;
  • $2.4 million to replace destroyed or damaged vehicles and other equipment for the Department of Homeland Security;
  • $20,000 for the Department of Justice to “repair and replace vehicles”;
  • $4 million to the FBI to “replace vehicles, laboratory and office equipment, and furniture damaged”;
  • Another $1 million for the Department of Justice to “repair or replace over 15 vehicles”;
  • $230,000 to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to replace three vehicles.”

Every appropriations bill these days includes a large cash request for vehicles. That might have something to do with the fact that the government now owns General Motors. No government in history has bought more civilian vehicles than this one. From 2005 to 2011, the Department of Justice, which has a grand total of 114,873 positions, grew its number of vehicles by 12 percent to 40,111. That’s one vehicle for every 2.9 employees. The Department of Homeland Security now has 56,534 vehicles, a 48 percent jump over 2005, to serve 240,000 employees – one vehicle for every 4.2 employees. If you took those cars and lined them up end-to-end, they’d stretch for 308 miles.

2012 Primary, Budget, Communications Theory, Dirty Tricks, Lies, Obama

Watch Obama’s Treasury Secretary Lie (video)

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This is a demonstration of the elaborate type of bullshit that politicians use to confuse people and spread false narratives. Today’s example is from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

The thing to keep in mind in all of this: If money is not proposed to be spent or appropriated for XXX then not doing XXX is NOT a spending cut.

For example: Lets say that I make $30,000 a year and I need to go on a budget to help pay my debt. So I say, “I just cut $50,000 from my budget because I am not buying a new Mercedes Benz 500 Convertible”. Has your budget changed? No. Has your savings increased? No. Is more money going to paying your debt? No.

Why? Because you never took out a loan and never was spending money or had money set aside for the Mercedes in the first place. This is the scam you are watching happen before your eyes. And look at the intensity Sec. Geithner uses while he pushes his lie. Then rather than admitting it he starts tossing in distractions about Republicans etc etc.

Do you ever wonder why every politician will tell you that he wants a balanced budget, but we don’t get one, and in fact we get record deficits and spending year after year?

WALLACE: Or they now say because you’re not willing to cut spending enough.

GEITHNER: No, but that’s not true. Again, if they want to do more on the spending side than the $600 billion we proposed on top of the trillion already enacted, in top of the savings from the wars, then they can tell us how they propose –

WALLACE: Savings in the wars that we were never going to fight?

GEITHNER: No, that’s not true. We’re — as you know, we’re winding down two wars.

WALLACE: I understand that.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: And you are thinking savings that nobody thought that you were going to spend that money any way. It’s a budget gimmick, sir.

GEITHNER: No, that’s not right. You know, let me say it this way, those were expensive wars, not just in Americans lives but in terms of the taxpayers’ resources. And when you end them as the president is doing, they reduce our long term deficits and like in the Republican budget proposals, the world should reflect and recognize what that does in savings.

And we propose to use those savings to reduce the deficits and help invest in rebuilding America. We think that makes a lot of sense.

WALLACE: But it was money that wasn’t going to be spent anyway, and –

GEITHNER: If those wars have gone on, they would be spent.

WALLACE: I understand. But you’re not saving — you’re not ending the wars for budget purposes. You’re ending the wars because of a foreign policy decision. The wars weren’t going to be fought. You’re not really saving money.

GEITHNER: Chris, we all agree –

WALLACE: I mean, it’s a budget gimmick, but it’s money never intended to spend.

GEITHNER: No, it’s not a budget gimmick unless you are — when Republicans propose, it’s a budget gimmick?

WALLACE: Sure, absolutely.

GEITHNER: And you should address that to them. But what it does is –

WALLACE: Well — so, I’m addressing it to you.

2012 Primary, Academic Misconduct, Econ, Editorial, Elections have Consequences, Gangsta Govt, Obama, Pay to Play, School Indoctrination, True Talking Points

Editor: I debated Dr. Gilarducci just as Mark Levin did

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by Chuck Norton

In the video below Mark Levin very gently takes apart Dr. Teresa Gilarducci. She works for George Soros now, but before that she was an econ professor at Notre Dame. She was also on President Clinton’s Social Security task force.

When she was at Notre Dame I debated her when I was an undergrad in front of an audience, as I was the only one between IU and Notre Dame who would take the partial privatization position point of view on Social Security. Her incredible hypocrisy, that Levin exposes so well in the video below, showed itself in true form in my debate with her as well. Her “logic” is entirely political, circular and based largely on denial and misdirection. She is sweet, attractive and charming, and well knows it as she uses that as a weapon in her arsenal.

Dr. Gilarducci thought she was going to be debating a “college republican” undergrad, what she got is a former radio talk show host who passed the state exams and used to sell retirement and insurance products.

I will not outline the entire debate, but in short I did two things.

First: I outlined the Galveston Plan which has worked wonders as a legal exception to Social Security. I also pointed out the government managed, but partially privatized retirement plan that Members of Congress have which has been a great success through thick and thin. Such a plan would serve as a good model to grow at least a small percentage of Social Security to at least attempt to have a growth to pre-fund our retirement benefits.

All she would say about these partially privatized plans is that the retirees wouldn’t get the money and even though retired Members of Congress and some in Galveston were already  getting great benefits now she insisted that soon that money would vanish because only government transfer payments can be trusted. She kept saying again and again, “Until you go to get your money at retirement and it’s not there.”

Ironically in the video below, the type of plan she insisted could never work because the “greedsters” in the private sector would steal it all, is the exact same plan that she has for herself for her own retirement by her own admission.

Second: Dr. Gilarducci had written some good papers on 401K reform. She argued that too much of the 401K investment is in the employers own stock, so if the employer goes under said employee looses a lot of their retirement. As a fix she proposed that 401K laws be changed to require diversity of investment to more reliably pre-fund such retirement plans. Social Security has much the same problem as all of the eggs are in one basket, there is no diversity of investment and people’s retirement’s are not pre-funded.

So I used her own words and arguments on how to have a reliable and secure 401k, but replaced the term “401k” with “Social Security”. I used those near verbatim arguments to make most of my case.

All through the debate she insisted that (what she didn’t realize were her own arguments in her own published work) were just bad arguments from a young undergrad who just didn’t know better and that is how she treated me……until the end when I dropped the bomb that many of the arguments she so cutely poo-poohed were actually her own published work. She was floored.

Mark Levin:

During my last few shows, including as recently as yesterday, I have alerted you to Obama’s desire to nationalize your 401-k plan and eliminate your mortgage interest deduction.

Some background on the former.  Back in October 2008, I got word that Professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School had testified before Rep. George Miller’s committee in support of a plan to nationalize private pension plans — in particular, 401-k plans.  I not only spoke about it on my show back then, but we tracked down the professor and I conducted the first interview on talk radio.  I will discuss this at more length on my program this evening, but I thought you might want to be among the first to listen to that interview again.  Please pass it along to as many people as you can.  See below.

http://marklevinshow.com/article.asp?id=2441845&spid=32364

Econ, Jobs

Is your state a “death spiral” state?

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Are private sector workers are outnumbered by folks dependent on government in your state? If so don’t buy a house in that state, rent.

The list from the worst, New Mexico with a 1.53 ratio to Ohio with a 1.00 ratio:

New Mexico, Mississippi, California, Alabama, Maine, New York, South Carolina, Kentucky,Illinois, Hawaii, Ohio.

Forbes:

Thinking about buying a house? Or a municipal bond? Be careful where you put your capital. Don’t put it in a state at high risk of a fiscal tailspin.

Eleven states make our list of danger spots for investors. They can look forward to a rising tax burden, deteriorating state finances and an exodus of employers.

If your career takes you to Los Angeles or Chicago, don’t buy a house. Rent.

If you have money in municipal bonds, clean up the portfolio. Sell holdings from the sick states and reinvest where you’re less likely to get clipped. Nebraska and Virginia are unlikely to give their bondholders a Greek haircut. California and New York are comparatively risky.

Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.

Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.

But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.

Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.

Ranked on the taker/maker ratio, our 11 death spiral states range from New Mexico, with 1.53 takers for every maker, down to Ohio, with a 1-to-1 ratio.

The taker count is the number of state and local government workers plus the number of people on Medicaid plus 1 for each $100,000 of unfunded pension liabilities. Sources: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and a study of state worker pensions done in 2009 by two academics, Joshua Rauh and Rovert Novy-Marx. Professor Rauh estimates that the shortage in pension funding is on average a third higher today.

The second element in the death spiral list is a scorecard of state credit-worthiness done by Conning & Co., a money manager known for its measures of risk in insurance company portfolios. Conning’s analysis focuses more on dollars than body counts. Its formula downgrades states for large debts, an uncompetitive business climate, weak home prices and bad trends in employment.

Conning rates North Dakota the safest state to lend money to, Connecticut the most hazardous. A state qualifies for the Forbes death spiral list if its taker/maker ratio exceeds 1.0 and it resides in the bottom half of Conning’s ranking.

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Econ, Gangsta Govt, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Democrats hope for return of the 55% “death tax” in 2013

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Democrats love the death tax. It creams most small farms and small businesses while their super rich corporate donors get off the hook.  It makes family farms easy targets for big corporate buyers. It also punishes larger companies for being privately held. It is yet another tax that the little guy has to pay while the mega-corporate interests that run the Democratic Party benefit from.
Fox News:

Ranchers, farmers brace for ‘death tax’ impact

Rancher Kevin Kester works dawn to dusk, drives a 12-year-old pick-up truck and earns less than a typical bureaucrat in Washington D.C., yet the federal government considers him rich enough to pay the estate tax — also known as the “death tax.”

And with that tax set to soar at the beginning of 2013 without some kind of intervention from Congress, farmers and ranchers like Kester are waiting anxiously.

“There is no way financially my kids can pay what the IRS is going to demand from them nine months after death and keep this ranch intact for their generation and future generations,” said Kester, of the Bear Valley Ranch in Central California.

Two decades ago, Kester paid the IRS $2 million when he inherited a 22,000-acre cattle ranch from his grandfather. Come January, the tax burden on his children will be more than $13 million.

For supporters of a high estate tax, which is imposed on somebody’s estate after death, Kester is the kind of person they rarely mention. He doesn’t own a mansion. He’s not the CEO of a multi-national. But because of his line of work, he owns a lot of property that would be subject to a lot of tax.

“Our number one goal is to repeal the estate tax, to get rid of it, not have it for every generation, when I die and my kids die and so on,” he told Fox News. “For everyone to have to re-purchase the ranch or farm over and over for each generation, that’s inherently unjust. So what we’re doing is asking our politicians to understand that and repeal the estate tax.”

That, however, is unlikely. Currently, the federal government taxes estates worth $5 million dollars and up at 35 percent. When the Bush-era tax rates expire in January, rates increase to 55 percent on estates of $1 million or more. While some Republicans want to eliminate the death tax entirely, President Obama has proposed a 45 percent rate on estates of $3.5 million and up.

“The idea behind the estate tax is to prevent the very wealthy among us from accumulating vast fortunes that they can pass along to the next generation,” said Patrick Lester, director of Federal Fiscal Policy with the progressive think tank — OMB Watch. “The poster child for the estate tax is Paris Hilton — the celebrity and hotel heiress. That’s who this is targeted at, not ordinary Americans.”

Editor’s Note – Wait just a minute. Why can’t Paris Hilton’s family pass their fortune on to their children? The Hilton’s provide a valuable service and also provide tens of thousands of good jobs. They also pay massive amounts on taxes and give to charities. Why should they be targeted for punishment by the federal government?

Where did we adopt the tyrannical Marxist idea that just because someone has it, it then becomes another’s right to take it? Do we have the rule of law or the law of the jungle?

The Democrats do not take that money to pass out to you and me, they spend the money over seas or hand it out to campaign donors and cronies just as they have dome in the emerging Green Corruption scandal.

Isn’t the “American Dream” to pass on something to your kids so they can do better than you? This is how radical the Democratic Party leadership has become.

More from Fox News:

But according to the American Farm Bureau, up to 97 percent of American farms and ranches will be subject to an estate tax where the exemption is set at $1 million. At that rate, the federal government will pocket $40 billion in 2013 and up to $86 billion in 2021. That contrasts with just $12 billion this year.

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Econ, Health Law, Obama, True Talking Points

Why the Obamacare insurance mandate WON’T help those with pre-existing conditions (video)

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The way the Obamacare health insurance mandate is structured is unsustainable. It creates what is called an “adverse selection spiral” (death spiral); meaning that if people act for their own best interests within the Obamacare structure, the more it weakens the system. Insurance companies are already getting out of health insurance because of this and countless employers are already dropping health insurance coverage for employees. Health insurance premiums have already gone up by $2,500 dollars a year, I was just notified that my premium went up to $267.00 a month.

This system will crash and it won’t take long. What will people who need insurance do then? What will those with preexisting conditions do then?

We need a new solution to the preexisting condition problem. Obamacare makes the problem worse, not better.

Energy Policy, Jobs, Obama, Pay to Play, Treason, True Talking Points

Lawsuit Alleges “Corruption and Negligence” at Department of Energy

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More about “Green Corruption” and kickbacks. Welcome to energy policy, Chicago style.

Via Heritage:

A lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday alleges mass favoritism in the Department of Energy’s decisions to award federal grants to major car companies to develop electric vehicles, according to a legal complaint obtained by Scribe.

The plaintiff, San Francisco-based XP Technology, says in a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that “corruption and negligence” pervaded DOE’s decision to award loan guarantees to Ford, Nissan, Tesla Motors, and Fisker Automotive for the development of electric vehicle technology.

“Investigations have shown that DOE officials intentionally stalled numerous applicants’ reviews in order to force them out of business and protect favored players,” the complaint claims. It adds:

XP has received information demonstrating that the unprecedented number of failures in the DOE program relative to what DOE officials have claimed to be “the most expensive and extensive due diligence in history” is explained by manipulated reviews, in the due diligence effort, on behalf of what the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations found to be “favoritism” in published investigation reports. A senate ethics investigation states, in published reports, that “negligence and mismanagement by DOE officials” was a regular occurrence.

XP, which applied for federal backing under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, “is seeking to have applicants who were “targeted” receive fair re-reviews, in a transparent manner, if they so desire.”

In addition to an unfair selection process, XP alleges that DOE retaliated against the company for reporting evidence of negligence and corruption incorporated into the various investigations into the ATVM program.

After XP staff first reported the incidents, becoming “whistle-blowers”, by reporting the evidence to GAO, Justice Department, The White House Press Office and The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, among others, they received threats and personal attacks. Over time, the volume of third party investigations, which have validated the charges of questionable acts by DOE staff have become voluminous.

Read the full complaint HERE.

2012 Primary

Feds fine small business $4,000 over a missing trash can lid, $70,000 over a broken car horn…

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More of the same?

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

According to conventional progressive wisdom, regulation is the means by which a compassionate government protects the weak and innocent from the strong and malevolent.

Try telling that to Brad Jones.

Jones is one of the owners of Buckingham Slate, a Virginia business a little over an hour’s drive west of Richmond. The company is distinguished by the quality of the highly valued Arvonia slate it produces. And by the fact that its roots trace back almost to the Civil War. And by the fact that federal regulators smacked it with a $4,000 fine.

Over a trash can.

The offending can — or “waste receptacle,” in the words of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s official citation — was “not covered.” What’s more, “the receptacle was full.” It “could be smelled.” There were — brace yourself — “flies fl[y]ing in and around the receptacle.” And to crown all, “management engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence” by allowing this “condition to exist.” The horror.

Buckingham Slate has racked up other fines, too — such as a $70,000 fine imposed because one of its trucks had an inoperable horn. Perhaps regulators were following the approach advocated by Al Armendariz, the former EPA official who said enforcers should “crucify” offenders to “make an example” of them, which would then make others “easy to manage.”

According to President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, Republicans have nothing to offer but “the same prescription they’ve had for the last 30 years. . . : ‘Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!’ ”

Funny stuff. But Martha Boneta isn’t laughing.

Boneta, a Fauquier County farmer, hosted a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls — an occasion for which she lacked the proper “events permit.” For this, the county slammed her with a $5,000 fine. She also got in hot water for selling items, such as yarn and birdhouses, that she had not made herself.

Outraged over how the county was treating her, local farmers showed up at a zoning-board meeting a couple of months ago with pitchforks in hand. But the demonstration was only so useful. She ended up closing her shop anyway.

Americans should place more trust in “the guiding hand of government,” according to the president and his supporters.

But try telling that to Nathan Hammock and his family. The Hammocks own a dairy farm in Museville. Because of drought, they wanted to put an irrigation pond on their property. They eventually managed to — after three years trying to get permission from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. “I think we’ve spent close to $30,000” in the process, Hammock says.

Hammock made the comment in a video you can find on the website of Rep. Robert Hurt (go tohttp://hurt.house.gov/ and click on “Videos”). Hurt, who represents Virginia’s Fifth District, has introduced legislation to let farmers farm without having to navigate a “tremendous bureaucratic maze.” It is moving through Congress — slowly.