The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change will require enormous sacrifice. The enormity of the required sacrifice suggests that we should have consensus on the goal before acting. Recent discussions of the Green New Deal have highlighted some of the required sacrifices, but I suspect that the full implications of an all renewable power electric grid remain obscure. The Green New Deal was sponsored by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey. The proposal highlighted measures like a...
The concept of civil asset forfeiture is one of the cruelest impositions our government has ever imposed onto the people. In essence, it allows law enforcement officials to become legal pirates to literally steal, at will, people’s money and property on the slightest pretense that it might in some way or another be associated with a crime. That includes the mere possession of a “large” (undefined) amount of cash. In many cases, police have pulled people over on our highways, demanded to searc...
Governor Hunt once told me, “John, before anyone runs for office or becomes a journalist, they would be well-served to have met a payroll first. What a profound statement and I agree 100%. If you have kept up with my resume, I worked for the Hunt administration in economic development during the late 80’s early 90’s. I worked primarily in the area of Small Business and later with all exiting business and industries. My father was a small business entrepreneur and that mantle passed down to hi...
“If I were the devil … If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of its real estate, and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree — Thee. So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first — I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please. To the young, I would whisper that ‘The Bible is a...
This year’s legislative session has been one of the most counterproductive we have had in recent years—from the rammed in gasoline tax increase, to overspending, to more extreme seat belt penalties, to the brain-dead 1.5 mile limit for driving in the left lane of a highway. These and other violations of our liberty are not only terrible, but they were shoved down our throats by our mostly Republican representatives and senators by ridiculously huge margins. And then, our governor, Kay Ivey, just...
By Perry O. Hooper, Jr. 06/12/2019 Democrats have proven that they will do just about anything to obstruct President Trump’s agenda in order to win in 2020, no matter how dire the consequences are for the country. It also does not matter to them that the Mueller Report was a complete and total exoneration of the president and his campaign. They still waste valuable time yelling collusion and obstruction. The will of the American people for the Trump agenda is of little consequence to the D...
The topic of abortion is probably the most controversial political issue that exists today. Opinions range all the way from abortions on demand to outright prohibition in all cases no matter what. These two polar opposites could be at each other’s throats until the end of time. Is there any way we could arrive at a solution that would satisfy both sides? This past April 30, the Alabama House passed the most extreme anti-abortion bill in United States history with a 73 to 4 vote. On May 14, t...
Recidivism rate is the tendency of a criminal to commit a crime and return to prison. This is one of those areas where fuzzy math drives you crazy getting to the facts. According to the National Institute of Justice, 68 percent of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of their release from prison, and 77 percent were arrested within five years. According to a 2018 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1960 the U.S. prison...
The current measles outbreak has brought new criticism of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children over vaccine safety concerns. Measles was declared to be eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, and yet this year 550 cases have occurred through the second week of April. Anti-vaccination attitudes, I think, reflect a decline in trust in government. The research “anti-vaxxers” cite linking vaccines to autism, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments, has been called “junk science.” The Centers...
In our nation’s beginning, our founding fathers wrote our Constitution to specify that American citizens must be 21 years old to be eligible to vote. This was considered to be the minimum age for a person to be mature enough to make wise decisions in the selection of our elected leaders. Our founders also set minimum ages for Senators (30) and the President (35). But in 1971, the American people very foolishly ratified the 26th Amendment which lowered the minimum voting age to 18. The a...
Democrats are calling the newest single-payer healthcare proposals “Medicare for All.” America has three major systems of government healthcare: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans’ Administration (VA). Is a single-payer system more likely to resemble Medicare or Medicaid? President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society established Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 to cover elderly Americans and the poor and disabled. The programs cover 55 and 66 million Americans respectively. Medicare cost $706 billion...
As I watch what is happening to core philosophies and belief systems internationally, domestically, and now in our own state, I am just shaking my head and looking down in dismay. The question I am asking myself, am I this dated, is there room anymore for an economic, moral, social, and constitutional conservative ideas; or have these definitions changed also? I was raised with three things you could always count on to be steadfast; facts, the Constitution and the Holy Bible. What has me...
This past March 8, during a special session called by Governor Kay Ivey, 83 of our state representatives voted to pass a ten cent increase in our gasoline tax. Then on March 12, the Senate railroaded it in with a 28 to 6 vote. Governor Ivey immediately signed it into law. The people never got a chance to vote against it in a referendum, and only a few days to hold a rally and say, “Take this tax and shove it.” Are our public servants infinitely stupid? We elected them to cut back on spe...
Numerous prominent Democrats now support Medicare for All, the most recent proposal for a single-payer healthcare system. A recent Trump Administration report, Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition, offers a different path forward, detailing the numerous ways government restricts competition and increases costs. Medicare for All suggests that we would be turning away from markets and private insurance to government healthcare. In truth, government rules have d...
Having an honest and productive conversation about racism is a lot like trying to polish a t#rd ball. It can be done (MythBusters Episode 113), but it’s stinky and messy and in the end what have you really accomplished? I will try anyway. As the Alabama representative of my eclectic collection of friends, late on February 18, I was confronted with the comments of a Mr. Goodloe Sutton of Linden, Alabama…because somehow it’s my responsibility to address the comments made by an 80-year-old now f...
During this past December and January, the United States suffered the longest government shutdown in its history—over a month. But was it really a shutdown? Of course not. Like all of the previous ones, it was only partial. Only “nonessential” functions were cut. And to really rub it in, many departments that were truly nonessential kept on trucking with no layoffs at all. Politicians are constantly afflicted with the syndrome of spending more to fix problems they created by spending more....
The never-Trumper faction of the Republican Party was wrong. The mainstream media was -- and continues to be wrong. The Democrats just don’t get it. Two years into the Trump agenda to Make America Great Again the state of our union is incredibly strong and getting better every day. The President has kept his promises. He even listed them in his second State of the Union Speech. The president has governed as a true conservative Republican. He's upheld the principles that have made this the g...
One of the biggest boondoggles ever imposed by our government has been the mandated addition of ethanol to gasoline. It has been done for over a decade, and we are still stuck with it today. Of course, ethanol can be used to run an engine. Henry Ford used it in his Model T in 1908. During World War II, it substituted for scarce gasoline. Since then, gasoline and diesel have been the widely used fuels of choice. In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Renewable Fuels Standard, and then The...
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has suggested charging Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) with murder in connection with last November’s Camp Fire. The deadliest wildfire in California history, Camp killed 86 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. A cause has not been officially determined, but evidence suggests that PG&E electric transmission wires may have started the blaze. The case illustrates a conundrum implied by the economics of accidents. I do not wish to accuse PG&E of s...
I stopped listening to R. Kelly’s music a few years ago after being introduced to his monstrousness when the abuse at his Atlanta-maximum-security-McMansion first made headlines; I simply didn’t know and hadn't bothered to learn about the shade around him until then, despite its ubiquity in the popular consciousness (highlighted by the famous Chappelle Show sketch). What the new 6-part docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly”—produced by Lifetime and over a year in the making before premiering its first...
We would like to enjoy the world after you’re gone, please. And spare me the “well, it’s cold right here, right now, so it couldn’t possibly be warming in general” spiel. (By the way, this is the exact same argument that leads to people continuing to spank their children despite literally every single medical, psychological, and children’s group that has studied it saying it is terrible. The planet is getting hotter, and we are the cause. In the words of the report commissioned by the United...
In the 1920’s and ‘30’s, we the people of the United States still retained vivid memories of the horrors of World War I—“The War to End all Wars.” Two decades later, when WWII erupted in Europe, we held a strict non-interventionist attitude to getting entangled into another one. A Gallup poll revealed that 88 percent were solidly against it. In a 1940 election year speech, our notorious President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced a campaign promise, “I have said this before, but I shall say i...
Guest editorial by Bob Lonsberry © 2018 The Hondurans in the caravan, the 7,000 people walking north to America, where do they go to the bathroom, eat and sleep and store their clothes? How is it that after a week on the road they are clean and their hair and clothes are well kept? How is any of this possible? And why do these people, supposedly fleeing intolerable conditions in their homeland, carry little flags from their homeland and break into its national anthem when the TV cameras show...
In recent years, self-sufficiency and living off the land is becoming more and more popular. Now that relatively inexpensive photoelectric cells, wind generators, and composting toilets are becoming more readily available to people of modest incomes, it is becoming a lifestyle for increasing numbers of people. In America, independence has been a treasured objective since its beginning. We fought two wars to become independent from Britain. We fought for individual liberty. And we fought to...
Judge Dale Segrest Retires Tallassee, AL Judge Segrest is looking forward to retirement after years of community service and dedication to justice. Now is a new time for family, friends relaxation. Agape. Wikipedia defines agape as a "term referring to love, "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God". You will find him most days in the garden. Toiling over each plant with intentionality. A job that was once a hobby now has new meaning. The garden that...
