No Internet Sales Tax

Open email to Congress:

    I am aware that Congress is considering online sales tax legislation.
    I strongly and respectfully suggest that you make every effort to see that this legislation does not come to the floor in either the House or the Senate. If you are unable to stop that, I strongly suggest that you make every effort to see that any bills involving such tax are defeated.
    My main reason for this is based on our objective to reduce the size of government at all levels. Any tax increase only increases the size of government and counteracts our major objective.
    I understand that large retailers, with physical facilities for their sales, pay local real estate taxes and are presumably at a disadvantage compared to Internet suppliers, who do not have physical sales outlets. However, that is the choice they made for their sales efforts, and they have the option of reducing those outlets, if they believe such action will improve their profits. It should also be noted that those same organizations with physical sales outlets operate as well on the Internet. I can purchase goods from Macys, Sears, and Target from my computer, even though many have local stores.
    A little history also puts this into perspective. When I was a boy during the depression, most hard goods was obtained by catalog purchase through the mail. Our main suppliers were Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. Through subsequent years, Sears Roebuck followed the policy of establishing local retail sales outlets. The practice was effective and put Montgomery Ward out of business.
    The situation is now reversed. New technology has again changed opportunity for retail marketing. Those companies who cannot compete, perhaps because of high costs of physical outlets and local real estate taxes, should go out of business. The sales world is a jungle. Only the fittest survive, and those same fittest almost invariably supply better products and service to consumers. There's no reason for Congress to interfere with this process.
    This then returns us to the main point. We do not want increased revenue to any branches of government, which would tend to increase the size and power of those government branches.

Why Do We Not Learn? West, Texas Explosion

    Most people are aware that there was a recent explosion in the town of West, Texas, which killed a number of people and devastated the town.
    The explosive material was ammonium nitrate being manufactured by the West fertilizer Company.
    A little recollection or minor investigation of history, would have easily shown that the employees and town people were sitting on a ticking time bomb.
    Wikipedia lists 26 instances of ammonium nitrate explosions from 1918 to the West, Texas incident n 2013. Quantities ranged from 23 tons to 4000 tons.
    Other than the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh, using ammonium nitrate, the most notable US incident was the Texas City Disaster in 1947. It originated with a mid-morning fire on board the French registered vessel SS Grandcamp, which was docked in the Port of Texas City. Its cargo of approximately 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated, with the initial blast and subsequent chain-reaction of further fires and explosions in other ships and nearby oil storage facilities, killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City fire department.
    Last year it was known that the West Texas Fertilizer Company was storing 270 tons of ammonium nitrate.
    Laboratory quantities of ammonium nitrate are not dangerous explosives. For explosion to occur, the quantity must be considerable (have a critical mass) and an initial external energy source must be provided. One combination of factors is to have several tons of material in bulk form, not in separate barrels, and submit the mass to the heat of an external fire. This is what caused the detonation at the West Fertilizer Company.
    The West, Texas deaths could have been minimized by evacuating the plant and the town, as soon as it was recognized that the plant fire could not be immediately controlled.
    The Chemical Safety Board is investigating the cause of the explosion and will also come up with procedures on how it could have been avoided. However on first appearance, the Texas State Department of Health was aware of the large quantity of ammonium nitrate storage and took no action to immediately have it reduced to the acceptable limit of 400 pounds.

Second Amendment Gun Rights

Open email to Sen. Cornyn (Texas):

Dear Sen. Cornyn,
    Congratulations on your offering legislation that would allow Americans with concealed handgun licenses issued by their own states to exercise those rights in other states whose state law authorizes the issuance of a concealed handgun license.
    This is a step in the right direction of returning to citizens their rights as provided by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. It recognizes US Congressional responsibility of controlling state actions, where those actions are inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution. The federal government has been extremely deficient in adhering to limitations imposed on itself by the U.S. Constitution, but in the case of the Second Amendment, we have seen a reversal with a dereliction of duty.
I see one difficulty with your legislative proposal. Even if passed, your legislation does not cover the case of a person with a concealed weapon permit from one state traveling through another state, which has no concealed weapon permit allowance.
  Notice that I have also said it is a step in the right direction, because in order to abide by the U.S. Constitution, we should be eliminating any restrictions on gun carry, including permits, in any state. It is the direct responsibility of the U.S. Congress to develop any necessary process to remove states from infringing the Second Amendment.

Gun Control

Open email to Representative Neugebauer, Sen. Cornyn, and Sen. Cruz (Texas):

: Congratulations for defeating Pres. Obama in his efforts to establish further gun control! However, you have heard his rantings and ravings. He does not accept defeat easily and will try to piecemeal restrictions through executive order, for which you must be alert and subsequently take appropriate counter action
    May I also remind you that our Second Amendment rights to bear arms are already infringed, so long as we have any restrictions on where we can carry firearms and any permit requirements for such carry. These restrictions need to be removed.

President Obama's Foreign Policy and Actions

Attached is an essay by one of my  associates on the subject of President Obama's foreign policy and actions. I have added my own comments in red at the end of each paragraph.

ACS

Unfortunately, we are enduring the dismal failure of Obama in both domestic and foreign affairs.  Domestic performance deficiency is obvious and may be the subject of a separate commentary.  This will trace the succession of his failures in foreign affairs.  It must start over eight years ago when Obama was elected senator.

No comment.

You may recall that, when he was present, he opposed most of the initiatives of George Bush after the attack of 9/11.  When Obama was elected president, his first move was to call for the closure of Guantanamo.  Even with total control of the Congress, he was unable  to accomplish this.

George Bush also had a poor foreign policy, but Pres. Obama has only made it worse. Calling for the closure of Guantanamo was ridiculous. Lack of Congressional approval for the closure was one of the few things that Congress has done right.

He had opposed our military intervention in Iraq which led to the capture of Saddam Hussein and the early, tenuous development of a representative government in Iraq.  It was the "wrong" war and Afghanistan was the "right" war.  As a result, he failed to get an agreement of forces for our continued military presence, and we left completely.  Kindly consider that this was the first abandonment since WW II.  We still maintain a military presence in Germany, Okinawa and South Korea.  As you have certainly noted, Iraq has fallen again into political chaos and is no longer an ally in the Middle East.

Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq was correct. His approval of the war in Afghanistan was incorrect. There was no justification for either war. The US was not being attacked, nor was there an imminent threat of any kind. The only justification for either war was "nation building", which is not a justification. The US has no right to tell other peoples of the world how they should live. If the Iraqis didn't like Saddam Hussein, it was up to them to dispose of him, not the US. If we don't like opium production of Afghanistan because it negatively affects our society, wipe it out, but that doesn't need ground forces. Similarly, the Korean War and the Vietnamese War were also ridiculous. They were undertaken presumably on the basis of controlling the foreign expansion of communism. Sixty years later, we see that socialism/communism has failed in some societies through no direct intervention by the US. We also see that the US has developed an incipient socialistic-communistic society in its homeland.

After dithering for months, Obama increased our military presence in Afghanistan  However, he did not follow the recommendations of our military commanders and permitted only a more limited deployment.  He has now directed the full withdrawal from Afghanistan.  It is not difficult to forecast the outcome of this failure.  Military leaders try to win wars.  Obama treats them as political issues - to the detriment of our national security.

Obama is correct in trying to end the Afghanistan war. We have no basis of being there in the first place, as indicated above.

Along the way, with intelligence gained from prisoners at Guantanamo, Osama bin Laden was found and killed.  This led to Obama's proclamation that Al Qaeda had been defeated and was no longer a threat to our security.

Osama bin Laden was an active enemy of the United States and was justifiably killed. Pres. Obama and the US military deserve recognition for this accomplishment. However, the claim that Al Qaeda is no longer a threat to the United States is ridiculous. That threat is ongoing into eternity, because it is ideological, in the same way that internal socialism/communism are continuing threats to the economic well-being of the US.  

Then came Benghazi and the murder of four Americans.  Both Obama and Sec'y Clinton lied to us in claiming that the attack was a local response to some little known video critical of Islam.  At the time of their lies, they both knew that their statements were untrue.  Both finally had to admit that the attack on our consulate was organized and carried out by an Al Qaeda cell.  Obama's pledge to find the perpetrators was hollow and a cover-up continues.  Obviously, an open investigation would discredit his ridiculous claim that Al Qaeda is no longer a threat.

President Obama claimed to have Al Qaeda under control. When the Benghazi incident occurred, the combination of power and conviction to ideology led to the normal reaction of lying. Obama and Hillary Clinton fell into that trap. The conviction of ideology also led to negligence in supplying proper support for State Department employees in Benghazi, and the power aspect does not allow Pres. Obama to admit this, thus leading to continuing cover-up.

More important, State Department employees should not have been in Benghazi in the first place. Benghazi is a one-horse town in a country that is little more than an oasis. Other than a few dates from date palms, and a little oil, it has no significance to the US. In fact, all of North Africa has no significance to the US, except for Egypt, which controls the Suez Canal. Rommel's involvement in North Africa during World War II was only a prelude to eventually being able to occupy Egypt and take over the Canal. In the present time, Libya has only achieved significance because Obama has made it so. He decided to use it as an opportunity for another "nation building" operation, but it is failing, as do all attempts at nation building.

Now we are all watching the investigation of the bombing at the Boston Marathon.  Incredibly, in his first public statement, Obama called it a "tragedy" and later admitted that it was a terrorist attack.  This was the first such incident on American soil since 9/11.  It appears that the FBI is close to finding the perpetrators, and we shall soon know the details.  It is impossible for Obama to cover this up.

It is true that Obama had previously claimed that Al Qaeda had been neutralized, but at least after the Benghazi episode few persons actually believe that. It is likely that terrorism is not a new phenomenon, but has achieved more significance in modern times. There will always be those persons who object to something and are willing to take strong actions, such as attempts at personal assassinations or general population killing just to vent their spleen. Invasion by an organized foreign force will continue to be a possibility, for which reason we have a military. The newer aspect of terrorism, by individuals or small groups of either foreign or domestic origin, is a separate matter and is now recognized by the US as requiring attention. This is the basis for development of the Department of Homeland Security. Congress did a good job in establishing that Department. Unfortunately, it is administered by Pres. Obama and his team of which Director Napolitano is one of the most inept. I have previously called for her resignation.

To my knowledge, all of the statements above are supported by facts, but I would be glad to learn of any misstatements. It is a tragedy that our political leadership has failed abysmally.

Generally agreed.

 

CJ

Boston Marathon Bombs

     Now that we've shown the proper compassion for those killed and injured at the Boston Marathon bombings and have congratulated the police and other first responders for their quick and effective action, it is time to consider who did not do his job to avoid the catastrophe in the first place.
    The onus goes on the Director of Homeland Security.
    The webpage of the Department of Homeland Security says, "The Department of Homeland Security has a vital mission: to secure the nation from the many threats we face. This requires the dedication of more than 240,000 employees in jobs that range from aviation and border security to emergency response, from cybersecurity analyst to chemical facility inspector. Our duties are wide-ranging, but our goal is clear - keeping America safe.". The webpage also says, "Secretary Janet Napolitano oversees the third largest Cabinet department and leads our nation's efforts to secure our country from terrorism to natural disasters."
What happened in Boston? Were Janet Napolitano and her 240,000 employees asleep at the switch? Any law enforcement officer with half an eye could see that an operation such as the Boston Marathon would be an ideal target for a terrorism event. We have technology to determine the presence of bombs before they actually detonate. Perhaps an 18 mile route is a bit difficult to inspect, but there is such a thing as spot checking. Two of the obvious spots to check would be the starting line and the finish line. If that was done, it was certainly not done effectively, and it is more likely that no one even paid any attention.
I call for the immediate resignation of Janet Napolitano.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer's (Texas) Newsletter

Open email to Representative Randy Neugebauer (Texas):

Randy,
    Congratulations on your introduction of a Constitutional Amendment requiring a two thirds majority of both the House and Senate to increase taxes. It's a step in the right direction, but I wonder how far it can go. Congresses had a 50-year habit of overspending, which will be almost impossible to break, when also considering the attitude that the more money handed out, the greater the power.
    We need a return to statesmanlike action on the part of Congress, and I believe this can only be accomplished by term limits, which will significantly reduce reelection programs involving money giveaways to the voting public.

    You also address public concern over the considerable increase in ammunition purchases by various departments of the federal government. You and the IRA have tended to minimize this concern by citing the so-called "need" and producing specific absolute numbers, such as 800 or so rounds per individual government employee entitled to carry a firearm.
    I am not dissuaded by these arguments. The absolute numbers seem especially high.
    Wal-Mart says that because of ammunition shortage they are limiting purchases to three boxes per day per customer. A box of Magnum 357 cartridges contains 20 cartridges. Three boxes would be 60 cartridges. How many authorized firearm carriers in the federal government would need 40 boxes of ammunition? That's about half a day's continuous shooting in a wild West scenario.
    Not only does the number being purchased by the federal government seem excessive, but we can also question why there is a sudden increase in government purchases. Is it because there is an ammunition shortage and the federal government doesn't want to be outgunned by the general public?

    You also expressed concern as to why the general news media is not more adequately covering the latest abortion trial. May I suggest that most people now realize that the news media no longer covers news but is actually a political agenda device. Therefore, there is no more reason to get more upset about their actions than when the postman delivers a circular suggesting you should purchase a new car. If you are really upset about abortion and think that the public is being misled, Congress has the power to pass appropriate laws to significantly reduce the practice. While it will be difficult to enforce on an individual basis, enforcement at the level of abortion clinics is practical and should contribute significantly to a reduction. Congress must also remember that it does not have the power of direct law enforcement. That responsibility is reserved for the Justice Department. However Congress must recognize that they have the requirement in some way to see that their laws are enforced. Otherwise, laws are of no value.