Americans, apparently we’re too dumb to take Tylenol.  A whopping 200 of us die each year from overdosing.  It’s a scary statistic, I know.  Thank God we have the FDA to come to our rescue.

The government agency is deciding whether it will place limits on the sale of over the counter products that contain Acetaminophen.  Most prominent among the offenders are Tylenol and Nyquil, which the nanny state says are causing liver disease and an alarming number of deaths.  Last year alone 200 people died.

Yup, 200.  To put that in perspective, there were 37,248 fatal US auto accidents in 2007.  4000 Americans die each year from choking on their food.  About 3500 people die each year from drowning, 700 from riding bicycles, 900 from plane crashes, and roughly 5,000 from eating food that’s either gone bad or carries various pathogens.

If two hundred deaths is the new standard for what the government controls, the Nanny State has its work cut out for it. 

We’re better off with their involvement, though, because this morning I tempted fate and took a shower…  It’s an activity fraught with chlorinated water which, according to the The National Academy of Sciences, causes a certain type of cancer that kills almost 1000 people each year.

Hopefully, the White House has been alerted.

 -Robert Laurie

As Governor Schwarzeneggar will admit, Kahleefawkneeah is out of money.  So, they’ve decided to save money by housing fewer prisoners.  The problem is, if the Governor just releases them, they might murder someone and that would be bad for his re-election prospects.  The solution is obvious.  Ship them off to another state with no money: Michigan.

Oddly enough, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has confirmed that shemade the proposal in a recent letter to Schwarzeneggar.  Specifically, she wants to house California’s expatriate prisoners in the Muskegon Correctional Facility, which she notes is in excellent condition and conveniently located near a major airport.  The prison costs about $30 million dollars to run each year, houses 1300 inmates, and is slated to close this year.

Keeping the prison open would save 150 jobs.

Other financial specifics have not been released but it seems clear that California would be sending us some form of payment in exchange for our willingness to house the prisoners.  The question that seems obvious to everyone but Granholm is: how will California, a state in the throes of complete financial collapse, manage to pay?

To say that California has financial problems is a massive understatement.  Right now, it’s 2.8 Billion dollars in the red.  By September, that number will be in the double digits.  The state is even preparing to take the embarrassing step of sending IOU’s to its lenders and business partners.  How Granholm expects them to finance a Michigan prison is a mystery.

Granholm may soon be facing a scenario where Michigan is paying to house West Coast inmates while receiving nothing in return but worthless IOUs.  Does she really think the risk is worth the possible reward?

Then again, here in Michigan we’re all well aware that she loves importing garbage…

-Robert Laurie

Founded in 1902, the Hav-A-Tampa factory in Tampa Florida was a rare breed, being one of only a few Cigar companies owned by American businessmen.  On August 24th it will shut its doors, fire approximately 500 employees, and move its operations to Puerto Rico.

Rick McKenzine, Senior V.P. of human resources claims they’re not alone.  “It’s not just us,” he said, “It’s everybody in the business.”

The problem?  According to McKenzie, it’s federal policies that group cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco into one large, frowned-upon group.   Government taxes and over-regulation are making it impossible for the industry to survive in the US.  In April, Democrats in Congress raised the federal cigar tax a whopping eight hundred percent and, for Hav-A-Tampa, it was the final straw.

Hav-A-Tampa was the last large-scale cigar manufacturer in Tampa, a city once known around the world as “Cigar City.”  Now only one smaller factory, the J.C. Newman Cigar Co, remains.  It employs one hundred fifty workers.  How long it will last is any one’s guess.

It seems that, at a time when the United States needs jobs more than ever, some vocations are just not up to the lofty standards of Barack Obama’s nanny state.  Congratulations Mr. President.  You can add 500 Florida jobs and a hundred-year-old piece of American history to the cost of your tax increases. 

-Robert Laurie

In February, White House budget director Peter Orszag claimed the effects of the $787 Billion dollar stimulus package would be felt in “weeks to months.”   National Economic Council director Larry Summers claimed it would work “almost immediately.”  Last month, Joe Biden claimed that it was, in fact, already working.  They were all wrong.

Just as with his spurious claim that he’s saved 150,000 jobs (while losing 2 million) Obama’s cronies have been trying to claim that everything would be oh so much worse had the Stimulus not passed in the first place.  The problem is that Jobless numbers keep climbing, and the administration’s claims are starting to sound more like wishful thinking than anything approaching fact.

The lastest claim was made by Chistina Romer, chairman of the president’s Council on Economic Advisers, who told The Financial Times that “We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards.”

So, from here on out, everything is going to get better.  Tell that to Warren Buffet who, during the campaign was a huge Obama backer and economic advisor to the president.  In a recent letter, he said “We’re certain, for example, that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 – and, for that matter, probably well beyond.” 

 He also recently suggested that Obama should focus less on his various social and environmental concerns, and more on the economy, saying ”you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I would–I would absolutely say for the–for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are–you know are contentious..”

Unfortunately, as Cap & Trade and health care reform show, the president has chosen not to takes Buffett’s advice.   Instead he’s opted to force through a pair of massive, controversial spending packages at a time when the economy is least able to sustain them.

Don’t worry, though, because Obama and Pelosi, are already hard at work on their next big idea.  Another stimulus package.  It’s good to know that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, is being fully tested by Pelosi’s congress.

I feel better already.

-Robert Laurie

On June 19th, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change issued a report refuting the theory than man is causing global warming.  It was signed by more than 31,478 American scientists and states that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

Now, two weeks later, Arizona may become the first state to ban legislation that would enact measures featuring climate change law.  In short, there would be no more state laws seeking regulations designed to fix the possibly non-existent problem of man made global warming.  The Bill passed the Arizona Senate Monday, and is soon expected to do the same in the State House Of Representatives.

What would it mean in the long run?  Well, first up, it would undo a whole host of measures put in place by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, most notably regarding emission standards.  It would also block state-based Cap & Trade laws, and would likely be used by the state to fight the federal Cap & Trade legislation currently headed for the US Senate.

Perhaps more importantly, it draws a very clear “states rights” line in the sand, setting the stage for yet another sovereignty battle between the states and the federal government.

Asserting state’s rights and flying in the face of the UN?  Arizona may have just become my new favorite state!

-Robert Laurie

Yesterday, Cap and Trade passed the House Of Representatives with a vote of 219 vs. 212.

Eight Republicans helped the Democrats make it happen. Had they voted against it, the measure would have failed.

Here are their names, phone numbers, and web addresses. Please feel free to let them know what you think of their votes.

Bono Mack (CA) 202-225-5330 http://bono.house.gov/
Castle (DE) 202-225-4165 http://www.castle.house.gov/
Kirk (IL) 202-225-4835 http://www.house.gov/kirk/
Lance (NJ) 202-225-5361 http://lance.house.gov/index.html
Lobiondo (NJ) 202-225-6572 http://www.house.gov/lobiondo/
McHugh (NY) 202-225-4611 http://mchugh.house.gov/
Reichart (WA) 202-225-7761 http://reichert.house.gov/
Chris Smith (NJ) 202-225-3765 http://chrissmith.house.gov/

Here are the 44 Democrats who had the strength to stand against this idiotic tax increase. Kudos to them for recognizing Obama’s folly and doing the right thing.

ltmire
Arcuri
Barrow
Berry
Boren
Bright
Carney
Childers
Costa
Costello
Dahlkemper
Davis
Davis
DeFazio
Donnelly
Edwards
Ellsworth
Foster
Griffith
Herseth
Sandlin
Holden
Kirkpatrick
Kissell
Kucinich
Marshall
Massa
Matheson
McIntyre
Melancon
Minnick
Mitchell
Mollohan
Nye
Ortiz
Pomeroy
Rahall
Rodriguez
Ross
Salazar
Stark
Tanner
Taylor
Visclosky
Wilson

-Robert Laurie

After two years of whining and hand wringing over the overreaching, civil-liberty destroying, policies of the previous administration, Barack Obama is working on an executive order that will reinforce and surpass them.  It’s the same strategy he employed when he expanded the Bush wiretap program, only now he’s applying it to the Guantanamo inmates.

According to the Washington Post, Obama is concerned that his efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay are going to be undone by his own party.  His solution is an executive order embracing and expanding the powers claimed by Bush, giving himself the ability to hold terror suspects without trial, indefinitely.

Administration officials are claiming that Obama is already working on the language while quietly building support for the measure.  White House spokesman  Ben LaBolt disagrees, claiming that no such executive order has been drafted, and the president has not decided whether he wants to persue one.  Of course, It could be pointed out that LaBolt’s denial at least contains confirmation that the order is being considered, regardless of what stage he’s at in the writing process. 

The President once said  “I don’t want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution.”  

Throughout the election, Obama and various civil liberties groups worked themselves into a lather claiming that George W. Bush had spent eight years trampling the Constitution by holding the Guantanamo detainees without trial.  Apparently, now that he’s president, Obama has decided to continue those same policies.  It’s now his turn to walk all over the founding document – he’ll just be hiding the inmates somewhere else. 

I’m sure the democrats are proud of all the “change” their new president has brought to the table, and are enjoying Bush’s third term.

-Robert Laurie

UPDATE:  For all of you emailing me the angry letters, calling this article speculative, etc.  Here’s my least favorite “journalist,” Rachel Maddow, discussing this matter about a month ago.  Obama’s executive order has been in the pipeline for some time.  If Obama-drones want to bury their collective head in the sand because they can’t stand the betrayal, fine, but to claim there is no evidence that Obama is working on this measure is pattently false.

If an idealogue like Maddow can see the hypocrisy, why are so many rank-and-file democrats having such a hard time?