The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
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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...
We are now well into the 2018 hurricane season, and a major storm may or may not hit us this year. But when one does, the news media will always mention a little consequence called “price gouging.” Reporters usually hype it up as something terrible, selfish, and even criminal. But when disasters strike, entrepreneurs are quick to respond by trucking in critical supplies and selling them for prices far above the norm. And people in need will be willing to pay for them. Are these suppliers rip...
The purpose of a law, any law, is a singular objective—protecting people from the wrongdoings of other people. To be moral, just, legitimate, and Constitutional, it must meet that criterion. Otherwise, it is usurpation and oppression. Laws that are obviously just are those against murder, bodily harm, theft, destruction, and any other actions that hurt or violate other people and/or their property. These can be readily understood by any civilized person. Common sense dictates that only a few l...
Don’t laugh. Little Zimbabwe could be a model for providing prosperity for the entire world. Most people remember this African nation for creating the most rampant hyperinflation in recorded history—a rate of 231 million percent annually. In the end, people were carrying boxes of $100 trillion dollar bills. Some also recall the ancient granite structures of Great Zimbabwe, from which the country derived its present name. Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) has some of the most fertile farm land in Afr...
Dear Alabama Christians, In my 50 years of following national political races I don't know if I've ever seen one as strange as the current U.S. Senate race in your state. First, we had the national Republican Party in the September Senate run-off working against the state's more popular candidate Judge Roy Moore in favor of their establishment candidate, and former D.C. lobbyist, Luther Strange. The D.C. Republicans flooded Strange with money only to see him lose by a significant 9-point...
Right now, a sizable portion of America’s elected officials and military leaders is running around like chickens with their heads cut off in response to Kim Jong Un’s belligerent displays of military aggression in North Korea. Most of them are screaming about what they can do to restrain him and are probably planning reckless actions that could very well start World War III. Let’s set the record straight. North Korea is a sovereign nation just like any other. Yes, it is currently under the r...
While campaigning for office, Donald Trump, like any respectable candidate, promised to defend the people’s right to keep and bear arms along with the remainder of the United States Constitution. And, during his inauguration this past January 20, he formally swore to uphold that same Constitution. But then, early this past month (July), Trump made a dirty deal with the Chicago Police Department to continue an oppressive drive begun by Barack Obama to confiscate “illegal” guns and ammun...
Right now, in the United States Senate, the Sword of Damocles is hanging right over our heads. Keep an eye on it. Don’t let it drop and chop our heads off. It is Senate Bill 1134, labeled as the “Back the Blue Act of 2017.” It was introduced by Texas Senator John Cornyn and co-sponsored by our newly appointed Senator Luther Strange. This is a frightening piece of legislation that gives police and all other “first responders” near absolute immunity against legal action for almost any wrongdoin...
It's easy to put things off. There are so many things that we have to deal with on a daily basis that when it comes to some things that we know we need to do, we just put it off until tomorrow. The next day rolls around and we either forget that we were going to do it or we find yet another reason to put it off. That is not always a bad thing, but when it comes to important matters in our lives and the lives of our family members, then it could be devastating. One of those important matters is...
Anytime an individual or a group of people set out to accomplish an agreement that is meant to have a favorable outcome for all participants, you better be good at negotiating or you just might come out with a raw deal or even a bad deal. This is what happened to our Nation in the Paris Climate Accord. Fortunately, we now have leadership in place that has seen just what kind of deal the former administration made on our behalf which would be described by all standards, a very bad deal. In fact,...
DID YOU KNOW that right here in America, “The Land of the Free,” we have FIVE TIMES the percentage of our population in prison than the rest of the world? Of every 100,000 of our people, we have 756 locked up behind bars. This is a sharp contrast to the world average, which is only 158. And of our 50 states, Alabama has the third highest incarceration rate [after Louisiana (1) and Mississippi (2)]. Yes, the Gulag Archipelago is right here in our own back yard. Since 1977, our prison pop...
Capital punishment is a topic that many people want to avoid discussing. Opinions about it are all over the map—from people who are totally opposed to the ones who would like to round up huge numbers of criminals and “fry ‘em till their eyeballs pop out.” Arguments about the right thing to do for various crimes have persisted for many decades and will likely continue through the foreseeable future. The death penalty dates far back before the dawn of written history, and multitudes of differe...
In 1966, Ray McKinley Dunwoody Jr. was a USAF chief master sergeant stationed in Roswell, New Mexico. During this time a friend of his, a retiring master sergeant, held a small party with a number of his friends and associates, including Ray. During a casual conversation, Ray mentioned chess. His friend eagerly announced that he was a member of the local chess club and held a high ranking. He then asked Ray about his chess experience. Ray told him that he only played once in a while, was just...
In addition to repealing the catastrophic Obamacare health care plan, one of President Donald Trump’s absolute top priorities must be to resist the military industrial complex and put an immediate end to the carnage and destruction our nation has been spreading all over the Middle East under the guise of saving the local people from their leaders and civil unrest. For the past 50 years and more—from Vietnam to the Middle East—our involvement has produced no benefits whatsoever. The result has b...
