Tag Archives: freedom

Another Administration Overreach

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A family built a stock pond on their private property in order to provide more reliable water for their cattle.

The Johnsons believed they had done everything necessary to get permission for the pond, where the tiny Six Mile Creek runs through their property south of Fort Bridger, WY. The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office provided the permit and even stated in an April 4, 2013 letter to the Johnsons: “All of the legal requirements of the State Engineer’s Office, that were your responsibility, have been satisfied for the Johnson Stock Reservoir.”

The pond not only improved the situation for their cattle, it improved the local environment. The Johnsons noted:

Before we didn’t have ducks and geese. … Now you can see bald eagles here, we have moose come down. We have blue herons that come in every evening. Before we did this…it was basically just a little irrigation canal.

But they didn’t say, “Mother, may I?” to the EPA. The EPA is up in arms about this effrontery, and they seem to have gone so far as to make stuff up in their assault on the Johnsons, their property rights, and the property rights of American citizens in general. The EPA is charging that the Johnsons’ pond is guilty of

“…the discharge of pollutants (i.e., dredged or fill material) into the waters of the United States….”

Never mind that the only tests done—not by the EPA, curiously, but done by the Johnsons, instead—demonstrate

…that the water leaving the pond is cleaner than the water entering it.

Meanwhile, the EPA also is continuing to ignore Congress as Congressmen ask for clarification of what the EPA thinks it’s doing on this matter.

In a follow-up letter to the EPA, [Senator David (R, LA), Ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee] Vitter and his colleagues have asked for, but so far not received, clarification of the potential fines involved.

Those fines run from $75,000 per day to $185,000 per day, depending on how the rule the EPA claims to be operating is interpreted. Hence this question, among others.

But this administration, and its EPA henchmen, are above the law. They say.

Rule of Law

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Earlier I wrote about government and free speech regarding a Wall Street Journal op-ed about the FCC’s proposed interference with the business of the Internet.

Buried near the end of the op-ed, though, was a remark that needs greater notice than was present in the piece.

Mr Wheeler’s FCC claims “there are no rules on the books to prevent broadband providers from limiting Internet openness by blocking content or discriminating against consumers and entrepreneurs online.”

The WSJ denied the charge,

But this is false. …the Federal Trade Commission already has ample authority to go after businesses that mistreat customers, online or off[]

but that’s beside the point.

We’re not Europeans. Neither are we, generally, Progressives. We have no need of a government’s rule to tell us every jot or tittle of what we are permitted or not permitted to do. We are American citizens; we are fully capable of deciding for ourselves, in the absence of the “guidance” of our Betters, what we might do or not do.

Ukraine and Energy

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America’s booming natural gas production could help Ukraine keep the heat and lights on amid Russia’s latest threat to cut off supplies, if the US cuts through troublesome red tape, lawmakers said. … The U.S. has port facilities that turn natural gas into liquid for export and more are under construction, but shipping to any country not bound by a free trade agreement with the US requires a federal permit. Since 2011, DOE has approved six [count ’em] applications for permits to export natural gas to non-free trade agreement nations, but Ukraine is not one of them. … [The] “Domestic Freedom and Global Prosperity Act”…would grant immediate approval of the 24 pending applications currently filed with the Department of Energy…. “This would send the clear signal that we are serious about enlarging the scope of natural gas exports, and immediately undercut Russia’s dominance,” [Congressman Fred (R, MI)] Upton said. “Russia has chosen to wield its energy resources as a geopolitical weapon to inflict harm on others. As the world’s emerging energy superpower, America has a newfound responsibility to help our allies.”

There are a lot of logistics problems along this path to work out, but that puts a premium on getting started; these problems cannot be allowed to serve as excuses for not bothering. Again.

On top of that, we also need to stop sending signals and start sending stuff—like oil and gas, like weapons, like intel, like…—to Ukraine, as well as sending oil and gas to Germany and the rest of the EU.

A Bit of Paranoia

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In 2010, a report from Amnesty International painted a grim picture of North Korea’s crumbling health care system, with witnesses and health care workers recounting barely-functioning hospitals, multiple medication shortages and epidemics caused by malnutrition.

And

US military officials soon grew concerned over the possibility of a lethal pathogen originating within North Korea, as the nation’s health care officials would be nearly powerless to stop the spread of infection. And if such an illness were to continue to expand, a global pandemic would likely occur.

But what if this is deliberate? Baby Kim isn’t stupid, and he is insane enough to give serious thought to such a thing. Northern Korea can’t invade with their army, so might they invade with disease? They’d infect a major fraction of their population (they’re already allowing a major fraction to become infected) and let a goodly number leak across the DMZ, which really is quite porous from the north’s side. And many of these diseases can spread via airborne vectors, against which the DMZ is no barrier at all.

A thug’s version of Napoléon’s levée en masse.

“Elections” in Ukraine

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Pro-Russian “insurgents” in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk are claiming that 90% of voters backed sovereignty and separation from Ukraine (and eventual incorporation into Russia). (Why is that the supporters of such things always claim 90% of the vote went their way? Why not something more plausible, like 55%, even 62%?)

That 90% number is especially interesting here, given the demographics of those oblasts. 30% of the folks living in Luhansk, the oblast that forms the eastern tip of Ukraine, jutting into Russia, are native Ukrainian speakers, not Russian, which suggests they’re ethnic Ukrainian, not ethnic Russian (leaving aside the understanding that all of the citizens there are Ukrainian citizens, regardless of ethnicity). 24% of Donetsk, which sits on the southwestern boundary of Luhansk and fronts on the Sea of Azov (which opens into the Black Sea, and thence into the Mediterranean), are native Ukrainian speakers.

To get to that 90% number, then, two-thirds of those ethnic Ukrainians in Luhansk and three-fifths of them in Donetsk would have had to have favored leaving Ukraine, also. That’s not very plausible.

Alternatively, the ethnic Ukrainians would have had to have not voted at all in significant number—afraid to vote, apathetic (unlikely in that charged atmosphere), or…. Which makes the “elections” not at all representative of what the folks truly want.

Also, keep in mind that these two oblasts, in 1991, voted for independence from Russia by an 83%-13% margin.

Hmm….