What scandals? There are no scandals here. Please keep moving.

The broiling controversies of the Benghazi scandal, the IRS wrongdoing, and the questionable seizure of Associated Press telephone records by the Department of Justice have forced those on the left and those that don't pay much attention to what goes on in the political realm to recognize that our government indulges in improper and oppressive behavior. And this tumultuous atmosphere has spawned some wild and crazy things.     

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program and vociferous gun control advocate, had an epiphany brought on by the federal government's improper behavior. During a roundtable discussion on the show he said, “My argument [for gun control] is less persuasive today because of these scandals.” He went on to explain that “People say, ‘Hey, if they do this with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights?’” There was general agreement among the show’s other participants.

Another unusual thing was former White House senior advisor David Axelrod’s defense of President Barack Obama. He said that the president can't be held responsible for what underlings do. The reason is that our government is so large that no one person can control what all of the two million Executive Branch employees do.

He's right: government is way too big and far too powerful. David Axelrod is a limited government guy. Who knew?

But the fact that government is too big doesn't relieve the President of the United States, whomever that might be at any given time, of the duty to manage the Executive Branch and keep it within its constitutional limits, and to always respect the citizens it serves. Plainly, Mr. Obama has not done that.

In our highly charged political environment, not everything that the president's loyal opposition calls a scandal is truly a scandal. But conversely, everything that Mr. Obama's sycophantic fans wish was not a scandal isn't a scandal, and their efforts to explain them away often border on silliness. Columnist Reg Henry ably demonstrated that with inadequate attempts to downplay a few of them and make them go away.

Of the Fast and Furious debacle Mr. Henry said it "was a crackpot scheme to trace guns to Mexican drug cartels, but it was a hard sell because, as you know, guns don't kill people."

He is obviously correct about it being a crackpot scheme, although that characterization does not do justice to this colossal idiocy. And his sarcastic comment about guns not killing people unintentionally conveyed the truth.

But he's totally wrong about whether Fast and Furious is a scandal. Not only did the the Justice Department fail to achieve the fundamental goal of this misadventure — to trace the guns they provided to the Mexican cartels — but an American Border Patrol officer was murdered with one of them. That indeed is a scandal.

Next, in trying to wish away the Green Energy fiasco, he states, "The Solyndra scandal involved a big waste of public money, but the real offense seemed to be that the administration was promoting solar power. Oh, the horror."

So-called "public money" is money taxed away from taxpayers ostensibly to be used responsibly and for beneficial purposes, not so that billions can be wasted on the personal whim of the president to prop up a preferred industry, one that is so unstable that it cannot succeed even after being propped up. Mr. Henry is apparently unaware that it is neither within the president's nor the federal government's authority to decide which industries succeed and which do not.

In reference to what he called "Benghazi-gate," he cautions us that "it's far from clear what the president knew and when he knew it." But again he misses the point. What makes Benghazi a scandal is not what Mr. Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew and when they knew it, although that certainly deserves an explanation, it's the fact that his administration and/or her department disgracefully failed to provide requested and needed security upgrades before the attack began. Had they acted properly it just might have prevented all four of the murders that resulted from the attack on the Benghazi consulate. And then, there’s the video smoke screen to explain.

Some believe the Obama administration overtly engineered the effort by the IRS to target conservatives, Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations. But others blame this oppressive behavior on a "culture of suspicion" of conservative organizations created by President Obama's near-continuous public criticism of those individuals and organizations. After all, if the president repeatedly makes public statements saying these people are up to no good, shouldn't good bureaucrats try to please the boss and go after the bad guys?                                  

President Obama told graduates of The Ohio State University earlier this month that “you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. ... They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” But the swirling controversies that demonstrate actual government tyranny render that advice dangerous and unworthy.

Going Rogue, Part IX: Expanding Power and Control over the People

By James Shott

It’s been nearly six months since the antics of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have received attention, but in the last several days two instances have sneaked past the mainstream media filter and become public knowledge, even though only a limited number of people will have seen the reports.

In the first example, a couple seeking to have a retirement home in New Mexico purchased 20 acres of land near Sante Fe. Over the years, the unused land had accumulated quite a lot of trash which the couple intended to clean up to make their property a suitable place for them to spend their remaining years. But no, cleaning up their own property for their own use will not be possible because the dedicated public servants at the EPA have cited the Clean Water Act and prohibited the clean-up saying it might harm the Rio Grande River.

Now, who among us would not want to prevent activities that pollute the nation’s waterways? However, it is difficult to understand how cleaning up tin cans, broken glass and other such trash could actually harm a river, unless the trash ended up being dumped in the river or on its banks, which the couple did not intend to do.

The EPA’s decree at first glance seems intrusive and absurd. Actually, it is much worse than it appears: the Rio Grande about which the EPA folks were so concerned is 25 miles away from the couple’s property.

This outrageous interference has driven property owners Peter and Francoise Smith to court to seek justice against this mindless government over-reach. The case is being brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation on the Smith’s behalf, and the organization alleges that the land does not contain any relatively permanent, standing or continuous body of water that can be regulated by the Clean Water Act.

We’ll have to wait to see how this plays out in court.

In order to further expand its cancerous growth of power and control over the American people, the EPA stretches definitions to the breaking point, asserting that mud puddles that form after rain are “wetlands,” as illustrated in the second example.

The EPA now seeks to gain control over land alongside ditches, gullies and other spots where water may temporarily accumulate from rains or melting snow, claiming they are part of navigable waterways. Seriously.

They are not waterways or wetlands, of course, and they are certainly not navigable, but these temporary “waters” often interfere with how private property owners want to use their own property, to perhaps construct an out building, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities in which private landowners may choose to indulge. But the EPA proposes to tell these landowners just how they may use their property.

“Never in the history of the Clean Water Act has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

In a related event, the EPA notified Virginia last December that it would have to take steps to reduce the amount of highway runoff from rain that eventually ends up in a particular stream in Fairfax County. The EPA considers this a no-no because the runoff contains sediment that collects in streams. The rub comes in how the agency has twisted reality to assume control over runoff: it treats rain as a pollutant.

Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the Democrat Fairfax County Board of Supervisors claim that the EPA’s position is illegal and say further that if the Commonwealth is forced to comply it would cost the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Fairfax County hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with storm water regulations just for the one creek the EPA cited. To control the rain “pollution” VDOT would have to seize private land, evict persons living on it, tear down homes, businesses and other structures on the land, and plant grass that would absorb the runoff.

Reasonable people consider such radical steps as an idiotic solution for a problem with such a tiny effect on the whole of the Commonwealth.

The EPA is likely the most out-of-control federal agency, although it is not without challengers for that dubious distinction. It believes it has authority to do virtually anything it imagines will promote better environmental conditions, no matter how insignificant the perceived problem may be in reality.

It makes no difference to these public servants how many people are affected, how many jobs are lost or how much money is spent; no legal, moral or practical concern is sufficient enough to deter them from regulating themselves into power-induced ecstasy.

The fact that Democrat Congressman Nick Rahall joined with Republican chairmen of two House committees, and that the Democrat Fairfax County Board of Supervisors joined with Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in protest, illustrates the degree to which officials now believe the EPA is out of control.

Let’s hope changes are on the way.

Cross-posted from Observations

US Government “Health Police” Go Too Far This Time!

US Government “Health Police” Go Too Far This Time!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Gruesome pictures on cigarette packs only serve to demonstrate just how ignorant the US Government thinks Americans really are.

I live in a state that was, more or less, financed by tobacco for over 200 years. Within two blocks of my home are three tobacco warehouses where tobacco was trucked in by farmers and sold at auction. I, myself, have followed the auctioneer down the long rows of tobacco as each pile was auctioned off to the highest bidder. I still savor the memory of the aroma of freshly cured tobacco on the floors of those warehouses.

It was a wonderful time here when the tobacco-selling season opened. Money was everywhere. A farmer could truck in a load of tobacco in the early morning and leave the warehouse in the afternoon with a roll of bills large enough to choke a horse. They headed for the retail district of town, ASAP, to pay off loans and buy the needed clothing, etc, for their families and supplies for the next years planting. The sidewalks of our town were so crowded with shoppers that often one would have to walk in the street because maneuvering the sidewalks was impossible. Cash flowed like water.

That is all gone now. The city is a ghost of its former self. The county is now one of the poorest in the state. And I resent the hell out of it.

Look, I am a smoker. I have been since pre-school age. I am now a few months shy of my 70th birthday and I am still smoking.

I smoked cigarettes, a pipe, and cigars, and I carried a plug of chewing tobacco in my hunting vest when I was in the swamps or fields hunting. I never liked to smoke in the forests and swamps for fear of accidentally starting a fire. So rather than smoke, I would chew tobacco.

Today I only smoke cigars and a pipe.

I like tobacco. I always have. I intend to smoke, because I enjoy it, until my life is up on this plain on existence.

Love of tobacco sort of runs in my family. My maternal grandfather used tobacco products all is life. He only lived to be 96 years old. My paternal grandfather did the same thing but he was not as fortunate for the Lord called him home at the relatively young age of 93. (One of my most prized possessions is his pipe.) My father was a cigarette and pipe smoker until he expired at the age of only 89.

My aunts died in their 80’s and 90’s and they were smokers, too.

One of my greatest joys in life is to “PO” a non-smoker who might dare to look exasperated when I light up my pipe.

See, I don’t give a rat’s rear-end whether you favor or disfavor smoking. I really, really, could not care less. It is a personal choice I made many decades ago, and I like it, and I make absolutely no apologies for it.

That said -- it irritates me no end that the government, which derives tons of cash off taxes from the sale of tobacco products, has the audacity to pressure me -- and all smoking Americans -- to quit. It is none of the government’s business what I choose to do with a legal product.

When they finally make the sale of tobacco products illegal, I intend to grow my own, shred it, and continue to smoke ‘til my dying day.

As to those god-awful pictures they are proposing placing on cigarette packs, I suppose we will have to bring back the old plastic and metal cigarette cases, within which, one could slide a complete pack of cigarettes hiding the logo and the government’s scare art. Cigarette smokers may continue to smoke without looking at those disgusting government propaganda posters splashed across the packages.

Another thing that really, and I mean R E A L L Y ticks me off about the “holier than thou” anti-smoker crowd is they totally ignore the dangers posed by the use of alcohol, which is indisputably far more dangerous to a consumer’s health than a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. How about some pictures of an auto crash with dead bodies lying all about the pavement alongside empty beer and whiskey bottles. No, that is not going to happen because the authorities, the “Health Police,” and so darned hypocritical and, most likely, many are consumers of alcohol products, themselves. Being the elitist snobs they are, they are going after only those who offend them -- and drunks obviously do not offend them. I wonder how many of those elitists “Health Police” have DUI tickets they’d rather we not know about? Huh?

This is simply another case of our elitist government flexing its muscle and demonstrating its power over we “peons” by intervening in the lives of the private American citizen.

This is also another reminder that America is no longer a free country. We have a lot of rogue government agencies in Washington with the power to pass rules and regulations, which have the power of law. That, absolutely, must be brought to a screech halt.

In my opinion, there is no need for the majority of those interventionist agencies and the new US House of Representatives, where all spending bills must originate, ought to begin defunding those agencies and starving them out of existence just as soon as they are sworn into office.

Ronald Reagan once said: “Government is not the answer to our problems. Government IS THE PROBLEM.” Some of the agencies, I’d personally like to see disbanded and done away with include: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and all of Obama’s Czars and Czarinas. And that just scratches the surface for the list of agencies that serve only to harass the American public and American business. It is a very long list, indeed.

The government is too big, too intrusive, too powerful, and too full of itself. It needs to be brought to heel, which is where an American representative republic belongs in the first place.

The “Health Police” have crossed the line with their gruesome scare tactics on packs of cigarettes and I sincerely hope, when their budget comes up for review soon, it will be cut to near zero in order to bring some control and humility to their agency and remind them who they work for. They, apparently, have it backwards.

Oh, I am happily puffing on my pipe as I write this piece. If you don’t like it, may we suggest – well -- you know what you can do with your objection.

J. D. Longstreet