A couple of recent developments nicely exemplified some key differences between liberal and conservative governance in 21st-century America.
In New Mexico, in response to a tragic shooting that resulted in the death of a child, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former public health official, abruptly suspended the Second Amendment by banning conceal-and-carry and open-carry for 30 days in several municipalities.
She’s justified her egregious move by claiming there’s a “public health crisis” to justify her “emergency order.” The tyranny of the public health bureaucrats strikes again ….
In any case, the New Mexico governor cancels the 2nd amendment in order to reduce gun violence without knowing the status of the killer or whether he was legally carrying. She cancels the 2nd amendment when HER party has stoked gun crime and violence in general with their war against the police and lax enforcement of the law, whether it be on the border or on our streets.
They cause the problem, then prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves by arrogating the very unconstitutional authority to cancel our constitutional rights. If that doesn’t encapsulate the absurd and destructive character of modern Democratic governance, I don’t know what does.
In contrast, we have Governor Kemp suspending the gas tax as a response to yet another largely Democrat-created problem, high energy prices. Biden and the Democrats are waging a war against fossil fuels, including suspending or cancelling leases on public lands and using every means possible to thwart drilling and transport of oil (remember the XL pipeline?) at every turn. Biden also stupidly decided to snub Saudi Arabia and empower their arch-enemy Iran, which directly resulted in the Saudis cutting back production to raise oil prices.
And please spare me the argument that this persecution of fossil fuels is necessary to curb global warming. All, and I mean all, of the dire predictions from 20 years ago about temperature and climate have failed to materialize. The whole thing is largely a hoax. Our atmosphere has proved remarkably capable of handling and utilizing additional CO2 by generating increased vegetation growth, which both absorbs the CO2 and improves food supply.
Plus, there is a “saturation” point beyond which additional CO2 fails to generate any significant heat radiation. This mania to reduce fossil fuels is little more than a left-wing campaign to increase government control, transfer wealth from the middle class to the poor, and diminish the liberty of families and individuals.
Gov. Kemp has thus stepped in, using his proper legal and statutory authority to suspend the state gas tax in order to help Georgians deal with the crisis caused by Democratic leadership. Keep in mind that high energy and food prices punish the poor most severely, whose well-being is of little concern to Democrats despite their crocodile tears and sympathetic groans.
Gov. Kemp’s action is an excellent example of proper conservative governance, which puts people’s welfare first, ahead of the elite, fantastical agenda to transform society in the mold of George Soros and Bill Gates.
Which side do you support?
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
Trey’s polarized worldview (GOP=GOOD/DEM=DIABOLICAL) forces him to mash together disparate topics as if they’re naturally comparable subjects, which we see here: “Let’s compare how a Democrat Governor approaches a gun violence crisis to how a Republican Governor approaches the inconvenience of high gas prices!” The two subjects aren’t in any way comparable, so we can conclude the only reason Trey chooses to compare the two is so he can, in his mind, score points at the expense of the Democrats.
Sadly even this doesn’t work. Governor Lujan Grisham in NM responded to a public health crisis in cities and counties averaging 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents a year since 2021 and with more than 90 firearm-related emergency department visits per 100,000 residents from July 2022 to June 2023. Only one city and one county even qualified, and the governor rightly did the only thing she could to try to save lives in these places: called for fewer guns on the streets.
Somehow from this action Trey concludes that the governor and democrats in general CAUSED the violence by a war on police and lax enforcement of laws? I see no evidence of either and wonder how he arrived at that conclusion? Then for good measure he adds that the governor’s solution is actually intended to prevent good ole boys like Trey from protecting themselves from violence by going armed … When the research shows owning a gun or living with a gun owner is more likely to make you the VICTIM of gun violence.
So Trey fails in proving his case against Governor Lujan Grisham. But what about his praise for GOP Gov Kemp’s decision to cancel the gas tax in response to high prices? Isn’t that a bit short sighted? Gas taxes pay for the roads and highway safety … without that tax, how will those repairs be made — and does Trey care, does he drive? Clearly he does because he’s complaining about gas prices … I suppose he will complain when the roads fall into disrepair and he gets into an accident; but at least the gas was cheaper to get him there …
These are 2 different issues, and shouldn’t be compared, but if you insist on comparing them, I see the Dem Governor of New Mexico doing what little she can to try to protect NM citizens from violent gun crimes at the expense of … a few folks like Trey PO’ed about the 2nd Amendment, and I see the GOP Gov of GA doing what little he can to unburden citizens from the high cost of gas at the expense of safe roads. If you DO compare the two, it looks like Governor Lujan Grisham comes out ahead.
Trey—You end your letter, “Which side do you support?”
My answer is, “both”.
I can easily understand the frustration of Governor Grisham; the utter desperation to do something–anything–to simply stop the killings. The life of an 11 year old was ended in a moment of “road rage” by an unrestrained armed driver. A knee jerk reaction on her part, perhaps, but one I judge well-intentioned (born of the concern you so flippantly mock).
I also appreciate our Governor’s decision to give us a break at the gasoline pumps. Especially needed by those struggling to make financial ends meet.
So thanks to Governor Grisham for her attempt to protect citizens from gun violence.
Thanks as well to Governor Kemp for attempting to assist citizens in dire financial times.
We are all in this together, Trey. We can cross political lines. We can share sincere concern and genuine tears and sympathetic groans (to contradict your beliefs). We can work together and find solutions for those suffering, for any reason.
There is enough pain to go around.
No matter what your political view is, we must agree that a clear violation of Constitutional rights cannot be tolerated. “It’s a crisis” can justify all sorts of illegal government actions if you buy into an ends justifies the means reasoning.
The New Mexico governor was clearly out of bounds.
I agree with Gov Kemp on most things, but not suspending the state gas tax for a month. It’s a short term band-aid, just like Biden using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last year to cover soaring gas prices.
Our roads and bridges need consistent funds for repairs, and now the US must refill its oil reserve at much higher cost, while gas prices are way up yet again. Neither decision is good when viewed over time.
FYI everyone.. no human has the right to remove another human’s ability to protect themselves. Gun, knife, pepper spray, axe, shovel, hammer, stun gun etc. doesn’t matter.
Also..keep in mind that there is no such thing as government power it’s just what people tolerate. No man stands above another.
The government regularly limits devices that one might use for protection, and I’m very glad they do. You cannot legally use grenades, bazookas, machine guns, tanks, etc. for self-protection – and for very good reason. Like many other weapons, these devices can cause significant harm to both the one using them and to the people around that user.
But I agree with MsV, using mostly nonlethal self-protective devices like garden tools, pepper spray, etc. would be a grand improvement to our current wild west mentality.
Anyone who thinks Dems bad and Republicans good, or vice versa, clearly lacks even a basic grasp of the socio-economic issues our country has.
How are roads going to be maintained with the suspension of the gas tax? People are still driving and buying gas. Oh, I remember. Georgia got $2.7 BILLION for infrastructure from the federal government.
Hmmm, odd that Kemp is going around telling everyone how great he is for Georgians, empowered to do so by the very people he blames the problems on. Guess you can have your cake and eat it, long as you don’t mind lying to your constituents.
It’s never black and like the author works have you believe.
It is difficult to fathom how someone can be so fully immersed in the Fox News bubble that he would pen the missives that Trey so frequently submits. You would think that he might consult some source knowledgeable about the Constitution, science, or economics before embarrassing himself once again with parroting these MAGA talking points.
Of course, everyone who reads the Citizen knows that Trey is a gadfly, but it is scary that he represents a constituency that might believe this tripe and vote for candidates who subsume this extreme ideology without reflection.
According to US Energy Information Administration data on domestic oil production, we were at a previous peak of 1,285,000 barrels per day in January 2020, and the latest data is at 1,284,400 bpd in June 2023 – – dead flat – – despite the huge rebound in our economy since Covid.
As you say, world oil demand is down. Therefore, prices should also go down.
If we were energy independent, as we were under Trump, it wouldn’t matter what the Saudis or the Russians did to supply, as the US could fill the gap with our own energy production to keep prices down.
The Institute for Energy Research (9/14/2023) estimates “that the United States would have produced between 1.2 and 3.5 billion more barrels of oil since Biden came into office if he had not reversed President Trump’s pro-oil and gas drilling policies.”
Yet Biden killed pipeline construction, hamstrung production on federal lands, added tax burdens while subsidizing “green” projects, emptied the Strategic Oil Reserve and lost the Saudis as a partner.
You can’t say Biden has had no impact on US oil prices or production levels. And since it takes time to ramp production and build pipelines, we will feel the energy cost impact of the Biden term for years to come.
My.02, I respect when you try to infuse some statistical reference points into your comments. However, be aware, they are not always correct. For example, “If we were energy independent, as we were under Trump” is a B-S republican line. Fact, in 2020 the last full year in office, the US imported about 7.9M barrels a day.
For full disclosure on your source material … The Institute for Energy Research (IER) that you cite is a group formed by Robert Bradley (think Enron here) back in 1989. They typically receive donations from large corporations (like Exxon) and publish position papers, for example like opposing efforts to control greenhouse gasses.
However, their positional papers do run very loose with the facts. For example, you cited, “the United States would have produced between 1.2 and 3.5 billion more barrels of oil since Biden came into office …” And care to take a stab on where that number got pulled from?
It actually came from a recent NY Post opinion piece written by some hack opinion writers that probably took a stab at the pipeline production estimates. You know that Canadian “crud” crude oil to be transported over American soil (at a risk) only to be refined and then shipped overseas; not really intended for the gas pumps here in the US.
As for that original sourced talking point (NY Post) that was used, it is very much like saying the Washington DC group, XYZ Energy says, “that one estimate has it that …” and then you actually find out that their statistic came from the Citizen newspaper and it was authored by none other than Trey Hoffman in an opinion piece. Basically, you have to take it for what it is, running on unsupported opinion and void of most facts.
Doon – Penny routinely parrots conservative silo “facts.” However, I wish he was accurate that the U.S. output of fossil fuels was dwindling. Unfortunately, Reuters reported last month that the U.S. is on track to produce 12.76 million barrels of crude oil each day in 2023, making this this year the HIGHEST production year in U.S. history. It will beat the record 12.3 barrels per day produced in 2019 before the COVID crisis.
I realize that Trey and Penny report only what they want to believe, but in this case, it would be great for our planet and our children if they were right.
Stranger To The Truth – while I appreciate that you have finally included some facts in your post, oil production level is irrelevant by itself. Oil supply is mismatched to demand, which is why energy prices have risen so high, with higher prices on the horizon.
Yet again, neither you nor Doon refuted that Biden’s policies have restricted US oil production at a time of increased demand, which is the key driver of our high energy prices and inflation.
Instead, you both just deride “conservative” sources (Newsweek, AAA, Investors Business Daily … really?) as your main response. C’mon, man.
If you are really interested in determining valid sources of news, just compare your most relied upon source’s coverage of Sen. Menendez’ lawlessness with that of Mr. Trump. If the source excuses or minimizes the offenses of either one of them, that is prima facie evidence that it is unreliable.
Doon – You don’t say that Biden has had no impact on US energy prices or production levels, instead you wander into nitpicking a source.
The amount of oil imports is irrelevant to US energy independence. Energy independence means that the US had been exporting more than it imported, not that it has zero imports.
In 2018, the US exported more oil than we imported for the first time in 70 years. (Trump Just Achieved What Every President Since Nixon Had Promised: Energy Independence IBD 12/7/2018).
Before Biden, US producers were able to fill gaps in international oil production, making OPEC less influential on prices. Since that time, actions of the Biden administration have hindered US production, and opened the door for OPEC and Russia to control oil pricing again.
Results: the average price of gas from 2017 to 2020 under Trump stood around $2.57 a gallon (Newsweek 10/13/21). Today, the national average price of gas is $3.875 (AAA 9/20/23), and the outlook is for even higher prices.
“A largely Democrat-created problem, high energy prices.” Trey Hoffman continues to speed down B-S Blvd despite the subject matter he tosses out his mental window. Fact, US crude oil production in 2023 is expected to reach a record 12.78M barrels per day and to exceed $13M in early 2024. Oil prices are being manipulated (Saudis) and influenced (Russia) by overseas production cuts due to lower world-wide demand. Yet Trey would like readers to believe otherwise and blame the US internally.