by Tony Elliott

The United States Government is rapidly becoming a fascist dictatorship where Big Brother dictates and observes the daily lives of its citizens on an overgrowing basis.

Since the Federal Government bailout money has trickled down into the private sector of businesses, the Feds are dictating how privately owned businesses can operate, how much they can pay execs and employees, who is at the corporate ceiling, and of course arraigning it so corporations will have to comply with environmental restrictions or face monetary fines.

These companies which the Federal Government deemed as having to accept bailout money, like it or not, would be flourishing today without any prior financial problems leading to the current situation if this same Government had not placed such restrictions on them in the way they do business in the first place.

What it all boils down to is the effort by the Federal Government to restructure our economy from one based on crude oil to one which uses alternative types of energy production. Their excuse for this, aside from environmental reasons, is the price and availability of crude oil.

It is the U.S. Government's fault that we are in the situation we are in now. The world relies on only a few crude oil production countries for most all of its energy needs. The U.S. is still the leader in the purchase of oil. Countries like India, Russia, and China currently produce as much crude oil as they can for their own countries before exporting any to the world market. We export very little to the world as we produce less than any world country. This is because of restrictions placed on industry by the environmental lobby making it virtually impossible to operate existing refineries or open up any new refinery facilities. The U.S. has not built a refinery facility since the 70's and during that time our overall population has doubled. Thus, it is our fault we face the energy and resulting inflation we do today.

Not all the wind turbines, solar energy, fluorescent light bulbs, corn alcohol, and nitrogen in the world the environmentalists want us to convert to would keep a city the size of Denver, Colorado powered for more than a few hours at a time.

The sad fact is America has all the natural resources it needs such as crude oil deposits, coal, and shale for the next hundred years but is not developing any of them because of restrictions and regulations placed on then by the government at both a State and Federal level.

It is ridiculous that "we the people" of this once great nation founded on freedom are now subjected to having to pay outrageous prices at the gas pump when realistically only about $1.50 is the actual cost per gallon of the gasoline; the rest is all taxes.

Because of the rising cost of health care, the Federal Government deems that we citizens have to pay $5.00 per pack of cigarettes when the actual cost per pack is in reality only around $.99. The rest is pure State and Federal Government taxes.

A few years ago, the Federal Government won a monumental lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which amounted to a monetary windfall for all states amounting into the billions of dollars. This money as a stipulation by both State and Federal Governments was promised to be used only in a manner from which the suit was won. Meaning that all Government entities would have to use the money only for health related programs directly involved with tobacco use such as prevention, health care of individuals supposedly ill from tobacco use, education, and cancer research. However, these very funds have been used for various different State projects such as water projects, health care for illegal aliens, and most is figured into actual State budgets. Quite a large amount is unaccounted for.

I believe the tobacco industry has a great chance in winning a suit against the Federal Government for misappropriation of settlement funds.

As this was not enough most states have lotteries which bring in billions annually to their budgets. With this in mind the average tax-paying citizen should be demanding to know where all this money has disappeared to since States such as California tax their citizens into an early financial grave and we drive around on roads that have needed work since 1995.

With the green movement and Al Gore nucleus of dire consequences facing the world because of Global Warming, we are faced with the prospect of paying double and sometimes triple the price for automobiles, simple light bulbs, energy bills, and associated prices on items such as food because of this fairy tale.

Anyone who has an IQ above a rat can smell one here. The scientific evidence is right in front of our faces. Sure Earth's climate is warming. Aside from the known fact that climates of the world have been changing for millions of years, NASA and other scientific organizations in the world have proven that every planet in our Solar System is currently going through a warming period. Since there are no SUVs, or industry on all these other planets, it is very doubtful that human civilization and industry is the sole cause of Earth's warming period.

It is time we citizens stand up for ourselves and just say no to all this smoke and mirrored excuses State and Federal Governments are handing us in their effort to bankrupt us all while sitting in their offices which we paid for counting their extorted cash.

The bailout, tobacco, and global warming are wild ideas for the Government to demand money from its citizens.

It is not tobacco use which causes such a large number of people to get cancer. It is from the Federal Government's use of above ground atomic testing in the American Southwest during the 40s, 50s and 60s. However to escape the consequences of this fact the Federal Government had to come up with a scapegoat and it just happened to be the tobacco industry.

Scientifically it has been known that viruses cause most forms of cancer. This became known in the scientific community from resulting evidence found in the cause of Feline Leukemia and research since then.

Cancer is nothing more than renegade cells, which have been mutated by viruses and feed off surrounding tissue.

We have to get off our couches, put down that beer, and realize the very people we elected to watch out for us are taking us to the cleaners.

As it was in the beginning of the founding of this country, "We the People" must watch out for ourselves.