This is according to OpenSecrets.org. You can check it out for yourselves. In fact, if I am reading the numbers correctly, of the more than $18 million he spent of your money, most of it went to New York and Washington.

Uh, does this sound odd to you: A Memphis Congressman spending your hard earned tax dollars in New York and Washington?

It does to me.

In fact, I don’t want this guy spending one dime of my tax contributions. He gets lobby money by the ton, because he votes the way the lobbyists want him to vote.

And now, he wants to park a big price hike for pipe tobacco in your back pocket, not his.

He is up for re-election, but the guy likely to give him the most trouble is an African American Democrat. Cohen’s 9^th District is largely African American.

The pol who wants to take his job is former Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton, not exactly a clean guy.

Last October, The Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper, the largest in the Midsouth, claimed the former mayor had profited in a large-scale real estate scheme.

The newspaper said that newly discovered documents at City Hall “show the mayor and some business associates not only had big dreams for urban renewal, they used the mayor’s office to pursue their dream of personal profit.

“Herenton has said his involvement amounted to a private real estate transaction that had nothing to do with his duties a mayor.

“Yet, an investigation by The Commercial Appeal has found paperwork used to negotiate and close the deal that paid Herenton $91,000 was maintained at City Hall, in filing cabinets and on computers.”

Herenton and Cohen are in a fight to represent the Ninth Congressional District, a low-income area that surrounds Memphis and is more than 60 percent black. The district was redrawn and renumbered in 1973, increasing the percentage of minority voters, and for three decades it elected the state’s only black members of Congress since Reconstruction, Harold E. Ford Sr. and his son Harold E. Ford Jr.

And now if you look at the proceeds Cohen has picked up from lobby groups, it is easy to see whom he is in bed with:

He has raised more than $618,000 this year to pump up his war chest to over $1 million.

His largest contributors are

FedEx Corp at $14,600, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at $10,000 and a slew of other unions such as the Allied Pilots Association ($5,000), the American Federation of State, City and County Municipal Employees     ($5,000), the Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union ($5,000),     National Beer Wholesalers Association ($5,000), Operating Engineers Union ($5,000), Plumbers/Pipefitters Union ($5,000), Service Employees International Union ($5,000), UNITE HERE ($5,000), United Auto Workers  ($5,000) and the United Transportation Union ($5,000).

You make up your own mind why these unions contribute so much to Cohen, especially since he is an anti-smoking candidate.

Cohen, of course, is not alone. He is just the one who sponsored HR 4439, the so-called tobacco parity tax.  The bill is in the House Committee on Ways and Means, where it has been since Jan. 13, 2010.

The best hope for pipe smokers is Cohen’s own track record. It isn’t good when it comes to getting bills passed in the House of Representatives.

Usually, he goes after the low-hanging fruit, nothing substantial and not a great deal for his constituents. He’s a lightweight in the House, but he drew a lot of attention with his proposed tobacco piracy act.

You can guess why. Tobacco legislation today is the low-hanging fruit. Cohen is in a real fight to save his seat, which as a career pol he desperately wants to do.

Otherwise, Cohen will have to go back to work as a lawyer in Memphis, which is full of good attorneys.

PSI Writer

 The United States since its conception has been dependent on tobacco.  It has been an integral part of the overall country’s economy and the relaxation of its citizens. For a period of time, tobacco was actually used as a viable form of payment in the colonies.  In addition, a majority of the founding fathers either grew or used tobacco in one form or another. Recent legislation, however, aims to limit retail and consumption of tobacco to certain types of tobacco products.   

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act provides “a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke from being sold in the United States.” 

It does not outlaw tobacco blends which only contain pure tobacco or a mentholated tobacco which do not fall under the ban.

 This ban demonstrates a violation of one’s autonomy and “Pursuit of Happiness”. Specifically it is an example infringement upon a person’s ability to make his or her own decisions regarding their well being.  

Ben Franklin’s words, “They, who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security,” personify the main argument in a few words.  As the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control act is in essence attempting to save children from the temptation of smoking.  Logic should dictate that laws which are already in place prevent persons under the age of majority from purchasing any tobacco products or related paraphernalia.  After all, as Bob Dole said, “We know smoking tobacco is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren’t good.”

An adult smoker’s choice to smoke or not, is a decision for his/her well being.  

This is further explained in the Declaration of Independence when it states, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Family Smoking Protection and Tobacco Control Act does not allow for the happiness of all Americans.  As there are approximately 47.1 million smokers in the United States according to the American Heart Association’s website.  While a majority of persons in the United States do not smoke, those who choose to smoke should not be limited in their choices on how they choose to consume tobacco.  The action to remove selected products comes directly from the elected representatives of the citizenry.

This action to outlaw flavored cigarettes came from the Congress rather than the FDA.   The FDA would need to argue, with scientific evidence, that flavored cigarettes are a greater health risk versus normal tobacco products.

Congress however, does not have to meet the same criteria when passing judgment on controversial issues.  The evidence found for this essay, through the National Youth Smoking Cessation Survey (NYSCS), states that 22-23% of smoker’s age 17-19 years had “used” flavored cigarettes, compared with 9-10% of smoker’s age 20-26 years and 11% of smokers age 25-39 years.  In addition flavored cigarettes are used by, at most, two out of 10 young smokers and aren’t even their usual brand, which is unflavored which was most often a Phillip Morris USA product. 

Phillip Morris USA, one of the major cigarette manufacturers in the United States was a major supporter of the Family Smoking Protection and Tobacco Control Act.  Phillip Morris does not manufacture any flavored tobacco products. 

However, they are a well-known producer of mentholated tobacco products, which are not outlawed by this ban.  Studies have shown that smoking mentholated cigarettes are a harder product to quit when compared to normal un-mentholated tobacco products according to medicalnewstoday.com. This evidence would suggest that this ban is motivated more by opinion in its current incarnation rather than facts.

The rebuttal for the argument in support of the ban comes in two forms, the tax revenue for tobacco sales and the lawsuits against tobacco companies of the late 1990s. The tax revenue covers a majority of the costs for the extension of the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  This provides federal funding to match an individual state’s funding to provide insurance to those children whose parents have a modest income, which would be too high to qualify for Medicaid.  This program’s extension cost the average cigarette smoker an additional $.62 per pack of cigarettes according to the SCHIP-info.org website. 

The lawsuits as of Nov. 23, 1998, show that 46 states settled their lawsuits against the nation’s major tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health care costs, and joined four states — Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Minnesota — that had reached earlier, individual settlements. 

The majority of this money from the settlements was supposed to help the states pay for health care, notably SCHIP, and anti-smoking campaigns. Instead, much of it — even payments that aren’t due for 20 years — has already been spent on politically popular tax breaks complicated borrowing schemes initiated by Wall Street investment banks as shown in an article from MSNBC’s red tape series. 

The investors convinced 25 of these states to borrow against the future payments. Overall intended settlement money only allows for 3% of the total funding for smoking cessation or smoking education. 

What is worse, the average health care costs of a smoker on Medicaid are approximately an additional $500 million annually, if the state has a population near that of Ohio.  Overall, a majority of this money goes to funding state based health care where moving more of it to smoking cessation would lessen the burden that health care plays in a state budget.

Due to the economic and social ramifications of a ban on flavored cigarettes, it is easy to see the outright ban should not occur, as it is a violation of an individual’s autonomy.  As cigarette smoking poses a significant health risk to all who partake of the substance regulation should occur, but as the previous evidence suggests the focus of the current ban may be misplaced.  It is with that in mind one should heed the words of the founding father, Ben Franklin, “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security.” 

Essentially citizens of the United States receive only temporary security with the recent ban on flavored cigarette tobaccos as the increase in tax revenues, which fund programs for the good of the majority.

I just finished reading the latest issue of Pipes & Tobacco Magazine, one of my favorite publications. This edition had only a mention of the so-called “Tobacco Tax Parity Act,” or House Resolution (HR) 4439, introduced by career politician Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis, TN.

First, I would like to correct the nomenclature of the bill. Instead of a “tax parity”, it is more a “tax piracy act.”

Political office abusers, such as Cohen, are simply trying to fund other budget-busting projects by levying taxes on what is perceived by the general public as a health hazard.

Never mind that alcohol, automobiles (Toyota comes to mind immediately), guns (before you send me a nasty email, I love guns, hunted all my life and was a sometimes good duck hunter), the atmosphere in certain cities can be and are hazardous to one’s health. You don’t see the kind of reaction that tobacco receives, which is a constant taxing of those who use the products they enjoy.

This is simply a pirating of our basic civil rights, our right to choose, our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and is a mean-spirited method of plugging holes in public budgets that have been overdrawn for years by financial free-spenders in Congress and local public bodies.

Cohen is just the latest iteration of this political phenomenon. He is in a tough re-election race in his home-district in Memphis, which is primarily a black population, and is willing to cut any sort of deal with any group to keep his job.

Slam-dunking tobacco is good politics and good for contributions from a variety of anti-tobacco sources. Cohen is going up against Willie Herenton, another career politician, who is the first African American elected Mayor of Memphis. Herenton was the superintendent of Memphis City Schools for 12 years.

He resigned from his position as superintendent amidst public accusations of an affair he was having with one of his employees.

These days, some career pols experience troubles with their former peccadilloes. Can anyone say John Edwards, or Mark Sanford?

The Tobacco Piracy Tax Act comes at a time when every politician worth old campaign promises is saying that the Great Recession is over and we can all get back to work.

I just read a news story the other day that said many of those middle class jobs we once had are gone forever. Don’t count on their return, or even a job if you happen to be breaking 60 and have just lost a job. The message I read is, “Goodbye, good luck, and don’t let the door hit you in the derriere.”

So, at a time when many, many people are having a hard time keeping the home budget on two feet, Cohen and his ilk want to tax pipe tobacco to an outrageous extent, some 775 percent to be precise, from $2.83 to almost $25 per pound to make it on par with roll your own cigarette taxes. The RYO boys pulled a fast one, repackaged their tobacco in tins to pass it off as pipe tobacco in order to skirt the exchorbitant federal tax on RYO. This put pipe tobacco in the sights of such gunslingers as Cohen who will curry favor with any group as long as he can get campaign contributions and stir up an issue for votes.

This Cohen piracy tax proposal will put many tobacco manufacturers out of business, lop off many jobs, cause the unemployment rolls to go up, increase unemployment benefits and add to the jobless rate that is currently right at 10 percent across the nation.

Yeah, this makes sense.

And, while we are at it, why not follow Cohen and his kind on how they vote for the upcoming health care issue, if it ever comes to a vote. If he is so all-fired concerned about our health, then he won’t mind our keeping track of his voting record on health care.

Contact your Congressman about the Tobacco Piracy Tax Act, and let them know where you stand, that you are tired of tobacco products being taxed out of existence to fund some idiotic and costly project that benefits the few.

And if you can get his or her attention, pry them loose from lobbyists money-raising bashes for re-election efforts, get them to take time away from travel junkets to foreign lands at taxpayer expense, ask them to think about doing the job they were sent to Washington to do. We call it the people’s business.

Part of that job is not to tax people who can ill afford to be taxed over a staple such as tobacco, once a prominent cash crop for hard-working farmers, who used their tobacco allotments to ensure their children had shoes for school.

Tell them that we love our tobacco and we intend to continue using tobacco in the form we choose, despite the underhanded and crooked means that Congress is trying to smash the tobacco market with the help of faulty science and screaming meme anti-smoking wackos.

Friends, it is time to stop the Tobacco Piracy Tax Act.

And, they all want to make this fat boy skinny. It ain’t going to happen. I like being on the lovable hefty side and enjoy my pipes and tobacco, which I have done for the past 40-plus years. The belly comes with me, see.

My point is this: I an beginning to recognize a trend here. Maybe I am the last one on the planet to notice, but we are in the midst of a rising Nanny State.

I plan to write more on this in the future, but here is what has gotten my attention. The other day in one of the nation’s best newspapers, the New York Times–my apologies to those of you who think otherwise and find it too liberal for your tastes; but the NYT is the best there is today, along with the Washington Post–and there was a piece about  how much salt we consume.

Now, the antis and the health freakies are saying we eat too much salt. There’s another side that says we are eating just the right amount, not to worry. The antis hate any kind of food that has salt. They would have us eat twigs and weeds, like many of the folks seem to do out here.

I hail from the South. I have seen work clothes after a day’s labor have so much salt residue that you could start a salt factory with them.

We grow up eating ham that is half salt. Sausage and biscuits with red-eye gravy, yeah, and eggs and bacon along with buttermilk. Every day, seven days a week. It’s enough to clog every artery in your body, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. You won’t find too many Nanny boys in the South.

Now the antis are after our salt intake. Imagine that? Next they’ll come after our dogs, and then the shooting will begin.

So, I asked a friend out here in this cold, cold state about their healthful living. You have to be fit to live here, and they are, I suppose, until they get run over while riding their bikes, ski into trees, or drop off one of the mountains they climb.

But, that doesn’t count. See, they like doing those things out here. Risky, yes, but they enjoy riding something they call a bicycle, running in the snow, climbing 14,000-foot mountains, skiing down the sides of steep slopes, smoking the hills like white rockets. They live here to enjoy that sort of lifestyle.

Is anyone getting my drift?

It’s okay to suffer a traumatic head injury from a fall or getting your skinny buns warped into a pretzel around your skinny bike. That’s fine. Part of the statistical side of living a life in Colorado style.

But let me want to enjoy my pipe and tobacco? Oh, no, you can’t do that. It’s bad for you. Let’s raise the excise taxes on your enjoyment, but not mine, right?

I jest, but I trust you my point. 

And you will have to excuse me. I’ve either had too much salt, or it could be that I am coming down with altitude sickness from being out here.

More on the Nanny State later.

Selah

The Doctor Is In

I am a pipe smoking family physician as well as a pipe carver (DR BOB PIPES) and I am appalled and angered by the anti-smoking propaganda that we pipe people have to labor under these days.

I plan to have articles like this one appear in the Intelligencer to help build facts that we all can use in some way. I applaud Craig Tarler and Fred Brown who are giving all of us some basis to use our freedom of speech to protest this anti-smoking nonsense.

Many of ushave sat around in our rooms at the pipe shows and dream of ways to fight our cause. Often we conclude we cannot do much because we feel powerless because of the lack of legal defense we could muster, primarily because of huge legal costs. Also what forum would we use?

I spoke to a pipe smoking attorney a few years ago and asked him why no attorneys would jump into this arena as it seems there would be plenty of legal cases. His answer was “Bob, there is no money in that for attorneys.”

One obvious way to fight would be to smoke in a banned place, get arrested, and then take it to court and win because of constitutional violations. This would set a precedent much like the victorious case won a few years ago in that restaurant in Pittsburgh, Pa. But who would be that sacrificial lamb and who would be that attorney who would step up to the plate?

In the meantime here we are starting to do our part and thus the Intelligencer. The antismokers (henceforth simply “anti’s”) are quite a group are they not? They use any and all means to promote their cause.

The followingare just a few of their twisted methods of operation • crusade • hypocrisy • political compromise and stunts • lies • unconstitutionality • stupidity. The crusade is a term I have used often and is so appropriate. Think about the old crusades. They were won by a group of passionates about a cause. They mustered all the power they could find by forging great instruments of destruction and enlisting those with strength and skill. They went forth to win AT ANY COST!!!! So go the anti’s as they will attempt to win at any cost.

Their cause is not really about stopping smoking but hating the smoker (like crushing the smoker as you would crush the butt of a cigarette). Yes, most of this is about cigarettes but kid not yourself as they are already drawing a bead on those of us who smoke a pipe or cigar; i.e.,the 2 reps from Tennessee who have proposed a bill to increase tax on pipe tobacco to as high as $25/lb .

So if we are to engage the enemy in this crusade, we must be informed and know truth, become informers or teachers to those close to us at home or in the workplace, be zealous and uncompromising, and willing to work hard and make personal sacrifices.

THE STUPID AND THE LIARS

Let us look at some of the distortions, stupidity and lies out there; this reminds me of a tornado-twisting to destruction everything in its path! The crusader knows how to distort facts and even produce outright falsification of facts especially in the medical science arena. We call it junk science.

The crusader knows how to use press releases giving false information before published data is available. A hot topic lately is the e-cigarette (ec) which is a device that vaporizes a liquid that has nicotine in it. It is a great invention that should save more lives as people will get primarily nicotine delivered and not the other 4,000 ingredients.

The ec is successfully being used in Europe. Well there are plenty of anti’s attacking. How about a look at stupidity. Two senators from New Jersey are asserting that ec’s are more dangerous than regular cigarettes and that this is a ploy by Big Tobacco (BT) to deceive people into thinking that ec’s are safer than regular ones. Ec’s have a trace of carcinogens plus nicotine while regular cigs have over 40 know carcinogens.

 And BT has nothing to do with ec’s, in fact they don’t even make them nor do they market them!!! So, what are the senators really saying? That real cigs are safer than ec’s?

These stups need a course in basic science. Recently the FDA tried to stop the import of ec’s coming into the U.S. because they were a device/drug. But a U.S. District Court ruled against this and stated it was a tobacco product and thus would fall into that category.

A device or drug would have to go through tight clinical and/or epidemiological trials which could take 20 years before they could say this product decreases diseases. Obviously this would be a fatal blow to the device (ec’s) for it could be taken off the market because it had not conducted those trials. If left to be a tobacco product, then the tobacco act precludes the FDA from regulating any tobacco product.

One of the militant crusaders is The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and they argue that the FDA should regulate ec’s because they represented a clear blow to public health. So those dummies are saying that smoking cigarettes is healthier than ec’s.

Ec’s represent a great way for current cigarette smokers to quit and to prevent former smokers from relapsing back into regular cigarettes and those 40 carcinogens. And would you believe that some of the stronger voices against ec’s (as being health hazards) are the Big Pharma companies that make stop smoking products like the pills or the patches? Gee would getting into their financial pockets possibly be motivating them?

The lies are astounding especially from the standpoint of the scientific standards that are to be followed by research groups. There have been multiple smoking bans initiated by many countries and then a year later, these groups have published false outcomes. They all showed a considerable drop in heart attack rates.

One study is from Swiss Medical Weekly in which they showed a 22 percent drop in heart attacks after the ban started. The problem with that study is that there were no comparison groups. There should have been studies in other towns of similar size as the decrease may have been from a general secular downward trend secondary to controlling cholesterol and hypertension and improved medical treatment of heart attacks.

That Swiss town has a large transient population of vacationers and the rate of heart attacks were the same among residents and none residents. If the rate truly dropped then it should have been much lower in the residents as one would not expect it from transients staying there for a week or two.

Another lie came from the Institute of Medicine Committee on Second Hand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events in which they reported they conducted a comprehensive review of published and unpublished data on the effects of smoking bans on the rate of heart attacks.

In a separate communication they even said they did not look at the unpublished data which included the countries of the United States, Scotland, England, Wales, Denmark and the states of Florida, California, New York, and Oregon. This latter list of studies from these countries and states showed NO EFFECT ON HEART ATTACK RATES FROM THE SMOKING BAN.

So the IOM could not resist some lying. There is so much out there nowadays regarding info relative to smoking that it is hard to keep up with it.

Hopefully these summaries of crusader tactics will be helpful and will give us all something useful to see the truth.

 More crusader stuff latter…. Dr. Bob

"In Defense of Smokers"

Colby wrote the book in 2003, so I contacted him via email to see if he continues to support his findings and his book.

“If I had time to re-write the book, I’d be much more definitive and would conclude, on the basis of the recent evidence, that smoking is entirely harmless. In the intervening years, however, I have become sort of an elder statesman among lawyers representing the radio broadcast industry and really don’t have time to pursue my hobbies.”

That is his quick answer. The longer version is that we should go to his website In Defense of Smokers to find updates to the original work.

“These updates include references to recent demographic studies which show that countries with the highest rates of smoking have the longest life expectancies and lowest rates of lung cancer; that animal experiments, conducted during the Clinton administration, continue to be negative (i.e., massive exposure to tobacco smoke doesn’t harm the animals); and that lung cancer rates in Los Angeles, Miami and New York are declining because of Hispanic and Asian immigration.”

Chapter 7 is one of the intriguing sections in Colby’s book. Here you will find a discussion and revelations about the Surgeon General’s Reports on
Smoking from 1964-1982.

“The 1964 Report was issued by a committee of ten “scientists”, picked from a list of 150 scientists and physicians, heavily weighted towards government agencies and large organizations active in public relations, with a low representation from the scientific community. There were no statisticians on the panel, although statistical expertise was essential to a proper analysis of the epidemiological studies, which formed a large part of the “evidence” which was studied. In 1965, a prominent statistician, K.A. Brownlee, of the University of Chicago, wrote a scathing review of the Report, pointing to many discrepancies in the statistical data. I will refer to that later.”

This book is a must read for any pipe smoker, or smoker for that matter.

It is on Colby’s website in full. I can’t recommend this too highly. It has all the details, the lies, the misconceptions, the methods in which the federal government shades the truth to put forth its own “truths.”

To be informed is to be forewarned. I believe in having all the information available, and making up my own mind.

My fellow brothers of the briar go to Colby’s website, read what he has written. It will open your eyes as never before.

My plan is to write more, using Colby’s work, and others, as sources for some astounding news that left out of the equations in news media accounts concerning tobacco.

Check this out from Florida. A duly-elected democratic representative from St. Petersburg, Fla., has put forth a new tax bill that will, if passed, hit at the heart of pipe smokers.

Rep. Darryl Rouson has written and placed in the Florida House hopper a tax bill that places a 25 percent surtax on retail sales of all pipes, no matter their size, shape, or intended use.

He says he is trying to get at the druggies in his state. Oh, yeah, and my grandmother was a Chinese aviator (no offense to our Chinese friends).

Rouson is quoted in the Orlando Sentinel thus: We all know the head shops, gas stations, and novelty stores in Florida are selling drug paraphernalia under the charade of being “tobacco pipes,’” Rouson said in a press release for HB 187. “If these items are to be available to the citizens of Florida, then we should charge a surtax on these consumers who are obviously using the pipes to do drug.

Don’t buy this malarkey! Rouson is trying to produce a 25 percent revenue stream on the backs of pipe smokers. He isn’t after the druggies. His bill says “all pipes,” including pipes made of wood, ceramic as well as “water pipes.”

Where  was this guy when the U.S. spent millions, if not billions, on the War Against Drugs? We are still burning marijuana patches in Central and South America. He should be aiming his programs toward beefing up that part of the U.S. military operations. His state, of course, is a major military player.

This is just an outrage. The voters of Florida should not be fooled by this foolish proposal.

You can read the entire mess on the link below. I am also linking to the Orlando Sentinel story so you can read Rouson’s message for yourself.

Many thanks to the folks at pipesmagazine.com for bringing this to our attention!

 You can find the Florida House Bill 187 here. The Orlando Sentinel story is here.

This nation gets crazier by the day. No, make that by the moment.

If we do not make our collective voices heard over this type of insanity, then we are in jeopardy of losing our hobby to the nut jobs.

Maine has outlawed smoking outdoors! As of Sept. 12, 2009, smoking is prohibited “in an outdoor eating arena where food and drink is served to the public for consumption on the premises, 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

You can read the Maine law here

The law includes “patios, decks, or other property that is partially enclosed or open to the sky.”

Imagine that? I wonder how long it will be before some politician wooing votes comes up with the idea to stop one from smoking on one’s own outdoor “deck, patio, that is partially enclosed or open to the sky?”

Check out the Maine law, and then write your Congressman to inform them that you are a pipesmoker whose rights are being trampled upon.

We are being taxed without representation in Congress. We are being punished by revenue-hungry politicians, who are pandering to the wingnuts of society, who are furthering their own causes on the backs of tobacco users.

This is a fight that all tobacco users must, must, take up!

Unless we combine our efforts to support our choices of smoking tobacco when we want, we are going to be pushed out of existence.

I fear the day is coming in which it will be against federal law to smoke in one’s home, or patio, or deck.

I for one am opposed to all federal legislation that takes away any of my rights established by the U.S. Constitution, as amended. Unless the Constitution is amended to prevent my ability to choose my own lifestyle, then I oppose any such legislation passed by pandering lawmakers, state or federal.

Ron Paul, who ran as a Libertarian in 1998 and as a Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential contest, was quoted in the Sept. 28, edition of Time Magazine on the loss of our rights.

Here is what this topnotch thinker, physician, and Congressman from Texas said: He was asked why he supports the legalization of marijuana: “Why support the criminalization of marijuana is the better question. First, I defend it because a free society allows people to make free choices, even dumb choices. And the problems we have with the war on drugs are a thousand times worse than the problems we have with drug over usage.”

Question: Why do you oppose the income tax?

Ron Paul: “Because I have a right to the fruits of my labor, and government does not. I f you concede the principle of the income tax, you concede the principle that the government owns all your income and permits you to keep a certain percentage of it. God-given rights to our life and our liberty don’t come from government.”

Friends and neighbors, these are basic rights provided to every citizen of America through that wonderful document, the U.S. Constitution. You have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Unfettered by any governing body.

My argument is that no governing body has authority over your rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We elect politicians to do our work, for which they are handsomely rewarded. For me, all of them should be term-limited. The philosophy of “seniority,” has long-since passed into oblivion. Now, lobbyists handing out bags of money to politicians handle America’s business through legislation. The only thing to do with seniority is the longer you have been in Congress, the more lobbying money you can get. Money is governing your rights today, not your welfare.

You can check out the politicos who took wads of cash from the health-care industry, the health insurance industry, the anti-tobacco industry in the fight over tobacco use. It is outrageous. And many of those politicos who are defeated for re-election, turn to those same lobbying firms for employment and big-time paychecks to help those industries guide legislation through Congress to benefit Big-Medicine, Big Insurance and Big-Pharma, Big Anti.

You have to go back to the Robber Barons of the 19^th century, the captains of industry and the railroads, who amassed personal fortunes through questionable business practices. It was a sorry time in America history, just as it is today when we hand out money to bail out Wall Street and the bankers, who got us into the Great Recession in the first place.

For their next act, our current run of politicians in Washington insulted the American public by a “cash for clunkers” scam to plug the Swiss cheese economic holes in the automobile industry, an industry that has been greedy, blind to public desires and blaming everyone but their shortsighteness.

Those big cash rebates were nothing more than a gimmick to get the unsuspecting in to the show rooms, and turn over the keys to a new car, a new car note, and taxes on the rebate. They giveth on one hand and taketh away on the other. Same old game.

If we don’t wake up, not only will tobacco be lost to those of us who enjoy our pipes and cigars and other forms of tobacco use. You might find that it is illegal to, say, enjoy a glass of wine or a mixed drink because that can lead to alcoholism, which can lead to more automobile wrecks, which can lead to death, which impacts the nation’s economy.

See where this can go?

My hope is that enough people will eventually awaken and take control of their lives, instead of leaving that up to local, state and federal governments.

I do not speak of revolution, but I fear we are headed in that direction unless Congress and other political elites awaken to the fact the very fabric of American life is being threatened.

Now, New York wants to ban cigarette smoking in parks and on its beaches. California went that route sometime back.

Let’s see. We can no longer smoke in restaurants, bars, public transportation, public buildings, and now the Antis are adding public parks and beaches to the list.

This, obviously, gets into the issue of the so-called dangers of second hand smoke. I will have more to say on that in the future, but just on the basis of what I have read, this is an outrageous affront.

One woman said she wanted “to breathe fresh air,” and therefore did not want to be around smokers.

Uh, I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as fresh air in America. It is loaded with pollutants. It is laden with all manner of bugs, germs, and debris. You are breathing it in whether or not you are inside or outside.

It is a thousand times worse in some of the developing nations. Go to, say, Thailand, and you can drop dead from exhaust fumes.

At least we are not that bad off, yet.

The Antis have mastered the wolf pack mentality to a T. They are surrounding the issue of tobacco, and clipping off the weak links, one by one.

A very reliable source wrote me the other day, and I have to tell you I have made a mistake. We can no longer separate pipe smokers from cigarette smokers, or any other users of tobacco. I was wrong, and I admit it.

We have to combine our strengths to fight this overt attack against our free choice. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. I do not like cigarette smoke, but I do see the wisdom in joining forces.

Pipe smokers are too small a demographic to fight the fight alone. We need to unite all users of tobacco in this effort to curtail the assault from the Antis on our choices and freedoms.

If the Antis are successful in this effort in New York, then it will move out to other cities and towns across the nation. If the Big Apple falls, you can bet the smaller apples will follow down the road.

I believe that if we lose this fight overall, we will not even be allowed to smoke in the privacy of our own home without some sort of huge penalty, tax, or worse, exclusion from health insurance policies!

This is a serious affront. Be sure to read the New York health report on this. You can find it here.

We are looking at the future right now. If this goes through, then all users of tobacco products will be under duress, with little room for redress. The courts are against us, for the most part, as is the public in general.

I do not advocate smoking around children or adults who are opposed to smoking. I always ask if it is all right to light up my pipe when I am out in public. I comply with the wishes and feelings of those around me.

But, I do not believe that it is within any state’s purview to dictate my choices, as long as I agree not to harm others, upwind or downwind.

Be assured, this only the tip of this iceberg. It is floating out way.

And, please believe me when I tell you that I hate bringing bad news all the time. But lately, it has all be bad, with no relief in sight.

Tobacco product users must unite in this fight to save our rights to make free choices in our own behavior.

As an old Army buddy who survived the Bataan Death March told me once:

“Adapt or die.”

In New York, some health wingnuts have convinced the New York Department of Health to run advertising that shows a hand pouring globules of fat from a soft drink bottle.

From the New York Times

The idea is to get folks to stop drinking heavily sugared soft drinks, right?

Guess again, amigo. The ultimate aim is to place a tax on soft drinks with sugars that the wingnuts deem unhealthy and causing the ring around the middle in adults.

Last December, New York Gov. David A. Patterson proposed an 18 percent tax increase on sugary soft drinks and so-called health juices. For now, that tax has been set aside. But remember, no politician has ever encountered a tax he or she didn’t like.

The reasoning behind the tax was to halt obesity, and thus became known as the “obesity tax.” It would produce, according to the governor’s office, $400 million a year, which would be ostensibly earmarked for “health programs.”

Get this, the current advertising campaign is clocking in so far at $277,000 to produce. It costs have been predicted at $90,000 to run for three months on New York’s subway system.

So, you are sitting the in the subway, headed to work, home or just plain traveling to another destination. You look up and see this awful looking stuff being poured from a soft drink bottle. It’s fat. Plain old gobs of fat. Nice.

And who is paying for this piece of genius? The taxpayers of New York, that’s who. Along with some antis with deep pockets.

Now, before you say I have gone off my rocker, don’t think that this doesn’t have a larger meaning. The antis are at work in this particular corner of the world, and looking to stretch it out.

Once again, a governmental agency is trying to legislate social engineering through outrageous advertising or through a tax increase.

Even President Obama said the ad has merit.

Oh, yeah? What happened to the old-fashioned prodding to get out and walk, run, bicycle to help shed weight?

And don’t fail to see the real hypocrisy of this. On the one hand, the federal government is bailing out big business, which advertises all the stuff we eat and drink, and on the other, a state is backing a campaign that says we shouldn’t be eating and drinking all that crap. Huh?

Obesity is a growing problem in America. No doubt about it. When I was a kid back in the Paleolithic age kids had to have gym. No excuses. You ran, played basketball, did track, jumping jacks, whatever to keep you fit. Being fit was part of the educational system. I don’t have to tell you what has happened to the nation’s education system, do I? We have become a nation of couch loungers, watching our big screen televisions, computers, video games, all brought to you by Big Biz.

What’s next? Are we going to find that wearing the wrong clothes is unacceptable? That eating food from a certain large chain grocery is bad for your health, therefore we need to tax those products in an extra special way?

When will Americans wake up and take charge of their lives?

Sure, being overweight is not healthy. But, when your paycheck has remained static for the past three to four years, which allows you less and less expendable income, you buy what is cheap, and not necessarily good for you.

This has been good for Big Biz, but bad for the consumer.

And now they are pouring wads of fat from a soft drink bottle to warn you about drinking a drink that is otherwise plastered across billboards and television advertising.

This is abominable behavior. It is Big Brother stepping into every aspect of our lives.

If you think this is an isolated example, just look around. Soon, you are likely to find a tax on every facet of your existence.

One day soon, some politician or connected anti group will find a way to tax you for the air you breathe, and the pollution you create.

This is just the tip of the melting iceberg.

My advice, if you want it, is to get a grip. Take back your lives and refuse to vote for the people who are fostering off social engineering through increased taxation and idiotic schemes from an elite who want you to live a certain existence.

For me, give me liberty or give me death.

That isn’t original, I hope you know.  It was first spoken by Patrick Henry in 1775.

Here is the opening paragraph of that speech. It would be well if we all thought a little more of our liberties that are being stripped away almost daily, and a little less about our creature comforts:

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.