I'M MAD--ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS
By Steve Moreland, August 28, 2016
Liberals and Wind Turbines top my list.
Barack Obama is the worst president this country has ever seen. He hasn’t liked America from the day he was born, and has done everything in his power to destroy this country. His wife Michelle dislikes the United States even more than he does, if that is possible. Hillary Clinton is poised to step right in as the next president to take up the Obama legacy and completely demolish our once wonderful nation. Obama has put us into the toilet. If Hillary gets in, she will pull the handle.
I’m mad at supposedly upstanding conservative well-meaning people who will allow this to happen. Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination fair and square. He has beat out sixteen other viable candidates, and is now the Republican nominee to run against Hillary in the November election. The main-line establishment Republicans don’t like this one little bit. They should realize that had any of them stood up to Obama and made a difference, this scenario would not have played out. They aren’t suffering in silence; they are having tantrums much like those of a two-year-old child. They will probably yet dream up a way to pull strings and put one of their own up as either “the” Republican candidate or that of a third party.
Anyone with a lick of sense would realize that the main objective of the upcoming November election is to not let Hillary win. If the Republicans won’t swallow a little pride and back Trump, Hillary will win by default. A voter has four choices: vote for Trump; vote for Hillary; vote for a third party; or don’t vote at all. The best choice for the good of the United States is to vote for Trump. The worst choice is to vote for Hillary, because by doing so not only do you give her one vote, but you take one vote away from Trump. A vote for a third party accomplishes nothing, because a third party will never win, but it does throw away one vote that could have gone to Trump. Of course staying home is the easy way out. It accomplishes nothing, but it should also not allow the stayer-at-home to have any right to complain about the way the country is heading. Voter apathy and indifference are not admirable qualities. Please, please do what is right and vote for Trump.
On the subject of Wind Turbines, this is a nation-wide plague instigated by the irresponsible “green energy” policies of the Obama administration. Wind turbines are not efficient. They are high-dollar monstrous awkward machines that require lots of fossil fuel to build, erect, and maintain. They are mostly manufactured in foreign countries, and these countries stand to make much more profit off of them than our own United States residents. Big money boys like Warren Buffet stand to make large revenues, but only because of federal tax credits and subsidies. The whole “green energy” movement is one of the biggest scams to ever come down the pike.
Cherry County, Nebraska is poised and ready to jump on the band wagon to institute Wind Energy. This is a mighty big step, and once started there will be no stopping or backing up. One thought that all participants need to exercise is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Cherry County as it is right now is probably as close to a ranching utopia as there is in the world. We have good grass, pure water, blue skies, and plenty of elbow room. Everyone who is still ranching is probably making an adequate living. Wind turbines erected, even if there is slight money to be made from hosting them on private property, probably won’t make much difference in those ranchers’ standards of living. The host ranchers argue that it is their private property right to have these turbines on their ranch. Is it ethical when their “right” makes the property of their non-participating adjoining neighbors’ land diminish in value?
In 2012, there was a widespread drought that covered much of the central plains, including the Nebraska Sandhills and Cherry County. By the year 2014, timely rains eradicated the drought, and cattle prices reached an all-time high. Times were great in the ranching business. Government moves slow, but by 2014 there was federal drought assistance money available for qualifying ranchers. It is amazing how many ranchers dipped into the “free” drought money, even though they were selling cattle for record high prices and experiencing the best year ever in the cattle business. Many of these same ranchers who practically “won the lottery” with the drought money received are the same ranchers who think they need extra income for having the wind towers on their land. When does enough become enough? From a nation-wide perspective, it now looks like that same money that wasn’t necessarily needed in Cherry County may have been put to more beneficial use by helping the multitude of victims in Louisiana who lost everything they owned in the recent floods.
During the past few years, a young lady embezzled about $200,000 from the coffers of the Cherry County treasury. This was a bad situation, and aroused the ire of a lot of hard-working tax-paying county residents, as should be the case. What this young lady took out of county funds was just a drop in the bucket to what many ranchers “legally” gleaned from federal drought assistance money. Possibly the young lady in reality “needed” that much money more than some of the already prosperous ranchers did, but they took it anyway.
All of the “free” drought assistance money that came into the area actually turned out to not be as great and wonderful as it appeared to be at first glance. Many ranchers had already taken in more money than ever, and their “drought lottery” winnings put them into higher tax brackets. To offset income taxes, ranchers tried to beat the system by spending money on new machinery (that wasn’t necessarily needed), and by buying bred heifers for exorbitant prices. This all worked fine and dandy for the first year when cattle prices were still high, but since then the cattle market has fallen as fast as it originally rose. The extra influx of drought money was ultimately not a good thing at all. Even equipment dealers that experienced wonderful sales in 2014 and 2015 stocked up again, and were left with unsold inventory.
Many ranchers support Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) when it comes to promoting beef which is born, raised, and processed in the USA. This is a good idea, but it does place extra burdens on the packing industry. With extra expense and trouble for the packers, there is always a question of whether or not the cow/calf producer actually sees any additional revenue. The irony is that the same ranchers who insist on Country of Origin Labeling for their livestock and beef, seem to have no qualms with hard-earned American tax dollars purchasing very expensive wind machines from foreign countries. Where is the logic?
What is really the shame of the whole Wind Energy movement in Cherry County is that it turns neighbor against neighbor. The last time I’ve seen Cherry County residents at odds with each other like this was back during the late 1960’s. Believe it or not, at that time the controversial issue was the time zone which separates the county. Those of us on the west end have always had to really hustle to get to the county seat of Valentine to conduct business, since they have always been an hour ahead of us. Feelings were running high, and at one time Valentine’s Main Street was the time zone. All the residents on the west side of town went on Mountain Time, the residents on the east side went by Central Time, and the Main Street merchants split the difference. There was a big movement at that time to divide Cherry County. One evening the Merriman School gymnasium was filled to capacity with people whose main objective was to make the county into two counties. The meeting ran for several hours with lots of ideas of where to draw the dividing line. Eventually everyone cooled down and Cherry County was left intact, with the time zone line staying where it had always been, just east of Kilgore. I was a pip-squeak high school kid at the time, but had gone to the meeting to witness the potential excitement. My only contribution would have been to suggest a name for the new division. It could have been called Chokecherry County.
At the moment feelings are running high on the Wind Turbine issue. I have ranted and raved on this paper, and have gotten a lot of things off my chest. I am praying that much thought will go into the wind energy issue of Cherry County before doing anything irreversible. My suggestion is to wait until after the November election. If Trump gets to be president, there is a good chance he will discontinue the subsidies for Wind Energy. In this case, it might save a lot of money and hassle if no projects have been started. If the powers-that-be deem it worthy to pursue building wind farms, I do hope with all my heart that those of us opposed can suck it up and go on with our lives in spite of what happens. We are all neighbors and God’s creatures, and we should still love and respect each other for that very reason.
By Steve Moreland, August 28, 2016
Liberals and Wind Turbines top my list.
Barack Obama is the worst president this country has ever seen. He hasn’t liked America from the day he was born, and has done everything in his power to destroy this country. His wife Michelle dislikes the United States even more than he does, if that is possible. Hillary Clinton is poised to step right in as the next president to take up the Obama legacy and completely demolish our once wonderful nation. Obama has put us into the toilet. If Hillary gets in, she will pull the handle.
I’m mad at supposedly upstanding conservative well-meaning people who will allow this to happen. Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination fair and square. He has beat out sixteen other viable candidates, and is now the Republican nominee to run against Hillary in the November election. The main-line establishment Republicans don’t like this one little bit. They should realize that had any of them stood up to Obama and made a difference, this scenario would not have played out. They aren’t suffering in silence; they are having tantrums much like those of a two-year-old child. They will probably yet dream up a way to pull strings and put one of their own up as either “the” Republican candidate or that of a third party.
Anyone with a lick of sense would realize that the main objective of the upcoming November election is to not let Hillary win. If the Republicans won’t swallow a little pride and back Trump, Hillary will win by default. A voter has four choices: vote for Trump; vote for Hillary; vote for a third party; or don’t vote at all. The best choice for the good of the United States is to vote for Trump. The worst choice is to vote for Hillary, because by doing so not only do you give her one vote, but you take one vote away from Trump. A vote for a third party accomplishes nothing, because a third party will never win, but it does throw away one vote that could have gone to Trump. Of course staying home is the easy way out. It accomplishes nothing, but it should also not allow the stayer-at-home to have any right to complain about the way the country is heading. Voter apathy and indifference are not admirable qualities. Please, please do what is right and vote for Trump.
On the subject of Wind Turbines, this is a nation-wide plague instigated by the irresponsible “green energy” policies of the Obama administration. Wind turbines are not efficient. They are high-dollar monstrous awkward machines that require lots of fossil fuel to build, erect, and maintain. They are mostly manufactured in foreign countries, and these countries stand to make much more profit off of them than our own United States residents. Big money boys like Warren Buffet stand to make large revenues, but only because of federal tax credits and subsidies. The whole “green energy” movement is one of the biggest scams to ever come down the pike.
Cherry County, Nebraska is poised and ready to jump on the band wagon to institute Wind Energy. This is a mighty big step, and once started there will be no stopping or backing up. One thought that all participants need to exercise is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Cherry County as it is right now is probably as close to a ranching utopia as there is in the world. We have good grass, pure water, blue skies, and plenty of elbow room. Everyone who is still ranching is probably making an adequate living. Wind turbines erected, even if there is slight money to be made from hosting them on private property, probably won’t make much difference in those ranchers’ standards of living. The host ranchers argue that it is their private property right to have these turbines on their ranch. Is it ethical when their “right” makes the property of their non-participating adjoining neighbors’ land diminish in value?
In 2012, there was a widespread drought that covered much of the central plains, including the Nebraska Sandhills and Cherry County. By the year 2014, timely rains eradicated the drought, and cattle prices reached an all-time high. Times were great in the ranching business. Government moves slow, but by 2014 there was federal drought assistance money available for qualifying ranchers. It is amazing how many ranchers dipped into the “free” drought money, even though they were selling cattle for record high prices and experiencing the best year ever in the cattle business. Many of these same ranchers who practically “won the lottery” with the drought money received are the same ranchers who think they need extra income for having the wind towers on their land. When does enough become enough? From a nation-wide perspective, it now looks like that same money that wasn’t necessarily needed in Cherry County may have been put to more beneficial use by helping the multitude of victims in Louisiana who lost everything they owned in the recent floods.
During the past few years, a young lady embezzled about $200,000 from the coffers of the Cherry County treasury. This was a bad situation, and aroused the ire of a lot of hard-working tax-paying county residents, as should be the case. What this young lady took out of county funds was just a drop in the bucket to what many ranchers “legally” gleaned from federal drought assistance money. Possibly the young lady in reality “needed” that much money more than some of the already prosperous ranchers did, but they took it anyway.
All of the “free” drought assistance money that came into the area actually turned out to not be as great and wonderful as it appeared to be at first glance. Many ranchers had already taken in more money than ever, and their “drought lottery” winnings put them into higher tax brackets. To offset income taxes, ranchers tried to beat the system by spending money on new machinery (that wasn’t necessarily needed), and by buying bred heifers for exorbitant prices. This all worked fine and dandy for the first year when cattle prices were still high, but since then the cattle market has fallen as fast as it originally rose. The extra influx of drought money was ultimately not a good thing at all. Even equipment dealers that experienced wonderful sales in 2014 and 2015 stocked up again, and were left with unsold inventory.
Many ranchers support Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) when it comes to promoting beef which is born, raised, and processed in the USA. This is a good idea, but it does place extra burdens on the packing industry. With extra expense and trouble for the packers, there is always a question of whether or not the cow/calf producer actually sees any additional revenue. The irony is that the same ranchers who insist on Country of Origin Labeling for their livestock and beef, seem to have no qualms with hard-earned American tax dollars purchasing very expensive wind machines from foreign countries. Where is the logic?
What is really the shame of the whole Wind Energy movement in Cherry County is that it turns neighbor against neighbor. The last time I’ve seen Cherry County residents at odds with each other like this was back during the late 1960’s. Believe it or not, at that time the controversial issue was the time zone which separates the county. Those of us on the west end have always had to really hustle to get to the county seat of Valentine to conduct business, since they have always been an hour ahead of us. Feelings were running high, and at one time Valentine’s Main Street was the time zone. All the residents on the west side of town went on Mountain Time, the residents on the east side went by Central Time, and the Main Street merchants split the difference. There was a big movement at that time to divide Cherry County. One evening the Merriman School gymnasium was filled to capacity with people whose main objective was to make the county into two counties. The meeting ran for several hours with lots of ideas of where to draw the dividing line. Eventually everyone cooled down and Cherry County was left intact, with the time zone line staying where it had always been, just east of Kilgore. I was a pip-squeak high school kid at the time, but had gone to the meeting to witness the potential excitement. My only contribution would have been to suggest a name for the new division. It could have been called Chokecherry County.
At the moment feelings are running high on the Wind Turbine issue. I have ranted and raved on this paper, and have gotten a lot of things off my chest. I am praying that much thought will go into the wind energy issue of Cherry County before doing anything irreversible. My suggestion is to wait until after the November election. If Trump gets to be president, there is a good chance he will discontinue the subsidies for Wind Energy. In this case, it might save a lot of money and hassle if no projects have been started. If the powers-that-be deem it worthy to pursue building wind farms, I do hope with all my heart that those of us opposed can suck it up and go on with our lives in spite of what happens. We are all neighbors and God’s creatures, and we should still love and respect each other for that very reason.