Introducing Government Ciggies
Photoshop credit: Darth Dilbert
It’s done. The House just voted to give President Obama unprecedented power to take over the tobacco industry. I’ll get the roll call vote up as soon as it’s ready. Obama can’t wait to get his nicotine-stained hands all over another part of the economy, meddle with the contents and flavor, packaging, etc., etc., etc.
Question: What know-nothing crony will they put in charge this time? Maybe when Brian Deese and Edward Whitacre are done fixing the auto industry they know nothing about, the White House will make them tobacco execs.
Or Tar Czars.
***
Update: House vote was 307-97. Roll call vote here. 90 Repubs and 7 Dems said no.
Previous:
June 11: Senate moves forward with government tobacco takeover
June 2: Dems: Hey, let’s take over tobacco industry! Obama: Great idea!
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LGM:
Sounds like a sure economy fixer to me: Tax away tobacco and coal sending smokers underground to get their smokes and keeping the nation under the thumbs of OPEC, thereby putting ~three million Kentuckians (as well as the citizens of other tobacco and coal producing states like the Carolinas and WV) off the payolls and onto the foodstamp and welfare rolls.
Yeah, we’re onto a real winner with that one!
Oh, BTW /SARC
Nice logo for the 9/12 taxpayer march. Red colored left handed fists? Shades of Communism..lol
Sounds like a fine way to destroy the national sense of union, and the economy, in the process of consolidating rank political power.
Yes, I can see that would be a very reasonable thing to assert about the Dimocrats.
TOS, try not to sound any more stupid than you already do.
On June 12th, 2009 at 1:21 pm, teachem2 said:
Can you put me in touch with the 9/12 people somehow?
How is that stupid? Can you not see the resemblance?
I fully expect this bill to be used to grab control of the vitamin/supplement market as well. I’ve been seeing for weeks all the denigration and arguments about how ineffective those products are and the studies….all disproving their claims. When you have to see a physician for a prescription for Vitamin C, think how much that will generate for the new healthcare plan.
Be careful of politicians looking to fill the coffers, for your own good.
“There is no way he will be allowed to cut off this giant Democrat Party resource.”
If their long range plans work (and they are not that loooooong range) and they exercise control that is unbeatable, at least by the ballot box, they figure they really will not need that money anyway. They are rigging the game.
Like Lassie and Cujo
Yes! But nicotine is dangerous too. It affects brain chemistry the same way heroin and cocaine do. I have no personal experience with any of the three, that’s just something I’ve read. I thought MM did an article on that years ago, but I couldn’t find it. I may have confused her with someone else in the Washington Times. But I remember the article said if you took a hit of nicotine that was equal in weight to a typical dose of cocaine (I don’t know how much that would be) the nicotine would fry your brain as soon as it got into your system. There would be no chance for recovery.
Maybe no drugs should be illegal and the FDA’s only job should be to force drug companies to prove the benefits and disclose the side-effects of whatever they sell to the public.
Stillwaiting…
I am a not-moderate (I don’t do things by halfs) cigar smoker.
I can assure you that nicotine has not bamaged my drain.
TOS, considering all of you liberals refuse to see what’s happening right in front of your faces, your comment about the logo is truly moronic.
Rags, I don’t have any official tie-ins with the organizers, but here is the info from the website:
Thank you very kindly, teach.
You can never be sure of that about yourself!!! LOL!! But based on your posts here, I believe you are correct. My grandfather used to smoke cigars on his backporch. On the strength of that memory I did the same for a while after I got married, but the habit didn’t stick.
Mary Fallin is is running for Gov of Oklahoma. She has lost my vote with this one. Her reason? Her parents died of cancer.
Maybe when her parents die of a fascist government, she’ll finally wake the hell up.
Cancer, or fascist government? They will both make you penniless, and eventually kill you. It’s a question of time, not certainty, I think.
Is everyone here addicted to nicotine?
Are you all in denial about cigarette smoking leading to lung cancer?
Cigars and chewing tobacco lead in cancers in the mouth.
Cigars, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco should be illegal.
speaking of take overs…the supreme court was withdrawn the stay on the Chrysler theft by the U.S Liar In Chief. Needed 4 judges interested in reviewing the case right, so where were these so called far right wingers that no showed America on that one, HUH? Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, now what’s this crap about a far right win SC?
I honestly cannot believe what this egomaniac is getting away with…this Marxist bastard has manged to do what Russia couldn’t do in 45 years, destroy America.
they’ll both kill you, slowly.
Shall we outlaw McDonald for making people fat and causing heart attacks? Should we outlaw Alchohol so people won’t die in drunk driving accidents? Should we outlaw planes since they crash and kill people once in awhile?
Where does it stop? What’s next? This isn’t about help. They could not care less about you or me. They want power and they will completely flush this country down the toilet to get it.
Gator70, and isn’t something they don’t understand when it’s over it’s over for them as well as us…there will be no more power. the mind of a liberal is self destructive, it is an illness no doubt.
People need to eat food to survive.
No one needs cigars, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco until they are addicted to the nicotine.
SLP said:
You hit the nail on the head but for the wrong reason SLP.. No one needs tobacco. However, this being the United States of America, the argument isn’t about what a person needs. Just calling it a “free country” doesn’t make it so. You may not like tobacco. Good for you. Don’t smoke. I don’t like Vodka. Therefore, I don’t drink it.
Working on the assumption that people should only have what they need is Communist. It’s wrong and it is everything America isn’t (or shouldn’t be).
Gator,
According to Democrats and the RINO’s that support them, the answer is, “Yes, except when a Liberal wants to use these things, in which case the hypocrisy is OK.”
I’m on “pins and needles” to see what the new industry will be to fall under the government’s new “nationalization program”, besides healthcare. I don’t like alcohol much or tobacco, but I look at the big picture. Instead of rationalizing that “they are bad for your health”, I see excuses given for more government control over people’s lives. I don’t want the Left to tell me what I can or cannot do, or anyone else. Isn’t it funny that they abhor tobacco, but look away when it comes to pot smoking. Many want to legalize it. It won’t be long before congress “nationalizes” the Oil Industry…oh, so we can afford to buy heat and gas, of course. The useful idiots will cheer them on.
Show me the money!
Smoking is still bad for you and you know it.
At least most of you are intellectually honest, knowing full well you are arguing FOR the DEATH INDUSTRY in the name of freedom, although your concept of freedom is bent. But some of you are so nuts you actually try to argue FOR save the DEATH industry because it will save jobs. This topic is where I get off the conservative bandwagon.
BTW – Your freedom stops at the line where it costs me money.
We pay for health insurance for our family and our employees. We worked hard to get here. Do you have any idea what health care costs the small business person? I am paying super high premiums for YOU smokers and you have the audacity to argue for your “freedom.” If this were pure capitalism YOU would pay for your OWN health problems, not the rest of us.
I’m sick and tired of all you people who workout and play sports. You get hurt all the time and you have to go to the doctor which only causes my health care costs to go up. Ban exercise!
Careful what you wish for. What do you think they are going to tax to make up the difference when all of us smokers quit?
Tobaco running will be as profitable as weeds.
More people die in cars each year than from Lung Cancer or Firearms. Yet, most states allow 16 year old children not to mention all the illegal aliens who speak no English or care about our laws and regulations to drive after a rudimentary test. It’s a legal product which we as American have a choice in purchasing or not. Happy, my life choices don’t cost you one penny. Nor will they ever. I pay my own insurance. If your medicaid bills go up, tough – not my problem. That is a program Liberals chose to run and then, like all other government programs, ran it in to the ground.
Freedom means having the ability to make your own life decisions and then dealing with the consequences of those decisions – without Uncle Sugar holding your hand. This is where I differ from the RINOS in office and I guess I am a bit of a Libertarian about it. The Constitution doesn’t allow the Federal Government to determine what the content of cigarettes is. Period. If a State wishes to, well, that is supposed to be left to that State but not the Feds. Washington is destroying this country – not just the DemoCommies – all of them. We are supposed to live in a Republic – instead, we are being turned in to an Autocracy – all in the name of “saving lives”. Horse Hockey.
This topic is where I get off the
conservativerational discussion bandwagon and into the depths of anti-tobacco propagandaFTFY. Judging from your comment you never were a “conservative”….just another moonbat.
BTW – Your freedom stops at the line where it costs me money.
We pay for health insurance for our family and our employees.
Actually, I quite agree with this one…..let’s all pay our own costs for everything. As a non-breeder I resent paying for the high costs of your family giving birth, as well as my taxes going on education of your children. Let’s start there, shall we?
And since I’m correcting statements today it seems.
Is everyone here addicted to nicotine?Typical meaningless anti-tobacco “smokers are addicts so they have no mental competence” drivel.
Are you all in denial about cigarette smoking
leading toincreasing your risk of contracting lung cancer?Cigars and chewing tobacco
lead inincrease your risk of contracting cancers in the mouth.FTFY.
Cigars, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco should be illegal.
Cars, planes, alcohol, mountain climbing, skydiving, almost all food, and water should be illegal too if you want to judge it all by the same criteria.
And, lest we forget, cell phones, high power transmission, microwave ovens, campfires, leaf burning, anything burning, watching tv, using a computer, vaccines, stress, working, being poor, being rich, being american and travelling all have rather high risks according to actual peer-reviewed studies.
You left off motorcycles and kitchen knives.
The “your freedoms end when they start costing me money” is the wedge issue the statists use perhaps most effectively.
They tie us to each other in myriad ways via a social program, and then we tear at each other.
All of man-kind is, of course, interrelated. Nobody is saying otherwise. But freedom of choice CANNOT be analyzed in terms of what my freedoms cost you, or visa versa. Rights ALWAYS have…on the other end of the tetter-totter…OBLIGATIONS.
For instance, your right to free speech puts me under an obligation to permit your speech, even when I find it hateful to do so. I don’t have to listen, but I can’t force you to shut up, either.
Consider the inverse: I smoke cigars, which entails an obligation of some kind or another on you, so you exercise the power of government to outlaw my smoking of cigars. Many things flow from that arrangement, including my right to look closely at all you do for something that imposes an obligation on me, and invoke the power of government to forbid that conduct. You can see the spiral that sets up.
Who wins in that scenario? Government. And every living American, and their children, loose.
Put another way…freedom is not without costs, and we willingly bear them or we loose freedom.
My children go to private schools which my husband I pay for. We paid for the childbirth/midwife out of our own pockets because we were just starting our own business and could not afford health insurance then. For one child, because of complications, it took us about two years to pay the hospital in monthly payments but we did it.
Why dont you just admit you are a smoker?
Yup. Just taking a walk out of doors increases your chances of something happening to you, so THAT must be curtiled too.
It’ll come to the point where the government will have us all wrapped up in a nice safe cocoon that won’t allow any bad things in to hurt us, and we’ll be fed warm happy thoughts to think 24/7, and we won’t have to worry about anything anymore.
Of course there will be malcontents (like us) who will oppose to being “safe” and utterly compliant, so we will be blamed for everything that goes wrong. Isn’t the lefty’s world a wonderland?
I was just thinking about it, and it wasn’t the cigarettes that killed my father, but rather it was the fact that my dad was a weak-willed and selfish person, and that killed him.
Both of my parents were smokers; however, my mother quit, and she’s still with us and going strong. She had the will power to just stop. She could fight the urge to smoke, and she said that it wasn’t very hard for her at all.
On the other hand, my dad went through heart attacks, a stroke, several operations to repair the circulation in his body, and he STILL kept smoking–until he was essentially bed-ridden and couldn’t get out to do it anymore. His own physical disability forced him to quit, but at that point his days were numbered.
I do not blame the cigarettes for my dad’s ultimate demise. He could have quit using them if he cared about the rest of us enough to do so. My dad was the sort who did whatever HE wanted to do, and it didn’t matter to him how it effected the rest of us. If it hadn’t been the cigarettes, it would have been something else, so I’m totally opposed to imposing fascist controls on everyone because of stuff like tobacco.
On a lighter note, I think that the “South Park” episode regarding this issue pretty much nailed it (it’s several years old, but it pretty much nails what’s going on today).
We should be free to consume whatever we wish! But my box of saltine crackers has a label that lists all of the ingredients I’m going to be putting into my body. Do cigarettes? Having never smoked I don’t know the answer to that question. But I know the answer should be “yes“!
Our county outlawed burning leaves back in the early ’70′s. We never did that ourselves (my parents made us carry the leaves about a half-mile into the woods to get rid of them), but on crisp fall days I used to enjoy the smell from the neighbors burning theirs.
Wondering when the apologies will come from those that called certain numbers of us paranoid crazies everytime we mention the meteoric drive towards Socialism/Marxism under an Obama administration? Just how much more is required before people finally see just how fast we will accomplish what the Soviet Union could not?
And just think…he only took his first Oath a mere 5 months ago. He still, technically, has more than 3.5 years to go. At the rate Der Fuhrer is going, just where does everyone think he will be by Christmas…if in fact we will still be allowed to celebrate Christmas, that is?
Which reminds me of the Disney movie Wall-E.
I told my Taiwanses wife we can retire in Taiwan one day, if it doesnt revert to the communists.Ironic, we may soon be moving to Taiwan to escape socialist Amerika.
sonofdy, how can you be so blind?
The Chinese flag has stars, our flag has stars. The Soviet Union had a sickle, Islam’s symbol is a crescent.
Can’t you see the Sandinistas are using us all as puppets?
/sarc (just in case they’re reading this and you know they are.)
Ragspierre: You left off motorcycles and kitchen knives.
Heh. I left out a lot of things. Fingers get tired after a while typing such lists, though.
The “your freedoms end when they start costing me money” is the wedge issue the statists use perhaps most effectively……….and we willingly bear them or we loose freedom.
Agreed completely, and the point I was trying to make with dear Hipp…er…..Happy with my comment of resenting the birth and education costs of her children. *sigh* Should have realized I need to be more blunt with a person so “intellectually honest” as to refer to tobacco companies as the “death industry”.
The best part is that Happy and friends defending the legislation seem not to understand or care that this deal was brokered between TFK and Philip Morris.
PM loves the deal because it essentially freezes the market share in their favor and permanently.
It also places such a burden on the release of new products that it nips the concept of safer cigarettes or reduced harm products in the bud. Unless, of course, it’s a new “cessation” aid coming from Big Pharm. See the tobacco control anti-”E-cigarette” press releases for examples.
In other words, TFK loves the deal because it preserves the “cessation” (or really, replacement therapy) market share for their funders, the pharmaceutical companies.
On June 14th, 2009 at 10:03 am, paulsur said:
I told my Taiwanses wife we can retire in Taiwan one day…
I married a Filipino gal. One day, I plan to move overseas to retire on beautiful Mindanao Island. I does seem like that day is going to be much sooner than I expected it to be!
As it’s been said before – elections have consequences…