San Bernardino Sun
August 28, 2008
Featured Letter
We're tapped out
Re: "State eyes area water, Aug 14.
Lt. Governor John Garamendi's declaration at the second annual San Bernardino County Water Conference, that we will have to share our groundwater with the rest of the state, is troubling at best. Particularly, when he is just now recognizing the state water crisis, and blaming it on highly questionable global climate change, which is partisan at best.
San Bernardino County does not have any water to spare. And if there is any, it should be shared within the county and immediate areas. More importantly, property owners/taxpayers in this county along with other counties in Central and Southern California, paid for the California State Water Project bringing water from Northern California. We not only paid our share for the project, we also pay for maintenance of the project and for annual water allotments to county SWP contractors in the valley, mountains and desert.
The real problem is, we depend on SWP water. In the face of California's water crisis -- exacerbated by an environmentalist/federal court cutting 30 percent of the water delivery on behalf small fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta -- and the lack of a peripheral canal bypassing the Delta, it's only going to get worse without some course of action. At the very least, there should be a lawsuit regarding the court's unconstitutional interference with legal contracts and water rights.
If the voters don't do something, unconscionable environmentalists -- who value insignificant species over the human species -- activist courts, state government thieves and regulators, and federal accomplices will continue to commit crimes against local humanity. Certainly this -- along with pending state budget raids on local government -- is a glaring example of why most government should be local. Trim bulging state and federal government to the constitutional minimum, get rid of the tax and spend bullies, and let us attend to our own business.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, CA
Daily Press - Letters
September 1, 2008
Palin will represent all of the people
Senator John McCain exercised presidential judgment and common sense when he selected Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin as his candidate for vice-president. Palin represents the best of American ideals and competent representation in our democratic republic. Her stellar personal and political background is a genuine inspiration to our country's men, women, children and families. Most of all, Governor Palin demonstrates the character, integrity and proven confidence that she can handle the responsibility, including the office of president if necessary.
Compare Governor Palin's record in government with Barack Obama's and she wins. Among her accomplishments, she single-handedly busted political corruption in Alaska's state government, promoted environmentally-conscious production of energy, cut spending, and returned Alaska's tax surplus to the taxpayers.
My wife and I were Republicans until we were disappointed by President George H.W. Bush and betrayed by Ross Perot in 1992. As independent voters, we will now vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Our children are taking my wife and I on a cruise to Alaska next July to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Like Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, we too were high school sweethearts. Hopefully, Sarah Palin won't be there, but in Washington doing what she does best. Representing all of us.
Dan Jeffs
Apple Valley, CA
Daily Press
August 4, 2008
Ethanol and government insanity
Mandating ethanol production that would increase the current consumption of 23 percent of America's corn crop to 40 percent by 2022 -- while subsidizing ethanol production with 51 cents per gallon of taxpayer dollars -- is simply inept government regulation compounded by intentional insanity. Particularly, when it is already disrupting the corn-based food supply here and around the world.
Do the math. When our government wants the current 9 billion gallons of all ethanol stepped up to 36 billion gallons in our gas tanks by 2022 -- which will only replace 15 percent of the nation's gas consumption -- and when it costs more to produce ethanol than the energy it produces, we will be getting hosed at the pumps much worse than we are now.
Even worse, the EPA ignored the MTBE additive's destructive impact on groundwater, and they are still unclear on the toxic effects of ethanol. The solution is to stop corn ethanol production, stop costly seasonal gas additives, and put all efforts into fast-tracking domestic oil and natural gas production (1-3 years), new refineries, clean coal, oil shale and nuclear.
If any alternative energy sources are substantially subsidized to develop, they should be infinite resources such as highly efficient nano solar power, tidal energy, nitrogen fuel cells, and sun algae fuel. It just takes sane, common sense for a change. Surely, we can't afford not to.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley
San Bernardino Sun
July 28, 2008
Hurting neighborhoods
Re: Reports that dumping illegal-immigrant criminals in Yucaipa enrages officials. Reports of eight illegal aliens convicted of selling crack cocaine in San Francisco walking away from a Yucaipa group home is a glaring example of government intrusion into people's neighborhoods.
Indeed, California is rife with such abuses of power. San Francisco didn't place the criminals in San Bernardino County. The state did. It's simply another case of Northern California socialists dumping their garbage in Southern California.
Together with homes purchased by the federal government and occupied by freeloaders and gangsters, state-licensed group homes are a plague on single-family residential neighborhoods throughout the state. Counties and cities have no say in the matter, and residents are completely ignored. Homeowners are put at risk and their property values are adversely affected.
Some years ago, a friend purchased a nice home for his family in a new housing tract in Apple Valley. Then HUD came in and bought up the remaining new homes. The state placed welfare families in the homes - in some cases, there were two or three families in one home. The neighborhood turned sour and the home values plummeted. For the security of his family, my friend had to sell and move at a substantial loss.
Since moving into our neighborhood, HUD has taken over at least two homes. The state established a group home for juvenile offenders and a group home for mentally disabled people. And there may be more, all within a block of our home. Though these programs were undoubtedly established by HUD and the state with good intentions, they have failed miserably. They have turned into deceitful - and probably unconstitutional - seize, decay and destroy projects tantamount to reckless eminent domain over any and all neighborhoods.
DAN JEFFS
Apple Valley
Press Enterprise
July 18, 2008
Snow leaves a void
I was deeply saddened by Tony Snow's passing ("Journalist embraced press secretary role," July 13).
I knew he was a good man the first time I listened to him filling in for Rush Limbaugh. Since then, he was the only political commentator who held my full, undivided attention.
He spoke the honest, educated truth. He was the human bright spot in a dark, phony business. I sorely miss him.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley
San Diego Union Tribune
July 20, 2008
Partisan politics and foreign oil need
When the OPEC oil embargo was imposed against us in 1973 for supporting Israel, we were importing about 20 percent of our oil. Since President Carter's term ended with a false promise to end our dependence on foreign oil, our inept government not only failed to make us energy independent - partisan politics have caused us to more than triple our dependence on imported oil. Clearly, it is time for the American people to demand results.
Instead of obstructing our domestic energy resources, our state and federal governments must fast-track permit approvals. Provide generous incentives and tax credits for our energy industries to develop our abundant resources of coal, coal to fuel, oil shale and natural gas. Develop all available oil resources. Build oil refineries, nuclear power plants and transmission lines. And support the immediate development of high-efficiency solar cells and batteries, nitrogen fuel cells, advanced wind power and tidal power.
There is simply no excuse for our over-dependence on foreign energy resources, particularly in this era of terrorism and instability. We must become energy independent, and we must do it now, before it's too late. Partisan politics simply cannot be tolerated when our national security and our survival are at stake.
DANIEL B. JEFFS
Apple Valley
Daily Press
July 13, 2008
Throw the bums out
With a $15 billion deficit and an $8 billion proposed tax hike on the legislative table, there are those who condemn us ignorant voters and the Republican tyranny of the minority for obstructing the will of Democrat majority to pass the California State Budget. I use the term "budget" loosely. It would be more accurate to say there are those who want to, "Turn the tax dogs loose."
Indeed, if it were not for us ignorant voters -- who require a two-thirds majority vote to inflict punishing tax and spend legislation upon California's beleaguered middle class, small businesses and corporations who create jobs -- the Golden State would have become a government-induced, over-regulated economic wasteland long before now.
The truth is, the tyranny of the socialist Democrat majority is responsible for duping the voters with unreasonable, self-destructive environmentalism that has caused California's energy crisis, the highest gas and utility prices in the nation, the water crisis, and a hostile business climate. And they are bound and determined to make it worse.
Alas, adding insult to injury, California's failed education system is simply an unconscionable disgrace -- replacing core academics with social/political indoctrination -- and an insatiable funding appetite backed by a constitutionally guaranteed 40% of the state budget, regardless of performance. That is a costly voter mistake that surely needs to be rectified with privatized education.
As for term limits, voters ought to throw all the bums out and start over with nonpartisan government, elected professional government managers, and truthfully informed voter approval of all taxation and public policy matters.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, CA
San Bernardino County Sun
Letters to the Editor
June 26, 2008
Power of coal
In the face of rising natural gas and coal costs to produce electricity, it is baffling that President Bush's energy plan didn't include the potentially devastating impact on our cost of living. Increased demand from China and India have caused the rise in oil prices, and the rise in the prices of coal and natural gas utilities.
Half of our electricity is produced from coal, and the other half is produced primarily from natural gas. We have the largest coal reserves, followed by Russia and China, enough to power America for 200 years, yet more clean coal power plants are held back. More coal power means more natural gas available to homes and businesses, and more time to develop viable alternatives.
Coal-to-liquid fuel technology has been developed and should be used in this country. South Africa's coal-to-liquid provides 30 percent of the fuels used in their cars and trucks, and China is building coal-to-liquid fuel plants. The blame for our energy crisis must be attributed to politicians from both parties who have pandered to the obstructionist cartel of environmentalists.
Indeed, over the past three decades, they have been responsible for restrictive laws and unreasonable regulations that have prevented our ability to become more energy independent.
DANIEL B. JEFFS
Apple Valley, CA
Daily Press
June 22, 2008
Time for government to get out of the way on energy
Though it amounts to little more than last wishes in his 8-year job as chief executive, President Bush is correct in his proposals to lift the ban on offshore drilling, permit drilling in ANWR, the exploration of oil shale reserves, and speeding up the permit process for the construction and expansion of oil refineries.
The down side is, Congressional Democrats and the sublime ignorance of California obstructionist environmentalists will probably never let it happen, regardless of what the people want, or the national security and economic implications. Saying that it won't work because it will take too long and it won't be enough oil to matter is absurd, particularly when they are the primary reason this mess developed over that past two decades or more.
According to Utah Congressman, Chris Cannon, there are at least 800 billion barrels oil shale reserves in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Ongoing technology and processing advances will allow for significant oil production within 3 years if the 7-year permit process was cut to several months. It's time for government to start working for the people instead of against us, for a change. Just get out of the way for the sake of our national security and before the economy collapses.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Daily Press
June 14, 2008
Nether candidate will address economic disarray
No matter who is elected president in 2008, the leading candidates have made it disdainfully clear that the United States government will do nothing to save America from economic ruin. Indeed, foolish congressional ideology, judicial activism, environmental zealotry and self-serving guilt merchants have buckled our country's political will to become energy self-sufficient.
When any society, particularly America's society, is laboring under the relentless political pressure of dishonest doomsday scenarios, such as global warming and environmental habitat fear mongering -- which have the unintended consequences of social and economic collapse -- the inescapable conclusion is disastrous.
Why are the American people doing little or nothing to stop it? Are we too busy looking after selfish interests, yielding to indoctrination, and ignoring the the continuous failures of good intentions? For the answer, look in the mirror, and think about it.... before it's too late.
In the wake of ever-increasing oil demand from China and India increasing the price of oil, the solution is obvious. Stop making expensive ethanol that raises the cost of fuel and food. Lift economy-busting environmental regulations and restrictions against building new power plants, new refineries and drilling for oil. Develop nuclear energy. Expand cleaner coal power plants. Develop synthetic fuel from our vast coal resources. And open the doors to innovation and advanced energy technology. Certainly, if this had been done 10 or 15 years ago, we wouldn't be in this inexcusable mess.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Victor Valley Daily Press
June 10, 2008
Renewables cannot replace energy demand
San Diego Union-Tribune
June 11, 2008
Who's to blame, who will resolve energy crisis?
Los Angeles Times
June 14, 2008
Solving our energy problems
Contrary to popular belief, Saudi Arabia and OPEC are not responsible for America's energy crisis. The vast increase in oil demand from China and India notwithstanding, Far left environmentalists, judicial activists and Democrat-dominated government are the obstructionists in this senseless play for ruinous power.
Indeed, if it were not for the self-righteous delusionists and nature's la-la-landers preventing the development of domestic energy resources from protected areas (which few can even visit) for the past two or three decades, we would not be in this mess with disastrous consequences.
Renewable energy resources simply cannot produce the demand for energy to sustain us in the foreseeable future. Corn ethanol is an unsustainable and costly failure. We have one of the world's largest immediate energy resource in coal, clean coal and coal to fuel technologies. Surely, we must tap our own oil resources, and build refineries and nuclear power plants without delay. Failure to do so will inevitably cause our economy to collapse.
Stepping up oil production from Iraq, which has one of the largest oil reserves, would certainly help re-build and secure Iraq, while at the same time, help our immediate needs for oil.
Daniel B. Jeffs
USA TODAY
April 29, 2008
Calm 'eco-frenzy'
Daniel B. Jeffs - Apple Valley, Calif.
Eco-friendly events that leave behind "trails of waste" serve as evidence of the "eco-frenzy" that has been hurting our country's economy for many years ("When eco-friendly events go unfriendly," Life, April 22).
Indeed, shades of green are more often shades of gray painted red by extreme environmentalists and global warming alarmists.
Reasonable environmental concerns notwithstanding, common sense should tell us that the escalating cost of nearly everything can be connected to environmental restrictions and reactionary regulations. It has become painfully clear that the only way to stop the damage is for environmentalists to calm down a little.
I agree with Ron Mader, founder of the journal Planeta.com, who told USA TODAY: "The dialogue is cheapened when environmental events themselves do not showcase some environmental criteria for how they are implemented."
Daily Press
April 21, 2008
Carter should no longer be subsidized by government
Daniel B. Jeffs - Apple Valley, Calif.
What is it with former president Jimmy Carter? He brokered the first peace accord between Egypt and Israel and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Then, among other blunders, he coddled terrorists who seized our embassy in Iran and took hostages, gave away the Panama Canal, and left America in economic shambles when he left office.
Since leaving office, Carter thinks he has license to meddle in U.S. foreign policy whenever he chooses. In his latest brush with what is tantamount to treasonous behavior, and against the wishes of the State Department, Carter embarked on a nine-day tour of the Middle East, which will include a visit with Hamas terrorist leaders in Syria.
Carter ought to be stripped of his former president title, along with any and all compensation at taxpayers expense, including costly secret service protection. America should not subsidize anti-American zealots, particularly former presidents. Indeed, the Constitution prohibits granting titles of nobility000">
USA TODAY
April 10, 2008
Give Big Oil a break
Daniel B. Jeffs - Apple Valley, Calif.
It appears that USA TODAY has joined the congressional inquisition against Big Oil. This makes it painfully clear that USA TODAY has lost its common sense. Though oil profit percentages are up, taxes on the industry have long been double those percentages.
Big Oil and most large corporations are owned by many millions of middle-income Americans who are invested in retirement programs and savings accounts. They are the ones being punished, not the corporations.
Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot by voting people into power who advocate for more taxes and regulations? Reasonable efforts to produce renewable energies, which are better for the environment, are good. But when these efforts escalate into prohibiting Americans from using readily available oil, coal and natural gas, then it is clear that the USA is headed down a dead-end road to economic collapse.
USA TODAY
March 31, 2008
Hold public servants accountable to words
Daniel B. Jeffs - Apple Valley, Calif.
Considering the lies and distortions of the presidential candidates, it has become painfully clear that there is a double standard at work ("Clinton acknowledges sniper 'misstatement,' " Electionline, News, Tuesday).
If a person lies on his or her employment application, then he or she likely will not be hired. The words of those campaigning for office become an employment application, of sorts. Sen. Hillary Clinton isn't doing so well on hers.
Her recent "misstatement" about ducking sniper fire and running for cover in Bosnia is appalling. If we don't do something about the corrupt behavior of office seekers, our complacency could very well be our undoing.
San Diego Union Tribune
March 31, 2008
Considering our declining history and the lies, distortions and embellishments of the candidates for president, it has become painfully clear that there is a double standard applied to the people and those who are elected to represent us. If we lie on our employment applications, we would not be hired. What is said by those who campaign for public office is their employment application.
Honorable intentions aside, it has also become painfully clear that too many of those who are elected to public office, re-elected or seek higher office are doing so to gain more personal power in what has become a highly partisan, self-corrupting two-party political system of ideologues, which has betrayed the very foundation of our Constitution.
If we don't do something about it, our complacency could very well be our undoing. The solution is simple. Make all elected offices nonpartisan. Elect the most qualified professional government managers to represent us and truthfully inform us. Give them the task of downsizing our laws, regulations and bloated bureaucracies of inefficient government. And have the voters decide matters of taxation and public policy.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, CA
Founder's letter published in USA TODAY
April 26, 2007
Pathetic ploys for power
The congressional freak show exploiting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is little more than the latest pathetic round of persecution politics aimed at President Bush and his administration.
The power struggle in Washington is an unconscionable waste of political capital at the people's expense. Indeed, nothing could be a more vivid example of inept government than our elected representatives throwing political rocks at each other amid growing terrorism and high-risk national security.
Politics in the USA is turning our democratic republic into an over regulated wasteland of petty politics. America is better than that.
USA TODAY
April 26, 2007
The congressional freak show exploiting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is little more than the latest pathetic round of persecution politics aimed at President Bush and his administration. The Democrat and Republican struggle for power in Washington, and throughout the several states, is an unconscionable waste of political capital at the people's expense.
USA TODAY
May 23, 2002
American Idol exacerbates social dilemma
America was already celebrity-obsessed before American Idol came along and shifted the hysteria into hyper-drive. And as if that wasn't enough enticement for people's hopes and aspirations to be famous, even for a limited time, television networks leaped into the lazy and shallow, high profit business of reality shows for people who seek fame for anything.
USA TODAY
July 25, 2007
Tobacco tax unfair
The Senate finance committee's approval of a large tobacco tax increase to fund healthcare for children is simply another tax move against beleaguered smokers, most of whom are low income people who can least afford it. It's bad enough that anti-smoking zealots have discriminated against smokers as social outcasts, holding them up to public hatred, ridicule and humiliation.
But to attack a class of people with punishing taxes to pay for non-smoking related healthcare and other hot-button programs that have little or nothing to do with smoking is simply wrong. President Bush is right by indicating that he will veto an unfair tax on low-income smokers to pay for middle-income people's healthcare for children.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Founder, DDC
Washington Times
May 23, 2007
Former president Carter's revision of his remarks about the Bush administration being the "worst in history" is typical of his history of inept thinking. He's done it many times before. When it comes to the worst administration in history, Carter is certainly in the running.
Los Angeles Times
May 26, 2007
Re: 'Smoking's sinful sensuality in movies' Meghan Daum 5-19-07
Meghan Daum's half-hearted attempt to defend smoking in movies for the sake of history in the art of movie-making doesn't address what is going on in real life. Indeed, in the end, she gives-in to the inevitability of surrender to the tyranny of anti-smoking zealots.
Daily Press
March 18, 2007
Privatization, not more money, will fix public education
The state of public education in California is unconscionable. Indeed, little or no progress has been made in the quality of education in our entire country since the scathing 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk."
Published in the Daily Press
February 13, 2007
The Freak Show of Anna Nicole Smith
It's a relief to see that our local newspaper, the Daily Press, has chosen not to cover the Anna Nicole Smith freak show that is consuming television news and other programming.
Smith's tragic death notwithstanding, this is simply another indictment against our society, news media and entertainment industry, already stricken by a culture of political hostility, social aggression, shallow behavior, and superficial extremes.
We should demand better from them and ourselves. Indeed, as Edmund Burke wisely observed, the only thing necessary for evil to exist is for good people to remain silent...
Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
The Direct Democracy Center
Published in the Daily Press
November 6, 2006
What was John Kerry's 'joke' referring to?
(John Kerry: un-American)
John Kerry's contempt for our military expressed this week comes as no surprise. His condemnation of our troops in Vietnam in 1971 and his condescending comments about our troops in Iraq are merely the reflection of the privileged liberal elite looking down their noses at the vast majority of people in our country who are real Americans.
Indeed, Kerry's remarks about our military being less educated than others is a contradiction in terms, particularly when the anti-establishment revolutionaries of his generation ruined public education and left subsequent generations functionally illiterate.
Sadly, little has changed in education -- and our society is worse -- thanks to people like Kerry, radical environmentalists like Al Gore, fraudulent politicians like the Clintons, the academic and corporate elite, and those in the news media and entertainment industry -- who are terminally infected by narcissism and social engineering.
Only in America can they be that way and get away with it. Being grateful Americans like the rest of us simply isn't their long suit. However, we don't have to put up with letting them run our country into the ground, particularly in this dangerous world of terrorism. On November 7th, we must start voting for our freedom, our security and our future. Our survival is at stake.
Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
DDC