Chad’s Morning Brief for 01.23.13
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of January 23, 2013. Give Chad your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11 am.
1. Gun Free Zone (link)
Yesterday we watched the reports of another school shooting, this time here in Texas. According to FOX News:
A shooting on a Texas community college campus injured three people Tuesday as officials placed the campus on lockdown, officials said.
The incident took place in between the library and an academic building. The campus has since been declared safe.
Harris County Sheriff's Maj. Armando Tello said the shooting was an altercation between two individuals and one of them was a student. Authorities have two persons of interest and a handgun was involved.
The suspects are currently hospitalized.
Tello said a maintenance worker was shot in the leg as a result of accidental fire. He is in stable condition. A female student who was not involved was brought to the hospital after reportedly having a heart attack during the incident.
Mark Zaragosa said he had just come out of an EMT class when he saw two people who were injured and stopped to help them. Officers had not yet arrived, he said.
"The two people that I took care of had just minor injuries," Zaragosa told KHOU. "One gentleman had a gunshot to the knee and the (other) actually had an entry wound to the lower buttocks area."
It will be interesting to see the details as the days go on. However one thing is for sure. This should not stop the campus carry movement here in Texas. In fact, it should show that campus carry needs to happen. This campus was a gun free zone and guess what? A moron was armed. What if this would have been different? What if the gunman would have gone inside a building?
Let law-abiding citizens protect themselves.
2. Reality (link)
Is the AP already calling Obama's plans dead? The lofty goals have run into reality according to the AP.
President Barack Obama's lofty ideals from his inaugural address ran smack into reality Tuesday on the first working day of his second term.
Twenty-four hours after Obama pledged to tackle climate change and called for gays and lesbians to be treated equally under the law, the White House struggled to back up his sweeping rhetoric with specifics, raising questions about how much political muscle he'll put behind both issues.
Republicans were already signaling their unhappiness with Obama's agenda.
"The era of liberalism is back," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. "If the president pursues that kind of agenda, obviously it's not designed to bring us together."
Obama, standing before hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall, had vowed to "respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."
But in the White House briefing room a day later, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said he couldn't speculate about future actions. He said that while climate change was a priority for the president, "it is not a singular priority."
On gay rights, the president had declared that the nation's journey is "not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."
But Carney said the president was speaking about his personal views and would not take federal action on same-sex marriage, which he continues to see as a state issue.
I still predict that immigration will be Obama's priority going forward.
3. Fees on Electric Cars (link)
Texas lawmakers are considering imposing fees on electric car owners. Why? To make up for lost gas tax revenue. According to the Texas Tribune:
Owning an electric car in Texas could become more expensive under one proposal being considered by state lawmakers to raise money for road construction.
Increasing registration fees on owners of electric cars like the Nissan Leaf is “one of the options on the table,” according to state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, who was vice chairman of the House Transportation Committee last legislative session.
Various transportation-minded lawmakers have said they are set on finding a reliable stream of revenue for transportation this session. Most of the current funding comes from the 38.4 cents in state and federal taxes Texans pay per gallon of gas, an amount that has not been raised in 20 years and has failed to keep up with inflation and the increasing fuel efficiency of new vehicles.
While many states offer tax incentives for people to purchase energy-efficient vehicles like hybrids and electric cars, lawmakers in several states have proposed levying special fees on owners of some such vehicles. The theory is that those drivers are not paying enough to support the state’s network of roads because they rarely buy gas.
“I think we need to make sure that electric vehicles that tear up our roads pay their fair share,” Darby said. “Should we have the same registration fee for fuel-burning vehicles as electric vehicles?”
Seems a bit silly to me. There can't be that many Volts and Leafs on the road to make a dent anyway. Instead of coming up with new fees and taxes, how about cutting something?
Other Top Stories:
These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.
More From News/Talk 95.1 & 790 KFYO
