The Conservatard

All “real” Americans know and love our fearless leader King George. We all love him for bringing us the occupation of Iraq, gutting consumer product safety, stifling NASA and EPA reports on global warming and his overflowing love of the swamp, formally known as New Orleans. 

However, King George, with the help of our former president Bill Clinton (who originally pushed for NAFTA) is really screwing over American truckers, American air quality and highway safety. Apparently under the original NAFA agreement, all three participating countries are supposed to give free access to each other’s highway systems. Canada has been using our freeways for years, and American Trucks use Canadian highways as well. Mexico on the other hand has not been allowed to freely use American highways.

Does this sound unfair? Well, the fact is that Mexico has extremely loose regulations for commercial trucking and in essence does not enforce what few regulations it has. Imagine if American truckers were not required to be certified. What if they were not given sobriety tests? What if they didn’t have to maintain their equipment or pollution control systems? What if trucker’s were allowed to drive 18 hour stints, all hopped up on drugs and then you have to share the road with them?

Well that is exactly the types of regulations that Canada and the US have and enforce for commercial trucks. Mexico, if they have any of these regulations, doesn’t really enforce them.Most Canadian and US truckers are fairly well paid for the hard work that they do. Because of decent pay scales, trucking companies can be fairly choosy of whom they hire. Psychopaths need not apply. What they do isn’t easy and they are truly skilled workers.

Would you feel good about driving your family down the freeway with some trucker that makes less than a worker at McDonalds, is driving an uninspected rig, and is at the end of an 18 hour driving stint?  It kind of makes Mr. C want to take the train instead. As long as the engineer is skilled and regulated.

NewsMax.com has a really good article covering some of the highlights of the whole Mexican (NAFTA) trucking fiasco.

America Under Invasion … by Mexican Trucks

Published on Friday, September 07, 2007.

Author: Clayton B. Reid

Mexican trucks are rolling over the U.S. border, freely bound for anywhere in America, and it seems that nothing — not furious Teamsters nor angry environmentalists, not even Congress — can stop them.

Are the drivers properly licensed and sober or well-rested with the legal amount of down time? Do they speak English or understand U.S. road signs? Will the trucks be carrying illegal immigrants, drugs, terrorists, nuclear or biological weapons or other contraband? Will they belch tons of banned pollutants into America’s air? Will lower-paid Mexican drivers put American truckers out of work? Will the trucks gut the tax base which supports the U.S. highway infrastructure?

Frankly, no one knows.

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Independent senator Bernie Sanders indirectly takes the Bustards to the matt on the horrible record of the real American economy. The same “booming” economy that has gutted the middle class, busted unions, promoted global corporations to ship all of their production overseas, increased CEO pay rates to over 250% that of their average employee, and an increased the rate of Americans living below the poverty level by 9%. Even though the article is about President Bushtard’s nomination for the White House budget director, Mr. C is glad that Mr. Sanders is aware of the dire financial straits that most American families are in these days. Because the financial trouble most Americans are in today seems to be completely lost on every other a@@h()le politician residing in the D.C. bubble.

The only way that Mr. C can explain the anomaly of Mr. Sanders is he is an “independent”, and part of neither the Repuglican nor the spineless sellouts once known as the Democratic Party.

Bolded Text by Mr. C.

 No on Nussle

By Senator Bernie Sanders.

Posted September 3, 2007 | 11:22 AM (EST) The Huffington Post

The Senate votes Tuesday on the nomination of former Iowa Congressman James Nussle to be the White House budget director. Personally, I like Jim Nussle. We came to Washington together and I worked with him for 16 years in the House of Representatives. He’s smart. He is passionate. My strong opposition to Jim Nussle becoming Director of the Office of Management and Budget has much less to do with Mr. Nussle and much more to do with the current failed trickle-down economic policies of the Bush administration. The problem is that the president and his advisors have become increasingly isolated and out of touch with the economic realities facing ordinary Americans. While the middle class continues to shrink, poverty is increasing, the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider, and millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages.

President Bush continues to tell the American people how great the economy is doing. Year after year after year, the president and his advisors have sounded like a broken record on the economy. They have told the American people over and over again that the economy is “strong and getting stronger,” the economy is “thriving,” the economy is “robust,” the economy is “vibrant.” The economy is “solid,” the economy is “booming,” the economy is “powerful,” the economy is “fantastic,” the economy is “amazing,” and the economy is just “marvelous,”

How can the president claim that the economy is “robust” when nearly five million Americans have slipped into poverty since 2000, including over one million children? How can the president say the economy is “vibrant” when median income for working-age families has declined by about $2,400 since 2000? How can Bush claim that the economy is “strong and getting stronger” when the personal savings rate has been below zero for eight consecutive quarters, something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression? How can he claim that the economy is “healthy” when 8.6 million Americans have lost their health insurance since 2000, and a record-breaking 47 million Americans are uninsured with millions more under-insured?

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