Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 8:57 pm | Randy Thomasson
If you’re like me, you’re concerned about high gas prices in California.
As someone who watches the stock market, I shake my head at how California’s Democrat-controlled government somehow keeps the average price of regular gas above $4 per gallon, when oil prices are low, and when most other states enjoy much lower prices.
So, to help you and your family, here are SaveCalifornia.com’s 5 ways to fight against high gas prices:
2. Drive less if you can, by driving more for your needs than your wants. This will likely mean combining errands. Sometimes this will mean changing where you buy goods and services. And might mean buying more online.
4. When voting, don’t for an environmental activist candidate or ballot measure, because you’ll be supporting a lower supply of energy and higher energy prices (as well as higher prices for housing, food, and water).
5. Remember that Democrats have controlled the California State Legislature for 60 years. They caused and are still causing your high energy prices.
Why are gasoline prices so high in California?
California’s Democrat politicians, with the help of self-interested government unions, are devoted to big, expensive government, as well as to liberal environmental activists who regard dirt and trees as more important than people made in the image of God and people’s private property. The Democrat politicians have imposed the highest state gas tax in the nation: $1.26 a gallon (98 cents in gas taxes and gas fees, plus a 28-cent “mystery tax”).
California’s Democrat-run government forces gasoline to be more expensive to formulate, which is another disincentive to oil refineries trying to do business here:
“For many years, California also required that summer-blend gasoline — which is more expensive to produce and contains extra additives designed to reduce air pollution in the summer — be used all year round. So, while gasoline prices typically fall in September across the United States as stations switch to the cheaper winter blend, Californians were left paying higher prices. In 2012, around the time gasoline prices were breaking records, Governor Jerry Brown changed the regulations to permit winter-blend gasoline to be sold in California in an attempt to bring down rising gasoline prices. Still, both the summer and winter blends of gasoline used in California are more expensive to produce than those used in any other state.” “California Is Approaching $4 Gasoline, But It Has Only Itself To Blame,” Forbes, Sept. 28, 2018
In 2017, the Democrat-controlled California Energy Commission crowed about no new refineries and no new refineries:
“Permitting Issues. It is unlikely that new refineries will be built in California. In fact, from 1985 to 1995, 10 California refineries closed, resulting in a 20 percent reduction in refining capacity. Further refinery closures are expected for small refineries with capacities of less than 50,000 barrels per day. The cost of complying with environmental regulations and low product prices will continue to make it difficult to continue operating older, less efficient refineries.”Source
And the Democrat politicians have also prohibited interstate oil pipelines into California, thus decreasing the supply, increasing the demand, and jacking up the price of gas for us all:
“With no major pipelines connecting California to its neighbors, the state remains largely untouched by the shale boom. While refiners in the Midwest and Gulf Coast are awash in cheap, American crude, those in California are paying as much as $6 more per barrel for oil shipped from Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Colombia. That’s taken a toll on California pump prices, which were 61 cents higher per gallon last year than the national average.” Source: Bloomberg.com
I hope you benefit from this information and will share it with others. California’s high gas prices are a negative consequence of our bad state government. When voters revolt against the establishment, this can change. In the meantime, let’s save on gas where we can.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan. Proverbs 29:2
Saturday, September 28, 2019, 9:20 am | Randy Thomasson
After hearing about something harmful or wacky done by some politicians, have you ever asked, “How could they do that?” or “What are they thinking?”
But I’m finding it easier these days to understand Democrat politicians — and Democrat voters. Because the evidence is, both are increasingly anti-Bible and anti-reality.
Did you know that the New Atheism has been completely embraced by the Democratic National Committee, which now even claims atheism as the Democrats’ identity?
On August 27, 2019, the DNC, meeting in San Francisco, passed a resolution affirming the “religiously unaffiliated” as sharing their party’s values and being “the largest religious group within the Democratic Party.”
The unanimously-passed resolution also criticized “religious views” and “religious liberty,” stating, “WHEREAS, those most loudly claiming that morals, values, and patriotism must be defined by their particular religious views have used those religious views, with misplaced claims of ‘religious liberty,’ to justify public policy that has threatened the civil rights and liberties of many Americans, including but not limited to the LGBT community, women, and ethnic and religious/nonreligious minorities.”
As you can see, with the Democrats, it’s good-bye to your First Amendment freedom of conscience before God.
Less Bible, worse voting
The evidence is, the less” Christian” you are, or claim to be (except for black Americans), the more likely you are to vote for Democrat candidates. See this chart.
So the more a voter drifts from the Bible as his standard of authority, the more we get elected representatives who are anti-family, anti-Constitution, anti-Christian. It’s simple math.
The solution, obviously, is for pastors who say the Bible is their authority, to train church congregants to vote biblically and help other people vote for good government too.
For how can we have good government unless people who know what is truly good are the main influencers of government?
‘High time’ to love God and neighbor
I believe it’s high time for professing Christians to repent of not loving their neighbor (strangers in their community, state, and nation) and not loving the Savior Jesus Christ as He requires. For if The Greatest Commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” where shall you not love God? Not in voting? Not in government? Not as your Master?
With all the latent armies of professing Christians gathered together every week, the ability to sincerely repent of sin and to passionately love Jesus and neighbor is abundantly present. Who will light the spark that gets this fire going?
A biblical pastor who has abandoned fear of man will teach his flock how to vote biblically, will hold annual voter registration drives, will distribute principled, pro-family voter guides, will organize volunteers to support good candidates, and will even recruit candidates for local office from within the congregation.
Do you agree that it’s time for pastors to identify and reject their own fear of man, and replace it with holy fear of God and sacrificial love for strangers?
Do you agree that it’s time for supporters of the Bible to reform their congregations, so that we can improve our culture, by speaking the truth with a heart motivation of faith, hope, and love?
Do you agree that it’s time for pastors to have biblical worldview classes, offered to all congregants and with completion required for church members?
Ultimately, our local, state, and national governments will be run by godly, principled people, or by those who aren’t. The choice belongs to the churches. We have to ask ourselves, who “cares” more for their neighbors and for “good government” — professing Christians or die-hard atheists?
Wise people will start planning now for the 2020 election. For with diligent preparation often comes great victory.
After 40+ years of killing babies in the womb with your federal tax dollars, Planned Parenthood abortionists have taken a big step to separate themselves from you.
On August 19, 2019, America’s abortion giant announced it will officially withdraw from the Title X “family planning” program instead of abiding by a new Trump Administration requirement preventing grant recipients from referring clients for abortions.
This reveals that Planned Parenthood’s singular mission is slaughtering pre-born babies, not continuing to receive federal funding for “women’s health,” absent abortions.
This is also a significant victory for our Constitution and for restoring constitutional judges, those who abide by the written words and original intent of the U.S. Constitution. Upholding the Trump rule separating contraception funding from abortion funding in July were 7 Republican judges versus 4 pro-abortion Democrat judges. And this was on the West Coast’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals!
Planned Parenthood will lose some $60 million in federal funding, but not all. They will still receive about $500 million from Medicaid, the joint federal and state “welfare” medical program, of which the federal government provides most of the funding. And I expect the ruling Democrats in the California State Legislature to “in-fill” this “lost” abortion funding, with your state tax dollars, per Planned Parenthood’s request.
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. Psalm 139:13-16
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