Tag: government

“It’s all up to the voters now.”

10:31 am

“It’s all up to the voters now.”

It always has been up to the voters. Sadly, my baby-boom generation has too often turned to the courts to absolve themselves from responsibility for making tough decisions as voters. With Obamacare, that is no longer possible. If the public wants to get rid of this turkey of a law, which every poll says they do, the public had better come out to the polls in November and vote for candidates who are in favor of its repeal.

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A Modest Proposal

9:48 am

“A Modest Proposal.”

Now that the Roberts Court has affirmed that the government has the power to mandate purchases of private goods and services as long as it’s structured as a tax, I propose that we put this new-found authority in the service of an explicit Constitutional right. For far too long, too many Americans have suffered from an inequal distribution of firearms, despite the Second Amendment’s express exhortation to “keep and bear arms,” in large part because income inequality in this nation has kept the poor and working classes from having the proper protection for themselves and their loved ones. We need to end this disparity now by applying the ObamaCare model immediately.

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Both Russia and the United States have developed a “pain ray” weapon for dispersing protestors.

4:41 pm

What could go wrong? Both Russia and the United States have developed a “pain ray gun” for dispersing protestors.

The beam has a much shorter wavelength than a microwave oven and very different effects. The waves penetrate only about 1/64 of an inch, and anyone caught in the beam experiences painful but harmless heating of their skin. It causes what developers call a repel effect; nobody can stand it more than a few seconds before having to get out of the beam.

That’s the American system, not yet used. The Russian system is similar, and the Russians seem ready and willing to put it into operation.

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The bloody and corrupt scandal of Obama’s Fast-and-Furious gun-smuggling operation: a summary.

11:32 am

The bloody and corrupt scandal of Obama’s Fast-and-Furious gun-smuggling operation: a summary.

Imagine a government agency designed for the specific purpose of investigating and preventing the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms. Now imagine this agency engaging in an operation that not only goes against that purpose, but actually seeks to accomplish the opposite, by actively encouraging the sale of firearms to people whose ties to organized crime and gun violence are well known – and that this operation involves sending firearms across an international border into a country that this agency, and the government of which it is a part, purposely failed to warn, inform, or request permission from.

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The scientific stupidity of the TSA’s security rules.

10:03 am

The scientific stupidity of the TSA’s security rules.

Here’s one example from the article:

Take the Transportation Security Administration’s rules about carry-on electronics, for example. Laptops have to come out of their bags and lie flat in a plastic tub—but not tablets, phones, Kindles, cameras or portable game consoles. Why the distinction? The TSA says that it’s not just about detecting explosives: removing bigger gadgets also unclutters your bag for better x-ray examination. Even so, on close inspection the rules get arbitrary very quickly. For example, according to the TSA, the 11-inch model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, but the 13-inch model must be removed.

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A TSA agent in Florida spilled the cremated remains of a man’s grandfather on the floor after illegally opening the jar to finger the ashes.

10:55 am

A TSA agent in Florida spilled the cremated remains of a man’s grandfather on the floor after illegally opening the jar to finger the ashes.

[John] Gross says about a quarter to a third of the contents spilled on the floor, leaving him frantically trying to gather up as much as he could while anxious passengers waited behind him. “She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.” [emphasis mine]

Freedom dies, one security checkpoint at a time.

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Obamacare: 0-98

2:37 pm

Obamacare: 0-98

As the nation awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on President Obama’s centerpiece legislation, it’s worth reviewing the American public’s response to it across the 27 months since Obama signed it into law. Over that span, from March 2010 through a poll released this morning, Rasmussen has conducted 98 polls of likely voters. All 98 times, support for repeal has outpaced opposition to repeal. Across 98 contests, Obamacare has gone 0 and 98.

What amazes me is how completely oblivious the Democratic Party has been to these polls. Despite the public’s clear and passionate opposition to this law the Democrats have continued to act as if they believe the law will win them votes.

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Because a TSA agent failed to notice his metal detector was unplugged, hundreds of passengers at JFK Airport in New York had to go back and be rescreened, including those already on two planes on the runway, causing hours of delays.

11:11 am

Doesn’t this make you feel safer? Because a TSA agent failed to notice his metal detector was unplugged, hundreds of passengers at JFK Airport in New York had to go back and be rescreened, including those already on two planes on the runway, causing hours of delays.

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Not only will the North Carolina high school teacher who thought it is a crime to criticize the president and threatened students for doing so keep her job, the student who exposed her ignorance is being harassed by the school.

10:48 am

Public schools at their best: Not only will the North Carolina high school teacher who thought it is a crime to criticize the president and threatened students for doing so keep her job, the student who exposed her ignorance is being harassed by the school.

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A Dallas cop arrests a motorcyclist on a false made-up charge in order to confiscate his helmet camera.

10:23 am

A Dallas cop arrests a motorcyclist on a false made-up charge in order to confiscate his helmet camera. Video below the fold. The action starts at 2:45 and the arrest occurs at 6:30.

The sheriff’s department has begun an internal investigation. What investigation is needed? One look at this video should settle everything: This cop should be fired. As noted by a former Dallas prosecutor,

“Well, I think in this particular case, you did need a warrant to get that piece of evidence,” Toby Shook, a former Dallas prosecutor, told the station. He added later, “The Constitution wins out over frustration every time.”

» Read more

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Forbidden by the Forest Service from using powered equipment, a shovel brigade of 60 people last weekend made temporary repairs to Tombstone’s water line.

7:30 pm

Forbidden by the Forest Service from using heavy equipment, a shovel brigade of 60 people last weekend made temporary repairs to Tombstone’s water line.

“It took 60 people two days to complete a work project that could have been done in two hours with the appropriate equipment,” Barnes said. “We have a lot more work that needs to be done up there, but we don’t have the permits from the forest service to go back.”

For reasons that only bureaucrats understand, the Forest Service decided that the use of heavy equipment like a bulldozer is more harmful to nature than 60 people with shovels, even though in the end the work done is exactly the same, and that this same work was done repeatedly in the past by heavy equipment.

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The IPCC has decided that it is too difficult to purge non-peer-reviewed envionmental activist press releases from its next report.

3:37 pm

The IPCC has decided that it is too difficult to purge non-peer-reviewed envionmental activist press releases from its next report. Instead,

[A]ny information they choose to use will be considered peer reviewed just by being posted on the Internet by the IPCC.

In addition, the IPCC has decided “to impose gender and geographical quotas on IPCC membership,” rather than simple pick the best scientists.

And climate scientists wonder why the public no longer believes anything they say.

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The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013.

3:19 pm

The day of reckoning looms: The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013, not 2020 as claimed.

In 2010, Social Security’s Office of the Chief Actuary projected that this interest income would keep the trust fund growing in real value through 2020. The 2011 projections moved this date to 2018, and the recently released 2012 projections pushed the date to 2012, meaning that the trust fund will start declining in real value next year. After 2013, the trust fund is projected to decline by greater amounts each year until becoming exhausted in 2033.

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“And ask yourself this, if they’re that egregious at lying on that issue, what else are they lying about?”

10:23 pm

“And ask yourself this, if they’re that egregious at lying on that issue, what else are they lying about?”

Meanwhile, on the same day that the President invoked executive privilege to avoid giving Congress emails and documents concerning the Fast-and-Furious gunrunning scandal, the Attorney General admitted lying in his testimony to a House committee, and that same committee voted to hold the Attorney General in contempt, ABC News has as its lead story … the heat wave in the northeast.

As I’ve said many times before, if you depend on television news to find out what’s going in the world, you’re not merely uninformed, you are misinformed.

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The TSA’s security checkpoint of the future.

9:57 pm

The TSA’s security checkpoint of the future.

After checking their luggage, passengers would identify themselves not with driver’s licenses and paper boarding passes, but by scanning fingerprints or irises to prove they have an electronic ticket. Passengers would walk with their carry-ons through a screening tunnel, where they’d undergo electronic scrutiny — replacing what now happens at as many as three different stops as they’re scanned for metal objects, non-metallic items and explosives. …

If screeners notice anything suspicious, a passenger would still be pulled aside and possibly patted down.

There’s a lot more. Read it all. For example, there’s this quote:

The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage.

I call this Orwell’s 1984 come to life, a totalitarian’s dream and a free person’s nightmare. Once in place, what’s to prevent this from spreading to all phases of life? Nothing. You give government this kind of power and it will use it, and that use will not be for your benefit, but for the government’s benefit alone.

I fear that freedom is dying, one security checkpoint at a time.

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The empty bench of the Democratic Party.

4:03 pm

The empty bench of the Democratic Party.

In comparing the potential Presidential candidates from both the Democrat and Republican parties, this article leaves one with the impression that the future is definitely not with the Democratic Party. As admitted by its own membership, its leadership is old, it has very few candidates with national stature, and the depth of the party is shallower than a pond in Tucson in summer. Meanwhile, the Republicans have many young new faces that already have national standing.

Though the article likes to blame this situation on internal forces within the parties, I see it as the result of actual elections and the circumstances of the time. The Democrats have increasingly appeared bankrupt when it comes to dealing with today’s fundamental problems, especially the out-of-control spending of government at all levels. Meanwhile, Republican candidates, especially those associated with the tea party movement, have come forward with some fresh, reasonable, and thoughtful ideas for dealing with these problems.

Faced with such a choice, it is not surprising that the Republicans have a deep bench compared to the Democrats.

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The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.

3:09 pm

Progress: The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.

Considering the federal debt, this is a reasonable cut, as a $7 billion budget would be comparable to the EPA’s budget numbers in the early 2000s, and would hardly cripple that agency.

On a more depressing note, the Senate is moving forward on a bi-partisan deal to pass a massive farm bill, loaded with pork that would spend almost a trillion dollars over the next decade.

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Eric Holder has retracted his false claim that the Bush administration had started the program allowing guns to be smuggled illegally to Mexico.

10:51 am

More Fast-and-Furious news: Eric Holder has retracted his false claim that the Bush administration had started the program allowing guns to be smuggled illegally to Mexico.

The Justice Department has retracted a second statement made to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During a hearing last week, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that his predecessor, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, had been briefed about gunwalking in Operation Wide Receiver. Now, the Department is retracting that statement and claiming Holder “inadvertently” made that claim to the Committee.

In other words, Holder has now admitted that he lied when he was testifying to Congress.

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President Obama today invoked executive privilege in order to withhold documents demanded by a House committee investigating the “Fast and Furious” gun scandal.

9:40 am

Cover up: President Obama today invoked executive privilege in order to withhold documents demanded by a House committee investigating the “Fast and Furious” gun scandal.

In related news, the union that represents Border Patrol agents called today for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder.

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According to FBI statistics released last week, violent crime has declined for the fifth year in a row, the 18th time in the last 20 years.

5:11 pm

More guns, less crime: According to FBI statistics released last week, violent crime has declined for the fifth year in a row, the 18th time it has declined in the last 20 years.

Facts are hard things. You can claim that more guns will cause more violent crime, but the facts remain what they are: Wherever there are gun control laws, crime is higher. Wherever people are allowed to own guns, crime goes down.

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