Why do they need them? Homeland Security has purchased almost 3000 armored vehicles and has had them retrofitted for use on the American streets.
Another chance at killing Obamacare in the Supreme Court?
More reporters admit to being threatened by the White House.
What is shameful about this is how willing these reporters — some of whom are quite powerful — to tolerate this abusive, intolerant, and even oppressive behavior from this White House. Imagine if an official in the Bush White House had done the same? Would these same reporters have simply shrugged their shoulders and made believe it didn’t matter? Not on your life.
In other words, these mainstream reporters are nothing more than boot-licking lackeys for Obama and the Democratic Party. They will tolerate any abuse in order to support their liberal policies and to remain their friends.
The censoring of Google maps, by Google and governments.
This is a complex issue, described in great detail by the article. Very much worth reading.
Pigs fly! An environmental report by the Obama administration has admitted that the Keystone oil pipeline would do little environmental damage.
Finding out what’s in it: The Obama administration today released more than 700 pages of new regulations to implement parts of Obamacare.
Won’t it be nice to have to deal with the equivalent of the Motor Vehicle Administration whenever you have to see your doctor in the future?
To me, the most irritating thing about this might not be the law itself, but having to hear people who voted for Obama complain about it. And they will complain. Everyone will. I guarantee it.
Pushback: The boycott by gun and ammo manufacturers of anti-gun states has now grown to over 100.
The Obama administration has every incentive to make the sky fall, lest we suffer that terrible calamity — cuts the nation survives. Are they threatening to pare back consultants, conferences, travel and other nonessential fluff? Hardly. It shall be air-traffic control. Meat inspection. Weather forecasting.
A 2011 Government Accountability Office report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 (!) on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100 billion-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester.
Are these on the chopping block? No sir. It’s firemen first. That’s the phrase coined in 1976 by legendary Washington Monthly editor Charlie Peters to describe the way government functionaries beat back budget cuts. Dare suggest a nick in the city budget, and the mayor immediately shuts down the firehouse. The DMV back office, stacked with nepotistic incompetents, remains intact. Shrink it and no one would notice. Sell the firetruck — the people scream and the city council falls silent about any future cuts.
After all, the sequester is just one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall.
The only reason sequestration will cause a shut down of government services will because Barack Obama and his administration choose to do so. Keep that in mind if you discover that lines at the airport have suddenly grow to hours.
A wonderful montage of people refusing to answer questions at Border Patrol checkpoints.
I’ve embedded the montage below the fold. I especially like the one near the end, where the man driving the motor home expressly tells the officer that he is not exiting his vehicle and that they are not getting inside without a warrant. The officer eventually has to back down because that is exactly right: without a warrant they have no right to search his vehicle.
The best however is the last.
» Read more
We’re here to help you: Homeland Security seizes a man’s boat because they made an error on his custom’s paperwork.
That he eventually got it back is completely beside the point.
We are doomed: A new poll finds that the public opposes cuts to virtually all types of spending.
We can make believe we can keep spending as we have, but reality always wins.
Finding out what’s in it: Because of the cost of Obamacare, employers are dropping healthcare coverage for spouses.
By denying coverage to spouses, employers not only save the annual premiums, but also the new fees that went into effect as part of the Affordable Care Act. This year, companies have to pay $1 or $2 “per life” covered on their plans, a sum that jumps to $65 in 2014. And health law guidelines proposed recently mandate coverage of employees’ dependent children (up to age 26), but husbands and wives are optional.
Doesn’t this make you feel safer? The TSA detained a wheelchair-bound three-year-old girl, took away her stuffed doll, and refused to allow the parents to videotape the child’s pat down. Videotape at the link.
It is necessary for more people to challenge these thugs. (I don’t care that the agents in the video tried to be polite to the mother, they were still acting like brainless thugs.)
If it’s the government it’s okay to steal your property.
Pushback: A boycott by firearms companies against states that pass gun control laws appears to be growing.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, seven million people — twice the number previously predicted — will lose their health insurance under Obamacare.
February 23, 2013: A day of resistance.
The Democratic Party leaders in New Mexico have announced that an agreement over spaceport liability has been reached with Virgin Galactic.
This might be good, but with no details released and all the statements coming from politicians of only one party it is reasonable to wonder how serious it is and whether this announcement is merely a bargaining ploy.
Finding out what’s in it: Electronic medical records — required by Obamacare — are costing doctors time while taking them away from their patients.
Probably the biggest problem with electronic records is simply that it requires the physician to input all notes and orders, rather than dictate them. As a result, as my bride puts it, “they’ve taken the highest paid person in the department and turned him/her into a data entry clerk”. On average, she and her colleagues spend more time per patient wading through drop-down menus, clicking boxes and filling in required but utterly irrelevant information than they do at the bedside, actually treating the patient. In short, it’s her experience that they see fewer patients per shift than they did previously, and spend less time with each one, now that they are required to sit down at a computer after seeing each patient and jumping through hoops to place orders instead of, as previously, simply telling the nurse what is needed and then moving on to the next patient. [emphasis mine]
Have you noticed in your recent visits to the doctor how the doctor seems to be spending his entire visit with you staring at his laptop, typing continuously as you talked? I have. Say goodbye to simplicity in the medical field. The future shall be complex bureaucracy and less medical treatment.
Finding out what’s in it: A Pennsylvania hospital has decided to stop delivering babies because of Obamacare.
The detail that “obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices” suggests once again that doctors are reacting negatively to Obamacare and are deciding in large numbers to get out of the business because of it.
Birds of a feather: James Hansen, activist global warming scientist, teams up with leftwing Occupy Wall Street.
Hansen gave a lecture this morning to OWS, detailing “the harsh realities of the climate emergency and what needs to be done to address it.” I would love to see some footage, as I expect what he advocated was harsh government regulation, to great applause.
The rise of fascism: A new study has found that five Gulf Coast states have so many vague environmental laws that anyone who does anything outdoors can be found guilty of something.
And it has happened. Read the article.
Then there’s this good news: “Any federal regulation enacted by Congress or executive order…offending the constitutional rights of my citizens will not be enforced by me or my deputies.”
Update: A second Oregon sheriff has joined the first in declaring he will not enforce any federal regulation that violates the Constitution.
The law is for little people: David Gregory will not be prosecuted.
This despite the fact that the D.C. Attorney General even admits that Gregory clearly broke the law.
This travesty more than anything demonstrates how pointless these laws are. Gregory waved a high capacity magazine on camera to illustrate the need to ban such items, even though he was doing so in a place, Washington, D.C., where such magazines were already banned. Not only did Gregory prove the law was stupid, the decision not to prosecute him proves that the law exists merely for political reasons. It is used only when it benefits the powers in control. Gregory is on the side of gun control, so of course he gets a pass. Innocent gun owners and supporters of gun rights who happen to be caught traveling in DC with such a banned item, however, can expect jail time.
The competition heats up: An official of SpaceX announced today that the company plans on its first manned launch by 2015, and that the astronauts will be its employees, not NASA’s.
Back when the shuttle program was still alive and NASA astronauts could have applied political pressure to keep it running, some said they should, if only to save their jobs. They did not, and instead toed the party line and supported the shuttle’s retirement even though no replacement was even close to being operational.
How’s that working out for you, guys, eh?
The truth is that there is no justification any longer for the astronaut corp at NASA. They have no vehicle, and any future space vehicle is going to be built and operated by others who will chose their own pilots.
The part-timing of America: An Omaha-based chain of fast food restauants has decided to cut the hours of all non-management employees workers’ hours to part time in order to avoid the costs of Obamacare.
And they voted for it! Under Obamacare health insurance rates for young adults will skyrocket 40 percent next year, according to a new study.
Surprise surprise! To avoid Obamacare, companies are cutting back, turning more employees into part-timers while also refusing to hire new employees.
And we’ve only just begun. The cost of this bad law is so high it will squelch everything it touches.
