It’s all about power and control: The TSA has announced that it will no longer approve private airport screeners.
Today’s Dilbert strip says it all about the stupidity of the TSA.
Freedom wins! A man who was arrested for refusing to give his ID to TSA agents and videotaping his arrest has been acquitted of all charges. You can watch the videotape at the link. Also, more here.
Repeal the damn bill! The number of companies who have received waivers from ObamaCare has jumped from 222 to 729, and now exempts over two million employees.
If the bill was so great, why are more and more companies trying to get out of participating?
More government foolishness: A New York city lawmaker wants to ban the use of cell phones or any electronic devices while walking on the street.
Verizon filed a legal challenge on Thursday of the FCC’s attempt to establish net neutrality rules, taking their suit to the same federal court that last year ruled the FCC did not have the legal authority to do so.
The difficulties of doing business in the socialist state of Berkeley. Key quote:
When a planner working in design review looked at Dalrymple’s plans, she told her she didn’t think a black and white awning would fit in with the neighborhood, said Dalrymple. The planner didn’t give her any specific recommendations for a different color, but just nixed her idea. . . . “Rules aren’t written down anywhere,” said [Dan Marks, director of the Planning and Development Department]. “But the planner has worked in the neighborhood a long time and she knows what the neighborhood likes.” [emphasis mine]
Behind the curtain, a dictator: Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) said yesterday that he not only thinks that Congress has the power to make people buy insurance according to the Constitution, it is his obligation to force them to do so. In his own words:
“I think people should be required to get health insurance. We require people to get insurance for their automobile state by state but the federal government has an obligation to encourage by law, moral persuasion, to get people to get health insurance,”
Progress! By a vote of 245-189, with three Democrats joining all 242 Republicans, ObamaCare has been repealed in the House.
Here is the text of the bill to repeal Obamacare, as introduced today.
Good news for California gun-owners: A judge has ruled against the state’s new ammunition law. The law not only required purchasers of ammunition to provide their thumbprint, photo ID, birth date, and address, it also outlawed mail-order sales of pistol ammunition.
Repeal the damn bill! By large majorities, surveyed doctors believe that ObamaCare will hurt care quality and doctor pay. Key quote:
During the next 5 years, the quality of health care in this country will improve (18%) stay same (17%) deteriorate (65%).
The Affordable Care Act will result in physician reimbursement becoming more fair (9%) neither fair nor unfair (17%) less fair (74%).
Overall, the impact of the Affordable Care Act for patients will be positive (27%) neutral (15%) negative (57%).
Overall, the impact of the Affordable Care Act for physicians will be positive (8%) neutral (14%) negative (78%).
The confessions of a Greenpeace founder. Key quote:
The truth is Greenpeace and I had divergent evolutions. I became a sensible environmentalist; Greenpeace became increasingly senseless as it adopted an agenda that is anti-science, anti-business, and downright anti-human.
Other quotes of interest:
The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than with science or ecology.
And:
There is no cause for alarm about climate change. The climate is always changing. Some of the proposed “solutions” would be far worse than any imaginable consequence of global warming, which will likely be mostly positive. Cooling is what we should fear.
Man faces charges for defying TSA agents. Key quote:
“ What’s really at root in this case is whether travel is a right that we have under the Constitution – an ability to move about the country without having to show papers – which has been one of the defining characteristics of American freedom, “ Hasbrouck said.
The new TSA scanner procedure: Dumb in a new way. The quote below actually isn’t the point of the article (which notes other idiotic things about TSA procedures), but I found it telling nonetheless:
For the most part, it has been possible to avoid the scanners just by picking the right line to stand in, which I assume means that the government has determined that terrorists have poor line-picking skills.
TSA: Living on borrowed time? Key quote:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year. At TSA headquarters alone, there are 3,526 staff whose average salary tops $106,000. And while the TSA has gotten very good at groping airline passengers and undressing them with full body scans, the organization has yet to prevent a single terrorist attack. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation released last spring revealed that at least 17 known terrorists have been able to pass through TSA security totally unhindered. [emphasis mine]
A nation choking on endless laws. I like the subtitle for this article as well: “The rising dictatorship of the bureaucrats.”
Republicans kill House global warming committee.
Our government at work: City contractor mistakenly demolishes Pittsburgh man’s home.
Repeal the damn bill! Obamacare ends the construction of 45 doctor-owned hospitals.
Progress! The Republican bill to repeal ObamaCare is now online [pdf]. It’s only two pages long, and is bluntly titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.”
Want to know what airports are using the new backscatter body scanners, and thus avoid them? TSA Status has the answer.
Laws matter: The federal appeals court in Washington, DC, today blocked EPA’s takeover of Texas carbon-emmission regulation.
Repeal the damn bill! Maine has asked the Obama administration to be exempted from certain provisions of ObamaCare.
The pilot who was threatened by the TSA because of his YouTube video goes public.
Nor am I alone is wanting the damn bill repealed: Support for the repeal of ObamaCare remains at 60%.
Repeal the damn bill! Health plans for high-risk patients under ObamaCare are attracting fewer customers while costing far more than expected. Key quote:
Last spring, the Medicare program’s chief actuary predicted that 375,000 people would sign up by the end of 2010. In early November, the Health and Human Services Department reported that just 8,000 people had enrolled.
The war between Texas and the EPA over carbon-emission rules heats up.
The lawless Obama administration. Key quote:
Obama uses his control over Executive Branch agencies to do what Congress or the courts have forbidden. It’s worked, sometimes, for him over the past few years. But he’s out of time now: the GOP-led House can defund many of these efforts, even if it can’t put a stop to them completely.
Just so no one has any doubts, doing something that both Congress and the courts say is forbidden is breaking the law. And it appears that the Obama administration has a fetish for this sort of thing.
Maybe Shakespeare was right about lawyers: A San Francisco bookshop owner is being forced to close her store because of an ADA lawsuit.
