Category: Gummint

Question Answered

Bureaucracy, Gummint, Health

A Reader asks:

“Why do you always diss the UK’s National Health Service in your news roundups?  It’s not like we have anything like it.”

He’s referring to this sardonic comment under some catastrophe involving the above institution:

Basically — and even among a few otherwise-levelheaded conservative Murkins — a lot of people seem to wish that we had a similar institution (nationalized “free” health care) Over Here.

All I’m doing is simply pointing out the many and varied ways that such a system — even one like the much-vaunted NHS — can fuck up your life.

And that we should never.

Quiet Skies

Government Thugs, Surveillance Society

Apparently, Tulsi Gabbard is on the dreaded “SSSS” list:

This story began two weeks ago, when the former Hawaii congresswoman returned home after a short trip abroad. In airport after airport, she and her husband Abraham Williams encountered obstacles. First on a flight from Rome to Dallas, then a connecting flight to Austin, and later on different flights for both to cities like Nashville, Orlando, and Atlanta, their boarding passes were marked with the “SSSS” designation, which stands for “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” The “Quad-S” marker is often a sign the traveler has been put on a threat list, and Gabbard and Williams were forced into extensive “random” searches lasting as long as 45 minutes.

“It happened every time I boarded,” says Gabbard. The Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist tends to pack light, but no matter.

“I’ve got a couple of blazers in there, and they’re squeezing every inch of the entire collar, every inch of the sleeves, every inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, workout clothes, every inch of every piece of clothing.” Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller board of her suitcase, patting down every inch inside the liner. Gabbard was asked to take every piece of electronics out and turn each on, including her military phone and computer.

I suspect she’s on the SSSS list because of stuff like this:

Not having flown on any airline for many a year, I wouldn’t know if I was (still) on the SSSS list (story here and here) and it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing so anytime soon either.  But should I take to the Friendly  Quiet Skies again, it will be interesting to see if my inclusion has lapsed, so to speak.

I think I’ll pack the 1911 in my checked luggage, just for giggles.

And I wasn’t aware of this little thing.

Not THAT Disturbing

Government Thugs, Law and Order

Via Insty I see this interesting news:

Police departments throughout the United States have stopped sharing information with the FBI due a “disturbing loss of trust” in the Bureau, an alarming new whistleblower report has found.

The scathing report listed ten key findings that have dire national security and public safety implications:
1. Local law enforcement officers do not trust the FBI 
2. No more actionable, substantive information sharing with the FBI 
3. FBI National Academy graduates are troubled by bias 
4. Crisis of confidence in FBI-led task forces 
5. The FBI is isolated and unresponsive to local law enforcement 
6. Local law enforcement officers feel disrespected by FBI special agents 
7. Today’s tone-deaf FBI disregards the value of retired FBI special agents 
8. The new generation of sub-standard FBI special agents 
9. FBI management is too transitory and obsessed with self-promotion
10. The FBI’s cult of narcissism begins at the FBI Academy.

The headline to the piece calls this “disturbing”, but I consider it “unsurprising”.

Unlike the oh-so supercilious Fibbies, you see, local LEOs have to live with their communities, are answerable to them and can be kicked out of office at the polling booth.

If I were a local cop in, say, north Texas I’d tell Teh Fibs to take a fucking hike if they came snooping around.

Which is what erstwhile Collin County Sheriff Terry Box (PBUH) said at a press conference when asked how he felt about a federal civilian disarmament program:

“They’ll have to come through my deputies first.”

Note:   not “they would” (subjunctive), “they will” (declarative).

So why are we “disturbed” by the news above?

Many A True Word

Taxes and Theft

Last week I created this snarky meme after the Labour Party won the general election in Britishland:

And it was meant to be a bitter joke.  (The tarty redhead is Labour’s Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner).  So imagine my interest when this little snippet appeared in the news a few days later:

How to protect your money if Labour mounts an inheritance tax raid on pensions

Pensions, for example, have been a safe haven for those who want to pass on their wealth without the taxman taking a cut. And millions of people have ploughed money into their retirement savings with this in mind. But even this last bastion could now fall into the clutches of inheritance tax.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged by policy wonks to consider an inheritance tax raid on pension pots, amid rising pressure to meet public spending targets. Leading think tanks have told her the move could raise up to £2 billion a year in takings from grieving families.

So, as the title of this post suggests, sometimes the jest turns into reality.

Basically, the takeaway is this:  any chance the Communists can get to steal your money and / or property, they’ll grab it in their greedy little claws.

When The Hatred Surges

Gummint, Mocking Furriners, Watermelons

Not talking about our local Commies and their HitlerTrump bullshit here.  Nope, we have to go Over There to see a bunch of gummint types having their asses handed to them by the voters, for once.

The Labour government’s decision to scrap its blanket 20mph speed limits in Wales just a year after they were introduced has sparked hope for the rest of the UK. 

Wales’ Transport Secretary Ken Skates admitted the policy was so unpopular even his own family had signed the petition against it.

This despite all the assurances that a 20mph (!!!!) speed limit would do so much to combat Global Cooling Climate Warming Change©.  Of course it wouldn’t (and won’t), just as our own imposition of a 55mph highway speed limit did nothing of the sort either.

I suppose retraction is better than a public hanging, after all — although that may be a contentious issue all by itself, especially among Stout Bulldogs of my acquaintance Over There.  (The Englishman, for one, is especially fond of the “heads on pikes” approach to curbing government excess.)

Now we’ll see if the Welsh example spreads to other Brit municipalities of similar stupidity.  But I wouldn’t count on it.