Most of you are probably aware of the ongoing drama, but the end of the article caught my eye:
The White House referred questions on the issue to the Pentagon, which referred questions to the U.S. Embassy in South Korea, which deferred back to the State Department.
That is your government hard at work!
Make it a stiff one.
Hyperinflation
If there is one thing the Obama Administration could do that would end up handing control of both houses of Congress to the Republicans, this was it.
Running a winning
presidential campaign is tough, and sort of self-selecting: if you can win, presumably you and the people around you are capable of imposing order on the vast federal bureaucracy as well (which, at this point, constitutes governing). That nobody in the White House saw fit to stop EPA from trying TO BAN AMMUNITION, of all things, (or to stop CBD from filing the petition in the first place) speaks volumes to the actual incompetence wandering those halls. At least force EPA to delay consideration of it until after the election? Anybody? Bueller?
Really, you thought there was a wave of energized folks voting R, well, there are still lots more who won’t get off their asses even in November 2010 — but this just might get even them out to vote.
I mean, how beautiful a misstep can this be? The lead-ammo ban proposal is locked into the regulatory process, so I doubt the Administration can stop it with a phone call at this point. The Stupid Party should be riding this one into the ground as hard as possible and putting it away wet; all candidates taking R money should be required to spout a line at every appearance about how “Obama is using EPA to ban ammunition! It’s happening right now as I speak!” every day until the comment period ends – which just so happens to be the week before Election Day.
I’m not talking dollars here.
Yesterday, Uncle posted about the guy folks are calling The Ice Man. Douglas Kaynor was making plastic pop bottles pop in his backyard using dry ice. His neighbor complained, the police arrived and Kaynor is now facing 10 charges in federal court.
In an eerily similar new case, two bartenders who do tricks like breath fire and juggle liquor bottles were arrested in Chicago for…. wait for it…. breathing fire and juggling liquor bottles. They face 45 years each for what they have been employed by the bar owner to do for a decade.
I guess I must have missed which bill Obama signed that gave the power of arrest to the Fun Police.
Second story link found @ Bill Quick’s
The “most open and transparent government, ever” just got another new FOIA proof agency.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities.” Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
This is what we get when the public puts up with lawmakers who pass laws before reading them.
Government, run by the Democratic Party, takes over GM & Chrysler. Determines that both corporations have too many dealership franchises.
Government, run by the Democratic Party, uses racism and sexism to decide which dealerships to shut down.
Government, run by the Democratic Party, shuts down Lakes Family Auto Center, owned by Alan Silberberg.
Alan Silberberg vacates the building, leaving this message on the street front window.
When President Obama saw that he couldn’t get the Cap & Tax bill through Congress for him to sign, he directed his minions in the EPA to make up some guidelines on CO2 emmissions which magically because “New Regulations”.
Card Check also failed to get out of Congress, so guess what
Under the card check scheme included as part of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the (NLRB) would be required to certify a union without a secret ballot election once labor representatives obtained signatures from 51 percent of a company’s workforce. In practice, this means workers would no longer have the opportunity to debate the merits of a particular union and to cast their votes in private. Moreover, union bosses would be in control of the cards and would know who signed for and against representation.
Thanks to a well-coordinated and aggressive communications campaign organized through free market organizations, the public became privy to the anti-democratic features of card check before it could advance through Congress. Polls have consistently shown that over 50 percent of Americans surveyed oppose efforts to replace the use of secret ballots in unionization elections. Moreover, several Democratic Senators, most notably Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, have signaled that they will not support the bill.
Unfortunately, the public’s elected representatives may not have the final say where labor policy is concerned. Craig Becker, a recess appointee to the NLRB with strong ties to organized labor, has made it clear that he favors taking administrative action without congressional approval.
Brett McMahon, a representative with Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) who is also vice president of Miller & Long, a Maryland-based concrete construction company, suspects that Team Obama is now “going for broke” on behalf of their union benefactors. Electronic voting devices could be used to compromise anonymity and open the way for coercive techniques.
“You have to be very careful with election records because it means there’s a time and date and it’s possible that you could match who a person is with their vote,” he warned. “We also don’t know how e-voting is going to be monitored. The NLRB could just spring these electronic devices for use in elections without any safeguards.”
In a letter addressed to NLRB members, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation argued that the board could not field enough agents to properly monitor electronic voting. Moreover, union organizers would be free to pressure workers into voting on Blackberries, laptops and notebooks in full view without privacy, the letter suggested.
And just like the new CO2 regs, this will be sold to the public as “for your own good”.
Treating those they’re serving as if they’re children has taken on a whole new meaning.
Elmhurst officials are considering creating a “disturbance and disorderly conduct” violation after a resident accused of rolling her eyes and sighing was ejected from a public meeting.
City Attorney Don Storino has been directed by the city’s finance and council affairs committee to look at various sources including “Robert’s Rules of Order,” Illinois state statutes and policies adopted by other municipalities for a legal definition of disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior.
And if they find anywhere that does have a law against rolling your eyes and sighing at city officials, they should nuke it first and follow up with doing the same to this podunk burg immediately thereafter.
I wonder if she’d have been giving them the stink eye, would they have had her tazered?
