Conflict of Interest

Posted on 5 November 2013 by eehines

…or just rank cynicism by a Progressive Know Better government?

President Obama on Wednesday defended his signature health care law in a speech from Boston, saying that people who are losing their insurance plans because of the law should start shopping around for better coverage.

Never mind that these people already had good enough coverage, by definition: it’s the coverage these folks had bought voluntarily. But President Barack Obama has a solution for all those folks being dumped, willy-nilly, into the market for insurance: shop in his newly opened ObamaMart store.

And

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A Thought on a Judicial Shutdown

Posted on 18 October 2013 by eehines

Somewhat moot, with a bill to reopen the government having been passed and signed into law Wednesday night, but the subject is useful in its own right. During the shutdown, the courts were at a real risk of running out of funds and having to shut down.

Fed up with the shutdown and sequester budget cuts, judges are mounting a “work-in.”

More than two dozen federal courts have avoided furloughs by designating all of their staff essential….

Those two dozen include the Appellate Court of the 2^nd Circuit.

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Another Reason to Shoot Down Drones

Posted on 2 August 2013 by eehines

Deer Trail, CO, is looking at passing an ordinance allowing its residents to shoot down drones. It seems those good folks have a proper disdain for government fishing expeditions masquerading as “surveillance.”

But it’s not just the government that’s intruding objectionably.

When Tina Turner got married at her estate in Switzerland over the weekend, she wanted to keep paparazzi away. But photographers used drones and other aircraft to get the exclusives they [wanted].

And [emphasis added]

Drones are gradually becoming established in Germany as a tool of photographers and television crews…. Drones are cheaper and quieter than helicopters and can be navigated unnoticed over gardens or in front of windows.

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Some Thoughts on Citizenship

Posted on 2 August 2013 by eehines

…by Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a recent speech at the Chautauqua Institute [emphasis mine; deeper indents are Cohen quoting Kennedy].

[T]he Justice asked his audience to pretend first that “you are a government official, bound by the Constitution…. You’ll be a judge, a federal judge.” Next, he told the audience, “assume this…you may not like it…but assume that you as a personal matter strongly reject:

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Education the Obama Way

Posted on 29 July 2013 by eehines

In President Barack Obama’s shiny object speech at the University of Central Missouri last week, he talked some about our education system, the obstructiveness of Evil Republicans in not letting Obama have his way on education-related matters, and the politics of the matter. He also said this:

Our kids don’t care about politics.

Isn’t that a terrible indictment of the Obama Education System?

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Spinning

Posted on 26 July 2013 by eehines

From the National Republican Congressional Committee, and on the heels of President Barack Obama’s latest Presidential Bull on the economy, comes this compilation of the…pivots…that Obama has made during his administration.

“Obama Aims to Shift Focus To Boosting Jobs, Economy” (Wall Street Journal, 7/18/13)
“Obama Pivots to Jobs Tour at End of Scandal Filled Week” (ABC News, 5/18/13)
“Obama’s Texas Trip An Attempt To Refocus On Jobs, Economy” (Washington Times, 5/8/13)
“Obama: State Of The Union To Focus On Jobs” (USA Today, 2/8/13)
“Obama Turns To Congress For Jobs Help” (The New York Times, 6/1/12)

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2nd Amendment Denial, Personal Type

Posted on 23 July 2013 by eehines

Following a request from the FBI, the Sanford Police Department reported Thursday that it has halted its plan to return George Zimmerman’s gun and other pieces of evidence used at his murder trial.

Never mind that Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges, and so the State of Florida has no grounds for refusing to return to him his property and no grounds for withholding from him his concealed carry permit.

Never mind that the same FBI that asked the SPD to retain Zimmerman’s property has already completed an extensive investigation into Zimmerman’s racial bias as part of a general investigation into the man prior to his arrest and trial, finding no hint of racial bias.

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They Don’t Get It, Local Edition

Posted on 21 July 2013 by eehines

In an article about police’s increasingly routine use of automatic scanners,

which can be affixed to police cars, bridges, or building to amass millions of digital records on the location and movement of vehicles…includ[ing] such details as location and license plate numbers[,]

comes this little tidbit.

The Mesquite Police Department, in Texas, has vehicle records stretching back to 2008, though the city plans to begin deleting files older than two years.

“There’s no expectation of privacy” for a vehicle driving on a public road or parked in a public place, said Lt Bill Hedgpeth, a police spokesman. It’s just a vehicle. It’s just a license plate.”

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Independence Day

Posted on 4 July 2013 by eehines

I posted this last year; it bears repeating.

On this day 236 years ago, a group of Americans got together and, pledging their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor to each other while relying on the protection of divine Providence, took our country free from tyranny and set us on a new, wholly experimental course.

These men openly acknowledged both our right and our duty to throw off any government that too badly violates its moral obligations to us sovereign citizens, that for too long abuses our liberties and our individual responsibilities. At the same time, though, they acknowledged that routinely rebelling at every small offense was equally wrong: Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Yet those light and transient offenses want correction along with those abuses and moral failures.

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Progressives and Democracy

Posted on 26 June 2013 by eehines

The Texas legislature, Monday morning, moved forward a bill to ban abortions after the 20^th week. The Progressives’Democrats’ behavior during the debate was—and will be, apparently—illuminating.

Democrats used parliamentary tactics to draw out the debate for 15 hours, pointing out technical mistakes in the process or trying to tack on amendments to fundamentally change the bill.

And

Congresswoman Jessica Farrar (D) gave a personal privilege speech decrying how the Republicans were manipulating the parliamentary process to rush it to a vote.

Never minding that the voting deadline was just hours off, while she and her colleagues were doing everything they could to prevent the vote being taken.

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