Because Shut Up

A surgeon in Minnesota—and actual, licensed doctor, one who practices and not a government bureaucrat who happens to have a medical degree—spoke in favor of individual choice and especially of parental choice regarding their children on the matter of Wuhan Virus restrictions.

He did so publicly, too. Worse, he said it to a school board, one of those fonts of Know Better wisdom.

Dr Jeffrey Horak, a surgeon in Minnesota, told the Fergus Falls school board on October 11 that parents should make the decision about whether or not their children wear masks.

And he was fired for being so impudent. After all, the received wisdom from those bureaucrats who got a medical degree some while back held otherwise and that wisdom must be accepted by the unwashed masses, including those ignorant parents.

The Lake Region Healthcare hospital, his ex-employer, insisted he was fired because his views were no longer congruent with the hospital’s.

In other words, because shut up.

The hospital managers expounded on that. From their spokesman:

To be clear, this was a decision that was made by Dr Horak’s peers who serve on the Medical Group Board, not by Lake Region Healthcare[.]

Finger-pointing and blame-shifting regarding who did the canceling.

In this fashion, too, because shut up.

Pay No Attention to the Woman Behind the Curtain

That’s the mantra of Progressive-Democrats, who are enthusiastically supportive of President Joe Biden’s (D) nominee for Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova.

Ms Omarova wants to put an “‘end to banking’ as we know it”—again, her words—and transfer private banking functions to the Federal Reserve, where accounts would “fully replace” private bank deposits. The Fed would control “systemically important prices” for fuel, food, raw materials, metals, natural resources, home prices and wages.

And, she says

the Fed should be remade into what she calls “The People’s Ledger.”

And

She calls for “reimagining” the role of central banks “as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a modern economy.”

But ignore those calls for Soviet finance controls. She’s the lady the Progressive-Democrats want to inflict on us.

Shut up about that flapping curtain; vote her up.

Zeroing In

That’s what the Biden-Harris administration claims is all it wants to do with its “new and improved” personal bank account monitoring scheme.

…banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions would be required to report annually on accounts with deposits and withdrawals worth more than $10,000….

Here’s Biden-Harris’ Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen:

Today’s new proposal reflects the administration’s strong belief that we should zero in on those at the top of the income scale who don’t pay the taxes they owe, while protecting American workers by setting the bank account threshold at $10,000 and providing an exemption for wage earners like teachers and firefighters

Because some American workers are more equal than others of us, and so more deserving of protection from this government spying.

On top of that is the Biden-Harris/Yellen disingenuousness and that of their Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate that this is solely about tracking down those Evil Rich Tax Dodgers. Even at $10,000, though, those Evil Ones would need hundreds, if not thousands, of bank accounts to get down to sizes even approaching that $10k threshold. No, this move remains centered on the prurient interest those peopling our government have in the private doings of us common citizens.

After all, rather than spying on those of us average Americans of whom this administration disapproves (remember how narrow the “exemption” really is), the government could simply audit those Evil Rich individuals. No peeking in windows necessary that way.

Besides, I have it on good authority that the men and women in our government already know what income has gone unreported and how much tax is owed. From that, those worthies also already know where that missing income is and who owes it. If anyone.

Domestic Spy

That’s what Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seems to see as his primary job: spying on his employees, prying into their personal medical status.

The US Department of Homeland Security is seeking proposals for a new system that will allow it to track the biometric data of its workers in order to monitor their physical and mental well-being.

Government tracking of Americans’ biometric data. This is the Biden-Harris Surveillance State—rest assured that if this is allowed to go forward, it will spread rapidly to all the rest of Government—complementing the administration’s already radically expanded and expanding (see their reconciliation bill and it’s a priori amendment, their “infrastructure” bill) Administrative State.

Here’s a thought, admittedly inconceivable to Progressive-Democrats, but plainly obvious to us average Americans: improve the physical and mental well-being of those workers—and the rest of the folks involved in law enforcement in any milieu—by giving those workers the tools and support they need actually to enforce our laws. Stop denigrating them, stop defunding them, stop telling them to enforce only some laws, and those only partially.

The cognitive dissonance that results from being told to do a job, but don’t do it, from doing a job and then being castigated for doing it, can be devastating. And no biometric data collection, no snooping into personal medical situations, is needed for that.

Paranoia Strikes Deep

President Joe Biden’s (D) Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, is at it again.

She’s defending the plan, buried in the Progressive-Democrats’ reconciliation bill, to snoop into all of our deposit accounts to collect data on each of our transactions of $600 or more. In a CBS News interview, cited by Fox Business, Yellen had this:

…there are “individuals” the IRS does not receive enough information about.
“Look, the big picture is that we have a tax gap that over the next decade is estimated at $7 trillion,” she continued. “Namely, a shortfall in the amount that the IRS is collecting due to a failure of individuals to report the income that they have earned.”

And,

But high-income individuals with opaque sources of income that are not reported to the IRS, there’s a lot of tax fraud and cheating that’s going on….

If she’s not getting enough information on what folks have earned, what information is she using to support her allegation of underreporting? She doesn’t say.

Her “tax gap” is estimated at $7 trillion. Estimated by whom? She doesn’t say.

[A] lot of tax fraud and cheating that’s going on. Based on what evidence does she make this claim of this magnitude of cheating and fraud? She doesn’t say.

Most likely, there is a measure, even a significant measure, of tax cheating and fraud. But when it comes to individuals—including members of the Left’s hated rich and successful—speculation must give way to facts and specific achievements. Beyond that, these allegations of tax cheating and fraud are allegations of crimes, and to investigate these, including snooping into personal or business financial matters, specific probable cause must be demonstrated before a judge and warrants must issue before the snooping can be done.

Absent hard data that we all can see, this preemptive snooping that Progressive-Democrats want to do is simply borne of paranoia.

Into their hearts it has creeped.