Tag Archives: government

Another DoJ Failure

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DoJ has fined a business in Maryland $300,000 because it asked its employees for particular items of documentation as proof of citizenship or legal resident alien status instead of accepting the generic sets of documents that “Federal law” allows. Per DoJ,

Federal law allows workers to choose which valid, legally acceptable documentation to present to demonstrate their identity and permission to work, regardless of citizenship, immigration status, or national origin.

Regardless of…immigration status. So a company wants to be careful that it’s hiring legal workers by applying tighter standards to its own workforce, and DoJ objects. ‘Course if the company is caught with illegal aliens in its employ—that regardless of immigration status part—it could lose its license to operate.

But never mind.

Cashless Bail and Flight Risk

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Illinois has passed its cashless bail law, euphemistically styled the SAFE-T Act (Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act—how cute, how misleading). This is a law that will allow lots of suspects accused of violent crimes to walk without even needing a hearing—an Illinois magistrate can simply release the suspect, functionally, on his own word that he’ll appear in court when called to do so.

Supporters of the law, set to take effect at the beginning of next year, point out it does not prohibit detention and that anyone deemed a flight risk can be detained.

This is as cynical as it is disingenuous.

The degree of flight risk isn’t the only factor that should be used in assessing bail amounts; it isn’t even the most important. What’s central to bail consideration, or should be central, is the nature of the crime alleged and the degree of risk to the people in the local community from having the accused walking free among them.

A man accused of a violent crime needn’t flee in order to commit (further) violent crimes; indeed, most crimes (like politics) are local. And now he has a collection of targets in the local area against whom to commit further violence: witnesses against him, and their families.

“Misunderstanding” of the Left

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A number of credit card companies, on the demand of the Federal government as washed through the International Standards Organization, are going to start explicitly listing gun sales by lawful gun stores to individual average Americans. Among those credit card companies are Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx.

The Federal government now is going to track us average Americans and build a database of who among us has a firearm.

For what purpose?

…gun control advocates who argue that a separate category for gun store sales will help track suspicious quantities of firearm sales that could potentially lead to a mass shooting.

Because buying a firearm is ipso facto suspicious under the ideology of the Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party. But wait—suspicious quantities—what’s wrong with that? This is the camel’s nose. It won’t be long before the Feds decide that one is a suspicious number of firearms to buy. And then one is a suspicious number of firearms to own.

The concern of us average Americans is justified by this misleading claim by New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) as he demonstrates his “misunderstanding” of the tracking.

When you buy an airline ticket or pay for your groceries, your credit card company has a special code for those retailers. It’s just common sense that we have the same policies in place for gun and ammunition stores[.]

Buying “guns and ammunition” is an explicitly protected activity under our Constitution. Buying firearms—keeping and bearing Arms—is an entirely unique activity for us average Americans, quite apart from the ordinary, day to day, activity of grocery buying, or the process of buying a travel ticket. There is no reason to track Americans going about our Constitutionally protected behaviors.

Other than identifying who has firearms for further Progressive-Democrat “control.” This is another effort of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s desired surveillance state.

Just the News Has a Question

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The news outlet ran a poll over the weekend. The question was this:

How concerned are you that additional IRS funding through the Inflation Reduction Act will lead to more audits for typical taxpayers?

As of Sunday morning, the enormously unscientific poll—consisting solely of JtN readers—was running 96% Extremely concerned.

Keep in mind that the IRS has been targeting Conservatives and conservative organizations at least since early in the Obama administration (if not sooner; that’s just when it became exposed).

Keep in mind, too, that Progressive-Democratic Party politicians, since Obama’s first Presidential campaign, have characterized typical taxpayers as merely bitter Bible- and gun-clinging denizens of flyover country, as irredeemable and deplorable, as 15% of us being just no good.

How is this even a question?

Term Limits

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There are a number of term limits proposals on offer regarding politicians.

Then, as James Sherk pointed out in his Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed,

Career employees fill almost all federal jobs. Only 4,000 of the 2.2 million federal employees are political appointees. Career federal employees consequently do almost all the work of government.

Here’s my term limits offer, this one regarding civil servants/career federal employees—and I’d apply it to Federal contract employees, also.

Term limit all of them—say 10 years—and after that term, they’d no longer be eligible for Federal employment in any guise whatsoever. That won’t actually hurt them: with the valuable experience of those 10 years of government employment under their belts, they’ll have no problem finding employment on the private economy.

One more limit: cap Federal civilian employment at one million, including individual contractors. Only the uniformed military should have no cap, but should remain sized to the threat faced.

Think, too, what that would do for us taxpayers, who are on the hook for those already enormous government pensions.

A limit on initial eligibility: a minimum of 10 years of employment in the private sector, unrelated to government work, in order to be eligible for Federal employment or contract work. Yes, that includes entry level secretaries/administrative assistants.