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.

Inconsistent, or…?

Have vaccine proof, will travel.

The Biden administration plans to lift travel restrictions for international travelers…who will need to be fully vaccinated and show proof of vaccination.

No, it’s duplicitous of the Biden-Harris administration. Illegal aliens can stream across the border with or without vaccination, but honest travelers are restricted to proof of vaccination.

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.

Grudge-Holding

A Wisconsin child has been one of the unlucky few who caught the Wuhan Virus, seemingly from an unmasked classmate who had symptoms of…something. The boy caught the virus even though he was wearing a mask himself (which is indicative of the effectiveness of masks, but that’s for another post).

The school in question had had its mask mandate lifted ‘way last May by the district’s school board, and now the ill child’s parents are suing the school district over the matter.

The parents’ suit is being bankrolled by the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, which brewing company is owned by Kirk Bangstad.

Bangstad is running his grudge with this move. He’s already been vocal about

his frustrations about how former President Trump’s administration responded to the pandemic.

Payback’s a bitch, and Bangstad is trying to be one, too.

Dismissive Disingenuousness

Recall that some Alaskan-harvested fish, 26 million pounds of them, had been stranded in eastern Canada, just a few hundred yards from American fish-processing plants, because President Joe Biden’s (D) Customs and Border Protection managers threatened $41 million in penalties on fish handlers if those fish moved down a 100 yard railroad line into Maine, as the Jones Act explicitly allows.

Biden’s CBP managers decided that those 100 yards didn’t satisfy the Act (or Biden’s and those managers’ whims) after decades of the ride having been entirely satisfactory.

Federal Judge Sharon Gleason issued a temporary injunction against those and any further CBP penalties, allowing the fish to move.

What’s telling about this incident, though, is this statement that the Biden-Harris administration argued in court [emphasis added]:

…an injunction wasn’t needed, because food supply chains had already begun to adjust. “Within days of CBP issuing notices of penalties in this matter the movement of Russian-origin frozen seafood from the Bayside facility began.”

Maybe this isn’t dismissiveness or disingenuousness. Maybe it’s more of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s collusion with Russia.