Tag Archives: government

Government-Run Medicine

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France provides its own example, after Great Britain’s NHS, of the nightmare that is Government medicine.  Consider France’s nursing folks homes and the nation’s red tape.

The few hours it took to give the first coronavirus vaccine shots to 14 residents of the John XXIII nursing home…took weeks of preparation.
The home’s director, Samuel Robbe, first had to chew his way through a dense 61-page vaccination protocol, one of several hefty guides from the French government that exhaustively detail how to proceed, down to the number of times (10) that each flask of vaccine should be turned upside down to mix its contents.
“Delicately,” the booklet stipulates. “Do not shake.”

And

After the European Union green-lighted use of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine in December, Robbe says it took two weeks to put together all the pieces to this week vaccinate 14 residents, just a fraction of his total of more than 100.

This is the level of red tape and speed of performance we can expect from Joe Biden’s Medicare for All demand. Especially since our Progressive-Democrats are as enamored of red tape as is the French government. All that coming American red tape, after all, represents Biden’s promise of “good union jobs,” here good Government union jobs.

Vive les syndicats. Vive la bureaucratie.

A Stolen Laptop

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Senator Jeff Merkley (D, OR), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Appropriations committees, has reported that his laptop was stolen from his office, ostensibly by the rioters who assaulted the Capital Building last Wednesday afternoon. (Ostensibly: frankly, I have no reason to doubt the fact of the theft or which member(s) of which crowd did the theft. However, the deed as theft and who did it remain unproven at this early stage of the investigation.)

Merkley also said he’d left his office unlocked while he went to the Senate floor for the Electoral College vote counting and debates. The importance of that will become clear below.

He apparently isn’t alone in this:

The Justice Department (DOJ) said Thursday during a briefing that “national security equities” may have been among the records stolen during the looting and destruction that stalled the congressional proceedings….

What’s not being reported in the NLMSM is the utter contempt these folks—possibly from both parties—have for our nation’s secrets, our classified information: they won’t even take the slightest pains to protect them.

A laptop unsecured in an unlocked office? Not even in locked away in a safe when the Senator isn’t around? An open office is all the security a Senator—a Senator experienced in handling classified materials, if only by his membership on a foreign relations committee—deems necessary?

Classified “equities” left unsecured in other offices?

How does that work, exactly?

Where are DoJ’s and DIA’s investigations into this manifest mishandling of classified material?

Hard to Tell the Difference

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In the aftermath of Wednesday afternoon’s events, the Progressive-Democrats already are blaming their political opponents rather than the thugs who assaulted the Capital Building. And calling for Republican heads to roll.

Ex-HUD Secretary Julian Castro:

@tedcruz is guilty of treason and must resign from the United States Senate.

Here’s Carrie Lam, Hong Kong Chief Executive:

[T]he opposition’s goal of objecting to every policy initiative of the government may fall into the category of subverting state power.

Hard to tell the difference.

So much for Progressive-Democrats’ calls for unity.

Keep in mind, too, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (D, NY) wish (since realized) for Progressive-Democrat control of the Senate so that, with Progressive-Democrats controlling all of Congress and the White House, there’d be no need to negotiate with Republicans. To Progressive-Democrats, “unity” means “do it our way and be quiet about it.”

Who Has the Power?

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The People’s Republic of China is reaching deep into Hong Kong to arrest—now more than 50—people who had the effrontery of running in opposition parties for the city’s legislative body or otherwise demurring from the city’s Chief Executive policies and those of the central government in Beijing.

Carrie Lam’s rationalization (paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal) of the arrests and of the law passed in order to effect the arrests is dispositive regarding the role of the people and of government in Hong Kong and in the PRC.

[T]he opposition’s goal of objecting to every policy initiative of the government may fall into the category of subverting state power.

Objecting to state policy is subverting state power.

Government’s role, says the PRC government, is to rule, and the people’s role is the subservient one: to obey.

It Only Took 50 Years

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Maybe. While it took us ignorant colonials only a decade, or so, to figure it out.

The eurozone has always had a fundamental weakness compared with the US when dealing with financial and economic crises: while its 19 countries share a currency and interest-rate policy, they have no common tax-raising or spending power.
In 2020, the European Union took a big step toward correcting that deficiency by starting to issue bonds on behalf of all member countries, known as common bonds. Beginning in 2021, some common bonds will be repaid through taxes raised by the EU itself.

That’s a one-off, but maybe it’s a first step and not a last one.

The lack of central taxing and spending power—and authority—was a Critical Item in the failure of the diplomatic concord that was our 13 States operating under their Articles of Confederation, and it took our Constitution to rectify the failure.

Of course, the EU still lacks the homogeneity of understanding of the role of government and of the purpose of money so necessary to the success of a polity that our original States, even under the Articles, had.

But, hey, baby steps. Maybe in another 50 years….