Tag Archives: regulation

Foolishness

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It interlaces with other foolishness, especially when it comes to government. For instance, in August 2021’s 7500 pages of regulatory bidness:

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a plan to protect the majestic White Bluffs bladderpod, a subspecies of scruffy plant that grows on a row of hills in one county of Washington state. Another subspecies is more common. The most distinctive difference, a state fact sheet says, is that one bladderpod has “stalked hairs,” while the other has “sessile, appressed hairs.”
The Federal Highway Administration, with happier news for Washington state, approved a plan to expand Interstate 405…between milepost 21.79 and milepost 27.06. Why does it take more than a year to approve 5.27 miles of road construction? The 2,269-page environmental review was published last July, and it conclusively showed that the new roadway will not pave over bladderpods.

This is one of the bottomless pits into which our governments—at any jurisdiction and of any party—toss our tax money.

Thought Police

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They’re metastasizing into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a guide to “inclusive language” in order to promote “health equity” and “inclusive communication.”

For instance, their “Corrections & Detentions” section “suggests”

replacing terms such as “Inmate,” “Prisoner,” “Convict/ex-convict,” and “Criminal” with terms such as “People/persons,” “Persons in pre-trial or with charge,” “Persons on parole or probation,” or “People in immigration detention facilities.”

The problem with euphemisms, though, is that they mean precisely the same as the word they’re intended to replace. Persons on parole or probation still are criminals. That’s the status of folks on parole or probation—they’re still criminals, felons, until they complete their sentences. People in immigration detention facilities remain illegal aliens—that’s why they’re being detained.

The substitutes may soften the language in a misguided attempt to disguise or obfuscate the facts, but that’s only a temporary condition, and the frankness of the underlying meaning ultimately (and quickly) comes through. That’s why there’s a constant search for euphemisms.

The problem with government agents—the men and women who populate government agencies—being the ones pushing for euphemisms is that their push becomes mandates, and government mandates are nothing more than restrictions on free speech, limits on one of our most basic individual liberties. When government agents presume to dictate how we must term concepts, they’re dictating how we must think about them.

Even the worthies in government know that. Which is maybe why they’re making their push.

Government Fiat

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This is what the Progressive-Democrats in charge of our Federal Government are plotting [sic] in the way of drug pricing under Medicare Part D (the drug provision of Medicare), per the Tax Foundation.

Under HR 3 [the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act], if drug manufacturers do not agree to participate in negotiations, or do not agree to the negotiated price, they would be subject to an escalating excise tax on the sale of the drug in question. The tax would kick in at 65 percent and would rise by 10 percentage points each 90 days the manufacturers are in “noncompliance,” reaching a maximum tax rate of 95%.

What “negotiation?” This is the price we’re negotiating for, says the Health and Human Services Secretary, the Government official that HR3 says will represent the Government.

Here’s our counteroffer, says the drug manufacturer.

No, no, that’s too high, says SecHHS, repeating his original offer. Then he says, Here’s your noncompliance tax.

This isn’t negotiation, yet that’s what will occur, with the Government holding all the cards. Targeted drug manufacturers and sellers would not even be allowed to opt out of Medicare under HR3.

The Tax Foundation is concerned about drug innovation, and rightly so.

I’m also concerned about the fate of free enterprise and of individual freedom.

Some SIV Questions

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A Just the News piece centered on plans to temporarily house 10,000 Afghan refugees at Ft. Bliss (assuming President Joe Biden (D) will deign move to help them escape in the first place) also had some information on how what requirements Afghanis must satisfy in order to be eligible for the Special Immigrant Visas that would allow them to enter the US.

  • worked with US military or through the Chief of Mission authority as translators or interpreters in Iraq or Afghanistan
  • provide a picture ID
  • proof of a US military background check
  • letter of recommendation
  • filing fee of $435
  • go through in-person interview at a US embassy or consulate

In the chaos of the collapse of Biden’s effort in Afghanistan—a chaos he’s said in plain terms that he knew would occur—and the parallel (!) collapse of Afghanistan, how will these Afghanis satisfy any of those criteria?

Where will they get the picture ID that having one of on their person puts them at immediate risk of butchery by Taliban thugs?

In what way will they prove the existence of a background check—especially in the face of the precipitous nature of Biden’s “retrograde?”

Where will they get those USD435—AFN37,500 and rising (as of 19 Aug) in the face of the Biden Retrograde?

At what US embassy or consulate will a prospective Afghani undergo his in-person interview?

What is Biden doing to reduce the already existing backlog of 10s of thousands of SIV applications already in his State Department’s pipeline?

What is Biden doing to streamline this cumbersome—even were all the pieces easily accessible—process?

It’s certainly critical that Afghan refugees be successfully sorted out from terrorists masquerading themselves as Afghan refugees before anyone is allowed into our nation, but it’s also clear that neither Biden nor anyone else in his Executive Branch (particularly his State and Defense Departments) are prepared to deal with this situation, or even are serious about catching up with their Afghan refugee crisis, much less their Afghanistan nation crisis.

Progressive-Democrat Controls over Individuals’ Lives

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Here are some of those controls that are buried deep within the bowels of the so-called infrastructure bill just rammed through the senate.

mandate for vehicle manufactures to install “drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as a standard feature inside of new vehicles

Because all of us are simply too grindingly stupid to make our own decisions about drinking and driving. This is amply proven by the one or two among us who are so stupid, so we all must pay the price.

create a vehicle miles traveled system for taxing drivers based on their annual vehicle mileage is hidden away in the bill’s section 13002, entitled “National motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot”

This also will create an opening for tracking where we go and who/what we visit in addition to tracking how we travel to get there.

grants select cabinet secretaries the authority to fully fund select infrastructure projects with taxpayer dollars by waiving cost-sharing rules

Just gimme the damned dollars and quit asking pesky questions. We Know Better. Never mind that the need for any of these dollars has yet to be established beyond yelling “Infrastructure,” as though that settles the science.

If these controls really were any good, and if average Americans really did take them seriously, Progressive-Democrats would offer them in separate stand-alone bills for public debate and scrutiny.

More important to the Progressive-Democrats, though, is that these policies vastly increase their surveillance state. Even waiving cost-sharing expands surveillance, since the Secretaries designated The Precious Ones will need to identify whose costs are going to be “saved” and who will be called upon to pick up the cost slack.