Tag Archives: Government

Videos

Video explaining how higher taxes affect families

5 Comments

ECM sent me this video that he found on Caffeinated Thoughts, and I am going to leave it up ALL DAY Saturday to make sure that you all watch it.

This is why I am annoyed to no end by fiscally liberal social conservatives who want government to solve all of these “crises” like enacting universal health care and preventing the global warming monster from killing us all. Stop it you miserable toadies! Especially you, stupid Mike Huckabee! You’re eating up all the money that single men need in order to have the confidence to start families.

I’m going to say it one more time. Good men are running the numbers on marriage right now. And we cannot take on the roles of husband and father when the jobs situation is a mess because of Obama, the taxes are too high because of Obama, and there is a looming entitlement crisis for our future children that Obama is making worse with his trillion dollar deficits. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about from punitive divorce courts, false DV charges, underperforming public schools, and weak deterrence of criminals and terrorists.

Think! If you want men to marry then vote for policies that allow men to marry. If you want big government, then you can’t have marriages and families and children. You can either have marriage and children, or you can have big government social programs. Choose.

News

Freedom of Information Act request processing delayed by Democrats

1 Comment

Story from the Washington Post. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For at least a year, the Homeland Security Department detoured hundreds of requests for federal records to senior political advisers for highly unusual scrutiny, probing for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive, according to nearly 1,000 pages of internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

The department abandoned the practice after AP investigated. Inspectors from the department’s Office of Inspector General quietly conducted interviews last week to determine whether political advisers acted improperly.

The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more open, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas.

But in July 2009, Homeland Security introduced a directive requiring a wide range of information to be vetted by political appointees for “awareness purposes,” no matter who requested it. The government on Wednesday estimated fewer than 500 requests underwent such political scrutiny; the Homeland Security Department received about 103,000 total requests for information last fiscal year.

Career employees were ordered to provide Secretary Janet Napolitano‘s political staff with information about the people who asked for records – such as where they lived, whether they were private citizens or reporters – and about the organizations where they worked.

If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican.

This, despite President Barack Obama‘s statement that federal workers should “act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation” under FOIA, and Attorney General Eric Holder‘s assertion: “Unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles have no place in the new era of open government.”

The special reviews at times delayed the release of information to Congress, watchdog groups and the news media for weeks beyond the usual wait, even though the directive specified the reviews should take no more than three days.

The foot-dragging reached a point that officials worried the department would get sued, one e-mail shows.

A new era of transparency and accountability! Not at all like paranoid Richard Nixon! No, no, no!

And we’re still operating without a budget – they don’t want to say how large the deficits are before the election!

News

Woman can’t apply for government job because of her race

6 Comments

Here’s the news story from Canoe. (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Excerpt:

A stay-at-home mother trying to re-enter the workforce after nine years away says she can’t understand why the federal government would stop her from applying for a job simply because she is white.

Sara Landriault, a sometime family activist, says that with her kids in school full time she decided to start looking for work outside of the home.

While surfing on the federal government job website, Landriault says she found a position at Citizenship and Immigration Canada she felt she was qualified for but was blocked from submitting her resume because she was not an aboriginal or visible minority.

“I was flabbergasted,” Landriault said in a telephone interview from her home in Kemptville, Ont., just south of Ottawa. “It was insane. I’m white, so I can’t do it?”

Landriault says she has seen job postings in the past that encourage certain groups to apply.

“Which is fine, it’s an equal opportunity position,” Landriault said. “But an equal opportunity employer does not stop one race from applying.”

Do you know why racism only works for the government, and not for private business? It’s because the government has no competitors, so they can do whatever they want without having to worry about the lower productivity for choosing a worker based on racial concerns.

This book review of Robert P. Murphy’s “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism” makes the point.

Excerpt:

The free market cannot be blamed, an often-repeated argument tells us, for racial discrimination. Quite the contrary, those who discriminate pay a penalty. If an employer refuses to hire people of a certain race or religion, he will pay a penalty.

If an employer has an opening that pays $50,000 in salary, and the Christian applicant will bring in $51,000 in extra revenue while the Muslim will bring in $55,000, then to discriminate against the creed of the latter will cost the employer $4000 in potential profits. (p. 31)

This point, though expressed characteristically well by Murphy, is well known; but it must withstand an objection.

The argument relies on the fact that businessmen aim at maximizing profits; but to do so, must they not endeavor to satisfy consumers? Here precisely the problem arises. What if the consumers themselves hold discriminatory views? Will it not be to the interest of businessmen to satisfy them? Suppose, e.g., that customers in a restaurant would prefer not to be served by blacks. Why would a restaurant owner interested in profit risk the loss of his business by hiring black waitresses?

Murphy again responds in convincing fashion to this difficult problem.

But in cases like this the free market … still punishes discrimination — only this time the customer pays the “racist fee”: the customer pays extra (in the form of inferior service) to be served by a white waitress who is worse at her job than a better-qualified black candidate. (p. 32)

It does not follow from this that people will be unwilling to pay the price: but the fact that the market imposes a cost tends to deter discrimination by consumers. (One might object that this does not cover the case of a black waitress who is an equally good server as her white competitor; in this situation, will not consumers be able to satisfy their prejudiced tastes without penalty? But here the owner has an incentive to hire the black waitress by offering her a lower salary. So long as his loss of business is outweighed by his lower costs, he will do so.)

If a private business discriminates in hiring, they have to pay more for less productivity. If a consumer discriminates against non-racist businesses, they have to pay more for the same quality of product or service. The free market punishes racism already.

I should also point out that the Wintery Knight is not white. I look more like Bobby Jindal – but less handsome. I oppose racism and the Government of Canada is racist.