“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small,but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” – President Obama, Inauguration (2009)

And then we get this: IRS Rehires Hundreds of Employees Fired for Fraud, Theft, Abusing Taxpayer Data

The Inspector General for Tax Administration has discovered that under Commissioner John Koskinen, the Internal Revenue Service re-hired 212 employees it had previously fired for offenses including tax evasion, theft, and abuse of taxpayer data.  The title of the report makes it clear that the IRS “continues to rehire former employees with conduct and performance issues.”

Read more

Kurt Schlichter has a piece at Townhall that I thinks speaks to a lot of the Republican base, especially those from the TEA Party movement, on the GOPe (Establishment GOP and NeverTrumpers).  While he rails against mostly the latter (but plenty for the former), this caught my eye:

…Oh yeah, we’ll repeal Obamacare. Oh yeah, we’ll defend the border. Oh yeah, we’ll defund the baby-butchering cartel. Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. All lies, but they didn’t care. They had their power and prestige and the promise of a fat paycheck down the road when they moved from Congress to K Street. Actual conservative ideology? Well, that was for the rubes. And we were the rubes. We in the base, who are suffering from the establishment’s incompetent mismanagement of the society it had been foolish to try to micromanage in the first place, tried to warn them. But the Fredocons wouldn’t listen, because they’re smart, not like everyone says, like dumb…

Read more

The deliberate division of human beings into oppressed groups and sub groups of ‘victims’ has had a predictable outcome. Social Justice long-division does not end in tolerance.

Campus Reform Reports that,

[su_quote]In an article published Monday in the Journal of Homosexuality, Dr. Whitney Hagen of Florida Atlantic University, et al. argue that “activist communities” are hostile toward gay and transgender populations, adding that individuals with “multiple oppressed statuses and identities” are “especially prone to oppression-based experiences, even within minority activist communities.”[/su_quote]

The “oppression™” by social justice activists is not limited to gay or transgender factions. Fat-shamming, income shaming, (kids who climb on rocks), are all victims of other ‘classes’ of victims.

Read more

Remember when the Democrats unanimously voted to repeal the First Amendment back in 2014? Remember when Hillary wanted to curtail free speech when it pertains to politicians? And how about all those times over the past several years when Progressives and leftists called for silencing “hate speech” where hate speech is anything they don’t like? Remember all of those? You should at least remember the one because the latest example was just last week in Boston.

I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist, so it’s always lost on me why people would call for limiting speech when someday someone would try to limit their speech and mine. It seems to me so naive and short sighted in that you never know who would be the one in control silencing others. More amazing is that a lot of these calls coming from Progressives and leftists are getting louder now. With Trump sitting in the White House and Sessions as Attorney General!

Now, I simultaneously held that view AND completely understood the evils the Administrative State F.A. Hayek warned about in Constitution of Liberty. So when I heard Kevin D. Williamson marry the two together, I had a forehead smacking ”Oh yeah, Duh!” moment. Once again a little transcript from Mad Dogs and Englishmen Podcast, where Kevin discusses the reasons Progressives want speech police, check it out:

Read more

The war currently being waged against Confederate monuments seemingly came from nowhere, but it’s quickly becoming a fierce and brutal conflict. That was made clear when those self-appointed champions of justice triumphantly toppled the statue of a Confederate soldier in Durham and then, in an orgy of hate, took turns kicking and spitting on the vanquished hunk of metal.

Rational people are finding it hard to understand this collective statuary revulsion. It’s as if so many Rip Van Winkles simultaneously awoke from a 150-year slumber, filled with self-righteous rage, and ready to do battle against a scourge that had already ended around the time they dozed off.

What motivates these people?

Read more

The notion of the “art of association” can be traced back to Tocqueville, who noted America’s robust civil society that consists of an array of social associations and networks.  These associations and networks were not the result of government design or legislation, but instead evolved through the ingenuity of self-reliant citizens acting entrepreneurially.  Associations stand between the government and the market.  They allow people to come together and solve common problems without relying on government.  In doing so, they serve as a check on government power because private individuals do not become overly reliant on government to solve the problems they face.  The emergence of a robust civil society is only possible when people’s right to free association is established and protected.  Where this right exists, people can invest in establishing social associations and networks, which can potentially play a crucial role in the wake of crises.

– Chris Coyne (“Constitutions and crisis”)

The proprietor of Cafe Hayek, Prof Don Boudreaux adds this truism:

Read more

Planning Commissions are not known for their concern about property rights, but here we have the Coos Commissioners wondering about the injustice of losing zoning authority over projects within the county developed on Federal Lands.

The Coos planners already regulate zoning on the county’s 23 unincorporated areas, such as Millsfield, because they have no governmental body of their own.

But the question is whether Coos officials will have any control over private projects approved by the federal government on federal lands such as the White Mountain National Forest.

Read more

Back in January, we reported on legislation to shore up the legal right to impose visa sanctions on nations that refuse to take back criminal illegal aliens deported from the United States. I can’t speak to the legislation, but Mr. Trump isn’t waiting for back up.

The Trump administration has triggered visa sanctions against four countries that have refused to take back citizens the U.S. is trying to deport — tapping a little-used but very effective tool for forcing compliance. …

Read more

The historical part of Alan Vervaeke’s August 22, 2017 column in the Laconia Daily Sun, www.laconiadailysun.com, titled, “Dead soldiers don’t keep the Confederacy alive”, was excellent. Some of his opinions deserve further consideration.

I agree with Vervaeke that it’s shortsighted to remove statues of Confederate warriors from any city. As he says, it’s their heritage. So I don’t understand his seemingly inconsistent suggestion to move them to a “national Civil War monument and museum”. It seems to me that having remembrances nearby make for convenient teaching tools about our and human history; putting them in a remote location hinders learning our good and bad history.

Northerners often jump to wrong conclusions about the Confederacy. Some Southern blacks recognize good things in their heritage and understand that eliminating remembrances of the Confederacy doesn’t solve a single current problem.

Read more

New Hampshire currently prohibits using Medicaid dollars to fund sex change surgery, but a few weeks ago Rich Girard broke a story about how the state’s Department of Health and Human Services was looking to change the rules. Transition them, so to speak, to allow tax dollars to finance sex change operations to Medicaid recipients.

According to information contained on the department’s Rulemaking Notice Form:

The Department of Health and Human Services (NH-DHHS) scheduled a hearing for August 24th, but according to Cornerstone Action, the department has rescheduled the hearing.

Read more

Today it was reported by WMUR that the New Hampshire Democrat Party is filing a lawsuit over Senate Bill 3 (SB3), AN ACT relative to domicile for voting purposes. The bill was passed by both the house and senate and was signed by Governor Sununu in July. The bill not only had the support of a majority of Granite Staters who demand integrity in elections but it was supported by Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a Democrat, who also testified in support of the bill during hearings.

Read more