Grokster Steve had the post talking about the cancer patient that went on Fox News to complain that he had lost his medical insurance due to Obamacare.  Then a sympathetic Samaritan insurance broker decided to help him gain what could be life saving care.  The Obama (Democrat) Administration’s  reaction?  Yeah, one of those new IRS Obamacare agents is now auditing BOTH of them.  As Steve noted (emphasis mine):

Welcome to Democrat rule.  Speaking out will get you punished.  Helping those in genuine need will get you punished.   ObamaCare was never about getting people insured, it was always about power and control.

“Helping those in genuine need will get you punished” – especially when it “shows up” this current Administration.  It doesn’t help them, however, when their reaction goes viral (the audit).  Yes, “examples” are made to keep “voluntary actions” in line with the IRS code, but this is just retributive.  But it does show, as Glenn at Instapundit is oft to remind us:  

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I did watch WMUR’s Close up yesterday but didn’t have the time to put up a post on it.  Didn’t care much for Jon Huntsman when he actually ran – he tried to run as something that he was not and it didn’t work well at all.  For him to think that he could win NH next time around is, um, silly. I was there at his second campaign stop (Laconia, NH) and the optics could not have been any worse – a bevy of black SUVs arriving late, the staffers in the Republican Political Operative Uniforms of blue blazers and ties as the Huntsman Family were trying to dress like “the natives”.  Not impressive and fast forwarded past it.

But I did watch, intently, Josh McElveen’s interview with Marilinda Garcia or (elect-mari.com) who has just announced for a Congressional run (NH-CD2) and she did have a number of talking points that she repeated a couple of times.  However, McElveen did ask what I consider a pretty typical question:

What kind of Republican are you?

I ask the same question to pretty much every candidate I meet up with – but my twist is

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Senator Shaheen has sided with Kermit Gosnell (and his ilk) as one of several co-sponsors to S.1696, a bill designed to undo by federal fiat any state law that defines when life begins or attempts to regulate the abortion industry or abortion providers.   State’s can’t be trusted.  Only distant Federal ‘experts’ and their bureaucratic minions shall handle such matters.

Here are a few prohibitions S. 1696 would place on states…

SEC. 4. PROHIBITED MEASURES AND ACTIONS.

(a) General Prohibitions- The following limitations or requirements are unlawful and shall not be imposed or applied by any government because they single out the provision of abortion services for restrictions that are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures, they do not significantly advance women’s health or the safety of abortion services, and they make abortion services more difficult to access:

(1) A requirement that a medical professional perform specific tests or follow specific medical procedures in connection with the provision of an abortion, unless generally required for the provision of medically comparable procedures.

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A while back the town of Merrimack changed how they accepted recycling.  Instead of asking residents to sort it into many different bins they went to single stream.  All recycling can go together.  The town packs it all up and sends it off and someone else sorts it. They did this to get more people to recycle and it worked.

This simplification removed hundreds of tons of waste from the trash (and tipping fees) and moved it into recycling.  More people are recycling more stuff because they no longer have to sort it.  Making it easier increased the amount recycled.  Mission accomplished.

Inside the recycling center, for as long as I can remember, there was also a place to put stuff people thought too good to throw away or that someone else might have a use for.  People left items for others picked them up.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right?

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There is an old Victorian house in the next town over – it and the plot of land on which it sits was purchased by a Dunkin Donuts franchisee a few years ago.  They really didn’t want the building, just the land located in what I call “Fast Food Alley” where a number of restaurants are located.  They couldn’t sell it and couldn’t lease it either. So now they want to just tear it down – and I can’t say that I don’t blame them.  After all, who wants the liability of a vacant building anymore?

So two object lessons here:

• The hoops that Government makes us all jump through for what should be easy.
• Another proof that “stakeholders” should be a dirty word

This goes back to an argument on expanding Medicaid here in NH (go figure).  I explained it this way:

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I read this article in Pravada-on-the-Merrimack about a “Senior Citizens Bill of Rights” being sponsored by NH State Senator Nancy Stiles (R) and two Democrats, Reps. David Borden and Tom Sherman, read it again, and still can’t reason it out to any kind of a logical form.  No, not necessarily the piece itself (although it left a LOT unexplained) but the items that are supposed to be in this upcoming bill.  Words have meanings and words in legislative bills should have very specific meanings, very sharply set definitions, and very unambiguous context.

Instead, this is a hot steaming pile of a mess that I’m finding to hard to do a cogent post.  And if that it true, if this “goes out into the wild”, the items (posted below) will cause all kind of grief:

The Hampton Republican plans to introduce a bill next year that would require licensed facilities, including retirement homes, senior centers and elderly housing projects, to prominently display a “Senior Citizens Bill of Rights” at all times. The bill would not create new rights but would amass those relevant for elderly individuals, such as the right to organize, the right to use and consult outside services, and the right to receive prompt service from a landlord.

The right to organize?  What, she wants SEIU socialists going in to unionize “the residence” (or patients, the elderly, or whatever other term you wish to use)?  Would that force them to pay union dues out of their Social Security checks?  And what happens if the caretakers are ALSO union members – how’s that gonna work out?

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Big government begets big bureaucracies with budgets the bureaucracies want to see made bigger.  To that end these tin-pot dictators of their pencil-pushing fiefdoms exercise power to whatever extent they can, to the misery of everyone else.  It is what Jefferson meant in the Declaration when he wrote “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Most bureaucracies take their cues from their chief executives. No executive in recent memory has erected more “New Offices” to “eat out our substance” than Barack Obama.  Nor has there ever been more evidence in recent memory that these officers exist to intimidate or punish his political enemies.

So why did Obama’s Federal Trade Commission have to strong-arm a small nonprofit representing people who give piano lessons?

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Random Thought for the day:  Apex Predators, Social Synergy & Culture

Statism doesn’t work, because it can’t. It leads inevitably to tyranny and, as Thomas Hobbs would have it, lives that are “nasty, brutish and short!”  But why is this so?  Are there fundamental and inescapable aspects of our essential nature that ordain these results? Yes!

Humans are tribal, apex predators with the option for volitional teamwork (playing nice) and reasoning acutely (to-think or not-to-think is a choice). We are not domestic animals. Nor are we, essentially and appropriately, programmed by instinct and read-only, behavioral norms. Predators must, as an essential element of their nature and survival, be aspirational and adept at employing real-time initiative. We homo sapiens are designed to think on our feet, not walk in our sleep. To lead or be led, not driven.

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Families USA is an ultra-partisan left wing advocacy group and one of the largest health care lobbying organizations in the country.  Until the Democrat party sidelined its rheotric on a national single payer health care program, Families USA was it’s biggest fiscal and vocal supporter, pumping millions into states to advocate for it.  When the left pivoted to what is now ObamaCare, Families USA pivoted with them, running public relations rehab in the wake of the public uprising against the bill before and after its passage.

Families USA is run by a former Clinton apointees,  high ranking members of the SEIU, GLADD, the NCC, and Soros funded projects.  And it has help in the form of local so-called non-profits right here in New Hampshire… and it just received another million to run interference on the Obamare roll-out debacle

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A few days ago, this topic came up at a meeting I was at – Cafe Hayek reminded me of it so it gives me a chance to comment:

If I am interested in buying GMO-free food (I’m not – I’ve eaten plenty but have friends who care deeply about it), shouldn’t there be a requirement telling people whether a food is or isn’t GMO-free?

No!  Look, this  issue of labeling GMO (genetically modified organisms) foods may be of great importance to you, or a few, especially those of the “natural food set”.  If it is, great – but leave me alone as this is your issue, not mine – I could care absolutely less.  For once, leave those of us who could care less out of it – do not run to Government to put even more regulations into the marketplace that will end up making my food more expensive.  Why do you think that Government is the only entity that “solves” problems?  Or is it simply that you are greedy – that it would be cheaper for you as an individual to have the rest of us pay for your pet peeve? 

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