Articles tagged as

Bureaucrats

The Enabling Effect of Government Agencies on…New Hampshire Fisherman

by Steve MacDonald

Gone fishinSenator Kelly Ayotte was on WGIR with Jack Heath the other morning (per-recorded interview if I’m not mistaken) to talk about the effects of a recent decision affecting the local Fishing industry. She is trying to overcome the arbitrary observations of a local regional board, that have resulted in a decision with the force of law, that now prohibits these small businesses from fishing Cod beyond newly established limits which the Fisherman find absurd. The effect can and will likely have a crippling effect on New Hampshire Fisherman, their livelihood, and their families.

This is a prime example of how bureaucratic power expands as a result of enabling legislation and then acts based on the interests of those who populate such organs, directed by like-minded special interests, to the detriment of everyone else.

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Sustainable Communities Initiative (the Federalization of local zoning codes): Lakes Region Planning Commission Meeting

by Skip

Yes, the unelected, unaccountable and mostly self-funding (multiple taxpayer teats at the ready) group of Commissions that started off doing road planning between neighboring towns – and suddenly, are experts in such varied things as Economic Development to Broadband Deployment in just a few short millions of dollars grants-writing.  And now that THAT information is getting out (much to the dismay of paid shills like NHListens (here, here, here, here, sorta here, here) who “facilitate” meetings (and their outcomes) and their propagandists like Action Media (“to neutralize the opposition“)), they are not grooving at ALL that they are no longer being allowed to do their work out of the light of Citizen Flashlights…

…like here, where one of the taxpayer funded presenters, trying to sugercoat the “wassup!”, decided to diss ‘Grok friend Ed from GovernmentOversite (who wields a big Citizen Flashlight indeed).  Diss?  Er, well, object to the camera being present AND rolling – watch for yourself:

Lesson to the yet-to-be-PR-wise: holding up the yellow lined notepad makes you a bigger target and a more interesting subject to watch.  And, as my 1 year old granddaughter will soon learn, blocking the camera lens with said notepad will not automatically make you invisible (something that the 1 year old is already learning, except she just uses her forearm to cover her eyes to make herself invisible to everyone else).

But I digress – here are some of the notes Ed took (emphasis mine, a bit of reformatting, and commenting on the notes on what these Planners really want to do [er, the Ed’s Notes are great and are NOT the target of the snark – the reason why the Notes had to be done is):

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We force you to wear a seatbelt because it will save your life.

by Skip

SeatBelt - its the Law!As stupid an argument as can be said as in “since you OBVIOUSLY won’t take responsibility for yourself, we shall make you take responsibility for yourself”.  And if you do not, the force of Government will take away your money (via a fine) or take away your time (with jail time).  I am glad to be in the Live Free or Die State that still, at least in this respect, has told the Nanny Staters (both those in-state and those in the Federal Govt that has tried, over and over, to bribe NH officials with our own tax monies) to go pound sand – let adults make this decision for themselves.  However, many States have not treated their citizens this way – and started the slippery slope in motion.  The slippery slope didn’t start out that way – it was first a mandate to the car companies “you will put seatbelts in cars” rather than letting the marketplace make that decision and proceeded downward from there.

And we see it happening again.  As I wrote here, gun control is merely the symptom of a greater disease – those that govern believe they rule instead.  They are all too willing to breach the fidelity of the Constitution and the Declaration that Government is instituted by men, and not Government over men (a large difference, in my mind).  Government was to protect an Individual’s Rights – and not take them away simply because there is a problem at hand.  They have faced the problem – and answered wrongly.  They see not an Individual but the collective – and proceed to solve problems from that perspective,and in many cases, throw away and walk away from the ideals on which this Constitutional Republic was born.

We hear all the time that the Slippery Slope doesn’t exist – or that it will not happen.  B.S. on that – for here is a prime example of “oh it will never happen because we didn’t want that!”.  Cool, bucko, somebody else decided to drop that horizontal negative 70 degrees.

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IF You Can’t Take The Heat – Surround Yourself With More Bureaucrats

by Steve MacDonald

The Obama Czars exist to do Obama’s job. They are also there to deflect blame into the warren of unaccountable bureaucrats that have exploded around the Czars and cabinet agencies.  Bureaucrats are as nameless and faceless as the people whose lives they try to direct without fear of reprisal.  Bureaucrats don’t stand for re-election, nor do Czars.  And when trouble hits, the “elected” officials just shuffle the deck.  You are told it’s been taken care of but nothign really changes except that elections really will no longer matter.

So when Obama said he’d consider creating a new cabinet position entitled Secretary of Business, our expectations for Obama are once more met.  That’s not his job.  He’s too busy playing golf and running for office again.  And if you keep thinking it is his job, well how about another billion dollar taxpayer funded bureaucracy run by the Secretary of Business to absorb the blame.  Not Obama’s fault.  But he promises he’ll look into it.

And what?  Create another taxpayer funded bureaucrat or Czar or bureaucracy, or Blue ribbon panel to ignore as another firewall to protect him?

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Microcosm of Nanny State Failure: School Lunch

by Steve MacDonald

Being programmed by the state has finally hit kids where they live–in the stomach.  And there is an important lesson to be learned if the kids and their stomachs are listening.  That lesson is this: Federal mandates apply force, limit choices, and result in waste, and that is exactly what has happened thanks to Michelle Obama and her meddling bureaucrats at the USDA etc.

The Government was given broad power to enforce menu standards, limiting calories, and forcing food onto menus that kids simply will not eat.  The result is waste on both sides of the serving line; costs to purchase the mandated foods that cafeteria managers know kids will not eat, the forced increase in the cost of lunches to meet some arbitrary Federal guideline, and then the waste as food that is being forced on students that is thrown away.

This is the alpha and omega of the centrally planned government that Democrats dream of.  And how are the kids responding….

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How Many Employees Do You Have?

by Steve MacDonald

After posting this on Wednesday–the discovery that New Hampshire has the third highest number of welfare employees per 100,000 residents in the nation (More than California by the way which, if you noticed is a tiny bit bigger than New Hampshire)–it occurred to me that this may not be the only circumstance in which the … Read more

A problem for the Oily Populists.

by Steve MacDonald

Hope you got your permit to do that?Paul Hodes is scalp hunting BP over the Gulf Oil spill—even though BP ponied up 20 Billion already and has spent plenty trying to fix things besides.  Fine and dandy “but how do I use that for populist traction” cries Sugar Daddy Hodes.  “I need votes.”  His answer is another press release promising something or other—it doesn’t really matter with Hodes.  Anyway, what he should be doing, if in fact he is truly interested in reform and reparation, is investigating his own government and how the bureaucracy totally screwed things up.

P-Diddy Hodes won’t want to do that. He didn’t want to investigate Adolphus Townes on potential ‘Friends of Angelo’ connections to sweetheart loans. (That was the one with the famous Hodes running away video).  He still can’t return the tainted Rangel money because, well, like I said who cares what he said it’s Hodes.  He took that $10,000.00 payday from a major sugar producer after forcing a massive ethanol handout past two separate vetoes—and he’s not about to admit that was a corrupt act.  So investigate his own love of the endless layers of paper-pushing progress staunching bureaucrats?  No frikkin way.  He’s voted for plenty of 2000 plus page bills destined to deforest how many acres just to get the rules and regulations written down—none of which he cares anything about unless it costs him votes with the left wing, America hating, progressive-compulsives.

The problems with the spill are epic, so Hodes has plenty to ignore, particularly when all the government had to do was keep the oil off the beaches.  That was it.  Keep the oil off the beaches.  But they waited weeks before even responding, ignoring pleas, and bogging down every effort to protect the shoreline with bureaucrats and paperwork.   And even when they did try to do something, they did it the only way they know how.  FUBAR! 

Winston Groom, in the July 12th issue of the Weekly Standard spotlights a few of these transgressions which I have paraphrased below—issues which Hodes and the democrats have now imposed upon the health Care system thanks to Obama care, not that you have any reason to be concerned.  The list is on the jump.

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