Showing posts with label Punishing the People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Punishing the People. Show all posts

Monday, June 1, 2015

From traffic fines to property seizures, rights are trampled



Finally, California politicians are paying some attention. Gov. Jerry Brown proposes traffic fine amnesty.

The fine for that “infraction” is $250, but when you write a check to pay the ticket you will learn that the Legislature and other authorities have added a raft of surcharges for various purposes to all traffic offenses, from courthouse construction to DNA testing and emergency medical services.

The final tally is $1,104, one of the highest “bails” for the hundreds of traffic infractions, and much higher than many that could cause injury.

Proportionately, however, some are even higher. A $35 ticket for driving even 1 mph over the 65-mph highway speed limit, for example, expands to $237 with all the add-ons.

A middle-class motorist may grumble, write the check and keep on driving. But for the 9 million Californians who live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a $237 ticket is a real hardship, and if it’s ignored, the fines escalate, and a delinquent motorist often loses his or her driver’s license and very possibly a job.

It exemplifies two syndromes – the arbitrary, almost predatory nature of traffic fines, and the tendency toward punishments that violate bedrock notions of fairness.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

No more Mr. Nice Guy

President Obama warns youth: Sign up for Obamacare or we will charge you a penalty - Charlie Spiering/Washington Examiner @charlesspiering

During an interview with radio host Ryan Seacrest, Obama explained that young people might be charged a fine if they don't get insured.

"If you can afford it — you just decide you don't want to get it because your attitude is 'nothing's ever going to happen to me' — then you'll be charged a penalty," Obama explained.

Monday, January 13, 2014

What if Americans rebel against the Obamacare mandate?

If Americans fail do what the law's Democratic authors believe is best, the federal government will punish them, through the progressively higher penalties of the individual mandate, until it hurts more not to buy coverage than it does to give up and purchase it. - Byron York/Washington Examiner @ByronYork

But what if many of those Americans rebel? Even if they know having health insurance is better than not having it, what if they refuse to be forced to buy the kind of coverage dictated by the government — which may not really meet their needs — at prices they don't want to pay? What then?

"I don't think Obamacare can survive without people wanting to buy it," Bob Laszewski, the respected health care analyst whose writings on Obamacare have become essential in recent months, told me in an email exchange recently. "How the hell are you going to enforce a mandate to buy something that people don't think is valuable enough to buy? If the uninsured don't start to see value in Obamacare and buy it, is the Democratic solution to fine the heck out of them until it hurts so much they have to buy it? Great political strategy!"

Of course, that's exactly what the strategy is. Democrats designed the penalty for not having "minimum essential coverage" to start low and increase rapidly....

But Democrats in Congress feared public reaction to actually forcing Americans to write a check to the government to cover the penalty. So instead, the Internal Revenue Service, which is charged with enforcing Obamacare, will subtract the penalty from the tax refunds of those Americans who incur the penalty, provided they are due a refund.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

THE BRAINS BEHIND THE OBAMA SHUTDOWN STRATEGY

Who talked Barack Obama into shutting down the government and pulling up the curtain on Shutdown Theater? (For those still clinging to “Republican shutdown” mythology, Matt Vespa at PJ Media reminds us that Republicans in the House voted 11 times to re-open the government, listing the bills by number. All of these bills were killed by Senate Democrats, while the media tucked its hands in its pockets and looked the other way.) - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o

...according to Ed Klein, author of “The Amateur,” the true architect of the shutdown strategy was top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. From the New York Post:
Klein, who is conducting a research for a new Obama tome scheduled for next spring, called Jarrett the “architect” of Obama’s take-no- prisoners approach when it comes to his signature domestic policy initiative.

It was Jarrett who advised Obama that voters would mostly blame Republicans if the federal government ground to a halt, providing a golden opportunity to swing back control of the House to Democrats in the 2014 mid-term elections, according to Klein.

A Democratic House would give Obama an opportunity to pass immigration and other legislation blocked by the current Republican majority.
Golly, that all sounds like exactly the sort of “hostage taking” these Democrats love to accuse Republicans of. A deliberate strategy to provoke public misery and anger for political gain? These people look down their noses at their countrymen and see nothing but pawns to be shoved and sacrificed in an endless power game.

According to Klein, Jarrett is the one who “came up with the idea of using the words ‘hostage’ and ‘ransom’ and ‘terrorists’ against the Republicans.” The same media that spent months after the Tucson shootings having a nervous breakdown about incendiary rhetoric and a “Climate of Hate” yawns and picks some dust from its eyelashes.

The Hill report says Obama’s political team was planning for this crisis for months, which may rattle some of the people who still buy into their “Republican shutdown” mythology. (On the other hand, and to their cost, it seems like the Republicans didn’t prepare for any of this at all.) Maybe Valerie Jarrett isn’t the best person to have on speed dial when actual terrorists are lobbing mortar shells at Americans on foreign soil, but she sure knows how to demonize the hell out of domestic political opponents, and they’re the real enemy, right?

How Harry Reid Caused the Debt Limit Crisis - Conn Carroll/Townhall

After Democrats Blow Up Budget Deal, NBC's Guthrie Insists GOP Get Blame for Shutdown - MRC



THE SEQUESTER: THE HAMMER REPUBLICANS HOLD - George Will/Human Events

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Shutdown ceremony: Wedding party Barrycaded from park salutes Obama in style [pics]

Spite House Shutdown Theater continues to backfire. - Twitchy

Citizens are reopening their inns and restaurants, delivering Barrycades to the White House, and protesting the closure of monuments and memorials. And they’re placing the blame where it belongs: with President Petulant whose shutdown shenanigans are preventing weddings from taking place in national parks.



Man who cut grass at memorial blocked from using mower; American ingenuity kicks in! [pic]

So awesome. Twitchy reported on the citizen who defied the petulance in chief’s shutdown snit fit orders and mowed the lawn at the Barrycaded Lincoln Memorial....Chris Cox was then told that lawn mowers and chainsaws are prohibited. Can’t have that! So, what did he do?



Monday, October 14, 2013

But of course: Access to open air Flight 93 Memorial in rural Pennsylvania blocked off

The pathetic examples of this administration laying out more money to keep people away from national memorials than would have otherwise been spent keeping them open just to make the public “feel the pain” keep coming: - Doug Powers/Michelle Malkin
Americans who want to honor and reflect upon the memory of the crew and passengers who perished aboard United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 will find that the federal government has blocked the road four miles down from the open-air memorial near Shanksville, Pa.
CNSNews.com photographed the spot of the road closure this past weekend. The steel barrier blocking vehicles from passing says: “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.”

People have attempted to go around the road barriers and walk up to the memorial, but they’re being stopped and sent back. No doubt this manufactured effort requires more staff than is usually necessary to work the entire area when the government is fully up and running.

Crazy far left liberal radio & former MSNBC host Bill Press calls WW2 vets "dumb" and "idiots"

On his radio show Monday morning, Bill Press took on this weekend’s Million Vet March by denouncing the participants as “idiots” who’ve been used by “right-wing organizations” to protest against their own best interests. - Mediaite

“Absolutely drives me crazy,” Press said of Sunday’s protest activities. “Here’s what wrong with it,” he continued, “Those three idiots leading the protests, but they’re not the dumbest ones. The dumbest ones there are the idiots that are protesting. These are people, they call them vets. I wonder how many really were veterans. I don’t care if they were veterans; they don’t know what they hell they were doing.”

Snit fit redux: Barrycades ordered back up at WWII Memorial; A simple suggestion [pics] - Twitchy







Barrycades back up at WWII Memorial: Not for long? Wounded warrior to ‘head there shortly’; Update: Breaching begins [pic] - Twitchy

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Million Vet March at the WWII Memorial LIVESTREAM



Video streaming by Ustream





Todd Starnes: ◼ The Obama Administration rolls out the red carpet for illegals -- but calls out riot police on our military veterans.

How much longer with Americans remain silent?

The winds of revolution are blowing...

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Hikers have to be wary of boundaries.

Which parks in the Bay Area are open and closed? - SF Chronicle

The partial shutdown of the federal government creates the possibility that a walk in the country could start on a perfectly legal trail in a state park and end with a citation on adjacent federal land.

Even among federal agencies that control land - including the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - there are different access rules under the partial shutdown.

The crazy quilt of land jurisdiction and regulations has caused widespread confusion about what is a national park and therefore closed. Alcatraz Island, for example, is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and is off-limits. Nearby Angel Island is a state park and unaffected by the partial shutdown.

Many people think it's fine to hike the trails at Point Reyes National Seashore. It's not - Point Reyes is an outpost of the National Park Service, and people can't even drive on Limantour Road, let alone take a hike....

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

OBAMA'S PRIORITIES: Almost half a BILLION for public broadcasting, but NOTHING for families of fallen troops

The very partial shutdown of the federal government has served to expose the real values of the Obama administration. - Thomas Lifson/American Thinker

...PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio and Sesame Street got a taxpayer subsidy during the shutdown, but not would-be cancer patients at the NIH....

Stars and Stripes reports that this weekend "Defense Department officials acknowledged that the shutdown had halted the $100,000 payouts given to fallen troops' families, usually paid within a few days of their deaths...."

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

George Orwell - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Signs say National Mall closed, but immigration reform rally is a go


Rally for Illegal Aliens ALLOWED on 'Closed' National Mall... - Charlie Spiering/Washington Examiner @charlesspiering

Even though isolated barricades with "closed" signs remained on the National Mall on Tuesday, the setup for the immigration reform rally said otherwise.

A giant stage with lights and an "Immigration Reform Now" banner was set up in the center of the mall, along with three large portable screens.

On one side of the mall, more than 100 porta potties were set up for protesters who will attend the rally today.

As several groups of musicians performed sound checks, a lone National Park Service employee arrived to survey the scene, but referred me to the Park Service communications office and left when I asked her why she was called into work today.

Pro-Amnesty Forces Rally on National Mall - BREITBART

Scores of Democratic House members also began arriving shortly after 12:30 PM on golf carts. House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is scheduled to speak as well, as are many different labor union officials. Washington, D.C. mayor Vince Gray is slated to address the group too.

MEANWHILE:
SHUTDOWN THEATER: TAKE A HIKE, WAR HEROES, WE’VE GOT AN IMMIGRATION RALLY TO HOLD - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o
Video: Veterans arrested at Vietnam War memorial in NYC - HotAir
Runner Fined $100 At Valley Forge Amid Government Shutdown - CBS Philadelphia

“From a safety standpoint, I like running down there, along with the scenery,” he says.

But on Sunday, Bells says there were two rangers waiting with their car lights flashing when he returned. They slapped him with the $100 citation.

Examiner Editorial: Obama manipulated vets, seniors, children in shutdown - Washington Examiner

Somebody, starting in the Oval Office, should be ashamed.

Monday, October 7, 2013

The World War II Memorial exists thanks to some $200 million in private donations — plus $15 million or so from Washington: In other words, the feds paid for the grass. But the thug usurpers of the bureaucracy want to send a message: In today’s America, everything is the gift of the government, and exists only at the government’s pleasure, whether it’s your health insurance, your religious liberty, or the monument to your fallen comrades. The Barrycades are such a perfect embodiment of what James Piereson calls “punitive liberalism”


Shutdown Simulacrum: Just because it’s a phony crisis doesn’t mean it can’t be made even phonier. Mark Steyn

...America has no budget process. That’s why it’s the brokest nation in history. So a budgeting process that can’t control the budget in a legislature that can’t legislate leads to a government shutdown that shuts down open areas of grassland and the unmanned boat launch on the Bighorn River in Montana. Up next: the debt-ceiling showdown, in which we argue over everything except the debt. The conventional wisdom of the U.S. media is that Republicans are being grossly irresponsible not just to wave through another couple trillion or so on Washington’s overdraft facility. Really? Other countries are actually reducing debt: New Zealand, for example, has a real budget that diminishes net debt from 26 percent of GDP to 17 percent by 2020. By comparison, America’s net debt is currently about 88 percent, and we’re debating only whether to increase it automatically or with a few ineffectual strings attached....

DOJ Breaks Own Rules In Shutting Down AMBER Alert Website

Yesterday, I wrote about how the government had apparently declared the safe recovery of missing children as “non-essential” with the shuttering of the AMBER Alert website. - Townhall

Now it turns out that they are breaking their own rules in regards to what is essential and vital during a government shutdown. According to the U.S. Department of Justice FY 2014 Contingency Plan, one of the categories of activities that will continue is:
5. Those related to ‘emergencies involving the safety of human life of the protection of property,’ i.e., where there is a reasonable likelihood that the safety of human life or the protection of property would be compromised, in some significant degree, by delay in the performance of the function in question.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

#SpiteHouse: President Stompy Foot sparks new name for White House [Photoshops]



Dead-on. As Twitchy reported, citizens can see 2014 from the petulant president’s Barry-cades. His vindictive and teen drama queen behavior has inspired a Barry-cades definition at Urban Dictionary. - Twitchy

Twitter users have had it with the president’s spiteful snit fits.

“They won’t even let you pull off on the side of the road,” Hagen said. “I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”

Via Lucianne

Rushmore blockage stirs anger in S.D. - Jonathan Ellis/Argus Leader

The Buffalo News reported that a tour group of dozens of people from western New York was unable to take pictures of the monument because highway viewing areas were coned off.

“It’s all closed up,” the newspaper quoted North Collins, N.Y., resident Hilde Werneth as saying. “They won’t even let you stop and take a picture. You can only drive by.”

Jim Hagen, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism, said the situation is hurting people from out-of-state and international visitors who are in South Dakota to visit the monument.

Families throw off the cones at Badlands National Park in South Dakota - Twitchy



REMEMBER THIS: Park Service is under Department of Interior, which is EXECUTIVE BRANCH.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

FEDS TRY TO CLOSE THE OCEAN BECAUSE OF SHUTDOWN

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was "closed" due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown. - Mike Flynn/Breitbart

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban... of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business.

This is governing by temper-tantrum. It is on par with the government's ham-fisted attempts to close the DC WWII Memorial, an open-air public monument that is normally accessible 24 hours a day. By accessible I mean, you walk up to it. When you have finished reflecting, you then walk away from it.

Fifty shades of Big Government - John Hayward/RedState

Today’s installment of Shutdown Theater includes the Obama Administration trying to rope off the ocean, as charter fishing boat captains and tour guides were informed by the National Park Service shock troops of His Imperial Barricading Majesty that Florida Bay is closed for the duration of the current “budget crisis.” (Disclaimer: no actual “budget,” or anything remotely resembling one, will be involved in its resolution.)

Given that we’re talking about over a thousand square miles of prime fishing ground, this sounds like one of those shutdown situations where it might require more manpower and money to close the area than it would to keep it open. The World War II memorial in Washington, DC stands as the most visible symbol of this vindictive lunacy, an open-air monument that isn’t normally attended by rangers 24 hours a day when it’s open, but requires squadrons of guards and tons of barricades (now wired shut to hold the heroes of Normandy and Iwo Jima at bay) to keep it closed. Quite a few of these Shutdown Theater productions are occurring on sites owned largely by state governments, or funded with private money.

...The modern Democrat voter is someone very comfortable with mediocrity, provided his beloved leaders do a good job of making some faceless rich bastards, religious fanatics, and Tea Party “anarchists” bleed....

Most of the time, liberals encourage their marks to view the government as a vast fluffy bunny of benevolence, tossing free cell phones and EBT cards from his overflowing Easter basket, with no limit to the goodness he could provide… if only mean old Republicans weren’t trying to make hasenpfeffer out of him. The standard line from ObamaCare defenders is that critics are motivated entirely by a sinister desire to snatch health insurance away from people and watch them die. Anyone who talks about costs, benefits, opportunity costs, and respect for liberty is just trying to distract us while they kill the wabbit.

But sometimes the mask slips, and liberals will more openly concede that, you betcha, government equals force, and they can’t wait to deploy that force against people they don’t like. ...read the rest at the link.

‘It’s quicker this way’: Police officer pushes John Ondrasik out of Jefferson Memorial





Forget about civil disobedience inside the “Barry-cades.” According to Ondrasik’s account, civil obedience is also frowned upon. - Twitchy





Unbelievable: Police prevent drivers from pulling over and viewing Mt. Rushmore - Twitchy

UNBELIEVABLE: Police force Vietnam veterans to vacate Vietnam Veterans Memorial



The police came and forced both Vietnam veterans and the general public to leave the Vietnam Veterans Memorial after veterans went through the barricades: - The Right Scoop

After one group of veterans went around the barricade, “the park ranger told them the wall was closed,” NBC’s Mark Seagraves reported. “Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That’s when police came and moved everyone out.” - WEEKLY STANDARD

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is a black granite outdoor wall on which the names of the 58,272 service members who died or were unaccounted for during the Vietnam war are inscribed.

It takes more manpower and costs the government more money to close down an outdoor wall than to let people walk past it and pay their respects.

The Obama administration has been very selective in devoting resources to shutting down memorials.

Battle of the Barrycades – Vets storm Vietnam Memorial, U.S Park Police called in - William A. Jacobson/Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

The barrycades at the WWII Memorial and Lincoln Memorial have received most of the attention.

But on Friday a group of Vets decided to storm the barrycades erected by the Obama administration at the Vietnam Memorial, as reported by the local NBC News station (via The Patriot Perspective)

Yesterday, the Obama administration had the road to the #IwoJimaMemorial barricaded to prevent any entry to the site by vehicle... today, there's a happy ending:

Iwo Jima Memorial Closed, Barricades Erected (Update: Vets Break Through) - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard

Another open-air memorial in the Washington area is closed and barricaded off: the Iwo Jima Memorial, just across the bridge from D.C. in Rosslyn, Virginia.

"There has been no coverage of Iwo Jima being closed and it is a routine stop for Honor Flight visitors."

WEEKLY STANDARD UPDATE: I'm told, "The Syracuse Honor Flight just knocked down the barrier and a couple hundred of them are at the Memorial now."


If the Japanese at Iwo Jima couldn't stop them, well...

Video: Meet Vets who moved “water-filled barriers” to get to Iwo Jima Memorial - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

We have located the group of 64 Honor Flight Vets, and they are from Syracuse, NY. Their trip was paid for, in part, by money raised by Syracuse University students.