Category: Gummint

Taking Away The Bennies

Gummint, Illegal immigrants, Subsidies

Stephen Green points me at this:

Republican lawmakers in Texas have spent the past year implementing regulatory changes to limit access to services for the estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrants residing in the state, prompting both support from state officials and criticism from activist groups.

A report by the Texas Tribune detailed the steps taken, which include tightening eligibility requirements for occupational licenses, restricting access to commercial driver’s licenses, and limiting who can qualify for in-state tuition at public universities. According to the report, more than 6,400 refugees and DACA recipients have lost their commercial driver’s licenses. Additional restrictions are expected to affect non-citizens working in licensed industries such as construction and medicine.

State officials are also examining the 1982 Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, which requires public schools to educate non-citizens.

In a sane world, none of this would even be a topic under discussion.  Of course illegal immigrants should not get any kind of state (or federal, for that matter) benefits whatsoever.  Tax-based (i.e. government) funds should be spent exclusively on the citizens who paid those taxes, and not just on anyone who happens to be standing there.

I know, I know:

“That’s Krool & Hartless, Kim.  Why would you deny education to the CHIIIILDREN?  It’s not their fault their parents brought them here;  why would you punish them so?”

Ask their parents that question:  why would you bring your children with you and involve them in your criminal enterprise?  (Yes, illegal immigration is a crime, ipse facto.)

No.  Nobody deserves to be rewarded for criminal behavior — which is what all this is — and while I agree that it would indeed be cruel and heartless to deny medical care to anyone, it still doesn’t make it right that our hospitals treat illegal immigrants for their ailments and injuries, especially when it is precisely that (free) treatment which gives them an incentive to come over here in the first place.  Ditto child education.

Here’s the thing.  What did people think was going to be the result of our government actually following and enforcing immigrant law to its proper extent and function?  Of course this was going to create hardship on the illegal immigrants and their families — in the same way, incidentally, that sending a criminal to jail for, say, armed robbery creates hardship for their family.  That should be part of the deterrent.

But guess what?  Failure to enforce the law — as the Biden government failed to do — simply creates an incentive to break the law.  If you are not going to prosecute people for the crime of shoplifting, for example, then don’t be surprised when shoplifting becomes endemic.  We’ve seen this happen in cities governed according to this foolishness — why would we think it would be any different for any other kind of crime, such as in this case illegal immigration?

I’m really glad that Texas legislators are doing what they’re doing — what they’re supposed to be doing — which is to take away incentives for people to break the law and suffer no consequences.  And ignore idiots like this squish:

“These all represent a broader and more coordinated shift … to create a pipeline of exclusion that stretches from limiting access to K-12 education, all the way into participation in the workforce and basic mobility through the state,” Corinne Kentor, with the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told the outlet.

Yup.  Keep going, guys, and get rid of the benefits of criminal behavior;  this is what we voted for.

Collection

Anti-Gun Nannies, Government Thugs, Mocking Furriners

So… it looks very much as though the Canucki government wants to go on a gun-confiscation expedition:

Then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation known as C-21 to freeze handgun purchases and a “buy back” of military-style semi-automatic firearms in May 2022, with the bill receiving Royal Assent in December 2023. Conservative Member of Parliament Dane Lloyd of Alberta questioned Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree about the apparent large-scale refusal to comply from gun owners.

“Minister, the declaration period for firearms owners is scheduled to end next week. So far, only 2.5 percent of the estimated two million effected firearms have been declared and 98 percent [of] firearms owners haven’t made a declaration,” Lloyd said. “So, if they’re not declaring by next week, what’s your plan, Minister?”

And the response:

“The plan we have is as of March 31st, the time to complete the enrollment, will be, will be done and then the RCMP and other agencies will be available throughout the spring and the summer to do the collection.”

Remind me again how they know where to do these  collections  confiscations, and from whom?

Oh yeah, that’s right:  guns and gun owners are “registered” up there in the Great White Empty Space.

So the next time some Leftoid asswipe suggests registering guns and gun owners here in the U.S., please remember the above proposed action by the Canucki gummint.

Afterthought:  Canuckis being the milder version of the North American tribe, I’m kinda curious to see to what degree they’ll resist this foul confiscation drive.  I’m also very curious to see how many Mounties (active or retired) will actually show up to perform it.

Un-Constitutional, Illegal And Nonsensical

Anti-Gun Nannies, Bureaucracy, Government Thugs, Rights, The Gun Thing

…and yet the National Firearms Act (NFA) is still with us, becoming evermore ridiculous, evermore illogical, and always (still) un-Constitutional.

Here’s the best history of the disgusting thing I’ve ever seen which — as with so many of the bullshit laws and bureaucracies that still bedevil us to this very day — stemmed from the diseased liberal New York mind of the sainted Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And the Act’s very vagueness of terminology makes it almost unique among our forest of laws in its ability to turn any gun owner into an instant felon without him knowing about it until the AT-fucking-F agency thugs drag him away in chains.  And said feature alone should make it legal poison, except that the Department of (alleged) Justice is too busy fucking around with irrelevancies like the Epstein files.

Kill the NFA.  Kill it stone dead, and then abolish the ATF in toto, because the government has no business in the alcohol, tobacco and (especially) the firearms business.  I might make a teeny exception for the oft-elided “E” — explosives — part of the agency’s nomenclature, but those first three initials?  X marks the spot in the back of the neck, for each of them.

Otherwise?  Line ’em up.

Suspension Of Privilege

Gummint, Travels

To be honest, the airline industry has never been one of my favorite institutions, because they (along with modern automotive corporations) have discovered that their business is really a commodity service — therefore with the concomitant low operating margins — and like the car people, are finding evermore-devious and unscrupulous ways to fleece and gouge money from their hapless customers.

However:  I see that Delta has suspended their practice of privileged treatment for members of Congress, to which I can only say:  good.  Leave aside for the moment that politicians should never have any kind of privileged treatment or service given to them in the first place — they get more than enough of that as it is — but this is very much in the spirit that lawmakers should have to live with the effects of the laws they pass, just as we the citizens do.

So if you assholes wish to pass a law which bans private ownership of guns, for example, be aware that such a ban would extend to your own private security as well.  And if you pass a law which mandates such-and-such in the name of “safety” or “security” but causes massive inconvenience or cost to the ordinary citizenry, there’s no way that you or your staff (or family, don’t get me started) should be exempt from the same.

So a pat on the back for Delta this time, with the caveat that they should never reinstate this policy, ever.

Ummmm Okay

Government Thugs

Here’s a headline that’s supposed to evoke a response from me, but I don’t think my response is the one they’re looking for:

DHS says more than 300 TSA agents have quit since start of shutdown

I know, I know:  I’m supposed to get all upset that the filthy socialists in Congress have blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

However, my hostility towards the TSfuckingA goes back pretty much  to its post-9/11 panic foundation.

So my feelings run more towards this response:

When it comes to abolishing transparent Security Theater and government bullying, put me at the head of the line of supporters.

And by the way:  I have fairly similar feelings about the entire Homeland Security department.

Snapping The Junk

Food & Drink, Gummint, Subsidies

A whole bunch of people are getting their knickers in a knot about this little development, whereby Pore Folks who qualify for food assistance (SNAP) will in future not be allowed to buy candy and such with these handouts — and are suing the Fed to be allowed to do so.

Recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Wednesday, challenging its food restriction waivers that reduce the types of foods that can be purchased with benefits.

Represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), a nonprofit focused on advancing justice for low-income families, five SNAP recipients from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia sued the USDA for implementing its waiver restriction pilot projects.

The restriction waivers bar SNAP recipients from using their benefits on junk foods, sodas, energy drinks or other “non-nutritious items.” The USDA has approved 22 restriction waivers so far, with the types of barred foods varying across states.

I have two competing thoughts about this.  On a point of principle, if money is being given to you (note:  given) then the donor has every right to determine how you spend it.

On the other hand, however, is the thought that the fucking government has no business telling people what and what not to eat and drink, regardless of donor status.

“Oooooh but they’re spending money on unhealthy foods!”

So fucking what?  They’re adults, and should be treated as such, not as children guided in their food choices by Mother Government.

Just remember, however, that every SNAP dollar spent on Red Bull eventually ends up here:

Not that I care, one way or the other.