Another Failure For Fascism

Every now and then one is assured that yes, there is a God, and yes, she distributes Justice. 
One such moment occurred yesterday at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius showed up with about 20 government techno-munchkins to give a seminar on the total freakin' awesomeness of ObamaCare and its website. 

Sebelius and Steelers (Pittsburgh's pro football team) Chairman Dan Rooney were at an enrollment and education event on Thursday at Heinz Field to promote Healthcare.gov, but people who showed up encountered problems in signing up for coverage on the website.

Unable to handle heavy online traffic and riddled with technical glitches, the website has been a source of criticism of the Obama administration and the new Affordable Care Act since its start on Oct. 1.

Sebelius, who is making similar trips to cities across the country to spread the word about the website, told the audience of about 100 people that Healthcare.gov was “open for business.”

“Believe me, we had some early glitches,” said Sebelius, who was introduced by Rooney, a backer of the law. “But it's getting better every day.”

At the back of the room, it was a different story. About 20 people armed with laptops and certified by the government to sign up people for coverage were meeting with uninsured people, answering questions and fruitlessly trying to access the website.

LaKesha Lowry, 41, came to the event to find out about her health insurance options. But the North Side resident said she was not able to access the site, even with the help of a certified application counselor.

“It said, ‘Try again later,' ” Lowry said.

I'm sure there are folks who don't understand why Libertarians rejoice at the total miserable failure of ObamaCare. 
Let me put it this way.  We rejoiced when the Berlin Wall fell.  Many of us were downright giddy when Pol Pot was arrested.  I intend to host a Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup/Party on the night of Fidel Castro's funeral. 
People who forcibly intervene in the lives and choices of adults do more harm than good.  When they fail, society benefits.  It really is that simple. 

I was hoping I could post Sibelius's travel and seminar schedule here, but can't find it online due to the government shutdown.  (Which brings up the following question:  Why is this twit still flying around the countryside promoting failed websites if the government is supposed to be shut down?) 

And I was hoping to find a funny photoshop of Sibelius to close this post.  I failed.  I did find these incredible ObamaCare postage stamps from the staff and readers of The People's Cube. 

  Isn't it strange how they've removed the countdown widget from the website error message? 

We're in the best of hands. 

We no longer make decisisions

From John Shuey's Facebook page:

The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions."

Steven Seagal and Sheriff Joe Arapaio use tanks to invade neighborhood in pursuit of a possible cockfighting operation

Have you noticed an uptick in the number of SWAT teams being sent in to search homes for marijuana?  Officers in anti-riot regalia going in for no-knock drug raids in the homes of people smoking funny cigarettes? 
Well, Arizona has taken it to the next level. 

PHOENIX -- Sheriff Joe Arpaio rolled out the tanks to take down a man suspected of cockfighting.

West Valley residents in the neighborhood are crying foul after armored vehicles, including a tank, rolled into their neighborhood to make the bust.
Neighbor Debra Ross was so worried she called 911 and went outside where a nearby home had its windows blown out, was crawling with dozens of SWAT members in full gear, armored vehicles and a bomb robot.

“When the tank came in and pushed the wall over and you see what's in there, and all it is, is a bunch of chickens,” Ross said.

In a massive show of force on Monday, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant and arrested the homeowner, Jesus Llovera, on charges of suspected cockfighting.

Llovera was alone in the house at the time of the arrest, and he was unarmed.

“I think taxpayers should be shocked,” said Robert Campus, Llovera’s attorney. Campus said he believes the operation costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Deputies had no probable cause to believe Llovera was armed or dangerous, according to Campus.

Ok, up until this point, the story has been interesting but typical Uncle Sam Overkill.  Now it gets weird. 

Campus said he believes the entire scene was basically a stage, to help actor Steven Seagal’s TV show, “Lawman.”

Seagal was riding in the tank.

The Sheriff’s Department has entered into a contract with Seagal and part of that contract gives Seagal carte blanche to go along with the sheriff as he arrests people.

Thousands of dollars in damages were made to the property and 115 birds were euthanized on the spot.

Llovera was convicted of a misdemeanor last year of attending a cockfight and has no history of owning weapons.

Yet the sheriff’s office said they had reasons to believe Llovera might be armed.

“We're going to err on the side of caution. We're going to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of force in case we do run into anything like that,” said Sgt. Jesse Spurgin.

Well, hell, that would do it. 
Why we are tolerating this without taking to the streets is one of life's great mysteries. 

My Congresswoman got shot in the head - And all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.

Ok, we've got the flags at half-mast, Barry and Michelle have stood outside the White House for their moments of silence, we've had a memorial/rally/cometogether moment in Arizona, complete with T-shirts, and I can only imagine the levels of fake emotion we're going to be exposed to at this weekend's NFL playoff games. 
For the love of God....The stadium opened the concession stands for this memorial service....

How in the hell are they tying this to violent political rhetoric?  Is the goal to get people to shut up while this Chicago con artist and his goons continue to loot the Treasury?  Do we need to be polite and civil while pointing it out? 

More on the New York City Food Nazis

From the Lew Rockwell blog comes this account of another government power grab. 

The New York City Food Nazis are at it again. They are enacting a bogus restaurant hygiene grading system to “alert” the sheeple diners about the hygienic “qualities” of each restaurant in NYC. There is some good news though: They are using Lew Rockwell’s…er, I mean Karen DeCoster’s…er, I mean Walter Block’s…er, I mean Bill Anderson’s…er, I mean Wilt Alston’s…er, I mean my subjective standards as to what level of hygiene is acceptable for their grading system.

Well said, sir.  One of the first things that you learn in food service, or retail is that not everyone grew up in your mother's house.  "Clean" is one of the most subjective concepts out there.  The Whited Mama didn't have the cleanest kitchen in north Mississippi, but any time somebody was invited to show up for dinner, they found a way to make it on time.  Heck, a lot of people showed up when they weren't invited. 

Now let’s look at my subjective food hygiene standards for a moment. I GUARANTEE YOU that many of you would not find the cleanliness level of my kitchen very appetizing, yet I cook and eat in it every day—and I’m in great health. So my question to myself (and to you) is this: How do I know that if a NYC restaurant does not achieve the top letter rating of A, but a B or a C, that that particular restaurant might still be a more hygienic environment to eat in than my own kitchen? I don’t—and that’s my point. This is just another power grab on the part of the gunvernment to make the sheeple feel more “safe” now that they will “know” the hygienic quality of a restaurant that they may choose to patronize (based on, of course, the subjective standard of some Health Department bureaucRAT).

Precisely.  If the bureaucRAT in question doesn't like the owner, the cashier, the prices, or the politics of the establishment being investigated for heresy, there is no way that the bureaucRAT won't find something to downgrade.  You can find germs in a surgery center if you look hard enough. 

Okay, I’m wrong. The truth is that before this letter grading system was adopted in New York City there have been millions ofthundreds of thousands ofttens of thousands oftthousands ofthundreds of restaurant patrons dying every second minute hour day week month year…hold on a minute. You’ll notice in the linked news article that there is NO MENTION of any outbreak of food poisoning or food-related deaths that has even prompted this new restaurant hygiene grading system.

But think of the "jobs created or saved" in the Food Nazi Bureacracy. 

If this new ridiculous Food Nazi tactic doesn’t put some restaurants out of business, I GUARANTEE YOU that at the very least it will force some restaurants to waste money on unnecessary “improvements” to their restaurants to be in accordance with the “higher” standards of the NYC Food Nazis—money that could have been spent in a productive manner somewhere else.

But here's the real kicker.  Advocates of the Grocery Gestapo will tell you that trained professionals are needed to protect the ignorant public from spending their money in an unsafe place.  They'll tell you that government knows best about where you should eat, and what you should eat.  Remember, NYC is the place working on a salt ban in restaurants. 
They know what's best for you.
But which restaurant are you more likely to choose?  The "C"-rated establishment with a line out the door?  Or the place that's been given an "A" for showing a civil-service lifer what he wants to see? 

Please allow me to beat the rotting corpse of this dead horse just one more time.  I'm speaking as someone who has lost almost 50 pounds by ignoring our government's most famous piece of health advice.  (Well, maybe the anti-smoking messages are more famous, but most of those were published, by government decree, on the cig packs by their manufacturers.) 
Suppliers of gut-busting foods loved this little chart.  Loved it, loved it, loved it.  And it will kill you.  It may have caused more diabetes than the sugar industry. 

See the tag at the base of the pyramid, where Uncle Sam is recommending that you have 6-11 servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta?  Do you remember seeing that on all your packages of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta?  And if you ate bread, cereal, rice and pasta in those quantities, do you remember getting fatter than the Sunday newspaper? 
But no one questioned it for years.  It was the government telling us what is best, and what they thought was best reflected what The Farm Lobby produced.  But after a few decades of increased heart attacks, plus pressure from health groups, the government decided it was time for a new set of recommendations. 
The new nazi-nanny guidelines look like this.  They kept the pyramid shape for sentimental reasons. 

Here's a guy called the Baltimore Health Coach, explaining what all they got wrong this time, and why:

1. Nobody needs to eat dairy, EVER, and many are better off NOT eating it at all.

2. Processed grain foods, even the whole grain versions, are at best a food to limit, and at worst a lead contributor to chronic and degenerative diseases.

3. The under-consumption of omega 3 fatty acids and over-consumption of omega 6 fatty acids (in the supposedly “heart healthy” vegetable oils like soy and corn oil) is clearly a major a contributor to disease.

4. No distinction is made about quality. This is especially damaging when it comes to meat, eggs and dairy. Experts in the health food world disagree about the place of animal foods, but all agree that factory-farmed animal foods are highly toxic.

5. Everyone has a different style of metabolism and requires a different ratio of fat, protein and carbohydrate. The 2005 pyramid is STILL one-size-fits-all.

6. Sweet fruits like apples, oranges and bananas are way over-emphasized as health foods. There is plenty of nutrition in them, but they are also high in sugar and should NOT be so heavily relied upon. This may surprise you, but many populations that have had incredible health thrived on little to no fruit at all.

7. Saturated fats in high quality butter and eggs, coconut, avocado and palm oil ARE healthy and should especially be consumed by children.

But why does the government put out bad advice?  Why issue these food fatwahs at all, if they aren't 100% sure?
Here's the Baltimore Health Coach again:

The USDA Food Pyramid STINKS because of the MAJOR influence of the food industry lobby. The USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the “unpaid” group of volunteers responsible for the Food Pyramid, have consistently been in bed with (i.e. ex-board members or recipients of grants) organizations like:


The National Dairy Council
The National Dairy Promotion and Research Program
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
The American Egg Board
The American Meat Institute Committee
The Dannon Research Institute, Inc.,
The Sugar Association
Grocery Manufacturers

Plus....

Just look at agricultural subsidies to see where the government’s loyalty lies. $15 billion in subsidies go to the soy and corn mega-farms that make the processed and fast food industries boom. Close to ZERO money is given to support fruit and vegetable farmers. Hmm…

Yes.  Hmm.....
In closing, think back to the new New York City cleanliness inspectors.  Do you think there might be some cleaning supply companies lobbying for that program?  Do you think there might be some politically connected restauranteurs who want to see that pesky upstart deli down the street given a "C" ??   And do you think the citizens of NYC will take this like a bunch of compliant little sheep? 

Yes, yes, and yes. 

The picture of the redneck kitchen came from here. 

Congressman Hank Johson questions Admiral about Guam tipping over and capsizing

I found this on Denny's site.
Can you imagine how the admiral felt having to take questions from this dolt?
This is Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia questioning Admiral Robert Willard, who runs our Pacific fleet.
No, this conversation didn't take place on April Fool's Day.
This is not a joke.  I repeat, this is not a joke. 
Congressman Johnson spends a mere 45 seconds proving that he can read a map. Then he gets to the good part.
Remember the floating islands of the movie Avatar?
Guam is apparently one of those, and is in danger of capsizing.
(If you don't have 2:48 to devote to this, go to the 1:15 mark.  But watch the whole thing, please.  Especially if you vote.)
Remember, this man is now in charge of your healthcare decisions. You're paying him $174,000.00 per year, plus expenses.



For the rest of the day, don't huddle together in large groups. You might cause us to tip over and capsize.