Category: Wall of Fame Assholes

What Could Possibly Go Wrong with Government Controlled Healthcare

If you live in Britain, I hope you weren’t scheduled to undergo a “non-urgent” surgery because the National Health Service (NHS) has ordered all hospitals to cancel such appointments:

Every hospital in the country has been ordered to cancel all non-urgent surgery until at least February in an unprecedented step by NHS officials.

The instructions on Tuesday night – which will see result in around 50,000 operations being axed – followed claims by senior doctors that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions, as hospital chief executives warned of the worst winter crisis for three decades.

Let the government control healthcare, they said. It’ll be better, they said.

With the wave of a hand the NHS has determined what is urgent and what isn’t urgent. If it deemed your health issue not to be urgent, then you just got tossed out of the system until at least February. If it deemed your health issue to be urgent, then you just found yourself put at the front of the line. I’m sure those in the former category are perturbed while those in the latter category are cheering the miracle of government controlled healthcare.

This is the issue with allowing government to control healthcare. With a single decree the government can shuffle around everything. It can determine that your condition isn’t critical and cancel your appointments. It can determine that you don’t live a healthy enough lifestyle and are therefore a burden on the system and thus no longer covered by it (but you’ll still pay your taxes towards the healthcare system). When the government controls healthcare it gets to decide matters related to your health, not you. Fortunately, medical tourism is a thing. Those who just found their appointments canceled can still travel to East Asia to get the operation they need for a reasonable price. However, the British government won’t credit those individuals on their taxes even though it failed to deliver the service it promised in return for those taxes. Tough break.

Without Government Who Would Terrorize the Children

I realize that most law enforcers receive barely any defensive tactics training and that makes them frightened little bitches when having to go hands on. However, this day and age I would think that law enforcer departments would put a significant amount of time into training their officers how to not look like goddamn fools on camera. But they apparently don’t so we get videos of armed law enforcement officers terrorizing and handcuffing 11-year-old girls:

The video released by police picked up as Honestie approached a pair of officers with her arms raised. One pointed a gun at her.

She appeared to be coming too fast for the officer’s liking: He began to tell her to put her hands on her head, then instructed her to turn around and walk backward toward him.

Her mother, in the background, yelled for the officers to stop: “That is my child!” she screamed. “She’s 11 years old.”

The moment intensified when Honestie reached the officers. One told her to “put your right hand behind your back” and ratcheted open a pair of handcuffs.

Honestie began whining, then screaming in terror: “No. No. No! No!”

One of the officers handcuffing her tried to calm her: “You’re not going to jail or anything,” but the screams continued as the video clip ended.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Honestie told Grand Rapids Fox affiliate WXMI after the incident. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve never got in trouble by the Grand Rapids Police. I used to want to be a Grand Rapids police officer, but ever since that happened, I want nothing to do with them.”

If an 11-year-old girl who hasn’t even shown hostile intentions scares the shit out of you, you shouldn’t be in a position of authority over anybody. If you’re the type of person who receives a power trip from terrorizing 11-year-olds, you’re a shitty human being and absolutely shouldn’t be in a position of authority over anybody. And if you’re too stupid to think that acting like this on camera won’t turn into a public relations nightmare, you’re too stupid to be in a position of authority over anybody.

Where the Terrible Doctors Go

Let’s say that you’re a doctor who has had a lot of malpractice accusations brought against you. These accusations are numerous enough where no hospital will hire you. Where do you find employment? At a government healthcare facility, of course!

The Department of Veterans Affairs has knowingly hired doctors with trails of misconduct allegations, licensing problems, malpractice accusations, and patient settlements, according to a recent USA Today investigation.

In fact, the newspaper suggests that the VA may actually attract troubled doctors and clinicians because it doesn’t require that they have their own malpractice insurance. Thus, doctors dubbed too risky for private malpractice insurance based on problematic pasts may find relief at the VA, where malpractice claims are paid out using taxpayer money.

Just as there is evidence that police departments, due to their general lack of holding bad officers accountable, attract violent individuals, there is now also evidence that the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) attracts bad doctors.

This news shouldn’t surprise anybody. The VA was established to provide promised benefits to people who enlist in the military but military recruits cease being useful to the government once they’re no longer in the military. By offering a subpar (and that’s being generous) medical program the government can fulfill its promise to proving medical benefits to retired veterans without having to dump a bunch of money into hiring qualified medical professionals. As an added bonus, the subpar medical program can ensure retired veterans die sooner, which saves the government even more money on the benefits it would otherwise have to continue paying out.

People are a disposable commodity to a government. Military personnel doubly so.

It’s the War That Never Ends

It’s the war that never ends.

It goes on and on, my friend:

Pockets of Nangarhar remain inaccessible to outsiders because of fighting, making it impossible to independently determine the cause of the fatal explosion. What is not in question is that in the 17th year of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, American airstrikes are escalating again, along with civilian casualties.

Operating under looser restrictions on air power that commanders hope will break a stalemate in the war, U.S. fighter planes this year dropped 3,554 explosives in Afghanistan through Oct. 31, the most since 2012.

This is why I see no appreciable difference between the two ruling parties in this country. While they may disagree on a few minor point, they march lockstep on the issues that matter. Obama initially came into officer on the promise of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After eight years he didn’t end either war and involved the United States in several more. Trump never promised to end the wars so I can’t really call him a hypocrite for continuing to wage them but his commitment to continuing the wars shows that the two parties agree that war is good.

There’s No Kill Like Overkill

Proportionality is a concept that many law enforcers appear to have trouble understanding. For example, killing a man for selling untaxed cigarettes isn’t a proportional punishment for the crime. Likewise, blowing up a man’s house to catch a shoplifter is not a proportional response to the crime:

In June of 2015, Reason reports, a man named Robert Jonathan Seacat shoplifted from a Denver area Walmart. He stole a shirt and two belts and then fled, first by car and then on foot, before breaking into a nearby home to hide inside.

Seacat was known to have one gun on him, and officers claimed he shot at them, but after the fact, investigators didn’t find evidence he’d fired that weapon or the two other guns that were already in the house. That’s perhaps because, as would later be discovered when police eventually took Seacat into custody, he was by that time probably feeling awful, as he had allegedly swallowed a container of methamphetamine that began to leak into his body.

The house had a security system that alerted the police of the break-in, and the cops arrived armed to the teeth. As court documents show, “50 SWAT officers” assaulted the house using “40 mm rounds, tear gas, flashbang grenades, two armored Bearcats [a type of armored vehicle] and breaching rams,” plus “68 cold chemical munitions and four hot gas munitions.”

And they used all of it to totally destroy this home. Their harebrained plan was to blow up every room, one by one, to herd Seacat into a corner of the house so police could be certain of his location. This process was ineffective as well as counterproductive: It created so much rubble that a police robot was not able to deliver a phone to Seacat for negotiations.

What’s the value of a shirt and two belts from Walmart? It’s probably somewhere between $30 and $50. What’s the value of a house, fuel for a Bearcat, 40mm teargas rounds, flashbang grenades, breaching rams, chemical munitions, hot gas munitions, a remotely controlled robot, and 50 officers’ time? A hell of a lot more than $50.

Shoplifting doesn’t requires a militarized squad of law enforcers to deal with. It requires compensation. Walmart probably has insurance against shoplifting so it was likely covered. In that case the insurance company had a right to seek compensation from the thief, which it could have easily done in small claims court. If the thief refused to appear in court, the judge could have simply ruled in favor of the insurance company or, at most, sent a single officer to kidnap the thief and bring him to court. Such a response would have been proportional to the crime.

Tightening the Chains

The turkey won’t be the only thing to get a hand up its ass this Thanksgiving:

New TSA screening guidelines will likely make Thanksgiving travel a disaster for legions of Americans — and the worst is yet to come.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, TSA announced more “comprehensive” pat-down procedures which the Denver airport suggested might involve “more intimate contact than before.” TSA preemptively notified local police to expect potential complaints, and plenty of travelers are howling:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) still hasn’t thwarted a single terrorist plot. After 16 years one might expect an agency to show proof of having accomplished something. Instead the agency has pulled the same stunt as every other government agency and claimed that its failures are due to lack of funding. And like every other government agency, the TSA has shown no evidence of improvement when its funding has been increased.

Creating the Super Bowl Experience

The toll of the Super Bowl continues to rise. Between the “security” turning the entire city into a prison, shutdown streets, and light rail use reserved exclusively for Super Bowl attendees, things have already become quite miserable for the denizens of Minneapolis. But the Super Bowl experience wouldn’t be complete if some wealthy attendees had their vision offended by a poor person so the homeless shelter near the stadium is being evacuated for the duration of the game:

Dozens of people who use a homeless shelter near U.S. Bank Stadium will be moved to a new, temporary facility during Super Bowl week because of security concerns.

In a deal struck with churches and social service agencies, up to 60 people who normally would spend the night at First Covenant Church in downtown Minneapolis will be relocated six blocks away to a makeshift shelter at St. Olaf Catholic Church. The transition will occur the Thursday before the 2018 game and last through Super Bowl Sunday.

It is, of course, being done in the name of security. However, the 60 people occupying that shelter are no more a security risk than the hundreds living in the condominiums near the stadium so it’s pretty obvious this decision has nothing to do with actual security. But most “security” decisions being made have nothing to do with security and everything to do with security theater being a convenient excuse to ensure the Super Bowl attendees don’t have to deal with the riffraff or Minneapolis.

Be Careful with Those Freedom of Information Act Requests

Be careful when you file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, it might put you in the sights of the National Security Agency (NSA):

Declassified documents in the Central Intelligence Agency’s archives show that while the CIA was looking to include the Freedom Of Information Act in its war on leaks, the National Security Agency was seriously considering using the Espionage Act to target target Puzzle Palace author James Bamford for using FOIA.

While Bamford has briefly discussed this on a handful of occasions, the declassified memos and briefings from NSA confirm that this was more than just an intimidation tactic or a passing thought – the NSA had truly wanted to jail a journalist for his use of public records. When the Agency determined that this was unlikely to happen, they moved on to exploring other legal avenues which could be used to punish Bamford for his FOIA work.

The passage of FOIA made it appear as though the federal government wanted to make itself accountable to the people. However, as with all government promises, what appeared to be the case and what actually ended up being the case were two different things. While FOIA appeared to give lowly plebs a mechanism to request information from the federal government, the most common results of filing a FOIA request seemed to be either a denial of the request or a heavily redacted version of the request. In the case of Bamford the result was first an attempt to imprison him and then an attempt to intimidate him.

We’re fortunate that the federal government still feels the need to appear at least somewhat legitimate. If it didn’t, I guarantee Bamford would have ended up charged under the Espionage Act. But anybody who is paying attention to the news realizes that the federal government is less and less concerned about appearing legitimate. I won’t be surprised if some poor soul who files a FOIA request ends up being charged and found guilty under the Espionage Act.

We Have Spain’s Answer

Last week Catalonia declared independence. I noted that what happens next will depend on Spain’s response. If Spain decided to ignore Catalonia, the country would realize its independence. If Spain decided to put the boot down on the Catalans’ throats, civil war could erupt. Now we know which direction Spain wants to go:

A Spanish judge has jailed two key members of the Catalan independence movement.

Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart, who lead prominent separatist groups, are being held without bail while they are under investigation for sedition.

I’m sure this is going to go over well with the Catalans. But I also suspect that Spain is eager to egg the Catalans into a violent response so it has an excuse to send its shock troops in to cleanse the region of any and all dissidents (and non-dissidents that happen to look at the shock troops in the wrong manner).

Once again we see the futility of democracy. If a group of people decide to vote for an option that isn’t approved by their rulers, their “voice” (which is what I’m told votes are) is stifled and, if necessary, the people who voted the wrong way are violently dealt with. There are few cases that I can think of where secession has been accomplished through a ballot box.

Updating the Propaganda

The current administration, just like the previous administration, doesn’t like the fact that the plebs have the ability to keep secrets from it. When the previous administration pushed prohibit effective cryptography, it was met with a great deal of resistance. Hoping to avoid the same failure, the current administration is updating its propaganda. It’s not seeking to prohibit effective cryptography, it’s seeking to promote responsible cryptography:

A high-ranking Department of Justice official took aim at encryption of consumer products today, saying that encryption creates “law-free zones” and should be scaled back by Apple and other tech companies. Instead of encryption that can’t be broken, tech companies should implement “responsible encryption” that allows law enforcement to access data, he said.

“Warrant-proof encryption defeats the constitutional balance by elevating privacy above public safety,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a speech at the US Naval Academy today (transcript). “Encrypted communications that cannot be intercepted and locked devices that cannot be opened are law-free zones that permit criminals and terrorists to operate without detection by police and without accountability by judges and juries.”

Encrypted communications that cannot be intercepted and locked devices that cannot be opened are law-free zones? He just made effective cryptography sound even more awesome!

Once again this administration is telling the plebs that they have no right to privacy, which tends to go over about as well as a lead balloon with the plebs. Moreover, this recommendation is one way. Notice how under these proposals the plebs aren’t allowed to have any privacy from the government but the government gets to maintain its privacy from the plebs by having legal access to effective cryptography? If the United States government is supposed to be accountable to the people, then by the government’s logic the people should have a means of breaking the government’s encryption as well.

There are two facts about the United States of America. Anybody can sue anybody else for any reason and high ranking officials can make any demands they want. Just as many lawsuits get tossed out due to lack of merit, many demands from high ranking officials are technically impossible. “Responsible encryption,” to use the euphemism, is not technically possible. Encryption is either effective or ineffective. If there is an intentional weakness added to an encryption algorithm then it will be exploited by unintended actors, not just intended actors.