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Give Up Blog - for scientists like these!
You hid my archives, didn't you Steve!
Maps and Figures "Hitler or Coulter?" QuizMap1 - Teen Pregnancy Map2 - Incarceration Map3 - Homicide Rates Map4 - Drop-out Rates Map5 - Bankruptcy Rates Map6 - Driving Distances Map7 - Energy Use Map8 - Gonorrhea! Map9 - Tax Burden Map10 - State GDP Map11 - DHS funding Map12 - Adult Illiteracy. Map13 - Abortion Bans: Map14 - ER Quality Map15 - Hospital Quality Map16 - Coal Burners Map 17 - Infant Mortality Map 18 - Toxic Waste Map 19 - Obesity Map 20 - Poverty Map 21 - Occupational safety Map 22 - Traffic deaths Map 23 - Divorce Figure 1 - Wages vs Right to work Figure 2 - Unemployment vs Right to work Give Up Shopping guide  
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Saturday, December 03, 2005
More slanted government agencies
Well, the Bush administration has overrun even the non-partisan aspects of the federal government. Today, more signs the EPA has been corrupted. And an update on Congress's response to the news that Justice lawyers were overruled by politically-appointed superiors on Texas redistricting.
This combined with recent news stories about how Justice doesn't pursue civil rights cases anymore, the FDA politicizing its decision on plan B and the failure of FEMA etc., seems to support my theory that this administration doesn't starve the beast as it has been accused (how could it, this is the largest government ever). Instead, this administration is slowly poisoning the beast by feeding it tons of antifreeze-laced ground beef. It's made critical federal agencies either bloated and ineffective like homeland security, or it has frozen hiring like at justice or has just appointed political hacks like those at NIH, Justice, FEMA, HUD, DOEd, and Treasury. The federal government might finally be ready for Grover Norquist to drown it in the bathtub like he's always wanted, but because it's become too fat and retarded, not too small. It's an alternative strategy to let the libertarian freaks can take over, purposeful sabotage of government to give it a bad name. Don't expect the federal government to save you anymore my liberal friends, it has been overrun by partisans and incompetence. You must now turn to the blue state governments to save you (and they will). |
2 Comments:
But, I must ask with all seriousness, how can we Give Up on an agency like the FDA? No real local alternative exists, unless it's to be more restrictive. Witness the relative impunity for which pharmacists can limit what they dispense, but how quickly the feds shut down local distribution of medical marijuana.
11:05 AM, December 05, 2005
Well, you just let California do it, then copy California. It works for all sorts of things. California is far more stringent on many aspects of consumer safety, privacy, environmental law, health, housing etc., and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. And you're overestimating the power of the FDA. There is nothing the federal government can do that California can't do better except run a military (and I even have doubts about that). They are spending billions on stem cell research, they were the first to label cigarettes as dangerous, they were the first to control emissions in a meaningful way and continue to break ground in progressive environmental law. They are the model for the new blue-state based federal government, and since they've largely done the hard work, other progressive states need only copy and paste.
All you do is pass a law in your state saying you adopt California's standards on "x" and you're done. A good example is the recent decision by 10 of the blue states to adopt California's more stringent clean air guidelines. California has the energy and auto companies scared shitless. In fact if the federal government dropped dead tomorrow, California citizens would probably be better protected by their state than they are now since it's usually the fed's interference that weakens their regulatory powers.
5:43 PM, December 05, 2005
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