Summer travelers know that the Transportation Security Administrative troops, drill sergeants decked out in Jiffy Lube blue shirts, do a bang-up job of making air travel more miserable than it should be. As they take off their shoes and belts, travelers may also know that the TSA is a miserable failure at its appointed…
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As this column observes, government costs are high because of new federal entitlements such as Obamacare, the federal stimulus program, excessive military spending, the war on drugs, bloated bureaucracy, and new federal agencies such as the Consumer Finance Protection bureau, to name just a few of the big-ticket items. Government costs also run high…
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Summer will soon be here, and with all the fuss about global warming one would think Americans could avail themselves of the most protective sunscreens, like those used by their counterparts in Europe. They won’t be able to do that because, as this Washington Post report notes, “applications for the newer sunscreen ingredients have…
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Catherine Engelbrecht used “weaponizing of government” to describe what she perceives as a federal campaign against her. Is it the latest blast of fevered rhetoric, or does she have a case? Catherine and her husband Bryan were largely apolitical people who ran a small manufacturing business in Rosenberg, Texas. Over two decades the couple…
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Things are getting tougher for those who believe the federal government can trim spending. Consider the case of the Alaska-based Denali Commission, a 1998 project of Senator Ted Stevens aimed at helping rural Alaskans by building power plants and providing job training and health care. As the Washington Post noted, the Denali Commission, “became…
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U.S. spy agencies call themselves an “intelligence community” (IC). The Washington Post has good reason to dub it an intelligence “colossus,” with 16 spy agencies and 107,035 employees. The IC “black budget” for fiscal year 2013 is $52.6 billion, a lot of money even by Washington standards, and that figure is separate from $23 billion…
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Passing through the gauntlet of gruff Transportation Security Administration screeners is hardly a pleasant experience for anybody, especially the elderly, the disabled, and families with children. But all travellers will be delighted to learn that the TSA is forcing passengers to pass through screening twice on the same trip. For example, a traveler departing…
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As recent congressional hearings confirmed, the Internal Revenue Service can be very efficient when it comes to voter suppression. But when it tries to fight tax fraud the IRS is something of a bust, as the story of Carol Cooke confirms. Cooke has lived at her Long Island home for 37 years. In…
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It’s not clear how much economic development the federal Economic Development Administration, a division of the Commerce Department, actually produces. But the Commerce Department’s inspector general has some observations about the administration’s performance after a cyber attack that turned out to be bogus. “EDA’s persistent, mistaken beliefs resulted in an excessive response and ultimately…
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The National Transportation Safety Board says it will be months before they fully determine why Asiana flight 214 crash landed at San Francisco on July 6. The crash also disturbed other federal security agencies, for a strange reason. Bob Clifford, an aviation attorney whose firm has handled a number of air disaster cases, told…
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