Tag Archives: The Patriot Post

How To Avoid Legal Constraints

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The use of Flock cameras in America is increasing. On Thursday, The Patriot Post posted an article about their use and the legal concerns surrounding their use.

The article reports:

Frustration has been growing across the country over the expanded use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras. Flock cameras, produced by a company called Flock Safety, are automated cameras with a system that tracks vehicles, scanning their license plates, make, model, and even physical characteristics like dents and roof racks.

With some 110,000 of these Flock cameras across the nation, vandalism and cutting down the stands or poles on which the devices are mounted have become common as a form of protest against the use of these systems.

Some people see Flock cameras as a violation of their privacy rights. Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley defended his company, claiming that safety “is a fundamental right” he guards. It’s unclear where Langley got that idea, since it can’t be found anywhere in the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It does not provide for safety.

However, Langley is correct in arguing against the vandalizing of Flock cameras, noting that “we live in a beautifully democratic, capitalistic country where we can fight in court.” Destroying Flock cameras over what one considers a violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights is not the way to fight such potential abuse.

The arguments against Flock cameras are that they serve as a de facto mass surveillance system that effectively records vehicle traffic — and more. However, Flock Safety is not a government entity but rather a private company that contracts with local police departments for access. Technically, it is not the government that is actively keeping tabs on public traffic, though that may be a distinction without a difference.

The government gets away with the surveillance because technically they are not the ones doing the surveillance. I understand the desire for safety and security, but I don’t think Flock cameras are the solution to our safety concerns. The real answer to crime in America is to encourage marriage and intact families. According to the CDC, in 2024, almost 40% of all births in America were to unmarried women. Children who grow up in one-parent households are much more likely to become criminals as adults. We don’t need more surveillance–we need stronger families.

One Possible Solution To The Cost Of Health Insurance

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On Wednesday, Stephen Moore posted an article at The Patriot Post about the healthcare aspect of the current government shutdown.

The article notes:

The government shutdown has focused debate on the vast sum ($136 billion in 2025, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office) that the federal government spends to annually subsize continually skyrocketing Obamacare health insurance premiums. The Wall Street Journal reports that regardless of how that fiscal tug-of- war turns out, health insurance premiums paid by Americans are expected to rise another 8% or 9% next year.

The mega-health insurers are leading the charge for more subsidies because this money lands right in their pockets. Their profits and stock values have been soaring while the rest of us struggle to pay the rising tab.

One reason health care costs are rising at two to three times the cost of everything else is that the entire insurance market is dysfunctional. Most Americans pay high monthly premiums (or the government pays for them) for coverage they often don’t use.

In 2024, 11.7 million people, more than one-third of those covered by Obamacare, had no medical claims. They, or taxpayers, paid a lot in premiums — for nothing.

But the whole idea of insurance is to protect your family from major expenses — not minor ones. That’s why we have fire insurance on our homes — to protect against the risk of the total loss of your property.

We need a system much more sensible and less costly for patients and taxpayers. We should be encouraging insurance plans with low premiums that cover major “catastrophic” medical expenses but leave smaller expenses — like checkups or minor surgery — to be paid by policyholders directly.

Such policies — known as catastrophic health insurance plans — have been available for several decades. Most of us would be better off financially if we signed up for these plans. With low premiums and coverage for major medical expenses, they are a win-win for families.

Even as regulated by Obamacare, this coverage charges premiums that are only about half the amount of other Obamacare plans. For example, Forbes recently analyzed the premiums of “77 catastrophic health plans nationwide.” The average premium for a 50-year old member is $443 per month, or $5,316 per year, compared to almost $10,000 for the average Obamacare plan, according to Paragon Health Institute calculations.

The article notes that Obamacare makes catastrophic health insurance plans illegal. Many in Congress are quite happy to move Americans to government healthcare and government insurance (as long as they can have their private insurance).

The article concludes:

Sometimes in life the best solution is the simplest one: Stop the hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful subsidies, the skyrocketing premiums and the “one size fits all” plans that so many of us do not use, want or need — and instead legalize pro-growth catastrophic health insurance plans for all. Stop fattening the checks of the fat and happy health insurance conglomerates like UnitedHealth, who resist paying honest claims but force you to write monthly checks for insurance you don’t use or need.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

Liberals Really Don’t Like Patriotism

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On March 1, The Patriot Post posted an article about some new rules put in place recently by an official memorandum from Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs.

The article reports:

The latest evidence of how abjectly tone-deaf this administration is would be the official memorandum from Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, barring uniformed personnel from participating in the familiar patriotic flag displays at major sporting events and other high-profile public venues. This would include on-the-field “unfurling, holding, and/or carrying of giant horizontal U.S. flags” during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It further decrees that “DoD jump teams may not incorporate [it] in their public demonstrations if the flag cannot be caught reliably and handled respectfully by ground personnel during landings.”

For the record, the display of huge flags on sporting fields, and those carried by Navy SEAL Leap Frogs and Army Golden Knights parachute teams, always include ground crews to respectfully intercept our flag in order that it not touch the ground — though that presents a challenge sometimes.

A Pentagon spokesperson, Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman, confirmed that even though “many, including service members, find these events moving and patriotic,” they are now forbidden.

In fact, Title 4 of the United States Code, also known as the Flag Code, does specify that “the flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.” That section also states that “the flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground.”

However, does it strike you as odd that leftist Democrat Party appointees, many of whom view our flag as a symbol of division and oppression, are suddenly concerned that it be treated with the utmost respect?

Call me skeptical.

We obviously need new leadership in our military.

An Interesting Change In Attitude From The CDC

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On Saturday, The Patriot Post reported that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has evidently discovered natural immunity to Covid-19.

The article reports:

The CDC dropped quarantine recommendations for exposure, as well as social distancing at six feet. Significantly for schools, the CDC ended recommendations known as “test to stay” — the practice that students exposed to COVID should keep testing negative in order to remain at school instead of quarantining.

But the change that really jumped out to us was that there’s no longer any distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Read that again.

The novel vaccine was an exciting achievement and it brought hope of ending the pandemic. That did not, of course, actually happen. First, it wasn’t as effective at preventing infection or transmission as advertised. Second, the Left not only wholeheartedly leapt on the bandwagon but lectured, harassed, condemned, mandated, censored, and fired anyone who disagreed. It was an appalling descent into tyranny capped by Joe Biden’s mandates and firings.

Now the CDC tells us there’s no difference? Oops, we were wrong all along, the CDC now says. Where do the unvaccinated folks who lost their jobs go for recompense? Where do kids go to get those lost years of education? Where do all of us go to get back the money and sanity lost to economic devastation caused by shutdowns and government-induced inflation?

“We know that COVID-19 is here to stay,” said CDC epidemiologist Greta Massetti Thursday. The new guidelines she authored are possible because “high levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place” [emphasis added].

She ought to be censored on social media for such dangerous right-wing misinformation.

The Associated Press reports, “An estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected” [emphasis added].

Does that mean that everyone who is shadow-banned on Facebook (my right wing granny group for instance) can now be unshadow-banned? I doubt it. Does that mean that those of us who have had Covid and not had the shot are now no longer excluded from some employment opportunities? Does that mean that sanity will return to our country? (I doubt it.)