Absolute moonbattery means absolute government. That means being at the mercy of the sort of arrogant a-hole bureauweenies who run ultraliberal San Francisco.

It isn’t easy to find a place to park in San Francisco. Fortunately for Ed and Judy Craine, they have a car pad, where they had been parking for the past 36 years — until:

Out of the blue, the couple got a ticket for parking in their own driveway. …

It came with an enormous fine: $1,542 dollars, plus another $250 per day if they didn’t get the car off their carpad.

The city’s Planning Department said maybe they could get a waiver and be allowed to use their own property — provided they could “prove that parking was a historic use on the lot.”

The couple dug up and submitted various photographic evidence that cars had been parked there since at least 1938. But bureaucrats sniffed that the proof was unsatisfactory.

Why was this elderly couple suddenly forbidden to park their car at their own home?

Planning Chief Dan Sider … said someone made an anonymous complaint to the city.

Two types benefit from government hypertrophy: petty tyrants and rats.

In their condescending benevolence, SF’s pencil-pushing overlords deigned to let the fine slide — so long as the Craines never park on their car pad again.

No American should have to live like this.

On a tip from R F.

Shortages caused by government hypertrophy apply to more than baby formula. Thanks to steady strangulation by bureaucratic growth, we are also running out of pilots:

Just so long as politicians can posture as if they are “doing something” about some problem hyped by the media, that’s the important thing.

At least there is a silver lining. If flights are reduced because there aren’t enough pilots, that will cut down on harmless carbon emissions. According to the ideology of our government, this could save life on earth.

Meanwhile, what pilots are recruited are increasingly selected on an identity group basis. Would you trust Ketanji Brown Jackson to pilot a jet?

Sooner or later, Affirmative Action hiring will lead to disasters. It may come as a relief when Democrats make flying illegal so as not to offend the climate.

On a tip from KirklesWorth.

In case you were wondering why mothers are no longer able to find baby formula, the primary answer can be summed up in three letters: FDA.

The Daily Mail reports on how the federal bureaucracy prevents children from receiving proper nourishment:

The biggest baby formula supplier in the U.S. has denied its Michigan plant is responsible for the deaths of two children despite the FDA closing it down.

The Abbott Laboratories plant in Sturgis was shut down by the feds in February. There was a nationwide recall of formula, which “has significantly disrupted the supply chain.”

An Abbott spokesperson told DailyMail.com Tuesday that ‘thorough investigation’ by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Abbott revealed ‘infant formula produced at our Sturgis facility is not the likely source of infection in the reported cases and that there was not an outbreak caused by products from the facility’.

However, despite the findings of the investigation, the plant remains shuttered nearly three months later, fueling the nationwide baby formula shortage.

Abbott says there is no problem. But the FDA won’t say when the plant can reopen.

Abbott phone representatives have also been telling parents the FDA is ‘holding back’ metabolic formula made during the recall period, which is why the current supply hasn’t gone out, Politico reported.

Children with special nutritional needs are reliant on formula, reminding us as Covid often did how unhealthy it can be for Big Government to protect our health.

The FDA has predictably responded to the crisis it helped cause by demanding more power:

‘No law requires manufacturers of infant formulas or essential medical foods to notify FDA when they become aware of a circumstance that could lead to a shortage of these products,’ the agency penned, noting it would like to see new protocols requiring companies to notify the FDA of anticipated supply chain interruptions.

We could import baby formula from abroad — except the FDA won’t let us:

[T]he FDA requires specific ingredients, labeling requirements, and mandates retailers wait at least 90 days before marketing a new infant formula. Therefore, if U.S. retailers wanted to source more formula from established trading partners like Mexico or Canada, the needs of parents cannot be quickly met because of these wait times. …

Many parents demand formula from the EU not only because of the current scarcity but because European formula meets other preferences, including a perceived higher quality, and more varieties like goat’s‑milk-based formula. Technically, it is illegal to import baby formula from the EU for commercial purposes, but parents can (and do) import it for personal use. Recently, the FDA recalled some European infant formula because it did not comply with FDA labeling requirements. It is agreed by many medical experts that the differences between American and European formula are minor and are not worth the expense imposed by these regulations.

On top of the regulations, our government piles high tariffs on baby formula.

Meanwhile, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf is focused on “misinformation,” which he barks is the leading cause of death in the USA. He must have been relieved to see the Biden Regime establish the new Ministry of Truth.

At least the Regime is aware that there are shortages. Biden’s response is to snarl dementedly about his “MAGA crowd” scapegoats:

As for the Republican leadership:

The House just passed a bill shoveling another $40 billion that we don’t have at the Ukraine, for reasons our rulers choose not to share with us, driving inflation higher still. No Democrats and only 57 Republicans opposed it. Maybe now they can spare some attention to the severe problems in a country of less interest to them, the USA.

On tips from Varla, Wiggins, and Mr. Freemarket.

More data equals more control. Big Government is able to collect more data on us than totalitarians of the past could have imagined. In communist China, this data is converted into control through the social credit system, which serves as a role model for authoritarian leftists in the West.

Pei Li, an escapee from behind the Bamboo Curtain, sounds the alarm:

Social engineers will find applications for this tool that regular Americans are not devious enough even to imagine.

Via FrontPageMag, on a tip from Blackjack.

Congratulations, New Jersey readers. As of today, you live in a state that has been purged of bags. This makes you good people, because liberals regard the bags used to bring purchases home from the store as problematic:

A ban on single-use plastic bags hits New Jersey retailers May 4, yet most residents aren’t aware of what that actually means according to a poll by Monmouth University released last month.

Some New Jerseyans deserve the extreme inconvenience social engineers are putting them to, having let the moonbat media convince them that bags are bad.

More than half (61%) of residents support a plastic bag ban.

But what many don’t realize is, unique to New Jersey, the bag ban extends to paper bags, too, for retailers with a grocery section of more than 2,500 square feet: only 28% of those polled know that; and fewer than half (47%) support it.

If you turn over power to the government to regulate every miniscule aspect of existence according to fashionable whims, it would be foolish to expect petty tyrants to stop at any particular point.

“A lot of people who think that they will simply bag their groceries in paper instead of plastic at the checkout next month are in for a surprise,” said Patrick Murray, who runs the Monmouth poll.

Retailers are not even allowed to provide plastic or paper bags for a fee. As usual with Big Government overreach, certain exceptions apply, but they may not apply to you.

Tomorrow cultural appropriators will at least be able to transport their goods home on their Cinco de Mayo sombreros.

The idea for leftists is to force us to use inconvenient and unhygienic reusable bags. The plastic bags that are repurposed for trashcan liners, animal waste, et cetera will have to be purchased new.

Next, liberals may decide that shoes are offensive to the environment, so that they can force us to walk around barefoot.

On a tip from Wiggins.

On a tip from Occam’s Stubble.

Big Government and Big Business get along great. That’s why they make such great allies when it comes to ramming moonbattery down the public’s throat. Covid tyranny helped cement their symbiotic relationship, as Amazon’s profits attest. Big Government and small business are not on such good terms. John Stossel reports on how hard do-gooder bureaucrats make life for small businesses in New York City, where leftism has led to unrestricted government growth:

It is a small consolation that when moonbat overlords inflict punitive taxes on the little people, it is supposedly for their own good. The wise words of C. S. Lewis come to mind:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

On a tip from KirklesWorth.

Liberals attempt to solve the homelessness problem by throwing other people’s money at it. This incentivizes homelessness, which is why it has reached crisis levels in parts of the country controlled by liberals. Given that they pour across the open boarder, the supply of potential homeless people is infinite. In contrast, the supply of other people’s money is limited — especially when you consider how inefficiently liberals spend it:

A $1.2 billion program intended to quickly build housing for Los Angeles’ sprawling homeless population is moving too slowly while costs are spiking, with one project under development expected to hit as much as $837,000 for each housing unit, a city audit disclosed Wednesday.

About 1,200 units have been completed since voters approved the spending in 2016, which was then a centerpiece in a strategy intended to get thousands of people off the streets.

Big Government caused the homelessness crisis by enabling the lifestyle; by disincentivizing work and personal responsibility; by shackling the economy with excessive taxes and regulations that reduce employment; by allowing devastating drugs to flow across the border and using taxpayer money to encourage their use; and by making housing prohibitively expensive through inflation and (especially in California) envirofascist lunacy. At the risk of stating the obvious, the solution to homelessness is not more Big Government.

Admittedly, government could make itself useful by closing the border and locking up the floridly insane. But constructive measures are not on the agenda.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom … has budgeted record sums to combat homelessness… The state is providing roughly $12 billion on homelessness programs over two years. …

When [Mayor Eric ] Garcetti took office in 2013, the city was spending about $10 million treating homelessness. The budget he signed last year included about $1 billion.

Consequently, homelessness is skyrocketing. Yet the fools in charge learn nothing.

Mayor Eric Garcetti says the project is coming along fine, “producing more units than promised, at a lower cost than expected.” Homeless advocates shriek that the money already wasted represents only a drop in the bucket.

The problem will continue to get worse until the San Andreas Fault mercifully steps in to put moonbat-infested coastal California out of its misery.

On a tip from Henry.

Reductio ad absurdum is a method of proving a viewpoint false by showing that its logical consequences are absurd. Watch and laugh as Democrats unwittingly apply reductio ad absurdum to their own ideology by providing taxpayer-funded crack pipes to advance “racial equity.”

The Babylon Bee? No, this is for real. From the Washington Free Beacon:

The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for “smoking kits/supplies.” A spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and “any illicit substance.” …

Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of “underserved communities,” including African Americans and “LGBTQ+ persons,” as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on “advancing racial equity.”

If you are white and not a sexual deviant, you are regarded as a second-class citizen by the ruling Democrat Party. Maybe that is a good thing. Getting a nudge toward self-destruction with a free crack pipe is a favor you are better off without.

Everyone other than Big Government itself is hurt by liberal programs, but no one is hurt worse than the supposed beneficiaries.

Consider Affirmative Action. The only thing worse than being in over your head in a job you are not qualified for is to be qualified but contemptuously regarded as token.

The welfare state has had a still more devastating effect on its supposed beneficiaries by destroying the family and the responsible mindset that leads to productive lives.

Funding for the “harm reduction” grant program is provided through Democrats’ American Rescue Plan, which the Senate passed along party lines after Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote. Other equipment that qualifies for funding include syringes, vaccinations, disease screenings, condoms, and fentanyl strips. The grant program will last three years and includes 25 awards of up to $400,000.

If only there were a program to reduce the harm inflicted by our moonbat overlords.

On tips from TRUMPY CNN LOL, R F, Chris Neilson, and KirklesWorth.