Personal: Homeland Security Laws Suck

Main Point: Under Homeland security law, if your passport will expire in less than 90 days, you will NOT be allowed to travel internationally.

This afternoon, I drove Mrs. Shambles to the airport so she could go to France to visit her good friend's mother who was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. After viewing her passport, they said "Sorry, we can't let you on the plane." Her passport will expire in 82 days.

I went back to pick her up.

Through much phone calling and double-checking we found out that it is a law under Homeland Security: If your passport will expire within 90 days, you will not be allowed to travel internationally. France says: no problem; your passport is valid. Belgium agrees.

But how does anyone know that? Do they post an alert when you buy your ticket? NO. Is there a common understanding that something you pay the government to license you for for 10 years is NOT honored for the last 90 days of that license? NO. Passports are good for 10 years, so when this law was enacted, were all passport holders who would be affected by this law alerted to this new policy? NO.

So WTF? Isn't Homeland Security's plan of "security" to keep dangerous people out? How the hell does it keep our country safer by making my wife - trying to visit a dear, ill friend - inside the USA?

Dear Washington: This is case in point of why Americans don't trust bullshit laws and Washington, D.C. in general. You create a law and don't tell anyone and don't back it with anything but a wall - the airlines don't prevent you from purchasing a ticket or ask you for your passport expiration or even have a pop-up warning that this is a LAW.

I'd guess that it actually ended up as a rider to boost revenue by 90 days.

I want a check for a 90 day pro-rate. Assholes.

In Short: Conservative Conspiracies

In case you missed it:

College!
Barack Obama is now a dictator doing whatever he wants whenever he wants because he's upping the timetable for the aid to college kids - which is just a left wing ploy to socialize education, favor the elitist schools like Harvard, indoctrinate everyone into a humanities or social work degree and leave taxpayers with the bill. This will, of course, cause every college in the country to charge $50,000 per year. (Brian Thomas, WKRC, this morning)

Islam
We're going in and taking out leaders of Muslim nations like Hussein and Gaddafi and you know what the people are doing? Replacing them with Muslim people and instituting laws in line with their Muslim beliefs! Lybia's now in the throes of anarchy and Sharia and they're terrorists and there are 30,000 missing missiles and nuclear weapons up for grab. Islam IS terrorism; Muslims ARE terrorists. (David Horowitz, Sean Hannity Radio Show, yesterday)


Poking fun at Perry, chiding Fox news? That's peanuts. Above is the kind of serious right wing batshit crazy ignorance that's going out there every single day and being fully absorbed by the mindless myrmidons before the parroting ensues. I saw that Thomas drivel about college posted by someone I know on Facebook not two hours after it was spouted. And it had likes.

I listen so you don't have to. Happy Thursday.

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