The Pope

Posted on 21 June 2018 by eehines

…gets another one wrong. If he was accurately quoted by ANSA (Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, an Italian news agency) and by the SIR agency of the Italian bishops’ conference—or by CRUX, which claims the quotes—that is. They quoted him as

denouncing the pre-natal tests that can result in parents choosing to terminate a pregnancy if the fetus is malformed or suffering other problems.

The Pope is aiming his fire at the wrong target. Families intending to have the baby rather than abort it could benefit from pre-natal tests that find that the “fetus is malformed or suffering other problems.” Such foreknowledge would give the family months in which to prepare financially, emotionally, physically, to join/generate support groups, all to increase the family’s ability to receive and nurture the baby.

This is a preview of The Pope. Read the full post (176 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Child Abuse, Continuing

Posted on 21 June 2018 by eehines

In the ongoing dispute over separating children from their illegal immigrant parents (OBE with President Donald Trump’s EO ending the practice) Progressive-Democrat Senator Bob Casey (D, PA) said this:

Infest? We’re not talking about insects, these are children! You are talking about kids who are scared, alone and being held in cages. You have the power to stop it, do it.

Casey isn’t talking about children, though, he’s talking about weapons he and his Progressive-Democrat fellows want to use for their personal political gain. These are not children in Progressive-Democrat eyes, they’re just mechanical tools for them to use.

This is a preview of Child Abuse, Continuing. Read the full post (187 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Privacy!?

Posted on 20 June 2018 by eehines

You ain’t got no privacy. You don’t need any stinking privacy!

Using facial recognition software in combination with image storage houses like drivers license databases can be highly useful in tracking down criminal suspects.

But the combination can be highly dangerous, too, as this attitude by Joseph Michael, Washington County Deputy State’s Attorney in Maryland, demonstrates:

the expectation of privacy ends when you sit down and smile at the government desk.

Pinellas County (FL) Sheriff Bob Gualtieri argued

This is a preview of Privacy!?. Read the full post (265 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Child Abuse

Posted on 20 June 2018 by eehines

We have children being separated from their parents as those parents are detained for their illegal crossing of our border, their illegal entry—some might say break-in—into our nation. Some point out that many of those children, the ones who arrive unaccompanied, were callously separated from their parents by their own parents in their country of origin. Others point out that many of those allegedly accompanied children are not members of a family unit but are simply pawns of drug and human traffickers being used to facilitate those traffickers’ illegal entry. There are, though, many children/parent family units that have parents detained for their illegal entry and the children separated from them rather than being locking up, too.

This is a preview of Child Abuse. Read the full post (280 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

Reform at the FBI?

Posted on 19 June 2018 by eehines

FBI Director Christopher Wray said he takes the DoJ IG report castigating the FBI’s performance on the Clinton email scandal seriously.

He [Wray] ordered training for senior executives on the report’s lessons….

Really? These guys are senior executives–they already knew what they were doing, and they knew at the time that what they were doing was wrong. They should be fired for cause.

So far, it looks like Wray is just engaged in the emptiness of sound and fury.

This is a preview of Reform at the FBI?. Read the full post (113 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Cynical Union

Posted on 19 June 2018 by eehines

Recall President Donald Trump’s Executive Order limiting the amount of time public union employees can spend doing union business during their work day.

The American Federation of Government Employees has demurred and gone into court to seek an injunction blocking enforcement of the EO. AFGE General Counsel David Borer insisted

We will not allow this or any other administration to trample on the Constitutional rights of federal workers[.]

This cynical claim is based on Borer’s insistence that his members’ freedom of association right is violated by the EO.

This, of course, is nonsense.

This is a preview of Cynical Union. Read the full post (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

Heads Up

Posted on 18 June 2018 by eehines

As the People’s Republic of China responds to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, motivated in part by the PRC’s cyber-theft of American technology and proprietary information and the PRC’s extortion of the same and its demand for backdoors into foreign business’ (including especially American) core software as a condition of doing business in the PRC, buckle up, indeed, as the article at the link above suggests.

The PRC will do far more than this, though, as it attempts to coerce the US in the pursuit of its Warring States strategy.

This is a preview of Heads Up. Read the full post (339 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is….

Posted on 18 June 2018 by eehines

The ranking Progressive-Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warren (D, VA) has a thought on the DoJ IG report on the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton email scandal.

He says the authors of the IG report found no evidence of bias in the FBI’s handling of that investigation. Then he says that that handling “benefited the Trump campaign more than one time’.”

That other benefitting, though, wasn’t bias at all.

Hmm….

This is a preview of Hypocrisy, Thy Name is….. Read the full post (107 words, estimated 26 secs reading time)

YGTBSM

Posted on 17 June 2018 by eehines

Two examples of felony stupidity.

The Putnam County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office was asked by a man to test the meth sample he brought in. It seems he’d had a bad reaction to a batch he’d bought, and he wanted to press charges against the person who’d sold him the “wrong narcotic.”

They did, it was, and they busted him. And no, he didn’t get to press charges; although presumably he IDed the seller to the deputies so they could “press charges” in the county’s name.

And this, also from Florida.

This is a preview of YGTBSM. Read the full post (172 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Non-NATO Defense Spending

Posted on 16 June 2018 by eehines

President Donald Trump often decries Europe’s NATO nations for their lack of seriousness about their defense, and he zealously insists that they honor their commitment to spend 2% of their national GDP on defense. It’s arguable that Trump could ease off (a little bit) and acknowledge the progress he’s made in getting Europe’s NATO members to boost their spending.

But only a little bit because those nations don’t appear to be stepping up in any serious way, as these numbers from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed demonstrate.

Overall inflation-adjusted military spending by every NATO member excluding America grew 1.8% in 2015, 3.1% in 2016, and 4.8% last year.

This is a preview of Non-NATO Defense Spending. Read the full post (230 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.