Author Archives: eehines

“We Cannot Read…”

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…every book we make available in our libraries…. This is the claim—and he’s actually serious—by Andrew Cluley, Ann Arbor School District spokesperson, in response to queries concerning why his K-12 libraries are blithely adding gender- and “white supremacy”-oriented books to their stacks. The librarians do, supposedly, read the reviews and descriptions carefully.

It’s possibly true—remotely so—that librarians are unable to read, beforehand, all of their book selections to high school libraries. Maybe, though, the school district’s high school librarians should slow down their library additions so they can read their additions, and not simply rely on reviews and descriptions written by others. Firsthand knowledge instead of secondhand claims.

This is a preview of “We Cannot Read…”. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

Taxing the Middle Class and Poor

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Arizona’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill that would have barred cities and municipalities from taxing food purchases. Hobbs’ rationalization went like this:

The bill, originally unveiled as a way to mitigate inflation, does not take effect for more than two years. What’s more, it does nothing for the more than 800,000 Arizonans who use SNAP and WIC benefits for their groceries, as these constituents are already exempt from the tax.

Hobbs’ first beef might seem like a reasonable objection, and one easily corrected. However, it’s reasonable, also, to give those cities and municipalities whose budgets currently use those food taxes time to adjust their budgets.

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Evidence!?

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Internationally famed Ersatz Doctor Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary, is being called on by Senator Jim Risch (R, ID) to produce the evidence that supports “Dr.” Becerra’s and his HHS’ encouragement for actual doctors to perform “gender affirming care”—like hormone therapies and sex-change surgeries—on minors with gender dysphoria.

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It Takes the State

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The Progressive-Democrat Hillary Clinton’s claim concerning a village’s role in raising our children was an understatement. What the Progressive-Democrats actually mean, is that it takes the State to raise our children and that we parents have only the role the State chooses to grant us from time to time.

A [Washington State] Senate bill on the cusp of a House floor vote would allow homeless youth shelters to avoid notifying parents of runaway children if the juvenile is seeking “gender affirming treatment” or “reproductive health services.”
Senate Bill 5599 sponsored by Senator Marko Liias, D-Mukilteo, would also allow “host homes” to keep runaway children from their parents or legal guardians for the purpose of helping them access “gender affirmation” surgery or medical procedures. The bill cleared the Senate in a 27-19 vote on March 1.

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Idiotic

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Some otherwise reputable folks want a six-month moratorium on the continued development and improvement of artificial intelligence software.

Several tech executives and top artificial-intelligence researchers, including Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, are calling for a pause in the breakneck development of powerful new AI tools.
A moratorium of six months or more would give the industry time to set safety standards for AI design and head off potential harms of the riskiest AI technologies, the proponents of a pause said.

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Because Shut Up

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The Progressive-Democratic Party majority in the Colorado House of Representatives is tired of hearing from recalcitrant Republicans demurring from having our 2nd Amendment rights curtailed.

Democrats in the Colorado House of Representatives invoked a rule to limit debate on gun control legislation over the weekend and passed three bills on the matter.
The Democratic-controlled chamber invoked Rule 14 to limit debate on Saturday. The rule allows for debate to be stopped an hour after a motion to end debate is made and after an affirmative vote of a majority of members.

A whole hour.

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FISA Revamp

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Congress may be moving to revamp the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which among other things, creates a secret Federal court that empirically allows the Federal government to spy on American citizens in the United States—one of whom was a representative of citizens of Illinois whom they had elected to Congress—without a warrant.

[Congressman Austin, R-GA] Scott said lawmakers on the committee want to address who in government can query the database, who can be targeted and who must sign off on such warrantless surveillance. He also suggested there is some support for adding lawyers to the secretive process to help defend the rights of Americans who are being surveilled without their knowledge.

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An End to the Ukrainian War

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The lede in a Wall Street Journal article goes like this:

Western leaders are beginning to have a clearer vision of how they hope the war in Ukraine will end.
What is missing is any plan to make it happen.

On the contrary. The principal, the nation that has been invaded by the barbarian, has a very clear vision of how the war will end. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has articulated that vision since the day the barbarian hordes swarmed over the borders: all Russian forces out of all Ukrainian territory. Full stop.

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The Purpose of Medicaid

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State Medicaid programs were created for the explicit purpose of providing health insurance coverage for State citizens on the lower rungs of that State’s economic ladder. The Federal government transfers Federal funds—the tax remittances of all of us citizens regardless of the State of which we might also be citizens—to support those Medicaid programs.

In California’s case, Federal transfers in support of Medi-Cal, that State’s Medicaid program, comprise more than 69% of the program. That amounts to 71.4 billion of our tax dollars.

Now the Progressive-Democrat governor of California, Gavin Newsom, wants Medi-Cal to pay the rent for the State’s homeless.

This is a preview of The Purpose of Medicaid. Read the full post (357 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Yellen and Law

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The Wall Street Journal editors wrote Thursday about Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s…flip-flopping…on making whole, or not, nominally uninsured depositors in the wake of SVB’s failure and the government takeover of Signature Bank. Their subheadline accurately summarized the matter.

Are all deposits insured or not? Only [Yellen] seems to know.

The editors’ lede was this:

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday walked back her comments from the day before that walked back her remarks the day before about providing a de facto guarantee on all US bank deposits.

The editors then asked the question: Who’s on first?

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