Author Archives: eehines

Foolish Move

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Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R, SC) has introduced legislation that would make illegal formation of House caucuses organized around race, ethnicity, or national origin.

If adopted, the measure would effectively force the dissolution of Democrat-aligned groups, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
The proposal could also affect GOP-affiliated organizations, including the Black Republican Congressional Staff Association, the GOP Latino Staff Association, and the Republican Asian American Staff Association.

It’s a nice idea, blocking race-based organizations and the like in the House. Mace’s argument is straightforward and entirely legitimate.

Race-based caucuses are not diversity. They are federally sanctioned segregation. You do not get to lecture America about inclusion while running an organization which checks your skin color at the door. The hypocrisy ends now.
It is time to end taxpayer-funded discrimination in this institution[.]

There is, though, no way to enforce the intent of the thing, even were the legislation to pass. The caucuses won’t disappear. The groups will just continue to meet informally in glorified coffee klatches and therewith continue to coordinate legislative proposal and votes. Nothing material will change.

Stop Wasting Time

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Alternatively, stop timidly ducking the issue.

The issue at hand is the SAVE Act, which would plus up our election security with strong steps aimed at ensuring only American citizens vote in American national elections. The time waste/timidity is Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R, SD) and his…hesitancy…to put the Act, already passed by the House (twice!), on the floor of the Senate for a vote.

Thune may well be right that the Act doesn’t have the votes for passage. At this point, that’s not important. What matters is putting all of the Senators on the record as voting for or against the Act (or, their own timidity, voting Present or not voting at all). Us average Americans have a right to know who of them wants a secure election system, who actively opposes security in our elections, and who just doesn’t care enough or is too timid to take a position.

What He Said

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A letter-writer in WSJ‘s Wednesday Letters section had this:

China’s consumer economy is bound by families’ overinvestment in property. In the absence of a thriving retail stock market, the life savings of two or three generations are poured into housing.
With grandma’s nest egg and mom and dad’s retirement tied up in a young couple’s first home, even a slight chill in property valuations causes an arctic frost on consumer sentiment.

Yep.

Compare and contrast that with John Adams’ definition of Happiness.

Questions

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The subheadline on an article about Ukrainian attacks on retail warehouses in Russia raises a couple for me.

Infernos burned through massive warehouses operated by Wildberries, causing billions of dollars in damages

Some of those fires burned for a couple of days before they were brought under control.

Thus: are the Ukrainians using fire accelerants in their attacks on the warehouses (good for them if they are; they should be adding them to their attacks on the barbarian’s fuel and refinery facilities, too), or does Wildberries really have such poor fire fighting systems and such poor flammables storage protocols?

Both Can Be Correct

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In the aftermath of the discovery that Progressive-Democrat-run New Jersey really does have 6,600 illegal aliens on its registered voter rolls (the State’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Mikie Sherrill says she’s taking steps to purge those illegal registrants, but I’ve seen no evidence, yet, the purge actually has occurred) and that 400 of them did, indeed, vote, Sherrill is blaming the software vendor the State hired to collate and vet all those registering to vote in New Jersey.

These individuals answered “no” when asked on a keypad whether they were a US citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway[.]

IDEMIA, the software vendor, says it’s not responsible.

IDEMIA works with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, and has for more than 40 years, to support the process through which eligible individuals may indicate their interest in registering to vote when applying for or renewing a driver’s license or state-issued identification card. IDEMIA’s role is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system.
The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote. Information submitted by IDEMIA must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.

Missed in the finger-pointing and defensive crouching and responsibility ducking is a simple truism. Both of those statements can be correct at the same time. The software vendor’s output may well have, this time at least, failed to meet contractually obligated accuracy standards. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s DoS/DoE personnel may well have failed their own obligation to inspect the received data with due diligence.

Blame shifting is more important than problem solving, though.