Author Archives: eehines

How is this Possible?

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Personal information of 7.6 million AT&T customers and of 65 million former AT&T customers have appeared on the dark web in the last two weeks. Stuff happens, even egregiously bad stuff. What makes this stuff especially egregiously bad, though, is AT&T‘s claim that the data appear[] to have come from 2019 or earlier.

That especially bad status flows from some questions:

Why wasn’t the data breach discovered those 5 or more years earlier; why did AT&T not know of the breach of its own systems until they saw the results of the breach just recently?

If AT&T did know of the breach those years ago, why did they sit on the information all this time?

If AT&T did discover the data breach promptly, and the data that appeared on the dark web only happened to be from 2019 and prior, what were the safe guards in place—or not—for what would have been archived data? What are the safeguards for data from 5 years ago through to the present? How does AT&T know those data haven’t been penetrated and stolen, also?

Pay Their Fair Share

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Progressive-President Joe Biden is busily trying to raise taxes in his never ending effort to get the Evil Rich to Pay Their Fair Share™.

Here are some numbers and a couple of graphs, via The Wall Street Journal‘s editors:

…for 2021 show that the top 1% of Americans reported 26.3% of the country’s adjusted gross income, while paying 45.8% of total income taxes.

This graph shows the trend of taxes paid and who pays them over the course of this century:

Yet Biden, Progressive-Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY), Progressive-Democrat Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (IL), and the rest of Biden’s Party syndicate, individually and as a group, flat refuse to say what they believe that fair share should be. Plainly, that’s because they’ve already defined among themselves, that fair share to be All of It.

This is illustrated by the tax increases that Biden is actively pushing this year. Per a Tax Foundation analysis,

The tax increases would substantially increase marginal tax rates on investment, saving, and work, reducing economic output by 2.2% in the long run, wages by 1.6%, and employment by 788,000 full-time equivalent jobs. On a gross basis, we estimate Biden’s FY 2025 budget would increase taxes by about $4.4 trillion over that period [of 2024 to 2034]. After taking various credits into account, the increase would be about $3.4 trillion[.]
[Biden’s] tax changes…include “additional taxes on high earners, higher taxes on US businesses—including increasing taxes that Biden enacted with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) —and more tax credits for a variety of taxpayers and activities[.]

As the WSJ editors asked,

Is this not a “fair share” to Mr Biden? Then what would be?

Plainly what would be to Biden and his Party syndicate All of It.

This is the central plank of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s platform this season. And they won’t stop with the Evil Rich as they define down what constitutes “rich” behind their DEI smokescreen.

Dithering Is as Dithering Does

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No Labels, the political organization pretending to want to field a President/Vice President ticket in the upcoming race, is having trouble finding candidates to take them seriously.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie…indicated he didn’t plan to run with No Labels, which had been encouraging him to lead a “unity” presidential campaign….

So have Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, and Joe Manchin.

And: former Republican North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, No Labels co-chair, resigned from the organization earlier this month.

No Labels began its “campaign” this season by announcing proudly that it wouldn’t run a slate if that slate were to be a spoiler—of which main party candidate they declined to say. That announcement demonstrated its unseriousness, demonstrating as it did, that the organization wasn’t prepared to run seriously, not even as seriously as Ross Perot, or even the Republican Party of the 1850s. So began its pretense.

Then the organization dithered for months over in which States they’d try to get on the ballot first, whether or not they had a ticket.

Then the organization dithered for months after that over which potential candidates they’d approach for joining their ticket.

Then, with all that dithering and unseriousness, when they started actually talking to candidates, all those folks said no.

This is not an organization that’s ready for prime time. Or even for AA ball.

Illegal Aliens

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Do illegal aliens have rights under our 14th Amendment? Here’s what that Amendment says on the matter:

No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The question hinges on “jurisdiction.” In that sense, some illegal aliens do have rights under our 14th Amendment: those who enter illegally but then submit to arrest and handling in accordance with our laws. They’re still eligible for deportation over their illegal entry, and they should be, but the decision to deport must follow due process.

On the other hand, those illegal aliens who evade arrest, whether as gotaways or as having successfully penetrated our border without detection, I submit have no rights under our 14th Amendment. These folks, by their evasion of arrest, have consciously and deliberately held themselves outside of our laws, and thereby held themselves outside of our, or any State’s, jurisdiction. They should be deported immediately upon being caught—no due process required, they do not need to pass Go, they need to go directly to the other side of our borders.

Progressive-Democratic Party’s War on Christianity

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As part of the White House’s Easter celebration and Easter Egg Hunt, the White House held an Easter Art Event. This year, thought, that art contest was censored.

Children of National Guard members are not allowed to submit artwork with religious symbolism for the White House’s 2024 “Celebrating National Guard Families” event [apparently separate from Jill Biden’s EGGucation theme].
This year, the Adjutants General of the National Guard requested on behalf of First Lady Jill Biden for the children of parents in the National Guard to submit artwork with the theme, “Celebrating our Military Families.”
According to the rules, the Easter egg design “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.”

Apparently, Guardsmen or their children aren’t capable of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus as part of celebrating military families. Or such a celebration is questionable.

Perhaps instead, art centered on breakfast tacos would have been acceptable to Jill Biden, in lieu of overtly Christian art on one of the most important and overtly Christian holidays during this White House event that used to be an Easter-centered event. Cynically,

Other material that is prohibited from the designs include “material that promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.”

Except for us Christians. Bigotry, hatred, or harm against us Christians by our children’s exclusion from the children’s art contest based on our religion, was perfectly fine.

It is, though, entirely consistent with Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s cynical deprecation of Easter by declaring the day a Transgender Day of Visibility.