Author Archives: eehines

Cynical Cherry-Picking

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Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D, IL) insists that biological men should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. He’s gone so far in his radical left ideology as to accuse those who disagree with him of hateful rhetoric for their disagreement.

Transgender youth are among the most at risk of homelessness, depression, and death by suicide. So, when these young people who are already struggling hear politicians amplify hateful rhetoric that denies their very existence, what message does it send?

Riley Gaines, a former top-drawer college swimmer even though she lost a critical race to a biological male competing as a transgendered woman, is one of those hateful Conservatives who disagrees with Durbin.

Senator Durbin, in your opening statement, you had mentioned this rhetoric. You had mentioned that, what message does it send to trans individuals? And my comeback to that is, what message does this send to women, to young girls, who are denied of these opportunities? … So easily, their rights to privacy and safety [are] thrown out of the window to protect a small population, protect one group as long as they’re happy.

Durbin’s cynical response:

Since reference was made to my earlier statement, I would just like to add something for the record: there is no evidence that transgender athletes are an issue in certain levels of sports. No transgender female athlete has ever won an Olympic medal in women’s sports, though the International Olympic Committee has allowed transgender athletes to compete since 2004[.]

I’ll leave aside the volume of evidence that Durbin is ignoring that those advantages exist, and that those advantages begin in the womb in the time frame when the embryos start to differentiate between male and female. Regarding Durbin’s other claim, there always are exceptional performances in the general population, and the Olympics, by their nature, strongly emphasize those exceptions. Olympic athletes are at the far right tail of the distribution.

In the general population, extending well out into that tail, male athletes retain those strong, critical advantages in size, speed, strength, stamina, and on and on, that they began to obtain ‘way back in their mothers’ wombs, over the female athletes against whom they’re “competing” in women’s sports. Those advantages hold no matter how the males identify, no matter what surgeries and hormonal treatments the males may have had, or for how long. In the end, allowing biological men to participate in women’s sports is exclusionary: women aren’t allowed to compete in their own sports; they’re only allowed to participate.

Durbin knows this. His virtue-signaling vote pandering sully the office of United States Senator, and they are an insult to women, and they are insulting to the intelligence of all of us.

Reforming FISA

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One outcome of Special Counsel John Durham’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee is an apparently re-energized, at least by many in the Republican caucus and a few Progressive-Democrats, to reform The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That’s all to the good, to the extent any serious reform actually occurs.

The most important reform of this Act, though, is the complete elimination of the secret Star Chamber that is the FISA Court. Federal Judges have long known how to seal records that legitimately don’t belong in the public’s eye, at least in the moment. The court’s proceedings, though, are, and should be, public.

So it must be for any sort of FISA-related court. Relevant records can be sealed—primarily the warrants FBI agents are seeking, which process is old hat for any legitimate Article III court, as well as State courts—until the warrants are executed. But this FBI has demonstrated that it will openly lie to the FISA court and that it will fabricate evidence in order to get their warrants. That’s on the FBI. What’s on the FISA court judges is their blithe acceptance of further FBI blandishments after the FBI had been caught out in its dishonesty. That makes the FISA court complicit in the dishonesty.

That badly wants the elimination of the secret court. There is no alternative; there must be no secret courts in the United States.

Full stop.

Not So Massive

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Georgia thinks it can’t update its Dominion voting machines in time for a major election in 17 months because the task is so massive. The State’s government men and women are aware that

Dominion voting machines had significant vulnerabilities, which led the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a public advisory last year based on the findings.

But it’s too hard to fix in the time available, they claim. This is a copout.

It’d be straightforward for Georgia to switch to paper ballots and hand counting; although the time to make that switch is now, given the time required to get the relevant folks hired and trained up, along with the relevant volunteers volunteered and trained up.

This is the Georgia Governor and Secretary of State making the conscious decision to keep in place a known-to-be-not-secure voting system. This decision is made doubly bad by Georgia’s status as a swing State in closely contested national elections.

It’s Ours By Right, Dammit!

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No Labels is looking hard at running their own President/Vice President ticket for the 2024 election. The Progressive-Democratic Party is in fury over the possibility, to the extent that its Arizona arm is going to court to try to stop No Labels from registering its candidates in that State.

It [the Arizona chapter of the Progressive-Democratic Party] filed a lawsuit in state court against No Labels alleging that the signatures we collected and the petition approved by Arizona’s secretary of state should be thrown out.

Party’s rationale—and they’re absolutely serious:

No Labels’ presence on the ballot could “make it more difficult to elect Democratic Party candidates,” and “require [the party] to expend and divert additional funds and staff time on voter education to accomplish its mission in Arizona.”

It’s Party’s God-given right to have its members elected; they shouldn’t have to compete for voters.

I won’t be surprised when if Party files a subsequent suit to do away with Arizona elections altogether on the grounds that Party shouldn’t have to expend and divert additional funds and staff time on voter education to get its members elected. Just appoint them, and save all that time and waste.

This is what Progressive-Democratic Party one-party rule looks like.

Side note: it’s only the Progressive-Democratic Party that insists on obstructing competing candidates from even competing. Republicans similarly are concerned about what a third party would do to their own candidates’ chances, but Republicans engage only in jawboning against the third party while preparing to compete against the third party’s candidates as enthusiastically as they are against Progressive-Democratic Party candidates.

More Government Intrusion

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Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D, MI) has proposed a new law that would require firearm sellers to

have a compatible gun lock available for every firearm for sale [and it] shall be unlawful for any person to offer a firearm for sale unless the person offers for sale a secure gun storage or safety device that is compatible with the firearm [and a] penalty of not more than $1,000.

This is the Progressive-Democrat politician seeking to dictate what us average Americans must have in our homes and to dictate to our private businesses what they must sell. That latter, especially, is textbook fascism: “private” enterprises may [sic] produce and sell what they wish so long as that production and sale are compatible with government diktats regarding what production and sale are permissible.

Never mind that, per the NRA (that Left-hated 2nd Amendment organization),

Firearm manufacturers already provide a lock with every gun that is sold, and anyone looking for additional gun locks can get them free through Project Childsafe, an industry program that provides free gun locks to anyone who wants one.

The NRA is being generous, though, to suggest that Rep. Tlaib isn’t educated on this topic. No, she’s a highly talented and intelligent politician, well-educated, and a member of the Elite Left. She knows full well what the firearm manufacturers do, and she’s fully conversant with Project Childsafe.

This is just another Government power grab by the Progressive-Democratic Party, as those personages keep trying to chip away at the individual liberties and duties of us average Americans.

We need to keep this sort of thing in mind through the next 17, or so, months. And beyond.

Project Childsafe can be seen here.