Archive for July, 2021

With all the COVID hype, you probably missed…

Posted: July 31, 2021 by ng36b in abortion, catholic
Tags: , , , , ,

…the vote to kill the Hyde Amendment.

Yup, I almost missed it too.

From https://www.chausa.org/about/about/facts-statistics

Since 1973, every funding bill has contained the Hyde Amendment, which banned the use of taxpayer funding for abortions, except in a few key areas. Like most things on social media, most people haven’t actually read the amendment, so I’ve copied it here:

Sec. 506. (a) None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for any abortion.

(b) None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.

(c) The term “health benefits coverage” means the package of services covered by a managed care provider or organization pursuant to a contract or other arrangement.

–Hyde Amendment

Sec. 507. (a) The limitations established in the preceding section shall not apply to an abortion—

(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or


(2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.

(b) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as prohibiting the expenditure by a State, locality, entity, or private person of State, local, or private funds (other than a State’s or locality’s contribution of Medicaid matching funds).

(c) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as restricting the ability of any managed care provider from offering abortion coverage or the ability of a State or locality to contract separately with such a provider for such coverage with State funds (other than a State’s or locality’s contribution of Medicaid matching funds).

(d) (1) None of the funds made available in this Act may be made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State or local government, if such agency, program, or government subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

(2) In this subsection, the term “health care entity” includes an individual physician or other health care professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization, a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan.

–Hyde Amendment

The Hyde Amendment is estimated to have stopped approximately 300,000 abortions a year. Given that abortion in the U.S. is likely responsible for a 10% decrease in population (calculated by comparing states that have and have not legalized abortion), repealing the Hyde Amendment will likely increase this to 12-13%. Sadly, black Americans are the hardest hit by abortions. Estimates vary, but somewhere around 40% of black pregnancies are terminated through abortion. That’s a staggering number when you think that every year, around half a million black babies are simply executed.

To put that in perspective, in 2016 there were approximately 17,000 murders in the entire U.S. Even with the jump in 2020, these numbers still don’t compare to abortion losses for just black Americans. When you lump in everyone else, we’re close to 1 million.

The good news is that abortion has been on the decline. After hitting a high in 1990, its been falling ever since, although its hard to tell because some states, including California, don’t report numbers to the CDC. This fall is attributed to everything from better education to better access to birth control. So if its declining, why expand funding? Why bother doing this when anyone that wants an abortion can easily get one?

Since its politics, I’m going to answer: money and power. Funding abortion through tax dollars gives places like Planned Parenthood a cash cow to milk. Just like transgender therapy, when the government pays for it, even if they don’t pay very well, you’re guaranteed a pay check. On the power side, given that there are over 600 Catholic hospitals in the U.S., repealing the Hyde Amendment forces them to either dump Medicare or go out of business. Given that these hospitals need Medicare to care for some of the poorest Americans, its a nasty way to pin these hospitals against the wall.

Should the Hyde Amendment go away, the first thing that will happen is a surge in lawsuits on any hospital that previously did not provide abortion service. After that, you’ll continue to see most abortions still performed at places like Planned Parenthood. Just like the bakery lawsuits, none of this will result in better service or better health, because its just a power and money grab, plain and simple.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

The Mind of Russia & China

Posted: July 31, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion
Tags: , ,

Once Senator Milton Young of North Dakoda said to him: “You people of the South are much more militarily minded than in the North.” “Milt”, Russell replied, “you’d be militarily minded too if Sherman had crossed North Dakoda

Robert A Caro: The Years of Lyndon Johnson , Master of the Senate 2003 page 180

There is no denying that both China and Russia (but especially China) has been our primary enemy for decades. I had military men during the height of the Cold War tell me that China was in fact our primary problem, but as we deal with what they are doing and why we have to keep two things in mind.

We look at all of these things through an American lens, but for a moment consider this lens that the Russians and Chinese use.

In each of the last two centuries Russia has been invaded by the premier military power of the age, Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, and these invaders pushed deep into the country Napoleon even taking Moscow.

Driving them out took millions of lives and tons of treasure. While most ordinary Russians didn’t have a lot of use for the communists they knew what is was to be invaded and what it meant. This trauma was the single most unifying force within a country for a government that was oppressing its own people and was used to the hilt and I’m not even dealing with the trauma of losing wars to Poland and Japan AND Germany (remember before the Communist revolution Russia had surrendered to Germany) early in the last century.

Now the Russian empire is gone, the Soviet Union is gone and historic parts of even the pre-soviet empire are gone but you better damn well believe that Russia has not forgotten these things and that when Putin acts to subdue and compromise Europe the Russian people have in the back of their minds the idea that everything that slows them down means that much less of a chance that they will have do deal with this cycle again.

China is a tad different, you had the great attempt to carve up China in the late 19th and early 20th century which subordinated China for the sake of trade to foreign powers is an annoyance but like other colonial enterprises brought both technology and as evidenced by Hong Kong advancement, but if you want to find something that unites ethnic Chinese, both Communist and anti-communist its the memory of World War 2 and their occupation by Japan.

American and British POW can testify to the cruelty of the Japanese toward them during World War 2 but that pales compared to what China suffered during that time. Japan moved without mercy against and who stood against them or were even just in the way. This cruelty is in living memory and the Communist Party having murdered tens of millions of their own people has every reason to highlight these acts by Japan to keep their mind off of what they have done and are doing themselves. (This incidentally is why China’s move to threaten Japan, while foolish, is good PR internally because while Japan fell and was occupied, China didn’t get the revenge they wanted and I suspect will not forgive us for rebuilding them into one of the greatest technological powers of all time. You only have to look at their reaction to Japanese victories at the Olympics to see that this hatred is alive and well.

The Best part for both Russia and China is that what they suffered was so horrible that they don’t have to exaggerate it to sell it to the people. They’ve heard the stories from parents and grandparents and don’t need to state to color it.

Does any of this excuse the actions of Putin or Xi? Nope, but if you’re going to check their ambitions to surpass and subordinate us it’s useful to know what makes them tick and one of the things that makes them do so is the determination that NOBODY is ever going to do what the French, Nazis and Japanese ever did to them again.

I think half the battle for us is to (correctly) assure the people of both of those nations that nothing is farther from our mind.

The COVID Vaccine Logic Pretzels

Posted: July 30, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion

So let’s get this straight…

We are being told that if you get the vaccine for the Chinese Covid Virus you should wear a mask and avoid contact to keep from getting or spreading the disease you are being vaccinated for because you can still get and/or spread said virus despite the vaccine.

Yet we are being told at the same time that if you DON’T have the vaccine you not only risk getting the disease but are a danger to others. We are being told this is true even if you have had the disease and thus your body already has the antibodies for this disease whose generation is the purpose of getting said vaccine. Moreover we are being told this even though we are regularly getting reports of fully vaccinated people getting the disease and being made to quarantine in the sports world.

Now I have a degree in computer science but you don’t need such a degree to see the illogic of this.

That people are actually falling for this in an indictment of our educational system and/or our ability of self delusion, so lets cut to the chase and untangle this logic pretzel:

The reality is these vaccines are glorified flu shots.

Now there is nothing wrong with glorified flu shots, they are useful to have around and for people of particularly high risk of death from the Chinese COVID virus are a Godsend.

It should also be noted that given the emergency with the outbreak of COVID the fact that we even have glorified flu shots at this point is pretty impressive and said shots and both the safety and the effectiveness of these shots are bound to increase over time as the scientists who have worked and continue to work on them get more and better data through testing and experimentation. I’m betting that by 2024 or 25 the ratio of side effects vs effectiveness will be the same or better as an actual flu shot.

But given the increased risks over a standard flu shot and the fact that we are constantly hearing of fully vaccinated people not only testing positive but being told that they should be under restriction I can’t see a credible argument for getting this shot if you are:

Not at high risk

OR

Have already had COVID

Moreover given the financial and political incentives out there and the credibility of those involved I’d be careful of any pronouncements people give on the subject (feel free to apply that standard to this post).

So in conclusion:

If you’ve considered these facts and decided that currently the benefits for you outweigh the risks and decide to get one of the shots that’s fine, it’s up to you.

If you’ve decided that they currently don’t and choose not to get the shot or to defer until such a time as they do that’s fine and up to you.

Oh and If you base your decision on getting the shot on politics that’s up to you and who knows the decision you make might still be the correct one for you based on your own risk/reward standards….,but you’re an idiot.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is another Democrat attempt to steal future elections

Posted: July 29, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Stealing the 2020 Presidential Election was a rousing success for the Democrats.  Because of that they are attempting to ensure that they will have an easy time stealing all future presidential elections.  Their first attempt, the For The People Act, failed a couple months ago.  They are at it again with the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is a rather repulsive name for this partisan refuse.  The sole purpose of this law is to overturn and outlaw all attempts to secure federal elections through measures such as Voter ID laws and cleaning up voter registration roles.

I first learned about this craven attempt at election theft from this action alert from the Heritage Foundation Stop H.R. 4, a Federal Veto of State Election Laws

H.R. 4 is a Leftist scheme to give President Biden’s bureaucrats in the federal government VETO power over state election integrity laws. Biden’s politicized lawyers in the Justice Department would use this veto power to overturn state voting laws they politically disagree with, such as extremely popular voter ID laws.

H.R. 4 would accomplish this by altering and weaponizing the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 for the Left’s partisan political gain.

This is a dangerously effective tactic, because the Voting Rights Act is generally a good and popular law. By stealing its good name for their new bill and partisan power grab, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer hope to gain mainstream America’s support by default.

It is exceedingly odious that this partisan nonsense invokes and changes the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because the original law:

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act made it illegal to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race or color. Section 2 reinforces and strengthens the protections in the 15th amendment. And importantly, section 2 is still law (as it should be!).

When most people think of the VRA, section 2 is usually what they think of. With H.R. 4, Pelosi seeks to weaponize lesser known provisions of the VRA (sections 3, 4, and 5).

Here are the changes that this new legislation would make to the original Voting Rights Act.

H.R. 4 would change Section 3 to enact a fast and loose definition of discrimination. Under this new “disparate impact” definition, a voting law that applies to all equally, but potentially results in a statistical difference in impact, would now be in violation of the VRA. Under this loose definition, the federal government is given wide latitude to invalide state election laws without showing any actual intent to discriminate.

Furthermore, H.R. 4 would change the coverage formula for “preclearance” found in section 4, which determines which states the federal government essentially has veto power over. The power of preclearance is found in section 5 of the VRA, and it essentially creates a federal veto power over the election laws of certain states.

As you can see the whole notion of preclearence in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was  exploited by the Obama Administration to a overturn attempts to make elections more secure.  The Obama Administration’s abuse of preclearence was so over the top it was struck down by the Supreme Court.  This new legislation is just an end run around the Supreme Court

Preclearance is the process by which several states with a past history of voting rights violations were required by the VRA in the 1960’s to get pre-approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ) before they changed any state voting law.

Preclearance was originally supposed to expire after five years, but Congress extended it several times.

During the Obama years, Attorney General Eric Holder abused preclearance as a personal veto to stop states from passing common-sense voting reforms and lawsuits were filed challenging preclearance.

In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court found section 4 of the VRA unconstitutional. Because the formula for selecting states for preclearance had never been updated since the 1970’s, states were being continually punished for 50-year old mistakes that had been long rectified.

After Shelby County, Leftist partisans in the federal government no longer had veto power over state election laws, and states were able to pass many common-sense reforms, like voter ID.

The Federalist has come out swinging against this latest attempt by Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats to steal elections How H.R. 4 Would Let Leftist Extremists At The DOJ Control The Entire Nation’s Elections

Why are Democrats in Congress staging a series of show hearings to generate support for H.R. 4, “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act”? Because, they claim, there is a wave of “voter suppression” going on across the country.

That is nothing more than a political fabrication. Requiring voters to show ID to authenticate their identity, or trying to ensure voter registration rolls are accurate and up-to-date, are not “voter suppression” and don’t prevent any eligible individual from registering and voting.

H.R. 4 isn’t just unnecessary and unjustified. It’s a dangerous bill that would give the partisan bureaucrats of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department administrative veto powers over states’ changes to election procedures.

As Cleta Mitchell noted in The Federalist earlier this month, H.R. 4 is “even more insidious” than its cousin, H.R. 1, precisely because “it would enable the vastly well-funded Democrat ‘voting rights’ apparatus to control American elections.” This control would extend over states’ election integrity measures like voter ID (even if passed by ballot referenda approved by all of the voters of a state).

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