Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Thomas
- Elite
- Mueller
- Gates
- Dividend
- Thomas. Interesting pair of opinions out of the SCOTUS on abortion last week. The first was upholding part of an Indiana law signed by Mike Pence as governor in 2016 that required the bodies of unborn children to be disposed of in the same manner as those of humans, either burial or cremation. The same legislation also prohibited a woman’s abortion decision based solely on the race, sex or disability of the baby. The first opinion summarily overturned a Seventh Circuit ruling that struck down the law. The Appeals court agreed with Planned Parenthood’s position that the fetal remains could be treated the same way as infectious medical waste. The SCOUTS vote upholding this part of the law was 7 – 2, with only Planned Parenthood’s Justice Ruth Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor voting against it. Unsaid in the entire litigation was the real aim of this legislation, that of shutting down the very profitable chop shop in human tissue Planned Parenthood has been operating for decades. And make no mistake, this opinion will do precisely that. Expect to see similar legislation pass in other states as they figure out what just happened. The second opinion was far more interesting, and in a concurring opinion Justice Thomas got himself involved. As only the Seventh Circuit has ruled in the discussion of abortions based on sex, race or disabilities, the SCOTUS punted this part until another (or several more) appeals courts got themselves involved. The concurring opinion from Justice Thomas was long, pointed, called out Ginsberg by name, and went VFR direct to the reason Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in the first place – that of eugenics, ridding the world of dark skinned people who she and her fellow travelers believed are not as genetically gifted as the rest of us and thus (in her opinion and the opinion of Planned Parenthood founders), undesirable in greater society. Thomas wrote the following:
The use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical. The foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth-control movement. That movement developed alongside the American eugenics movement. And significantly, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger recognized the eugenic potential of her cause. She emphasized and embraced the notion that birth control “opens the way to the eugenist.” As a means of reducing the “ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all,” Sanger argued that “Birth Control . . . is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method” of “human generation.” In her view, birth control had been “accepted by the most clear thinking and far seeing of the Eugenists themselves as the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health.”
This sets up an upcoming court case where this court will get to decide if there is a constitutional right to abort people based on disabilities, sex or race. And this will be a public discussion that will include the foundations of Planned Parenthood. I wonder how the democrat’s newfound imported majority of Sanger’s undesirables will receive the news that they and their children are undesirable? Better yet, what happens if the SCOTUS decides we have a constitutional right to kill people based on their race? https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/28/supreme-court-law-burial-unborn-punts-sex-selection-abortions/
- Elite. What happens when the elites no longer like the people who elected them? They typically go out and get more people, replacing their base. This is the best description of what the coastal blue state democrats are doing as they replace their foundational base of inner city blacks who they are systematically aborting out of the gene pool, with as much of the population of Central America as they can humanly possible import, for the most part, poor, dependent, uneducated, Spanish speaking, steeped in corruptions and gangs, and most important of all, registered to vote democrat. Problem is that this takes some time and over that time, the rest of us targeted also have a vote, and our vote is to replace the so-called elites. This is what happened when middle America rose up and elected Trump to drain the swamp. It is what just happened in Oz and last week in the EU Parliamentary Elections, where the people tossed out politicians and swung hard toward populist and green candidates. Mark Steyn wrote a hilarious column about the EU elections in GB, where the two main parties, Conservative and Labour managed just 23% of the vote. This is combined vote. For Conservatives, the departing Theresa May led them to the worst showing in 200 years. For Labour, at 14%, it was the worst showing since 1910. What did the parties do to get such a public spanking? They have shined on the general public for three solid years after that general public voted to exit the European Union (EU). May and her majority held all manner of negotiations, multiple votes in Parliament, and the Sturm und Drang of public process, all with the stated goal of leaving the EU. Cynics have long thought that the only reason she was installed as Prime Minister was to keep kicking the Brexit ball down the road. The disconnect between the general public and their elected elites first showed up in Great Britain with the shocking vote in support of Brexit. Did the elected representatives in Parliament listen? Not at all. Rather they doubled down and slow-rolled Brexit in hopes the disconnect would go away. It didn’t. Instead, that disconnect got worse, as demonstrated in EU elections last week. And Great Britain is not the only place this is happening. The Brits are about to elect themselves a new elite, just like what we here in the US are doing. Trump is not the cause. Rather, he is the solution. And it is happening throughout the Western political world. https://www.steynonline.com/9417/the-base-gets-itself-a-new-elite
- Mueller. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller held himself a 9-minute long press availability last Friday, ostensibly to give public comments on his report. During the comments, he doubled down on his contention that he was not able to indict President Trump because of DoJ rules against indicting a sitting president. This statement was intended to provide aid and comfort to House democrats hell-bent on impeaching Trump regardless of any facts or criminal acts. Mueller did not take any questions after his statement and announced he would be retiring from public life (until the next democrat is elected President), and if called before congress, he would only say what was in his report. the actual reason he doesn’t want to go before congress is that he doesn’t want to answer numerous questions from Republicans about his “investigation.” His public statement was conveniently timed while Attorney General Barr was out of town in Alaska and no Deputy Attorney General has been confirmed yet. Barr sat down with CBS a few days later and disagreed with Mueller’s conclusions. The networks were ecstatic at this lifeline. House democrats, not so much, other than the 20% of their caucus that supports impeachment. A bunch of the new democrats that flipped Republican seats have to get reelected next year while Trump is up for reelection, putting them in an uncomfortable, hopefully untenable, position. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/29/full-transcript-robert-mueller-statement-on-trump-russia-investigation/
- Gates. The participation of Bill and Melinda Gates in Common Core is well known. Like most roads to very warm places, their well-intentioned effort to improve public education was engulfed by the educrat blob and ended up being more of a problem than a solution. Today Common Core is being fought by parents nationwide not only because it doesn’t work all that well, but it is hated. Less well known is Gates connection with the College Board, who came up with what they call an adversity score, to add points to your SAT totals based on your zip code to correct for negative social environment of the student. For a century, the SAT was a tool of meritocracy, something intended to measure intelligence and actual skills learned while in school. Not good enough for the Social Justice Warriors. Not anymore, as the new policy completely reverses the meritocratic work by the College Board for a century. Gates connection with the College Board came when it selected a Gates alumnus as its new President. David Coleman played a significant role in writing the Common Core standards. Coleman has degrees from all the right Ivy League schools, a Rhodes scholarship, and has worked in the big-time consulting world since age 25. He has been with the College Board since 2012, about the same time the test started getting dumbed down by removing multiple choice answers, eliminating a correction for guessing, making the essay portion optional, and getting rid of a significant number of vocabulary words. Quite a track record. He wasn’t alone in this, as the College Board brought in the Gates Foundation policy director in 2013. Together, they integrated Common Core into the SAT. The new adversity score installs resume over achievement, about what you would expect when you put Ivy League academics in charge. It also panders to the notion that richer parents can spend resources on SAT prep instruction that the less well-off can’t. Think of it as an awful idea poorly implemented. The piece ends with the observation that Thomas Jefferson opened a door. Gates is welding it shut. https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273851/how-bill-gates-destroyed-sat-daniel-greenfield
- Dividend. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) was long the third rail in Alaskan politics, touch it and your political life is over. That changed 4 years ago when newly elected “independent” Governor Bill Walker vetoed it, changing the payout from the statutory derived amount to whatever he decided was a reasonable payout. This instantly converted the PFD into a political football, something the guys who put it into law long fought against. Only took a couple years for the Alaska legislature to figure out that it was easier to grab the PFD than cut or even make a gesture toward controlling state spending. We are in our third year of this charade. As it sits today, the democrat-led House majority passed a budget that didn’t even include a PFD. The Senate majority (veto-proof Republican), initially passed a PFD at the statutory set limit. The actual number will be something in between. Last week, House Finance attempted to pull a fast one, bringing new legislation in front of the committee that would change the statutory rules governing the PFD. When you are in Special Session, the standard notification rules for public hearings are compressed. This meeting was on HB 1005, which is a classic bait and switch, paying out the statutory PFD for this year, while changing the rules so that it will be cut by 2/3 in subsequent years. Essentially the democrats leading the committee and the turncoat Republicans that gave them their majority were rewriting budget rules to allow funding the operating budget with the PFD. Not only was the hearing scheduled at the last minute, but there was no call-in number listed for public testimony. Here’s where it gets funny. Governor Dunleavy’s office found out about the hearing and sent out a blast alert via SMS Text notifying his supporters of the meeting. Enough of them got the message that they called in and blistered the assembled legislators for three solid hours. It didn’t take very long for everyone on the committee other than Chair to leave for more interesting, less painful activities. She stayed until the bitter end. And it was bitter. One of the things Dunleavy was elected to do was to reinstate the PFD at its statutory levels. In order to do so, he proposed three constitutional amendments, one of which is a vote of the citizens for any future change in the PFD. To date, none of these amendments have moved. As of this writing, HB 1005 appears to be dead, though I do expect it is in someone’s back pocket to offer as a last-minute amendment on the budget that has yet to be passed. The PFD is a Good Deal. Personally, I expect its days are numbered, as for some reason, we are singularly unable to elect enough legislators who are interested in controlling spending to keep it around for an extended length of time in the future. But who knows, I might be surprised. We figured out the right governor. Might even be able to figure out the how to elect the right legislature in the not so distant future. https://mustreadalaska.com/omg-bait-switch-house-finance-pfd-bill/
More later –
– AG