Quick Takes – Abortion Politics: Missouri; The Center For Disease Control; New Hampshire

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: In a post-Roe world, abortion is anything but a settled question.

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     In Missouri, the voters directly are at odds with the voters indirectly.   Specifically after enshrining abortion rights via initiative, the Missouri legislature is seeking to reverse that.

“Three months after Missouri voters enshrined reproductive rights in the state constitution, abortion remains unavailable as the state’s main provider fights legal hurdles to resume offering the procedure.

“At the same time, opponents of abortion in the state Legislature, stung by the passage of Amendment 3 in November, have filed a raft of bills aimed at thwarting implementation of the measure or undercutting its goals while they try to find a unified strategy to prevent the return of abortion services.

“This week, state lawmakers held a hearing on a conservative-backed plan to put a new amendment on the ballot that would block most abortions. If passed by the General Assembly, the measure could go to voters as soon as this year.

“The proposed amendment would ban abortion except for in medical emergencies, when a fetus has abnormalities, or in cases of rape or incest, with rape or incest cases requiring a police report and subject to a 12-week limit. It would also prohibit public funding for abortions. What’s more, it would ban providing surgeries, hormones or drugs to assist a child with a gender transition, procedures that are already illegal in Missouri.”

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Nazi Flag Flap In Utah

     Demonstrating that yet again the modern GOP is a party of action first and thinking about the consequences later, a state Representative submitted a bill intended to ban the LGBTQ&c. pride flag (HB77) that also then specifically allowed for flying a “historic version of a flag” including the flag of other countries such as Germany:

“‘You may have a Nazi flag. You may have a Confederate flag, and so you are allowed to display those flags… as part of the curriculum, and that is okay.’”

     Now, the point was to allow for flags in their relevant historical context as part of the curriculum, but the author of the bill clearly felt the push back and went back to amend the bill from allowing the display “in or on the grounds of government property” for a generic “educational purposes” to such flags usage limited as outlined by approved curriculum by the relevant governing board.

Lemmy hardest hit.

     The entire flag flap could have been avoided, including defending the Nazi flag in any context by simply getting the wording right before pushing it through. But if anything, prudence is just a big of an enemy to some as the LGBTQ&c. pride flag.

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Mandatory Insurance For A Fundamental Right In Washington State

     Despite several Supreme Court cases saying that, yes, the 2nd Amendment is indeed part of the Bill of Rights and, yes again, is indeed an individual right, some states seem hellbent on curtailing this fundamental freedom which exists independent of, and antecedent to, the state… or indeed any state. One such common method is to make it as costly as possible to exercise that inalienable right. In the state of Washington, legislators are considering a bill to impose such a financial burden via mandatory, and perpetual, requirements to carry insurance in case were to ever be used in a crime. The main operative section of HB 1504 reads, in part:

A new section is added to chapter 9.41 RCW to read as follows: (1)(a) No person in this state may purchase or possess a firearm unless that person is: (i) Insured under a firearm liability policy or covered by a firearm liability bond meeting the requirements of subsection (2) of this section; (ii) Self-insured as provided in subsection (3) of this section; or (iii) Covered by a certificate of deposit meeting the requirements of subsection (4) of this section. (b) Compliance with this requirement constitutes financial responsibility for the purpose of this section. Proof of financial responsibility to purchase or possess a firearm must be provided on the request of a dealer or law enforcement officer in the format specified under subsection (5) of this section.

     All of the “options” require taking on a financial burden that will go on as long as one chooses to exercise their Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms. How many of those who are in favor of this bill would consider it a human rights violation for the government to burden a right to vote with the requirement to have and present photo ID?

     The bill can, as introduced, can be read here or below:

Washington HB 1504 (2025) by ThePoliticalHat

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Over Here Or Over There

     One of the great follies of the Left is the idea that they could play as an intelligent designer with society and mould or even outright reconstruct it in line with their utopian vision. This is not the most hubristic and nonsensical thing since at least they can purport to control the society they wish to immanentize into the chosen eschaton. ‘Tis not only folly but an invitation for poetic justice when one had deluded themselves into thinking that they can reconstruct the world, if not human nature itself, with those explicitly acknowledged as being outside one’s power to control, despite self-assurances of one’s power to sway and manipulate.

     When it comes to antagonistic foreign relations, the belief that one could create a new world order by addressing issues only themselves and not any other country or power, is to admit that one blames America first for causing the problems to begin with!

     If you seek peace, and the only problem is yourself, then the others must be blameless and only responding to your own wickedness. Fix yourself and they won’t be antagonists anymore! This is the foreign policy foundation that is sought to be imposed on us now.

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News of the Week (February 23rd, 2025)

 

News of the Week for February 23rd, 2025


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Firing Line Friday: The Ozone Controversy

     In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

     With all the “green” grift and rent seeking, not to mention the calls to grant central government absolute power to prevent a purported imminent collapse of Earth’s ecosystem, let us look back half-a century when a specific problem could be identified with a experimentally demonstrable cause & effect and a solution that didn’t require upending society as William F. Buckley, Jr. discusses the ozone controversy with Russell W. Peterson, R. S. Scorer, and Michael B. McElroy.

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Quick Takes – Academic Discrimination & The Law: Discrimination Not Prohibited On A Technicality; Anti-DEI Claimed To Be Unconstitutional; Anti-Semitism

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: A lot of court cases requiring discriminating judicial tastes

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     Speedbumps in court for a lawsuit against a discriminatory scholarship program.

“Lawyers representing Young America’s Foundation and two white students in a case alleging racial discrimination by the Department of Education are considering refiling the lawsuit after a judge recently dismissed it based on ‘procedural issues.’

“‘We are encouraged that the judge said the program is likely unconstitutional … and are working out next steps to deal with the procedural issues identified by the judge,’ [said[ attorney Skylar Croy with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty […]

“‘We are committed to dismantling this discriminatory program,’ Croy said Monday.

“In a Dec. 31 order, Judge Peter Welte threw out the case regarding the federal McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, the Grand Forks Herald reports.

“He cited ‘procedural issues’ and dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning it can be filed again, according to the report.”

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Election Shenanigans In New York

     Laws are constantly being revised or changes, but for good or ill, they are usually changed because the proponents of the bill to change the law believe that it is better and ought to serves as a general rule. In the state of New York, there is companion pair of bills to allow the Governor to postpone a special election for a currently expected vacancy in the House of Representatives to a general election.

“State law currently requires the governor to proclaim a special election within 10 days after an office becomes vacant. Among other changes, the bill under consideration would increase that to 15 days, the officials said.

“Under current law, the special election must then occur between 70 to 80 days after the governor’s proclamation for a seat in Congress and between 40 and 50 days for a seat in the state Senate or Assembly, unless the lawmaker was in the final months of their term.”

     Specifically, it allows a special election date for non-legislative elections to be set:

“not less than seventy nor more than eighty days from the   date of the proclamation to fill a vacancy in the office of a representative in congress or for a vacancy in any other office that is not in the state senate or assembly, provided, however, that if there is a vacancy occurring in the same calendar year as a general election date set pursuant to section 8-100 of the election law, a proclamation may be   issued so that the special election may be scheduled on the general election date”

     But this isn’t a general election year, right?

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For Whose Good: The Common vs. The Collective

     Many of those who call themselves “common good conservatives” seem less interested in the any good for the good shared by all American, and more interested in their collective group ruling over the other collective group in a dichotomic system, where by elevating some above others is the only way to benefit the overall American collective, and thus the only way for the ruled to benefit. This is much the same as with their view of what makes America what it is: An American has value because their membership in the collective grants them value and the ruled can only have value by virtue of being ruled, that rule over them being the purported prerequisite for overall collective greatness.

     This is a quintessentially Left-wing world view, and fits in nicely with social corporatism.

“Shortly after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy circulated a memo that instructed his department to prioritize families by, among other things, giving preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average when awarding grants.”

     With the increased desire to see America not as some icky “idea”, but as a historic people and land, they see it as their duty to provide more domestic blut for the boden. People who contribute to the collective good by doing what the government dictates is good will be rewarded directly for their obedience, while those who don’t will be denied, having to rely on their rewards as the ruled portion of the overall collective. That people who would benefit were already doing this does not detract from the corporatist character of the proposal.

     In contrast, a policy that works towards a common good would be indiscriminate in who it targets.   People would be free to benefit from it or not. While conducive towards beneficial or beneficent ends, it neither requires nor directly rewards; vice versa while those policies might be dissuasive, they neither prohibit nor directly punish.

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News of the Week (February 16th, 2025)

 

News of the Week for February 16th, 2025


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