Contemplating HR1
I was going to write a big long post on HR1 today, but I can’t bring myself to do it right now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll gird my loins and tackle it – tackle it again, that is, because I’ve written about it before.
But for now I’ll just say that the bill is profoundly depressing and anger-inducing, and I’ll offer a few links:
Mike Lee weighs in.
There’s also this at American Thinker, and this from Christian Adams at PJ.
In addition, see this about a similar executive order from Biden. I guess the left wants to give us a few bites at this especially poisonous apple.
Honestly, it’s hard for me to get worked up about this. There’s nothing stopping Republicans from exploiting these voting changes just as much as Democrats will. And I cannot believe the GOP that stood by and said nothing about the bad behavior at the ballot box in 2020 really gives a damn about actual fraud or the sanctity of the vote.
What I am absolutely sick of is a Republican political establishment that demagogues conservative voters every election for support but only really cares about servicing its corporate masters. I’m sick of Republicans who look at black or other minorities and think of them as “Democrat voters.” And I’m sick of a GOP that, in my opinion, doesn’t even try to challenge the Democrats in places like California and New York because they’d rather grift than fight.
Mike
I’m sick of folks who can’t tell the difference between the GOPextinct and the purveyors of CRT, Wokeness on steroids, National Guard and concertina wire around the Capitol, and well, some get it some don’t.
“the difference between the GOPextinct and the purveyors of CRT, Wokeness on steroids, National Guard and concertina wire around the Capitol, and well, some get it some don’t.”
The latter don’t exist without the former.
There’s new polling out from Politico. One of the questions is about banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000178-1a7a-d750-a77a-3efba0ac0000
59% of men either strongly or somewhat support such a ban. Only 45% of women strongly or somewhat support such a ban. The majority of women either think transgender athletes should be able to compete in women’s sports or they can’t be bothered to have an opinion on it. Would you advise men to take up this political/cultural fight, with all the abuse and pain involved, and save women from themselves? What would men get out of that? What credit or benefit would they receive, even if they won? And who do you think would get all the blame if the fight was lost? (Hint: Not women.)
The GOP wasn’t willing to fight for election integrity when it most directly affected me. Why should I fight for it when it most directly affects them?
Mike
You won’t fight so go home. Useless.
Cite a Politico poll. LOL LOL
Does culture or sports or the destruction of opportunities available to children who aren’t afflicted by the current mass hysteria of gender dysphoria mean anything to you? The evisceration of the American system of governance? Nope, rail about easy targets, the corrupt flawed GOPextinct. Don’t fight the real enemy. Don’t contend with the left. Be a useless, but angry, “whatever.” Why should I care about a useless, but angry, “whatever” when the left comes for him (you)?
@MBunge:
Let me guess… you probably also believe that inside every Caste-obsessed Indian IT Worker arriving to put a Legacy American out of a job there is just another nascent Fourth of July American striving to be born?
Wrong Century, Old Chap. Actually you’re only hallucinating your presence in this forum; your fine specimen fossilised skeleton is mounted in the Natural History Museum next to Notaclueosaurus.
You are wasting your time voting . Get busy prepping for the war .
Two of three people who encourage war and civil war are government plants.
You can spot a government plant a mile off: got 55 POCs employed watering it and it still shrivels up and dies.
The Senate Minority Leader just voted to confirm Merrick Garland. 19 other Republicans did to.
Even after Merrick Garland said that antifa weren’t committing terrorism.
So no I’m not easily seeing the difference, not with those 20 anyway.
“you probably also believe that inside every Caste-obsessed Indian IT Worker arriving to put a Legacy American out of a job there is just another nascent Fourth of July American striving to be born?”
Nah. I just believe in not wasting my time and energy protecting those Legacy Americans from themselves when they vote for the politicians who bring in foreign labor.
Mike
Once again, which is the greater threat? The hard left or the easy GOPextinct. It’s a incredibly complicated and difficult question, surrounded by rocket scientists it seems.
@MBunge:
“Nah. I just believe in not wasting my time and energy protecting those Legacy Americans from themselves when they vote for the politicians who bring in foreign labor.”
Most of them didn’t vote for it. And in any case they had nobody to vote for who would oppose it. Both branches of the UniParty are all in on importing a New People.
Hate to say it Om… but you’re talking sense.
“Does culture or sports or the destruction of opportunities available to children who aren’t afflicted by the current mass hysteria of gender dysphoria mean anything to you?”
It can’t mean more to me than to the people most directly affected by it. I’m an old dude and I don’t have a daughter, so the destruction of women’s sports at all levels would genuinely have no impact on me.
Let’s remember, after all, the people most being harmed by this current hysteria are children suffering from some level of gender dysphoria/sexual confusion but who are NOT actual transgender. How many young lesbians are now being brainwashed into mutilating themselves? Am I supposed to care more about them than their own parents do? Is that actually going to achieve anything?
As Fredrick pointed out, 20 Republican Senators just voted to make Merrick Garland the Attorney General of the United States. That party should have my support…why?
Mike
@om:which is the greater threat? The hard left or the easy GOPextinct.
Which blade of the scissors does the cutting? Who is the more dangerous WWE wrestler, Roman Reigns or the Fiend? I mean can’t you see how evil the Fiend is? He attacked Alexa Bliss!!
It’s theater, brah. Keep telling me I should vote for Kodos over Kang. They’re in it together.
Get off my lawn, while I’m still above the sod. It’s the Burge Party of None. Good luck being an army of one.
F’off with the WWE, piled higher and deeper.
“Most of them didn’t vote for it. And in any case they had nobody to vote for who would oppose it.”
The official total has Joe Biden with 81.2 million votes and 51.3%. That’s 16 million and .2% more than Barack Obama got in 2012. Do you really think the difference is 100% out-and-out vote fraud?
Mike
om, Mitch McConnell and 19 other Republicans just gave you an Attorney General who they know for a fact will see to it that the hard left can act with legal impunity against you. They’re not going to Mitt Romney’s house, or Mitch McConnell’s house…
“Good luck being an army of one.”
I’ll still be here to fight long after you’ve thrown yourself on the GOP funeral pyre.
Mike
“Am I supposed to care more about them than their own parents do? Is that actually going to achieve anything?”
Am I supposed to care about those Jews being herded into cattle cars more than the Jews do?
Well no, not as much. That’s the honest truth. Concentric Circles of blood ties and involvement and all that. I hate virtue signalers who pretend to care more than they do.
BUT: Past herding of Jews into cattle cars just for the crime of having been born or the present mutilation of young children in the service of a fad or the absolute holocaust of abortion on a whim ARE all EVIL and intolerable actions.
Someone mentioned Natural Law the other day. If there’s one big tent can hold the most of us who are not Woke, perhaps it’s that.
And to the extent that we can, we ought to try to throw sand in the gears. Agreed that right now it is suicidal to do much more. But when the time comes…
This is one of the reasons that 17th Amendment is so stupid. The idea of the senate was that senators would represent the STATES. Each state legislature would send a senator to represent that state to the federal government. With direct election, we just have another House of representatives that has a lower churn rate.
If we still had a senate that represented the states, they would stop this shanda. Instead, we have senators that pretty much just represent themselves…
MBunge:
Caring about other people’s children is one of the hallmarks of civilization.
For example, if a parent is beating a child – are you to care more about that child than the child’s parent does? Yes, you are.
Plus, you may or may not be aware that many children who think they are trans often threaten suicide if they can’t get hormone therapy. That’s quite a threat to hang over parents’ heads. There are websites that advise kids on how to do this in order to get parental permission for treatment. Many of these parents care deeply. They are between a rock and a hard place.
“I’m sick of a GOP that, in my opinion, doesn’t even try to challenge the Democrats in places like California”
That’s not as simple as it seems. The GOP puts forward candidates, but because of the “Top Two Candidates Primary Act” which took effect January 1, 2011, the GOP cannot get a candidate for the US Senate even on the ballot. The top two primary vote getters are ALWAYS democrats. I haven’t been able to vote for a US Senator since then, other than in the primaries.
The sad fact is that there are so many democrats in CA that they control with absolute power the State Legislature. Gee how do you think that Act got passed?
Another reason why the Newsom recall means absolutely nothing to me except to see his career hopes dashed. His replacement would be just as bad from my perspective.
My little rural county always votes Republican and sends our representative Tom McClintock to the House (92%) conservative rating. We do what we can but the plain fact is they greatly outnumber us here.
Fredrick:
Merrick is your Attorney General too. Or did you miss that? Bitch about the GOPextinct all you and Mikey want, we in WA are saddled with Patty and Maria. Got any grand plans stratagems, or even a dissertation to deal with those cold hard facts?
Or just bitch about the GOPextinct?
In the meanwhile we have to get Dan Newhouse out of the house. Cheers.
Civilization, who needs it. As long as Bunge is above the sod, none are pure enough for his effort, beyond angry rants.
An army of one must husband his strength and choose wisely his battles, lest he dissipate his strength (and precious bodily fluids) in his lonely battle with evil.
It’s a tragic but noble battle of the Bunge.
Homeric:
Be carefully citing actual facts from someone in the fight. Things are really much simpler than what you actually know, according to others who aren’t in CA. (sarcasm to them not you) 🙂
Count on Zaphod to sh*t in the punchbowl and grim about his wit.
“precious bodily fluids”
Dr. Strangelove!!! One of my favorites! Yes, General Jack D. Ripper! LOL!
Om:
I’m Trying… I’m Trying.
This conversation reminds me of a short (reasonably) conversation from one of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. Commander Caslet and Admiral Parnell are discussing The Republic of Haven, not the American Republic, while sitting on the Prison Planet of Hell, but it seems somehow appropriate for this time as well.
Warner Caslet inhaled sharply, and Parnell turned to look levelly at him once more. Then younger man opened his mouthy, then shut it again, and Parnell smiled sadly.
“Treason comes hard even now, doesn’t it Commander?” he asked gently. ”Here I sit, aiding and abetting the Republic’s enemies in time of war, and that disappoints you. It’s not what you expected from an admiral who’s sworn an oath to defend it, is it?”
“Sir, your decisions have to be your own,” Caslet began. He was white-faced under his tan, and his eyes were troubled. “God knows I have no right to judge you. And from what you’ve just said, the people running the republic now are traitors, as well as monsters and mass murderers. I haven’t—I mean, I’ve thought about it myself. But like you, I swore an oath, and it’s my country, Sir! If I break faith with that, I break faith with myself…and then what do I have left?
“Son,” Parnell said compassionately, “you don’t have a country anymore. If you ever went home again, you’d wind up right back here—or dead, more likely—because nothing you could possibly say could excuse you for sitting here in the room with these people…and me. And I’ll tell you something else, Commander. From what you’ve just said to me, I can tell you that you’re better than the Republic deserves, because you’re still loyal to it, and it’s never been loyal to you. It wasn’t when people like me ran it, and it sure as hell isn’t now.”
“I can’t accept that, Sir,” Caslet said hoarsely, but Honor felt the torment within him. The pain and disillusionment and, even more that either of those things, the agonizing suspicion that he could accept it. Indeed, that the core of him already had. And that suspicion terrified Warner Caslet, for if it were true, it would drive him inexorably towards a decision, force him to take control and forge purposefully in the direction in which he had so far only drifted.
“Maybe you can’t,” Parnell said after a moment, allowing him to cling to the lie—for now, at least—if he chose. “but that doesn’t make anything I’ve just said untrue, Commander. Still, I suppose a little of that same idealism still clings to me, too. What an amazing thing.” He shook his head. “Forty years of naval service, dozens of cold-blooded campaigns under my belt—hell, I’m the one who drew up the plans to begin this war! I screwed them up, of course, but I was damned straight the one who authorized ‘em. And eight more years here on Hell, on top of all that. And still there’s something down inside me that insists the drunk-rolling whore I served is a great, shining lady who deserves to have me lay down my life in her defense.”
He sighed and shook his head again.
“But she isn’t, son. Not anymore. Maybe someday she will be again, and it’s going to take men and women like you—people who stay loyal to her and fight for her from within—to bring that about. But they’ll have to be people like you, Commander. You can’t be one of them anymore…and neither can I. Because however we may feel about her, she’ll kill us both in an instant is she ever gets her hands on us again.”
Excerpt from Echoes of Honor, by David Weber
Why aren’t these confirmations coming out 51-50?
It’s because 40% of Republican Senators are selling us out. They are doing favors for the Democrats that they will cash in later for their clients… they clearly don’t think the Biden Administration and its far Left contingent is the kind of existential threat that the Dems thought Trump was.
If anyone can show me how voting for racial conspiracy mongers and people who promise politicization of the Justice Department (when the Dems could confirm them without a single Republican vote) advances conservatism, I’m ready to hear it, but I gotta say it’s hard to believe, and the Rs who are doing this are not by and large the principled conservatives.
“Caring about other people’s children is one of the hallmarks of civilization.”
You know who cares about other people’s children? Hillary Clinton. She wrote a whole book about it. Leftists and communists just LOVE to care about other people’s children.
And the problem with transgenderism, Neo, is not the parents of transgender children or even seeming transgender children. Those people are in a bind I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The problem is the parents of the children who are absolutely 100% heterosexual BUT ARE STILL UNWILLING TO DO ANYTHING.
Mike
“Got any grand plans stratagems, or even a dissertation to deal with those cold hard facts?”
Here’s a strategy. STOP DOING WHAT ISN’T WORKING. That’s the simplest and easiest strategy in the world. It doesn’t require you to actually do anything. You just have to stop doing stuff that’s harmful to your own side.
And here’s the kicker. When you stop doing what isn’t working, it becomes much, MUCH easier to figure out what might work instead.
Is that too much for you to handle all at once?
Mike
My little rural county always votes Republican and sends our representative Tom McClintock to the House (92%) conservative rating. We do what we can but the plain fact is they greatly outnumber us here.
Tom McClintock is an example of the GOP always stepping on its own d**k. He should have been Governor but Bill Simon Jr, a nebbish son of a good Sec Treasury under Ford, had more outside money and won the GOP primary. The result was Grey Davis and the electricity crisis of 2001-2. McClintock also ran in the recall but was unable to make headway against the celebrities Riordan and Arnold. Arnold finished the destruction of the CA GOP.
Civilization came before Hillary. That’s called a clue. The party of Bunge will fail, that is a certainty. Are these clues too much for the army of one? It seems so.
You can’t figure out who is the biggest threat, even yet? As they say, “You can’t fix stupid.”
“Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, keep on the sunny side of life, …”
Or just be a Bunge.
“The GOP puts forward candidates, but because of the “Top Two Candidates Primary Act” which took effect January 1, 2011, the GOP cannot get a candidate for the US Senate even on the ballot.”
Who cares about the U.S. Senate? How about schools boards? City councils? Mayors? County supervisors?
And, frankly, the “Top Two Candidates Primary Act” shouldn’t really be much of a hurdle for any organized GOP and any decent and well-funded GOP candidate to get over. All you need is to get 34% in the primary. It’s physically impossible for the Democrats to split the other 66% in any fashion that results in two Democrats on general election ballot.
So any California Republican whining about the “Top Two Candidates Primary Act” is just admitting they can’t find candidates who can get even 34% of the vote. The answer is to get BETTER ORGANIZED and get BETTER CANDIDATES. For pete’s sake, Donald Trump got 34.3% of the vote in California in 2020 without, as far as I know, lifting a finger or spending a dollar in the state.
Mike
“You can’t figure out who is the biggest threat, even yet?”
Dude, how old are you? I ask because I’ve encountered a lot of younger folks online who, like you, don’t know how to argue.
Mike
You can’t accept that the left are a bigger threat than the GOPextinct? If you can’t grasp that reality why should anyone bother with what you rant about. It decimates your credibility.
Telling Homeric, who lives in CA, what he has to do from your bolt hole in the midwest is pathetic.
Rant on, it’s how you roll.
Final clue about argument with a Bunge, word of the Bunge:
“Here’s a strategy. STOP DOING WHAT ISN’T WORKING. That’s the simplest and easiest strategy in the world. It doesn’t require you to actually do anything. You just have to stop doing stuff that’s harmful to your own side.”
” …..It doesn’t require you to actually do anything. ….”
Did you notice that this makes no sense, Bungey? All while you actively work, or rant, about the only large organization that isn’t the Democrats. Because in Bunge world there is no difference. Who exactly is the Bunge side?
om:
Make your point without vulgarity. It’s not that hard to do.
If I let people do what you’re doing, things descend very far very fast.
MBunge:
Your argument about Hillary makes no sense.
Hillary also walks, talks, and breathes, but it doesn’t make those things wrong. Nor do I have a clue whether she really cares about other people’s children or just pretends to. But it is utterly irrelevant to my argument.
MBunge:
We apparently need more of your kind in CA. You could whip us pathetic whiners into ship shape in no time.
FYI, at the county and local level we do have Republicans here, and state representatives. However my rural county has a population of about 45,000, and we are proudly the 45th largest county in the state. How do you think that stacks up against Los Angeles county or the SF Bay area, both of which are overwhelmingly LIBERAL and are in the millions?
I do not consider myself a whiner but rather a realist. And the reality is that what the liberals have done in CA in terms of rigging the election of US Senators so that the GOP cannot put a candidate on the ballot (by changing election laws), they are going to try to do in other states as well (or already have done so). It’s easy to criticize us from afar, wait until it’s your turn.