Democrats like to argue that “voter ID” discriminates against minorities. This argument does not pass the basic common-sense test. Minorities, like everybody else, need ID cards (driver’s license) in order to drive. They need ID cards in order to purchase alcohol (qualifying age).

The assumption, that minorities have a hard time getting ID cards, paints minorities as being unable to solve normal everyday problems.

A trip to the DMV would show both Caucasian and minority customers. Minorities are also able to get ID cards for use at recreation centers. Student ID? No problem. Minorities don’t have problems getting on flights, they have to show an ID card to get through TSA.

Go to the passport office, or somewhere that helps put together passport applications, and you’ll see all races and both genders represented.

In North Carolina, the Republican-led legislator sent a bill to the Governor’s desk. This was a bill that would require showing a valid ID card prior to voting. The Governor, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. The Republican-led Legislature successfully overrode the veto.

From MSN.com:

Republicans steered a photo voter ID question onto the November ballot as a constitutional amendment, and 55 percent of voters approved it.

Lawmakers followed up with a bill to implement the amendment. Cooper vetoed the bill last week. During a news conference Tuesday, he said the Legislature should have waited until next session to talk about voter ID. The Legislature will have more Democrats next year, and Republicans will no longer have veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate.

The House vote followed a heated debate in which Republicans criticized Cooper for his veto and Democrats recounted the state’s history of racism, from slavery to the present.

State Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican, said Cooper insulted voters who approved photo ID. Lewis said he worked hard to make it easy for voters to comply with a new law.

The law counts as acceptable IDs driver licenses, passports, military and veteran IDs, tribal enrollment cards, college IDs, state ID cards issued to nondrivers, state and municipal employee IDs, and a new type of ID issued by local boards of election.

People who don’t have the required ID would be able to cast provisional ballots after signing an affidavit at the polls explaining why they do not have one.

You can read more here.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the same guy that hammered Michael Flynn, added a roadblock to the the Trump Administration’s efforts to turn away bogus asylum seekers. The judge opined that Congress, not the president, determines the standards required for asylum… As if President Trump’s legal team didn’t review the policy before it was implemented. This has the appearance of judicial activism.

From The Washington Times:

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan — who a day earlier had excoriated former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — ordered the government to allow migrants with iffy claims to be given a full chance to make their case for asylum.

And he ordered the U.S. to un-deport plaintiffs in the case who already had been ousted under the new policy, saying they deserve to be brought back and allowed to claim asylum.

“Because it is the will of Congress — not the whims of the executive — that determines the standard for expedited removal, the court finds that those policies are unlawful,” Judge Sullivan wrote.

His decision overturns a move by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had tried to block asylum claims of migrants who said they faced gang violence or domestic abuse back home.

Mr. Sessions had argued that while traumatic, those reasons strayed far from the political or religious persecution by governments that traditionally made someone eligible for asylum.

Also within the article, the White House’s response:

“Today’s ruling is only the latest example of judicial activism that encourages migrants to take dangerous risks; empowers criminal organizations that spread turmoil in our hemisphere; and undermines the laws, borders, Constitution, and sovereignty of the United States,” – Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

You can read more here.

The Secretary of Defense has resigned and will step down from the role at the end of February.

Dear Mr President:

I have been privileged to serve as our country’s 26th Secretary of Defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals.

I am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy: putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, and reforming the Department’s business practices for greater performance. Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong US global influence.

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.

Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.

Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department’s interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February. Further, that a full transition to a new Secretary of Defense occurs well in advance of the transition of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September in order to ensure stability within the Department.

I pledge my full effort to a smooth transition that ensures the needs and interests of the 2.15 million Service Members and 732,079 civilians receive undistracted attention of the Department at all times so that they can fulfill their critical, round-the-clock mission to protect the American people.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform.

Jim N Mattis

There are already hoards of pundits promulgating a plethora of hysterical analysis about this.  It does appear that this has something to do with the President announcing that we will withdraw from Syria.

I do not have access to the kind of information that the President does but my objections to withdrawing from Syria will probably die about twenty minutes after I do.

I am sure most Americans on both sides of the aisle are saddened and alarmed by James Mattis leaving.   I am.

Source: Jim Mattis’s resignation letter to Donald Trump – in full | US news | The Guardian

Deny President Trump funding for the wall, frustrate the GOP’s base against their leadership in the process, get many people who’ll vote Democrat once they become citizens, and get the numbers needed to “wreck” the country thus making socialist policies more ideal.

Would we even need a GoFundMe effort if the vast majority of illegal immigrants were political conservatives, and voted that way in general elections once they become citizens?

A veteran has stepped up and started a GoFundMe page in order to raise funding for the wall. As of this posting, over 6 million has been raised. The fundraising effort began in December 16, 2018.

From GoFundMe:

Too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of the United States taxpayers with no means of ever contributing to our society.

I have grandparents who immigrated to America legally, they did it the correct way and it’s time we uphold our laws, and get this wall BUILT! It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling.

“If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” That equates to roughly 5 Billion Dollars, even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.

Democrats are going to stall this project by every means possible and play political games to ensure President Trump doesn’t get his victor. They’d rather see President Trump fail, than see America succeed. However, if we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jumpstart things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians.

Thanks to LC for the link. You can read more here.

 

You guys are familiar with attempts already in place to remove hate and other undesirable speech from social media. But, what’s considered hate speech, or speech that goes against community standards, seems to be the subject to the eye of the beholder.

Granted, both sides of the debate would agree on certain types of hate speech. However, what many of us has considered as “the norm” is increasingly being seen as something that could “trigger” a person, or groups of people. The potential for “abuse” would be hard to miss.

From The College Fix:

In addition to artificial intelligence, the program will use several different techniques to detect offensive speech online, including “machine learning, natural language processing, and good old human brains.” Researchers aim to have “major social media platforms” one day utilizing the technology to detect “hate speech” and eliminate it, and the users who spread it, from their networks.

For the human contribution, they recruited 10 students. As I mentioned in another post, the youngest Millennials will have all turned 22 before the end of this month. This means that there is a good chance that the students involved with this project are a part of Generation Z.

This is the generation that played an active role in the “Tide Pod Challenge” and for giving us David Hogg.

More from The College Fix:

D-Lab initially enlisted ten students of diverse backgrounds from around the country to “code” the posts, flagging those that overtly, or subtly, conveyed hate messages. Data obtained from the original group of students were fed into machine learning models, ultimately yielding algorithms that could identify text that met hate speech definitions with 85 percent accuracy, missing or mislabeling offensive words and phrases only 15 percent of the time.

Now, what we define as “hate messages” has some differences from that of the opposing side. There is also a difference between our definition, and that of the younger generation. The folks who were exposed to liberal indoctrination provided the human contribution to the algorithm that will determine whether your post constitutes hate or not.

You can read more here.

HMCS(FMF) ret provides a more detailed link here. Notice the graphic on Twitter, with regards to what was looked at.

What a tragic loss, I know many of you join me in sorrow over this.

TEHRAN, Iran — The website of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is reporting that a general who fought in Syria and Iraq has allegedly accidentally killed himself while cleaning a gun.

Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri allegedly shot himself in the head by accident while cleaning his pistol, according to the Sunday report.

The report added that Mansouri was veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and a “defender of the shrine,” a reference to Iranians who fight against the extremist Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Since 2014, Mansouri was a regional commander of the Guard’s ground forces in the northeastern city of Mashhad, some 900 kilometers east of the capital Tehran.

Hundreds of Iranian forces have been killed fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

Hearts and minds people, its all about winning their hearts and minds.

Source: Report: Iranian general fatally shoots himself by accident – The Washington Post