MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

How Young Is Too Young for Sterilization? An influential transgender advocacy group releases new recommendations based on politics—not science. Lisa Selin Davis

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.commonsense.news/p/how-young-is-too-young-for-sterilization?utm_source=email

“To calm this strife, WPATH could have produced an evidence-based, apolitical document for physicians and others desperately seeking guidance. That’s not what happened. The new guidelines are “a weird amalgam of pseudo-medical speech, and political statements, and fetishistic practices,” said Julia Mason, a pediatrician in Oregon and a clinical advisor to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Dr. Mason added that she was dismayed that WPATH rejected the chapter on ethics that had been in an earlier draft, but retained the chapter on eunuchs. (These guidelines see eunuchs not as a deeply tragic part of history but as a “gender identity” which health care professionals should support.)”

What do you do if you are the parent of a child who believes they were born in the wrong body? What if your kid doesn’t fit the stereotypical behavior of their sex—your daughter is a tomboy, your son is effeminate—and a teacher or school counselor suggests they might be transgender? What if your teenager, uncomfortable with their changing body at puberty, says they will harm themselves—or worse—if they are not allowed to medically transition?

A growing number of parents are facing such questions in 2022. Desperate for answers, they are turning to the experts: the doctors, psychologists, and professional organizations devoted to diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria.

Among the most important of these associations is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Founded in 1979, it is regarded by many as a premier advocacy group for medical care, education, and research regarding transgender and “gender diverse” people. Though it’s not a medical association—in addition to doctors and psychologists, its ranks include lawyers, educators, students, and electrologists—WPATH’s Standards of Care are considered by practitioners around the world to be the gold standard of recommendations for treating gender-related distress.

WPATH has just released a long-awaited update to those Standards of Care for people seeking “lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves.” This 260-page update— the eighth version of WPATH’s standards—includes several new chapters. One is on the increasing number of nonbinary individuals. A second is on supportive care for “those who identify as eunuchs” and “may also seek castration to better align their bodies with their gender identity” (yes, you read that right). A third, and perhaps the most anticipated, is on the treatment of transgender of gender diverse adolescents—added, writes WPATH, due to “the exponential growth in adolescent referral rates.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

WHEN GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWED TO SPEND IN SECRET, YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE AT RISK.

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

We have one single goal: to capture government spending and show you how your tax dollars are being “invested.” Remember, it’s YOUR money!

After a dogfight lasting a decade, OpenTheBooks:

successfully opened up the California state checkbook for the first time in history;
uncovered $300+ million in third-party royalty payments to the National Institutes of Health, its leaders and 2,250 of its scientists;
Not to mention being canceled by Forbes after we published investigations on the highest paid federal employee, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

But those are just a few things we’ve done this year. And we aren’t stopping…

Learn more. Last weekend, our CEO and founder, Adam Andrzejewski, presented to the Road To Freedom Seminar at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara hosted by Young America’s Foundation.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

JORDAN PETERSON: Back Off, Oh “Masters of the Universe” VIDEO

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–QS_UyW2SY

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Own goal: Biden’s bid to discredit Trump with Mar-a-Lago raid has only made Trump more popular —I&I/TIPP poll By Monica Showalter

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/own_goal_bidens_bid_to_discredit_trump_with_maralago_raid_has_only_made_him_more_popular_iitipp_poll.html

If Joe Biden and his ruling Democrats had intended to discredit President Trump through their showy Mar-a-Lago raid, a new poll suggests they have failed miserably.

They’ve actually accomplished the opposite of what they set out to do.

According to the highly reputable and accurate I&I/TIPP, Trump has lost not a whit of popularity with Republican voters since the FBI raid.

In fact, he’s actually gained.

What do the numbers say about Trump, who, between those two polls, endured the FBI’s raid, which has no precedent in U.S. history?

In August, 53% of Republicans said they would vote for Trump. In September, that number rose to 54%, a small gain. But Trump has a majority of his party, while Biden barely ekes out a third of the Democrats.

And, the important point, he lost nothing from the Mar-A-Lago raid. If anything, he gained support, while other potential challengers slipped.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who received 17% in the August poll, dipped to 15% in September, while former Vice President Mike Pence dropped from 10% to 8%. No other GOP challenger received more than 2% in September.

Trump has the support of more than half his party with that 54% popularity figure commonly characterized as landslide territory.

Biden by contrast has the support of only one out of three Democrat voters, and though the numbers show that Biden’s “popularity” rose from 30% to 34% among Democrats, that’s a chump-change figure, given that so few of them support him at all.

It looks as though that broad effort to smear, criminalize, and discredit President Trump through the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid has actually backfired badly on Democrats.  They’ve actually made him more popular.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Soros-Backed Prosecutors Face Backlash In Virginia By Andrew Abbott

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://amac.us/soros-backed-prosecutors-face-backlash-in-virginia/

In what has become a disturbing and alarming pattern in Fairfax County, Virginia, a defendant charged with sexually assaulting a minor walked free with only misdemeanor charges last week following a mishandling of the case by Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, one of nearly 100 Democrat prosecutors funded by far-left billionaire George Soros. Now, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares are ramping up pressure on Descano as well as the Old Dominion’s other radical prosecutors to enforce the law, just the latest example of widespread backlash against Soros-backed prosecutors’ radical criminal justice “reform” agenda.

In the case that concluded last week and drew considerable public outrage, 36-year-old Ronnie Reel, who was originally arrested in July of 2021 on charges of forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery against an 11-year-old boy, was released on time served. According to the victim’s mother, Reel “was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach…It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”

The case seemed like a slam dunk, and a successful conviction likely would have led to the offender receiving life in prison. But when the case came to trial, the Judge ruled that most of the evidence, including the criminal’s confession, was inadmissible in court due to Descano’s office missing a filing deadline. The case then fell on the shoulders of the 11-year-old victim, who was forced to testify to the assault. Without the corroborating evidence, it was clear that the sex offender would be found not guilty. Descano ultimately offered the sex offender a deal in which he needed only to plead guilty to Misdemeanor Assault and Battery. Notably, the charges Reel pled guilty to do not require him to register as a sex offender, and he is not on supervised probation.

Descano has denied any responsibility for the failure, and incredibly seemed to blame the adolescent victim, saying in a statement that “young victims often have difficulty recalling the details of such significant trauma – which is why prosecuting these crimes is uniquely challenging.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The West needs leadership: Biden has failed the test by Liz Peek

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3664064-the-west-needs-leadership-biden-has-failed-the-test/

Global economies are in free fall even as inflation runs unchecked. The Western world looks to the president of the United States for leadership; they look in vain.

President Biden has not undertaken the two things that might help the economy here at home and others around the world regain their footing: stop the gusher of cash coming from the federal government and help U.S. oil and gas industries ramp up production to bring down energy prices.

By determining to cut our deficits and drive energy production higher, Biden could immediately signal that he is serious about helping the Federal Reserve fight inflation and willing to buck climate-obsessed progressives in his party in the face of a global emergency.

Currently, he is signaling the exact opposite. While Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has (finally) undertaken stiff measures to rein in money supply growth, the White House nullifies his efforts by continuing to pump money into the economy as fast as possible.

The latest spending spree from Biden is his plan to cancel student debt, a regressive program estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to cost $400 billion. Given that the CBO neglected to cost out parts of the program that could add to the tally, the Committee for a Responsible Government Budget puts the expense at closer to $600 billion.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Has Opened Door to Russian Nuke Strikes by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18942/biden-russia-nuclear-strikes

Russia’s nuclear doctrine is called “escalate to deescalate” or, more appropriately, “escalate to win,” which means threatening or using nukes early in a conventional conflict.

Even if Putin is now bluffing — most analysts think he is — he is getting what he wants with threats. Biden, for instance, has been cautious and even timid in providing military assistance to a beleaguered Ukraine. Putin has obviously noticed, which is the reason he has been making more such threats.

Why, then, doesn’t the United States have what it needs at this crucial moment: nuclear-tipped cruise missiles like Putin’s? The arms-control community, arguing that such low-yield weapons would make nuclear war more likely, persuaded American presidents not to build them. President Trump authorized their development, but Biden cancelled the program.

Unfortunately, arms-control advocates got it backwards. As evident from today’s developments, America lacking low-yield nuclear warheads on cruise missiles is making nuclear war more likely, not less.

“The United States will need to reduce its nuclear arsenal to encourage Russia to do the same,” wrote Tom Collina and Angela Kellett on the 21st of this month on the Defense One site.

Entice Russia into disarmament? Been there. Tried that. Failed miserably.

Is it possible to work with Putin at this time?

Even if we can put aside the morality of talking to a genocidal mass murderer — we cannot — it is reckless to believe Putin might actually honor arms-control agreements when he has continually violated them with impunity.

Moreover, it is bad enough to argue for disarmament in peacetime, but it is the height of folly to do so during war — and when China and North Korea are making first-strike nuclear threats of their own.

America’s arms-control advocates have always been naïve. Now, they are delusional.

“If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on the 25th of this month, referring to threats to use nuclear weapons. “The United States will respond decisively.”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

REPUBLICAN HUNG CAO FOR CONGRESS VIRGINIA DISTRICT 10

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.hungcaoforcongress.com/

Hung Cao is a retired Navy Captain who served in Special Operations for twenty-five years. He and his wife April are the parents of five beautiful children whom they homeschool. After their thirteenth move across the United States and around the world in the  service of our nation, Hung and April made their home  in Purcellville, Virginia where they have been active in their community and their church, Cornerstone Chapel for the last five years.

Hung is a refugee from Vietnam and immigrant to the United States. Hung’s family escaped in 1975 shortly before the fall of Saigon. After a brief stay in the United States, his family relocated to West Africa where he was educated in French schools before returning to Annandale, Virginia in 1982. Hung is a proud member of the inaugural graduating class at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Moved by the opportunities afforded to his family, Hung vowed to serve his newly adopted country and was accepted to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Upon graduation, he served as a Deep Sea Diver and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Officer. As a Navy Diver, he salvaged several plane wreckages including the recovery of John F. Kennedy Jr, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and Lauren Bessette. Hung deployed in combat to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia serving alongside Special Forces and SEAL Teams.

Hung’s non-combat assignments included balancing the Navy’s $140 Billion budget at the Pentagon, writing Department of Defense policy, working with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego California, establishing a Sheriff’s bomb squad in Monterey, California, and participating in humanitarian and disaster relief in Pakistan. In his private time, Hung has served multiple non-profit organizations and gone on mission trips around the world. He and his family established a 501(c)3 which builds beeping Easter Eggs for children with visual impairments.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

British Cardiologist Who Initially Promoted COVID Vaccines, Releases Peer Reviewed Papers Calling For Suspension of mRNA Shots By Debra Heine

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/27/british-cardiologist-who-initially-promoted-covid-vaccines-releases-peer-reviewed-papers-calling-for-suspension-of-mrna-shots/

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, an eminent British cardiologist who helped promote the mRNA vaccines when they were first rolled out, is now calling for the suspension of the injections until all the raw data from clinical trials are released for independent scrutiny, and all adverse side effects are fully investigated, the World Council For Health reported.

In a two-part peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance on Monday, Malhotra presented real world data revealing that in the non-elderly population, the risk of suffering a serious adverse event from the jabs are greater than the any benefits. [See part one here, part two here.].

Malhotra is a Consultant Cardiologist, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and President of the Public Health Collaboration, and an honorary council member to the Metabolic Psychiatry Clinic at Stanford University school of medicine California.  He is an internationally renowned expert in the prevention, diagnosis and management of heart disease.

His re-analysis of Pfizer and Moderna randomized controlled trial data also found that the risk of suffering serious adverse effects of mRNA vaccines for individuals is significantly higher than the risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19.

The study found that the international roll-out of mRNA vaccination program overstated benefits of vaccination especially in low-risk populations, and the under-reported adverse events.

Commenting on the report, Malhotra said, “There has been a rise in out of hospital cardiac arrests and heart attacks linked to Pfizer’s Covid-19 mRNA vaccine with plausible biological mechanisms of harm.” He added, “pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Poll: Majority of Americans Disapprove of Affirmative Action in College Admissions By Caroline Downey

Posted By on September 28th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-majority-of-americans-disapprove-of-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/

With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear oral arguments in a pair of landmark affirmative-action cases this fall, a majority of Americans say they disapprove of racial preferences and still favor a meritocratic system in college admissions.

An 85 Fund poll conducted by CRC Research found that 59 percent of respondents disapprove of colleges and universities considering a prospective student’s race or ethnicity when making admissions decisions. Only 29 percent approve, and 12 percent are unsure. Respondents were selected randomly from opt-in panel participants for the September 14–18 polling.

Most Americans, 58 percent, still want colleges and universities to judge applications based on credentials, test scores, and other qualifications rather than racial identification, even if it means that fewer minority students are represented in the student body.

One of the affirmative-action cases on the Supreme Court docket, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, involves a complaint against Harvard for its alleged discrimination against Asian candidates, who typically submit statistically very high test scores and academic records. The plaintiffs have asked the justices to ban the consideration of race in college admissions, arguing that it disadvantages Asian applicants and violates federal law. Recently confirmed justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the case due to her past role on the school’s board of overseers.

Asked to speak to the Harvard situation specifically, 72 percent of conservatives, 58 percent of moderates, and 47 percent of liberals oppose the school’s consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions, the poll shows. Harvard acknowledged in its brief that if it “abandoned consideration of race as one among many factors, representation of African-American and Hispanic students would significantly decline.” It also said that the “lower courts found Harvard uses race . . . only ‘as a plus factor in the context of individualized consideration of each and every applicant,’” seemingly conceding that race can elevate an application of certain individuals but not others.