New Scientific Study Undercuts Rationale for ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Wesley J. Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/new-scientific-study-undercuts-rationale-for-gender-affirming-care/?utm_source=

The data do not clearly support hormonal and surgical interventions meant to ‘transition’ children. Instead, they point to many possible harms.

The United States has become the world’s most adamant promoter of what is called “gender-affirming care” for children and adolescents who identify as being other than their sex. This approach ranges from “social affirmation” (the use of preferred pronouns, for example) and “medical affirmation” such as puberty blocking to radical “surgical affirmation,” meaning mastectomies, facial feminization or masculinization, cosmetic procedures, and, in a few cases, even genital removal and refashioning.

Beginning to “transition” kids while they are still immature remains intensely controversial. But the increasingly woke medical establishment claims that the gender-affirming approach is “settled science” and the only efficacious approach to treating these children. “Protecting Transgender Health and Challenging Science Denialism in Policy,” a recent column published in the New England Journal of Medicine, denigrated legislative efforts to restrict medical and surgical affirmation as “science denialism”:

A virulent brand of science denialism is emerging in the U.S. legal system, as states enact bans on gender-affirming health care. Misused clinical research and disinformation have provided legal cover for bans on essential treatments for transgender and gender-expansive (TGE) people.

States Fight Back against the Trans Conspiracy to Erase Women By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/states_fight_back_against_the_trans_conspiracy_to_erase_women.html

What is a Woman?  You can no longer answer the question with alacrity.  In a 2022 documentary of the same name, when Matt Walsh poses that question to someone identifying as a gay male, he is told, “You should be asking a woman.  I don’t know; I’m not a woman.  Only women can define what a woman is.”  Not missing a beat, and putting the absurdity into sharp relief, Walsh rejoins by asking, “Are you a cat?” and following up the “No” with “Do you know what a cat is?”  The interviewee flees.

The dangerous trend to promote gender fluidity is concurrent with a movement to allow anyone to arrogate female status to himself.  Gender confusion often leads to tragic, lifelong, and irreversible consequences.  It must be noted, however, that the male-to-female transition by self-declaration has far greater societal impact than the reverse.  Males identifying as females hijack women’s sports and appropriate women’s spaces, often opportunistically or predatorily.  Radical ideology aims to eliminate sex distinctions under the guise of civil rights.  Its most egregious part is the targeting of minors, preying on their developing and fragile sense of identity.  For this reason, many states have passed or are considering legislation to safeguard minors and women.

The fightback is on four fronts: a) banning gender-transitioning surgeries and treatments for minors; b) banning age-inappropriate curricula, transition coaching, and events like drag queen story hour, often thrust on minors without parental consent; c) preventing males from using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms; and d) ending the invasion of girls’ and women’s sports by males identifying as females.

At least 16 states have passed or are developing laws to stop the targeting of children for transitioning.  This is important because many so-called progressive states have aggressive indoctrination and transitioning programs that do not spare minors.  Cases abound of individuals regretting transition once gender dysphoria is resolved; they often end up with lifelong infertility and disfigurement and may need multiple remedial interventions.

High Anxiety: How Modernity Feeds Arab Anti-Semitism. Bruce Thornton February 2007*****

https://afsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Outpost_2007_02.pdf

Bruce S. Thornton, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution,  is an emeritus professor of classics and humanities at the California State University, Fresno. He is the author of several books on a variety of topics.

“This supremely bad idea—that the modern West and its defining cultural cargo of free market
capitalism, individualism, rationalism and liberal democracy are the engines of global evil, and that Jews
and Israel are the most dangerous embodiments of this evil—continues to fuel the jihadists rage and to
weaken the West’s resolve. The stakes are too high for this suicidal notion to arouse in us anything but disgust.”

There’s an Elvis Costello lyric that goes, “I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.” Before
9/11 that was pretty much my philosophy. Working in the university, I was daily treated to the postmodern mumbo-jumbo, multicultural noble-savage fantasies, and  left-over leftist delusions that are all so transparently incoherent and severed from reality that disgust seemed a waste of energy. The detached amusement of a Victorian explorer studying some bizarre cargo-cult seemed more appropriate and was less stressful.

Then came 9/11, and the bloody truth of Rich- and Weaver’s dictum that “ideas have consequences”
made amusement reprehensible. That disaster was the fruit of years of bad ideas, particularly the West’s
institutionalized self-loathing that demonizes its own ideals and values and culture while idealizing those of the “other” no matter how dysfunctional. Our intellectuals, academics, and artists for decades had been telling the world that the West, particularly America, is the villain of history, its crimes of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, resource depletion, and pollution responsible for all the world’s ills.

Was it any wonder, then, that one of the West’s fiercest historical enemies, Islam, should take our self-flagellation seriously and conclude that we deserved to die for the crimes which we our-selves keep admitting we are guilty of? And given that even after 9/11 those same bad ideas continue to addle our thinking and compromise our attempts to defend our civilization against a smart, committed enemy, disgust is the only legitimate reaction to the behavior generated by such stale received wisdom.

Evidence of this cultural disease crams the daily media, but the West’s response to Israel’s sixty-year struggle against annihilation remains exhibit number one. Israel has always been and remains the key to
understanding the war against Islamic jihad.

The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America At peak woke, our reign of terror is beginning to lose momentum because its continuation would destroy all the work of 247 years of American progress and sacrifice. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/07/the-impending-thermidor-reaction-in-jacobin-america/

The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent. American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects.

Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic—until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.

Originally, the idea of curbing the power of a Bourbon king through a parliamentary republic became lethally counter-revolutionary.

Soon even attacks on the Catholic Church and the abolition of the monarchy entirely were deemed insufficient. The king himself and his consorts had to be beheaded. Monasteries and churches were to be ransacked, and priests exiled or lynched.

The sometimes moderate Girondins, who favored constitutional government, were mostly executed by their former friends among the Montagnards. In turn, the latter were soon deemed too conservative for the emerging crazy Jacobins. So they, too, had to be decapitated. The ensuing year-long reign of terror guillotined thousands of innocents, deemed guilty of being guilty of something.

By 1793, the revolution had turned nihilist and suicidal. The foundational date of France was recalibrated (not as 1619 but) as 1789—or “year one.”

Jacobins sought to wipe out religion, both materially and spiritually. They replaced God, first, with the atheistic “Cult of Reason” and then a stranger still “Cult of the Supreme Being”—a dreamed-up, living, humanistic god that only the murderous Robespierre could fully envision, but eerily similar to our own Green New Deal deity.

The months of the year themselves were renamed, the days of the week renumbered and relabeled. Statues were toppled, first at night, later in shameless daylight. Place names were erased and renamed. The original revolutionary heroes were not to be mentioned; their uncouth successors deified. Money was printed to “spread the wealth”—until it was worthless.

Murderous cancel culture ran unchecked. Yesterday’s French revolutionary became today’s counterrevolutionary—and tomorrow’s decapitated.

Almost everyone who originally had opposed the absolute monarchy, and, like the Americans, wished for a constitutional replacement, was eventually executed by revolutionaries who were then executed by more radical revolutionaries. The longer and more radical the revolution ran, the meaner, dumber, and more deadly the revolutionaries who emerged from the woodwork.

Moochers and Looters Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? by John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/moochers-and-looters/

There’s a socialist wave in Latin America. Mexico, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil recently elected leftists.

These politicians at least distance themselves from thugs like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, but all propose socialism-lite policies giving government more control over more people.

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.

People do need educating.

“It’s like Stockholm syndrome,” says Alvarez in my new video. “When you ask people, ‘Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?’ They always answer, ‘government.’ How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?”

Alvarez’s campaign is based on social media. Her TikTok announcing her campaign garnered 1.5 million views.

ABC Poll: Trump Up 6 Points on Biden; DeSantis Up 5

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/poll-2024-reelection/2023/05/07/id/1118904/

President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign is going to have to overcome some difficult numbers, including a record-low approval rating (36%), a majority doubting his mental acuity (63%), and strength by his GOP challengers, according to the latest ABC News/The Washington Post poll.

Biden had led former President Donald Trump throughout ABC News/Washington Post polling before the 2020 election, but Trump is up 6 points (44%-38%) on whom voting-age adults would “definitely” or “probably” vote for in 2024.

Most alarmingly for Biden’s reelection hopes, a large majority (63%) say Biden, 80, lacks the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, which is up from 43% in 2020 and 54% a year ago in the poll. Also, 62% say Biden is not fit physically to be an effective president.

Biden Unleashes The Regulatory Kraken — And There’s No Land In Sight

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/08/biden-unleashes-the-regulatory-kraken-and-theres-no-land-in-sight/

In the span of a few weeks, the Biden administration has proposed regulations that would effectively ban gas stoves, force a massive shift to electric cars, sharply raise the cost of dishwashers, increase loan costs for frugal borrowers, regulate puddles as “navigable waters,” and limit hunting and fishing across the country. It will soon release a proposed rule targeting power plants with hugely expensive carbon capture mandates.

This is just the tip of the spear.

As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews put it recently, “President Biden is leading an unprecedented expansion of the administrative state. In two years, his administration has imposed 517 regulatory actions with some $318 billion in total costs.”

The newest attack on freedom, Biden’s dishwasher regulation, would require new machines to use 27% less power and 34% less water, making already barely functioning dishwashers virtually useless. (It takes nearly three hours for dishwashers today to “clean” dishes. President Donald Trump tried to loosen these anti-consumer mandates.)

Another rule would eliminate 98% of all top-loading washing machines on the market today. There are new efficiency mandates in the works for everything from microwaves to toothbrush chargers.

“The effort is forcing manufacturers to produce more costly products they say reverse innovation by decades and potentially eliminate thousands of U.S. jobs,” the Washington Times reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission, meanwhile, wants publicly traded companies to disclose the “climate risks” of their operations. The rule “could shift $18.4 billion to consulting firms, lawyers, and data providers,” according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.

In a World Gone Mad, the Jordan Neelys Rule By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/05/07/in-a-world-gone-mad-the-jordan-neelys-rule-n1693216

EXCERPTS

Jordan Neely was a mentally ill homeless man who had terrorized the citizens of New York — especially subway passengers — for many years. He had been arrested at least 40 times for crimes ranging from assault to disorderly conduct and fare evasion. And on the day of his death, several eyewitnesses report that Neely had made repeated threats to the well-being of passengers, “stating his willingness to ‘hurt anyone’ and saying that he was unbothered by the prospect of returning to jail or being killed,” according to NRO.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Jordan Neely was “murdered” because he “was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself.”

So passengers and bystanders are just supposed to allow Mr. Neely to terrorize and assault them with no thought of defending themselves?

You picked the wrong hobby horse to ride, AOC.AOC isn’t the only one demanding “justice” for Neely. Protests erupted in New York with demonstrators shouting, “No justice, no peace!” Protesters are also heard yelling in the video, “Abolish the police.”

Without a doubt, the most outrageous response by a politician goes to Governor Kathy Hochul, who says Daniel Penny, the Marine who initiated the chokehold on Neely — and may have saved someone’s life — killed Neely “just for being a passenger” on a train.

The Jordan Neely Rorschach test Is this a black man, destroyed and choked by oppression, or the inevitable result of societal decay? By Dan Buck

https://thespectator.com/topic/jordan-neely-rorschach-test-new-york-subway/?utm_source=

Most of those who follow the news have already seen the distressing video. A black man, Jordan Neely, walked onto a New York subway train screaming obscenities and ranting about his own destitution. Another passenger, a former Marine called Daniel Penny, came up behind him, took him to the ground and placed him into a chokehold. Neely lost consciousness and died.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist could not create a better scenario that perfectly exemplifies everyone’s societal meta-narratives, a Rorschach test onto which we can map our assumptions and biases. It resembles a “what do you see? Two women or a wine glass?” kind of picture. Is this a black man, destroyed and choked by oppression, or the inevitable result of societal decay?

Pundits and politicians are already arguing, convinced that this event affirms their priors. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Neely “was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor.” His aggressive outburst on the train was a cry for help and society responded with murder.

Conversely, Inez Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, has pointed out that the Neely had forty-four prior arrests and an active warrant. A just society does not ask commuters to abide threatening scenarios on their daily commute. When DAs refuse to prosecute low-level crime and cities leave the mentally ill on the streets, disorder swells and vigilantism is inevitable.

Ohio May Start a Free Speech School Ohio State could soon have a redoubt for free academic inquiry.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ohio-legislature-salmon-p-chase-school-ohio-state-university-free-speech-university-of-toledo-568261f9?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Free speech on campus has been making a modest comeback of late, as more schools look for ways to reintroduce classical liberal principles of civic debate and expression. The latest step forward is in Ohio, where the Legislature is planning a new school for free expression and academic inquiry in Columbus.

Lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a bill to create the Salmon P. Chase center for civics, culture and society at Ohio State University. Named for the former Ohio Governor who was also a Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the school would be an independent academic unit on campus that would focus on the “historical ideas, traditions and texts that have shaped the American Constitutional order and society.”

The school is intended to encourage greater academic diversity. It will “create a community dedicated to an ethic of civil and free inquiry, which respects the intellectual freedom of each member,” according to the legislation. Classes will include lessons on the “books and major debates which form the intellectual foundation of free societies.” A school with a similar writ will be created at the University of Toledo College of Law.

Ohio State’s plan, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Robert McColley and Sen. Jerry Cirino, follows a similar effort at the University of North Carolina, where the trustees this year announced a new School of Civic Life and Leadership. That plan enraged many in the school’s left-leaning faculty who are trying to block the project.