Archive for 2022

THIS WAS NEVER ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE WANTED: People still want boy-girl divide in school sports.

When hundreds of Virginia students left classrooms this week to protest Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s effort to scale back pro-transgender policies in schools, it was heralded by some media outlets as a slam-dunk sign that teenage LGBT rights have won out.

But coming on the anniversary of when former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe blew his chance in the 2021 election battle with Youngkin by suggesting parents shouldn’t tell schools what to do, it reminded others that the issue is far from closed. In fact, Youngkin’s office sent Secrets a handful of stories about parents walking out of school board meetings across the commonwealth to protest proposed policies to give transgender students new rights, such as the right to enter bathrooms or participate in sports as their desired sex, not the one “assigned at birth.” . . .

And as much as the media want the students to win, new polling shared exclusively with Secrets found overwhelming opposition to liberal gender rule changes. Importantly, with the elections just over five weeks away, most voters would punish candidates who promote biological boys competing in girls’ sports, as former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas did.

The Sept. 14-18 CRC Research national survey was somewhat large: 1,600 likely voters, split 52% women and 48% men. Its margin of error of plus or minus 2.45 percentage points didn’t come into play much because the gaps were so large.

On the basic question of letting men participate in women’s sports, the margin was over 2-1. Asked about President Joe Biden’s plan to reform Title IX, 63% said they oppose it and 25% said they support it. Among those most passionate about the issue, 49% said they strongly oppose the changes, compared to 11% who strongly support them.

Only Biden Democrats back the Biden plan, and by a hair: 44% to 41%. Nearly all Republicans, 85%, oppose it.

A key reason, as Thomas found out, is that most believe letting men compete with women undermines the achievements of women and Title IX itself.

Well, it’s meant to. And people know that:

When asked if they agree or disagree that “the transgender movement undermines significant opportunities and essential protections for women,” 57% agreed and 29% didn’t, according to the CRC Research results.

What is surprising in those results is that Democrats agreed, 45%-36%, that the changes hurt women.

This is a small group of Gentry Class activists, trying to move the culture via media bullying.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: NHDem Chair Buckley: Schools Must Keep Secrets or Parents Will ‘Beat Their Children to Death.’

The reaction from New Hampshire Republicans was immediate.

“The Biden administration labeled parents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ and now the chair of the New Hampshire Democrat Party is claiming Granite State parents beat their kids to death,” said Leavitt. “The Democrats’ hatred for parents who simply want to be involved in their children’s education is disgusting. It’s rooted in the fact that Democrats like Chris Pappas are funded by powerful teachers unions who want total control over our public education system. While Pappas continues to side with Joe Biden and radical bureaucrats, I will continue to stand with Granite State mothers and fathers.”

“I think Ray Buckley’s comments are reprehensible and an insult to parents,” said Bob Burns, the GOP candidate challenging Rep. Annie Kuster, who voted with Pappas to kill the parental notification bill. “Education in New Hampshire is and should remain local, and parents should have oversight into their child’s education.”

“Parents have a right to know what’s going on in and outside the classroom,” said the NHGOP via Twitter. “This is disgusting. Your NH House Dems voted for this!”

Earlier: Youngkin’s midterm advice to GOP: It’s the “kitchen-table issues,” stupid.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SELF-AWARENESS: Biden renews vow to bring ‘decency’ back to politics despite slamming ‘MAGA Republicans.’

During an event at the White House Friday, President Joe Biden said one of the reasons he ran for the nation’s highest office was to “bring back some decency and honor” to politics, particularly related to how “we talk about one another, the way we deal with one another,” even though he labeled “MAGA Republicans” an extremist threat just a month ago.

“When I ran, I said one of the reasons I was running was to restore the soul of America. Bring back some decency and honor in the way we talk about one another, the way we deal with one another,” Biden said during an event celebrating the Jewish new year.

Sounds like a great idea — when will Biden start to implement it?

 

NOBODY EXPECTS THE JAN. 6 INQUISITION: Jonathan Turley: Why does a congressional committee care what Ginni Thomas “believes”?

Select committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) left the voluntary interview with the Committee to report, according to Politico, “she still believes false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.”

Ok, so what? Millions of people hold the same view. They have a right to hold that view. There was never any evidence that Thomas participated in any violence and had simply encouraged White House and other officials to challenge the election.

Remember: Democrats are allowed to claim elections are tainted, and Democrats are allowed to engage in political violence. Republicans are not allowed to even think about such things without having the weight of the politico/media establishment come down on them.

Plus: “None of the media even raised the question of whether such interviews could be viewed as harassment or pressure on a member of the Supreme Court.” It is, and it’s intended to be.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Policymakers caused the coming recession — don’t let them blame COVID and Ukraine.

If, as seems increasingly likely, the United States and world have a hard economic landing next year, of one thing you can be sure: Policymakers both at home and abroad will not assume responsibility. Rather, they’ll point to COVID, a once-in-a-century health crisis, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the primary causes of our economic woes.

The truth of the matter, however, is different. Without a series of egregious policy missteps in a number of the world’s major economies, we could have avoided a hard world economic landing.

But they’ll act as if it’s something that just kinda happened.

JOURNALISTS: TOOLS OF SATAN OR JUST MENACES TO CIVILIZATION? Associated Press: Confessionals are a “clergy loophole.” “The Associated Press published a piece this week casting the confessional seal as sinister. That its reporters would even think to turn a prosaic defense of this venerable privilege into a scandal is a measure of our secularized times. Only until recently would anyone dare suggest that priests be coerced into revealing what they hear in confession. That cause over the years has been restricted to a handful of rabidly atheistic politicians. But now, apparently, the AP has joined it.”

OPEN THREAD: It’s real, and it’s spectacular.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Macron vs. Meloni. “France’s Emmanuel Macron, like a number of other world leaders, has denounced Italy and its incoming Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. I will chalk that up as a mistake. I don’t think a lot of people have seen this amateurishly-filmed response by Meloni, but it is scorching. It is not hard to understand why colorless leftist leaders fear Meloni and denounce her as a “fascist.” I think that means she gives speeches that are effective and that people like.”

HMM: How long older adults will live comes down to 17 often surprising factors. This is interesting:

Kraus and colleagues launched their inquiry at an opportune time, having been directed to a cache of 1,500 blood samples from a 1980s longitudinal study that enrolled older people.

The banked samples had been drawn in 1992 when participants were at least 71 years old and then stored at the NIH. They were scheduled for destruction, but the researchers arrived in time to transfer them to Duke for analysis.

The blood samples had the additional fortuitous feature of being drawn at a time that preceded the widespread use of medications such as statins, which could have skewed the results. More good luck: study participants had been followed for several years and had filled out questionnaires about their health histories and habits.

Never throw out those old samples.

TELL KIDS THE TRUTH: You’re Not So Special.

“No one is you, and that is your superpower!” reads a sign at Brian Huskie’s school. “Ridiculous,” he writes on SubStack. “Imagine being 16 years old and believing that. That you are unique and special and different from everyone else and that’s what gives you your power.”

Young people have potential, he writes. But there’s nothing unique about that. While they may be the hope of the future, they’re not superheroes in the present. “For the most part, they don’t have any particularly useful insights,” Huskie writes. “They haven’t accomplished anything meaningful.”

He’s a fan of psychologist Peter Gray, who asked in 2014: Why is Narcissism Increasing Among Young Americans? Since 1970, young people are more narcissistic and less empathetic, Gray writes.

Teachers need to stop telling kids that they’re wonderful just the way they are, Huskie concludes. They’ve got a lot to learn.

A New York Times’ photo showed a sign in a fifth-grade classroom: “The World is a Better Place With You In It.” Not true, writes Dennis Prager.

“We’ve had 50 years of telling young people how terrific, brilliant and special they are,” he writes. All this unmerited praise has created young and not-so-young Americans who are depressed, narcissistic and unable to deal with setbacks.

They wonder: “If I’m so great — if the world is lucky to have me — why isn’t life rewarding me?,” Prager writes. Where’s my participation trophy?

Your family may think the world is a better place because you were born, he concludes. Perhaps, in the future, you will make the world a better place. But you’ll have to do something other than exist.

Yes. If you want to be special, do something special.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: The Heroes of Hurricane Ian. “Ian gave untold numbers of Florida men and women the opportunity to step up and show the world what they’re made of. Sure enough, they did.”

DO REPUBLICANS CAUSE HURRICANES?:  The media can’t wait to blame DeSantis for Hurricane Ian.  Of course, that’s nothing new.  Bush got blamed for Katrina.  And the recent report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights put the blame on Trump for Hurricane Maria.  What’s interesting is how the blame gets assigned to the federal, state, or territorial level depending on where the Republicans are.