LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: New Docs Reveal Rachel Levine Backs Scrapping Transgender Surgery Age Limits.
Archive for 2024
June 27, 2024
READER FAVORITE: 10-Minute Strength Training Exercises for Seniors: Exercises and Routines to Build Muscle, Balance, and Stamina. #CommissionEarned
WHY LIBERTARIANS SHOULD VOTE FOR TRUMP: Fear Not Lesser Evil. Daniel Klein and Zachary Yost explain why some of their fellow libertarians are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
NATIONAL SECURITY IS THE DECISIVE QUESTION IN EVERY PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE…Or It Should Be: No Debate: Biden’s Damaged US Security, International, Domestic and Economic
After 3 1/2 years of economic, military, diplomatic and social policy mayhem, the facts speak: Joe Biden, his handlers and their feckless media apparatchiks have severely damaged America’s physical security, both international and domestic. It will take years to fix the harm of Bidenomics — and the economic wreckage makes addressing the international (e.g., military) and domestic (e.g., police) security issues more difficult.
Biden’s Afghanistan bugout encouraged our enemies:
We now know Biden knew early on his bungled withdrawal had become a catastrophe. On Aug. 31, 2021, Reuters published the transcript of a July 23 telephone exchange between Biden and Afghanistan’s then-President Ashraf Ghani. Biden told Ghani that “… the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.“
Sheesh. “Whether true or not.” The Reuters report is decisive evidence — of Biden lying to the American people and our allies.
“…Which brings us to the porous U.S. border — which turns our backyards into battlefields.”
CNN debate moderators — take note.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (UK EDITION): Britain Spent Millions to Send Migrants to Africa. So Far, Just Two Have Gone.
Two years ago, the British government decided to spend big to outsource a migration problem.
To deter migrants seeking asylum from illegally entering the country, it announced a radical plan: Those smuggled on makeshift dinghies to British shores would be sent to Rwanda, a small country in central Africa, where they would remain. The U.K. government handed Rwanda a £120 million (about $150 million) down payment and told it to get ready to host thousands of potential refugees.
Shortly after, Hope Hostel, a neatly kept yellow-fronted hotel in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, was rented out with British taxpayer funds to accommodate the expected planeloads of asylum seekers. Hotel manager Ismael Bakina and his team of 40 have been keeping busy ever since, changing the sheets on 100 double beds weekly, trimming decorative pot shapes into the bushes that adorn the hotel’s entrance and mowing the lawn on its mini-soccer pitch.
But on a recent day the beds at Hope Hostel were untouched. The suggestion box at the reception desk sat empty. No one has yet come to stay. “We are still waiting,” Bakina said, standing near a sign that reads: “Come as a guest, leave as a friend.”
No one may ever arrive. The U.K. government’s plan—criticized by some as inhumane, praised by others as a pragmatic response to a global migration crisis—has faced logistical, political and legal hurdles. So far, it’s been a huge waste of money. Just two migrants have volunteered to go to Rwanda after being paid £3,000 by the British state.
“Volunteered” is just one of several problems with Britain’s plan.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Elvis Presley’s actual blue suede shoes are up for auction. “Now, fans have the opportunity to step into the King’s very own blue suede shoes as they go up for grabs at British auction house Henry Aldridge and Son – for an estimated £100,000 to £120,000 (around $126,000 to $152,000).”
IF YOU LIVE IN THIS WORLD, YOU’RE FEELING THE CHANGE OF THE GUARD: ‘Momentum undeniably growing’: More elite colleges look to end DEI hiring mandates.
THIS CERTAINLY DOESN’T MAKE IT LOOK LIKE MOSCOW IS WINNING: North Korea to Send ‘Cannon Fodder’ Troops to Fight in Ukraine, What Could Go Wrong?
WHEN THE GRIFT STOPS WORKING: Ibram Kendi ‘anti-racist’ center at Boston University in freefall.
One anonymous worker at Kendi’s center told The New York Times that Kendi “doesn’t trust anybody” and “doesn’t let anyone in.” Kendi also allegedly said it was “racist” for employees to open up about their concerns.
Sounds like something a grifter would say.
THAT’S OKAY, SXSW HASN’T BEEN COOL FOR 20 YEARS: South By Southwest festival bars Army, defense industry from ‘sponsoring’ 2025 event.
But if we get into a war — so long as it’s under a Democrat — they’ll be cheerleading, a la Ukraine, at least for the first year or two.
Biden lies. And he performs his lies on a level that not even AOC or Newsom could ever possibly dream of doing. He hits the whisper and hits the angry yell every single time. He creates the straw man and passionately knocks it down. “They are going to end social security but I won’t let it happen. I will always be here for you.” He accuses Republicans of doing exactly what he and his party is doing and he doesn’t ever flinch.
Only Biden could spend 2020 campaigning on opening the border, on not deporting anyone, spend three years ignoring the problem, and then spend this year blaming it on Trump. That is not as easy to do as people think. Only Biden could look into the camera and claim that inflation was at 9% when he took office. The average sleazy politician can’t do what Biden does. Even the worst politicians have some limits.
Read the whole thing.
THE NEW YORK TIMES PLAYS CATCH-UP WITH THE NEW YORK POST, AGAIN: NY Times Op-Ed: American Jews Should Abandon Elite Universities.
Or perhaps I should say Bret Stephens catches up with me.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: ‘Conservative’ Supreme Court Paves Superhighway to Totalitarianism. “Conservatives are back in familiar, ‘With friends like these…’ territory. Painfully familiar, I should say. The erosion of faith in our institutions has been, put mildly, depressing. It just got worse, and greatly raised the already sky-high stakes for the 2024 presidential election. Some of the justices who conservatives hoped would be friendlies weren’t so friendly yesterday.”
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Under Biden Administration, Border Patrol Officers Pressured To Allow Border Crossing Without Vetting. “The June 7 report, authored by Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, said that supervisors at multiple land ports of entry pushed Border Patrol officers to only question the drivers of vehicles entering the United States and not passengers. Officers were instructed not to use ‘Simplified Arrival,’ a biometric tool used by the DHS to ‘identify criminal warrants, national security concerns, or border crossing history, before admitting [individuals] into the country.’ The report further noted that ‘DHS will remain at risk of admitting dangerous persons into the country who may pose threats to public safety and national security.'”
DON SURBER: Journalists Are Panicking. “On a lighter note, the Media Research Center, reported, ‘Snowflake? The View’s Whoopi Goldberg Spits After Saying Trump’s Name.’ Granny Goldberg must be unaware of the meaning of Hawk Tuah.”
Here is a rather simple fact: inside the procurement system we have – including kludge workarounds like DEPSECDEF Hicks’s “Replicator” – if you believe that the window of greatest vulnerability for war with the People’s Republic of China is 2027 to 2032, which after initial skepticism I have grown to think is correct, then we will go to war with what we have now.
As such, you need to look at what those charged with stewardship of our defense are doing NOW to maximize production of what is a known capability NOW. Not PPT thick, not aspirational, not “sounds sexy.” No. Is ready to go now. Yes, continue to develop and experiment, but that is not the primary effort.
We have consumed the last quarter-century of “time” daydreaming through transformationalism and peacocking our arrogance over previous generations to create “game-changing” offsets in the “out-years.” We have gone through so many “offsets” and “revolutions in military affairs” that I have lost count … none to any meaningful effect.
I am not alone in seeing the present from the perspective of standing on the dung-heap of the promises, spin, hype, and overpromising of the last quarter-century. The breathless hype doesn’t work anymore.
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.
AN APOLOGY IS NICE, BUT HAVE THOSE RESPONSIBLE BEEN SACKED? OR PROSECUTED? IRS ‘Sincerely Apologizes To Ken Griffin And Thousands Of Other Taxpayers Whose Personal Information Was Leaked To The Press.’
The story doesn’t say, but there’s this from January: Former IRS Contractor Sentenced for Disclosing Tax Return Information to News Organizations. “A former IRS contractor was sentenced today to five years in prison for disclosing thousands of tax returns without authorization.”
YEAH, THIS ONE HURT: ‘Gut Punch’: Free Speech Lovers Lament SCOTUS Ruling.
ADD THIS TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT: Harvard dean threatens faculty who protest school’s mistreatment of Jews.
JEFFREY SINGER: The Pernicious Expansion of “Public Health.”
In the 1980s, when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop embarked on an effort to make America a “smoke‐free society by the year 2000,” it marked the beginning of an expanded role for the Surgeon General. Since Koop, Surgeons General have seen themselves as “the nation’s doctor.” They have influenced Congress to pass legislation on ever‐expanding “health issues.” And because one can find a health angle for so many activities or substances that autonomous adults choose to engage in or consume, “public health policy” is bleeding into adults’ right to pursue happiness.
The latest example came yesterday when Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a “public health crisis.” Murthy released an advisory stating, “Overall, deaths caused by guns rose to a three‐decade high in 2021, driven by increases in homicides and suicides.” He called on Congress to enact new gun regulations. Of course, lockdowns and the associated emotional stress and anxiety that resulted from the public health establishment’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic made 2021 an atypical year.
But, surely, someone on Murthy’s staff must have updated him that there was a 7.7 percent decline in gun violence from 2022 to 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This is the largest annual decline since the Archive’s inception in 2014. And according to a report from the Center for American Progress, “preliminary data suggest that gun violence broadly trended down in 2023 across the United States, representing a historic decrease.” Did Murthy jump the gun when he declared gun violence a public health crisis by not putting the 2021 gun violence data in proper context?
More importantly, criminal justice professionals best address homicides and other forms of gun violence, not doctors. Doctors and mental health professionals should work on suicide prevention, not gun laws.
Murthy’s claim that gun violence is a public health crisis comes just a week after he called on Congress to require social media platforms to display labels warning parents that engaging on these platforms may endanger adolescents’ mental health. Aside from the fact that the science is far from clear, as I have written here, a social media public health panic can push Congress to infringe on free speech rights. It may also encourage frivolous lawsuits that cause platforms to impose speech restrictions.
Policymakers should oppose public health and medical professionals’ efforts to expand the definition of health to encompass more human activities. If this pernicious trend continues, we risk evolving into a society governed by a partnership between unelected bureaucrats and a medical ruling class exerting social control.
As always with our political class, the goal is to exercise power without accountability.
AT AMAZON, Shop the 4th of July Sale. #CommissionEarned
THE STEPHANOPOULOS LECTURES ON PROPER INTERVIEWS AND DEBATES:
Democrats think “democracy” should be the No. 1 issue — as they define it. And in this cycle, they’ve defined it as pressuring Republicans to accept their 2024 defeat. When they say they won’t accept defeat in advance, they get another six pestering questions about how they won’t accept election results … that haven’t happened yet.
You’re allowed to proclaim if Donald Trump wins, democracy has ended. You’re not allowed to say the 2024 election result is open-ended.
Stephanopoulos told Mediaite, “I think it’s journalistic malpractice to do a live interview with President Trump on television.” This aligns with MSNBC partisan Rachel Maddow, who always proclaims that “news” channels can’t run Trump live. That’s why you know they’ll pull out their hair watching a live debate. By that standard, Trump wins by accepting any debate terms that let him speak live.
But four years ago, Stephanopoulos demonstrated what his actual standards are, and they’re partisan. Due to a canceled debate, the candidates submitted to individual town-hall formats. Trump was perpetually interrupted and debated by Savannah Guthrie on NBC. Biden was treated to a gentle chat on ABC with Stephanopoulos, who asked nothing about the New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Most of the audience questions came from the left.
The networks actually delighted in the flagrant bias the next day. Biden-boosting ABC reporter Mary Bruce gushed, “Joe Biden spending much of the night looking ahead, outlining his plans for the future, while the president, often combative, spent much of the night on defense.”
This is why public trust in the establishment media has cratered. Their ideal scenario is the Republicans are grilled, and the Democrats are massaged. A few weeks ago, they touted the ideal scenario of Trump trapped in a courtroom versus Biden out shaking hands with voters on the campaign trail.
I’d add the standard “Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense” reminder, but as once and current Democratic Party operative, Stephanopoulos makes it all too easy.
Evergreen:
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘It’s All Happening Again.’ The Supply Chain Is Under Strain.
Stephanie Loomis had hoped that the chaos besieging the global supply chain was subsiding. The floating traffic jams off ports. The multiplying costs of moving freight. The resulting shortages of goods. All of this had seemed like an unpleasant memory confined to the Covid-19 pandemic.
No such luck.
As head of ocean freight for the Americas at Rhenus Logistics, a company based in Germany, Ms. Loomis spends her days negotiating with international shipping carriers on behalf of clients moving products and parts around the globe. Over the last few months, she has watched cargo prices soar as a series of disturbances have roiled the seas.
Late last year, Houthi rebels in Yemen began firing on ships entering the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal, a vital artery for vessels moving between Asia, Europe and the East Coast of the United States. That prompted ships to avoid the waterway, instead moving the long way around Africa, lengthening their journeys by as much as two weeks.
Meanwhile: Let’s Kick Off Summer With Another Losing War! “As an unapologetic booster of Western Civilization, I’d remind you with all the bitterness I can muster that the Suez Canal was built by Westerners to serve Western interests, and now we can barely use it, thanks to medieval pirates — the likes of which we used to know how to deal with.”