RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/the_pentagon_strikes_a_blow_against_transgender_madness.html

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s stupid and essentially disrespectful response to the question “What is a woman?” tells us what the official line is from the Biden administration: a woman is whatever the transgender lobby says it is.  And we know that the Biden Pentagon has been going out of its way to accommodate so-called “transgender” troops.  That’s why it’s so delicious that the Pentagon announced today that it is lowering the physical standards for women and older people.

Here’s the story from The Hill (emphasis mine):

Following a three-year review, the Army has scrapped plans to use the same physical fitness test for all soldiers, choosing instead to have some reduced standards to allow women and older soldiers to pass, the service announced Wednesday. 

The decision follows a RAND-led study that found men were more easily passing the new, more difficult Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) compared to women and older soldiers, who were “failing at noticeably higher rates.” That six-event test developed in 2019 was an expansion from the three events — pushups, situps and a run — soldiers had done prior.

The Army first changed its fitness test to include dead lifts, power throws, pushups, planks, a run and a sprint-drag-carry event, as well as a leg tuck that was eventually eliminated. 

Service leaders hoped the newer test — the first such change in more than 40 years — would better replicate tasks needed for combat while reducing the risk of injuries.

But the new fitness curriculum was quickly criticized after it became clear women, older male soldiers and National Guard and Reserve troops had difficulty passing it.  

About 44 percent of women failed the test from October 2020 to April 2021, compared to about 7 percent of men, Military.com found at the time.

Sorry, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, but after reading that, I don’t think you need to be a biologist to figure out that there’s something different going on physically when it comes to women and men.  If you have young people in their prime, the women will perform physically like old men and men who spend their days not doing P.T., but doing desk jobs.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/no-on-ketanji-brown-jackson/

Barring an unexpected plot twist, the Senate Judiciary Committee has concluded its hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Democratic senators appear primed to confirm her, but Republicans should vote “No.”

The hearings were testy at times, but they were a model of civility compared with the Brett Kavanaugh or Clarence Thomas hearings. Unlike Kavanaugh, Judge Jackson did not have senators reciting the preposterous claims of a since-imprisoned grifter that she was a gang rapist, and did not see the Capitol and the hearing room overrun by angry mobs. Unlike Amy Coney Barrett, she did not face a barrage of media attacks on her faith and her family. Unlike Samuel Alito, she was not slimed by tenuous association with racist or sexist groups, even though Jackson herself currently sits on the board of overseers of a college that is being sued for its open and notorious practice of anti-Asian race discrimination in admissions.

Indeed, Democratic paeans to the historic nature of her nomination to be the first African-American woman on the Court ring hollow due to their prior mistreatment of appellate nominees such as Miguel Estrada and Janice Rogers Brown, both of whom were targeted because Joe Biden, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and other Senate Democrats feared letting a Republican president appoint a “first.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-president-should-avoid-public-speaking-11648247289?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Some issues are just too important to be left to an unscripted Joe Biden. This is not CNN and your humble correspondent is not a doctor so this column will not be offering a long-distance diagnosis of the president’s mental health or an assessment of how his cognition compares to that of other world leaders. But these are dangerous times and we would all be much safer if Mr. Biden would make greater use of prepared statements on subjects such as, for example, weapons of mass destruction.

Two months after a bumbling press conference in which Mr. Biden implied that a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine might be tolerable to the U.S. and its allies, the President flew to Europe this week and somehow ended up taking questions from reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Yes, it’s important for all of us to be able to hear from our elected officials and to assess the content of their remarks as well as the skill and conviction with which they advocate for their policies. But this particular elected official does not appear to be up to the task. While we consider the implications, Mr. Biden should try to say as little as possible in public during an international crisis.

This presents a unique challenge since he happens to be the sitting president of the United States. But there is no constitutional requirement for the president to make off-the-cuff remarks, or to deliver speeches of any kind. If necessary he can email messages to Congress rather than speaking to legislators.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ginni-thomas-texts-washington-post-jan-6-committee-mark-meadows-clarence-thomas-11648243651?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

What story do you think would deserve to push the biggest war in Europe in nearly 80 years down from the lead news of the day? If you said the private text messages of the wife of a Supreme Court Justice, you are apparently qualified to run a major American newsroom.

That’s the leak-on-a-silver-platter news the Washington Post blared at the top of its homepage on Thursday evening. Someone handed reporter Bob Woodward and protege Robert Costa the content of 29 text messages in 2020 and 2021 between Mark Meadows, then White House chief of staff, and Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.

Mrs. Thomas sent 21 of the messages and Mr. Meadows sent eight. All but one are from November 2020, in the early days after Joe Biden was declared the winner in the presidential election. The House select committee on Jan. 6 obtained the messages from Mr. Meadows as part of its investigation.

While in Europe for an emergency meeting of NATO and a trip to Poland, Joe Biden announces that the U.S. will accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. He also promises more U.S. natural gas for our European allies, but will his policies match his rhetoric? Plus, the panel answers a listener’s question about whether the United Nations has a role to play in ending Russia’s invasion.

The Post hypes the messages as showing “how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results.” Sounds nefarious, until you understand that the back and forth added up to nothing meaningful.

https://www.city-journal.org/what-lia-thomas-means

If a single image could sum up Lia Thomas’s victory in the 500-yard freestyle event at the NCAA swimming championships last week, it would be that of Thomas and the runners-up taken right after they were awarded their medals. Behind a sign with the number “1” on it stands Thomas, who seems barely able to conceal embarrassment at what is undoubtedly an awkward situation. To the right, noticeably keeping their distance and a full head or two shorter, are the runners-up. Their smiles seem no less awkward.

The scene resembles an eerie propaganda video, in which a jubilant dictator can be seen waving at fawning crowds who know their lives depend on making it all look authentic. Thomas’s competitors will not face firing squads should they choose to complain, but they will almost certainly face a social media pile-on (assuming that Twitter doesn’t preemptively suspend them for suggesting that transgender women are not biological women). Their names and reputations will be dragged through the mud, their career prospects destroyed or severely curtailed, and their place on the college swim team—and, with it, their scholarships—jeopardized. A teammate of Thomas’s who criticized her participation in women’s sports told a U.K. newspaper that she would speak only on condition of anonymity, for she was concerned that future employers might Google her name and deem her “transphobic.” Meantime, those who support Thomas’s participation in women’s sports speak their minds freely and without fear of repercussions. What was that about transgender people being powerless?