RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/the-biden-administration-undermines-womens-sports-again/

On the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the Biden administration is poised to erode women’s rights in the name of transgenderism.

The Biden administration’s Department of Education is eyeing radical changes to Title IX that could threaten the opportunities afforded to women through the 1972 statute. In a report released Thursday, the department issued proposals to change Title IX regulations to seemingly include transgender women in the protections formerly given to biological women. The most salient recommendation was the proposed regulation to “Articulate the Department’s understanding that sex discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” The Education Department is inviting public comment (although the comment portal is not yet open), and Heritage Action for America has launched a tool kit to help grassroots activists and concerned parents fight back against this. It also is organizing public comments to be submitted against the proposed rule change.

The Department of Education indicates it will pursue a separate rulemaking process for the participation of transgender students in sports. But the department also says the latest proposal clarifies “that preventing someone from participating in school programs and activities consistent with their gender identity would cause harm in violation of Title IX.” So the department certainly seems to be moving toward supporting male athletes who identify as women joining women’s sports at the high-school and college levels.

Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, told National Review:

The Biden administration is weaponizing the rulemaking process to unilaterally destroy sports for women and girls, but the American people have an opportunity to fight back through the comment process. . . . Biden’s proposed change to include gender identity would have devastating consequences for women’s ability to qualify for certain teams, set records, and earn scholarships.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-abortion-extremists-vandalize-michigan-pregnancy-center/

Vandals targeted the Lennon Pregnancy Center in Dearborn, Mich. earlier this week, smashing its outdoor windows and doors and spray-painting threatening messages on the facility’s walls.

The pro-life Lennon Center provides free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, parenting classes, and counseling to the surrounding community. Police found and informed the nonprofit’s board of directors of the damage on Monday.

On the center’s website, it describes its mission as helping parents “to choose life for their unborn children and to raise their children in loving families…  by offering enrichment, advice, education, material assistance and other non-judgmental support.”

In a letter to staff and volunteers, Lennon director Mariann Bolton relayed that it is “clear that the perpetrators oppose our mission to provide counseling and support to women who are pregnant and parenting.”

“The damage is extensive, but we remain steadfast and committed to our mission and our work….  Senseless incidents such as these do not frighten nor dissuade us. Quite the contrary, they embolden us to do more and stay the course!” wrote Bolton.

According to Bolton, the Lennon Center provided assistance to over 100 women and their families in May. “We live in a country that is based on the freedom to express opposing opinions in a non-violent manner. This vandalism is an ugly example of unprovoked violence, ignorance, and hatred,” she argued.

The attack comes ahead of the anticipated release of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Last month, a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that overturned the holding of Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico. It’s unclear to what extent the holding in Dobbs will look like Alito’s draft.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-won-your-gun-case-youre-fired-11656024233?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

“Kirkland’s invertebrate abdication illustrates how progressive ideology dominates the commanding heights of American law, business and culture. If you want to know why a groundswell of opposition against this woke conformity is building in the provinces, this is it.”

A 6-3 victory at the Supreme Court vindicating a constitutional right is usually cause for congratulations, but not these days at Kirkland & Ellis, the giant white-shoe law firm. The firm has rewarded partner Paul Clement for his triumph Thursday in the big New York gun-rights case (see nearby) by telling him to drop his gun clients or leave the firm.

As Mr. Clement and his litigation partner, Erin Murphy, explain nearby, they’re leaving the firm rather than dump their clients. That’s the honorable and ethical decision.

But it’s worth noting how extraordinary it is for a law firm to fire its victorious clients whose rights have been upheld by no fewer than six Justices. It’s as if the law firm representing Clarence Gideon had told him to get lost after the Supreme Court upheld his right to legal counsel in his famous 1963 case, Gideon v. Wainwright.

“Kirkland & Ellis announced today its decision to no longer represent clients with respect to matters involving the interpretation of the Second Amendment,” the firm said in a press release, without explanation. It added that Mr. Clement and Ms. Murphy “will be leaving the firm in order to continue their full range of existing representations.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vindicating-the-second-amendment-11656024307?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling Thursday on gun rights boils down to this: The Second Amendment doesn’t disappear when you walk out your front door. Stated that way, it sounds obvious, but many appeals judges have disagreed. For a frustrating decade, the Supreme Court was too gun-shy to set them straight, but Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion was worth the wait.***

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen challenged the Empire State’s regulations on carrying a firearm in public. Open carry in New York is banned. With certain exceptions, such as for judges, getting a permit to carry a handgun that’s concealed requires demonstrating “proper cause.” That has been interpreted to mean “a special need” for self-defense, beyond that of “the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

In other words, shopkeepers who must carry cash through high-crime neighborhoods are out of luck. But as Justice Thomas points out, the Constitution protects a right not only to “keep” but also to “bear” arms. “Most gun owners do not wear a holstered pistol at their hip in their bedroom or while sitting at the dinner table,” he writes. “To confine the right to ‘bear’ arms to the home would nullify half of the Second Amendment’s operative protections.”

This does not mean urban America will soon resemble the Wild West. Forty-three states, Justice Thomas says, already have “shall issue” regimes, meaning carry permits are available to everyone who meets objective criteria. That process can be rigorous and might include fingerprinting, firearms training, background checks, and so forth. A concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, stresses that the Court is not calling such rules into question.

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/just-how-much-federal-pork-and-waste

The ever-rising national debt just surpassed $30 trillion this year – at least $91,613 for every person in the U.S. So, just how much federal waste, silliness, weird or unnecessary spending are your tax dollars funding?

Delving into the trillions of dollars in annual spending, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, recently examined Washington’s discretionary spending—beyond such big-ticket items as health, welfare and defense.

We found staggering examples and highlighted some of the worst in our new oversight report, Where’s The Pork?

Dead people paid billions: 2.2 million deceased people received $3.6 billion in economic stimulus checks. The government asked for it back, but dead people are notoriously bad about paying up. The federal government is equally bad about clawing it back.

How did this happen? Well, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t check the Social Security Administration’s “deceased persons” list. Why have a deceased persons list if you don’t check the list before cutting the check?

The Do Not Pay list–Got Paid: The Small Business Administration (SBA) doled out 57,000 Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) forgivable loans to entities on the Do Not Pay list housed at Treasury. Again, why have a do not pay list if you are not going to check it. Cost to taxpayers? $3.6 billion.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/22/why-the-left-will-cut-biden-loose/

Republican pundits and conservative activists are debating whether they can win in 2024 with the successful Trump agenda, but without the controversial Donald Trump as their nominee.  

The Democrats have a similar, but far more serious dilemma with Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2024.  

Unlike the Trump Administration’s successful four years, Biden’s tenure has been an utter disaster. There are no policy offsets to the personal liabilities and unpopularity of Biden himself. 

Biden’s liabilities transcend his physical infirmities, his advanced age, and his seeming geometric rather than arithmetic rate of mental decline. 

Biden, moreover, proves daily that he is not a nice guy. His excesses, past and present, are precisely those the Left considers mortal sins. 

Walking back Biden’s absurdities has become the nonstop, tiresome task of many on the Left. As they face a midterm disaster in November, many no longer see any compensating reasons not to drop Biden.  

When the Republicans take the House of Representatives in 2022 there will be nonstop investigations of Hunter Biden’s alleged tax avoidances, his possibly illegal work as an unregistered foreign agent, and Joe Biden’s untaxed compensation he received from the Biden lobbying consortium. 

Consider also Biden’s nastiness.

During the 2020 campaign he personally attacked a young co-ed as a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” and a stocky questioner was reduced to “fat.” 

Unlike Trump’s art of the deal, exaggerations, and distortions, Biden says things that are not simply untrue, but abjectly preposterous—such as the United States currently has a lower inflation rate than major European industrial powers. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/science-finally-triumphs-over-trans-ideology-joseph-klein/

The international governing body for swimming competitions, FINA, struck a blow for rationality and fairness in its newly announced “Policy On Eligibility For The Men’s And Women’s Competition Categories.” FINA decided to bar transgender women from participating in women’s elite international swimming competitions unless they had undergone medical treatments to suppress production of testosterone and completed their “transition” prior to the age of 12. The new policy, which was announced on June 19th, is based on biological science.

Before reaching its decision, FINA had established a Science Group “to examine the most up-to-date scientific knowledge on (1) the impact of biological sex on athletic performance, and (2) the impact of gender-affirming medical transition on factors that influence athletic performance, and to produce a report setting out their findings.”

The Science Group’s report concluded that “biological sex is a key determinant of athletic performance, with males outperforming females in sports (including Aquatics sports) that are primarily determined by neuromuscular, cardiovascular, and respiratory function, and anthropometrics including body and limb size. The extent of the male/female performance gap varies by sport and competition, but the gap universally emerges starting from the onset of puberty.”

FINA coupled the results of its scientific investigation into the impact of the physical differences between biologically born males and biologically born females after reaching puberty with its commitment to fundamental fairness in promoting male and female athletes and male and female sport equally. Blurring the physiological distinctions between the sexes that affect athletic performance by allowing the fluidity of gender identity to govern who can compete as a female in women’s aquatic sports violates both scientific and fair competition principles.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/democrats-insurrection-circus-ignores-real-robert-spencer/

As the Democrats’ prime-time Jan. 6 circus began, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) explained “the real purpose” of their televised hearings: “convincing Americans that conservatives are to blame for the events of that day,” leading to “a repudiation of conservatism and all those who hold conservative values. Democrats want to use the violence of Jan. 6 to stigmatize conservative voices and delegitimize conservative ideals. They’ve even talked—condescendingly, of course—about treating conservatives as ‘cult’ members who need to be deprogrammed.” In service of this goal, they’re not just running a prime-time show trial, but persecuting ordinary Americans who protested that day, and ignoring, of course, the real insurrection – the one they supported.

Last Tuesday, BlazeTV host Steve Deace tweeted a harrowing message from a “January Sixther” that demonstrates how far what is happening regarding Jan. 6 really is from actual justice, and shows that it is all a dirty political game in which Democrats are victimizing decent people in order to prop up their ridiculous and baseless “insurrection” narrative.

“I am a husband and father who has zero criminal history,” this man wrote to Deace, “and I am looking at years in prison AFTER I took a plea. You may ask why would people take a plea if they are innocent? Innocent has nothing to do with this as my lawyer has told over and over again. This is payback. There are only a handful of representatives in DC that care about us. The vast majority couldn’t care less.”

The man explains: “I wasn’t violent, I didn’t break anything, I didn’t steal anything and that doesn’t matter. I lost my 6 figure income, friends, and my family is a wreck. I had the FBI in my home, I was brought before a judge in shackles. And I am a lucky one. I got to remain free till sentencing. So this is the country that I now live in. Where the powerful few can attack an elected president attempting to removing him for 4 years and where elections no longer matter.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/democrats-face-disaster-their-racialist-identity-bruce-thornton/

Last week Mayra Flores, a naturalized citizen born in Mexico, won outright a special election in Texas’ 34th Congressional District in the Rio Grande Valley, a Democrat redoubt since 1870. A Republican conservative and mother of four, Flores ran on “God, family, and country,” and self-identifies as pro-life and a supporter of tougher border controls. Flores is heading to Washington to be the first House Representative born in Mexico.

This victory is yet another portent of doom for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. They already are facing headwinds like soaring murder rates, record inflation, and astronomic gas prices––all the consequences of progressive policies like bail and sentencing “reform” and lax leftwing DAs, more fiat money pumped into the economy, and the disastrous war on fossil fuels that has significantly reduced domestic production even as global supplies have been squeezed by sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile the anti-American “woke” are intensifying their culture war on several fronts, from unrestricted abortion and transgender curricula in public schools, to pronoun etiquette and “cancel culture” and other violations of the Second Amendment.

Unsurprisingly, Joe Biden’s average disapproval rate is 54.7%,  while the Republicans have been leading the Congressional generic ballot by 3 points since the first of the year. Remember, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton had positive approval ratings and still lost the House of Representatives in midterm elections.

Given these obstacles, the Democrats can’t afford to lose any support from Latinos, who now comprise 18.7% of the U.S. population. Yet Dems for decades have ignored the diversity of everyday Latinos on a number of issues––such as the economy, patriotism, faith, border security, crime, and social issues such as transgenderism and same-sex marriage––and have alienated them and driven many to the GOP.

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

In an op-ed in a recent The Wall Street Journal, Ted Van Dyk, author of Heroes, Hacks and Fools: Memoirs from the Political Inside, wrote: “The country is desperate for pragmatic problem solving and at least an attempt by leaders to collaborate across partisan and ideological lines.” It is true. People are impossibly divided, and the effect is being felt among families and friends. It is unhealthy, individually and collectively for the nation. One consequence was the choices voters had in 2020 – On the right the polarizing figure of Donald Trump, who despite his accomplishments as President, has an insatiable ego and is overly sensitive to criticism, which make him unpalatable to many conservatives. On the left, Democrats nominated Joe Biden, a 77-year-old career politician with no notable achievements, but with noticeable cognitive challenges. Was that the best a nation of 330 million people could do? Questions need to be answered: Why has reason failed? Where does fault lie? Why are we in this place? What can be done?

The fault, in my opinion, lies principally with politicians who thrive on a strategy employed by Julius Caesar, divide et impera, divide and rule, and by a media that has given up on reporting in favor of advocacy. It is easier for politicians to address the needs and wants of specific constituents than to discuss complex issues that affect us all. Such activity has led to divisive “identity politics” and away from the understanding that we are all, regardless of race, class or ethnicity, citizens of this republic and that we all have a stake in its continuance. The United States is unique among nations in that our ancestors came from every corner of the world. It is unique in its government forged out of a belief in individual freedom, a government – with its separation of powers, rule of law, and protection of private property – whose primary responsibility is to guarantee the freedoms enumerated in the Constitution. We have differences, as expected and as we should, but, as citizens of the United States, we have in common (or we should have) a reverence for this imperfect but rare nation.

Perhaps it is the cynicism that comes with age, but I believe most politicians would prefer not to solve many of the problems we face – illegal immigration, gun legislation, climate change, healthcare and abortion. One might add education and election integrity. These are perennial issues, which when left undecided serve both sides, in that they inflame noisy partisans, the driving force behind both political parties, and who further divide us.

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack is exhibit A. This is not a committee trying to understand what happened – Exactly what role did Mr. Trump play? Why did not advanced warnings of trouble prompt enhanced security? If this was an insurrection, why were there no firearms found on the rioters? Why did the committee not investigate the claim of New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg that “there were a ton of FBI informants amongst the people who attacked the Capital?” Why was an unarmed woman shot and killed as she entered a Capital window? What might be done to prevent a future occurrence? Will the committee investigate the rioting during the summer of 2020, which killed 35, injured 1,500 police officers and caused $1.3 billion in property damage? From the start, the committee was established to be a partisan hit job on Mr. Trump and his supporters, not a bi-partisan voyage of discovery. Ironically, the Committee’s shaming of Mr. Trump may well backfire on Democrats who seemed to have forgotten that a viable Mr. Trump is Republican’s biggest liability and Democrat’s greatest asset.

As Michael Barone pointed out in an interview in The Wall Street Journal, it was not too long ago that “Americans expressed great trust in their institutions and great belief and confidence in their leaders.” Mr. Barone suggests Watergate was “a historical watershed” that ended that trust. But no matter its origin and whether deserved or not, disillusionment in government has harmed the United States. I recall being in the Senate dining room for lunch in the early 1970s and seeing Democrats and Republicans dining together. It’s my understanding that rarely happens today. Political partisanship has destroyed friendships and disrupted families. Verlan Lewis and Hyrum Lewis argued in last weekend’s The Wall Street Journal that the problem is less about polarization around “fixed ideological poles” and more about hostility toward individuals. Regardless, questions remain. Why have we reached this impasse and what, if anything, can be done to end it? It seems to me that our best hope lies in education, a return to reason, traditional values and a revival of patriotism.

Amidst this anger, we appear to have forgotten that free-market capitalism, within a democratic context, has made Americans wealthier beyond the wildest imaginations of those who lived a hundred and two hundred years ago. Few young people in the U.S. appreciate the lifestyles they live compared to that of their forebearers. They have little appreciation for the political and economic systems that make their lives comfortable. Do they ever think of the magic of capitalism, that a loaf of bread can be brought to a supermarket shelf for only three dollars? It is Adam Smith’s invisible hand that guides the farmer, miller, baker, trucker and merchant to work together.

Reason has been lost as time-tested traditions and customs have collapsed. The concept of national service disappeared with the abandonment of the military draft. The Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of God Bless America (written by Irving Berlin in 1938 as a peace song) are no longer public-school rituals. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, only 22% of children today are living with two parents, both in their first marriage. Fifty-four percent are living with a single parent. Church attendance (including that at mosques and synagogues), which was 73% in 1937 when Gallup first measured it and 70% in 2000, fell to 47% in 2021.

Too many public schools are more focused on woke issues, like gender identification and “saving the planet,” than on the basics of reading and math, or simply teaching students to think independently. Apart from Luxembourg, the United States spends more money per student than any other country, yet we rank 13 out of 79 countries on the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), behind countries like Estonia and Poland. In a financial literacy test, the U.S. ranked nine of eighteen. Teachers should be embarrassed; parents should be upset, and we should all be concerned.

In the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, which was based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey, Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow) asks, rhetorically: If we do not use our brain to reason, “why did God plague us with the capacity to think?” “What other merit have we?” We need politicians and members of the media, to treat people as adults, to approach problems, not as ideological opportunities to push preferred agendas, but as issues that need resolution. In his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Immanuel Kant wrote: “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” Politicians (and media types) appeal to emotion, especially personal vilification. Their focus should be on imparting wisdom, allowing reason to blossom. Instead, they bully opponents and the electorate into submission with emotion-ridden ideological tirades, and the press laps it up.