A Point Which Would Have Been Worth Making

On Friday, President Trump spoke at a rally in Dalton, Georgia on behalf of Repbulican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson and senatorial nominee Mike Collings. In the following twittered video, Trump can be seen lying about transexuals in a statement which nonetheless does bear a connection- a very tenuous connection- to reality.

Trump: "We have 5 states where your child goes off to school as Tim and comes back as Tammy 3 or 4 days later. It's true. And teachers make a decision. 'Goodbye Timmy I love you so much, I'll see you later.' And you say, 'Where's my son? My son is in the hospital.' Can you imagine? They don't even need approval"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2026

Donald should be asked which states allow its schools to refer a boy to a hospital for gender-reassignment surgery- and then keep him hidden from his parents for "three or four days".  No member of the media will do this, perhaps because jounalists fear being called out for "fake news"or  being ridiculed by the President. Or maybe they don't want to expose our President, the leader of the Free World and commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation ever, as a liar, cognitively impaired, or suffering from dementia.

At the end of the clip provided, Trump name-checked Minnesota. Nevertheless, he could be simply warping out of shape a policy of four states- Minnesota not included- which pertain to the treatment of trans-curious minors.  In a press release in August, the conservative legal firm Liberty Justice Center noted it has

sent letters to the attorneys general of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington, warning that school districts’ decisions to withhold information regarding students’ purported gender transitions from their parents violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law. School districts that create or enforce policies that conceal a child’s request to change names, pronouns or gender identity at school may violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

The center claims the FERPA

guarantees parents the right to access their children’s education records at schools that receive federal funds. The law defines “education records” as records that “contain information directly related to a student” and are “maintained by an educational agency or institution.” Any school-created or school-maintained records concerning a child’s social gender transition would therefore constitute “education records” and must be made available to the child’s parents.

It's just a guess, but I'd bet the ACLU won't agree. However, whatever courts make of the complicated legal and constitutional issues involved- and assuming the LJC is accurately interpreting current law in the four states- school districts which don't inform parents of a minor's request to change names, pronouns or gender identity at school are making a big mistake. In a New York Times guest essay last year, anti-Trump Republican and gay journalist Andrew Sullivan referred to an

illiberalism (which) made a fateful, strategic mistake. In the gay rights movement, there had always been an unspoken golden rule: Leave children out of it. We knew very well that any overreach there could provoke the most ancient blood libel against us: that we groom and abuse kids… So what did the gender revolutionaries go and do? They focused almost entirely on children and minors.

Leave the children out of it, indeed. Don't leave young people with the consequences of a decision made when they were too young to understand its ramifications. Trump himself doesn't give a rat's ass about boys transitioning into girls or believing they are transitioning, or how a school district handles it. If he did, he would make an effort to get the facts straight (no pun intended, honestly) rather than simply playing to voters' fears. 

However, speaking of trans-curious, there also is the more common term, bi-curious, which could (but wasn't) have been coined to refer to Donald J. Trump pleasuring himself with his dance simulation of fellatio to the strains of the Village People's "YMCA".  During the speech in Georgia, Donald reportedly remarked "we're allowed to have big, strong, handsome soldiers now".  To one man in the crowd, he commented "Oh! He's a good looking guy. You're not allowed to say that about women or men anymore. It's the end of your political career, but he's a good-looking guy."  (Ironically, Trump has, to be generous, diverse sexual interests.)

Of course, it won't end Trump's political career or even put a dent into it. No one will care about Trump's fascination with the "good-looking guy" in the audience nor in "big, strong, handsome soldiers".  No one will care because the media will ignore it. It will also ignore Donald Trump taking a serious issue, young boys who are ill at ease with their biological sex, and recklessly lying about it.

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Good for the Goose, But Not For the Gander

Pride flags are out? Guess again, MAGA Girl.

 

Thanks to President Trump, June is less gay and more patriotic.

Pride flags are out and military parades are in.

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) June 1, 2025

A funny/not funny thing has happened in Massachusetts. The conservative United States Supreme Court has denied the petition for writ of certiorari in the matter of L.M. (a minor) and parents Christopher and Susan Morrison v. Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts. On Inauguration Day, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order declaring that the federal government recognizes only two sexes. However

The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand an appeals court decision that allowed a public school in Massachusetts to prohibit a seventh grader from wearing a T-shirt that said "There Are Only Two Genders," declining to hear the case over heated dissents from two conservative justices.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the court should have agreed to take the case and ruled for the student on free speech grounds.

"If a school sees fit to instruct students of a certain age on a social issue like LGBTQ+ rights or gender identity," Alito wrote, "then the school must tolerate dissenting student speech on those issues”….

The case from Massachusetts involved a student identified in court papers as L.M. who tried to wear the shirt at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough in 2023. When students and a teacher complained, the principal told the student that he could not return to class unless he changed clothes. He refused and was sent home.

Later, the student came to school wearing a T-shirt that this time said "There Are CENSORED Genders." He was told that was not permitted, either. Rather than missing more school, he changed clothes.

His parents sued, saying the school's policy violated the First Amendment. They relied on a landmark 1969 Supreme Court decision, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which held that public school students have First Amendment rights. In that case, students sought to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War.

               

The Supreme Court therein established a precedent

in which the justices ruled 7–2 it was unconstitutional when an Iowa school suspended students who wore black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. "It can hardly be argued," wrote Justice Abe Fortas, "that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Tinker, however, came with a caveat. Schools can seek to stymie expression that causes, or could potentially cause, a "substantial disruption."

The issue arose when "a teacher reported the shirt to the school principal's office, noting that LGBT students were present that day and expressing concerns that the shirt could disrupt classes." However, as Justice Alito wrote in his dissent

And just as in Tinker, some of L.M.'s classmates found his speech upsetting. Feeling upset, however, is an unavoidable part of living in our "often disputatious" society and Tinker made abundantly clear that he "mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint" is no reason to thwart a student's speech. True, NMS also forecasted that L.M."s shirts could lead to a "standoff" between students who support L.M."s view and those who oppose it. But the schools in Tinker were similarly worried that students "would wear arm bands of other colors" and hat this could "evolve into something which would be difficult to control." If anything, the risk in Tinker was far less speculative than in this case. In Tinker, several students had already "made hostile remarks to the children wearing armbands," and a math teacher "had his lesson period practically 'wrecked' chiefly by disputes with Mary Beth Tinker" over her armband. Even so, Tinker deemed the schools' concern an "undifferentiated fear" that could not "overcome the right to freedom of expression."

The importance of being sensitive to the feelings of an individual or group was at the core of the political correctness movement, which morphed into the similar, albeit somewhat different, interest in being woke. There were two competing values at stake in this case, one the claimed right of not having one's feelings hurt.

The other is freedom of speech- and its antagonist, viewpoint discrimination. Alito noted also

Inside and outside the classroom, NMS promotes the view that gender is a fluid construct and tha a person's self-defined identity- not biological sex- determines whether that person is male, female, or something else.  NMS also encourages students to embrace and express this viewpoint, including during the school's "PRIDE Spirit Week."

Strangely enough- or perhaps not strangely- four of the six conservative Justices have struck a blow against freedom of speech.

This presents a great opportunity for those Democrats who have been posing as bold opponents of the party establishment by arguing that left-wing Democrat shave been pandering to the LGBTQ+ community. They can pull a Sister Souljah move by slamming the (successful) effort by this special interest, a relatively reliable Democratic voting bloc, to demand that there be only one opinion on the controversy over gender. 

Alternatively, they can declare their support for individuals who are not exclusively and decisively heterosexual. Then they could stress that they hold even more dearly the right of free speech, enshrined as Amendment 1A in the United States Constitution. 

And may Minneapolis, Chicago, and Buffalo enjoy consistent and endless days of 100% sunshine every winter. That is roughly as likely as these Democrats growing a spine. Similarly, Donald J. Trump can crusade against the "woke" and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs all he wants. He, too, will stay silent about the Supreme Court's decision in Morrison because stifling free speech is an even greater priority for him than pandering to the traditional values of his followers.

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One Nation of Many Religious and Political Viewpoints

The United States of America: born 1956.

The Texas Senate on  a party-line vote approved in March a bill that would require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. It now goes to the state House of Representatives for consideration and if passed, probably will be signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott.

The  legislation was co-authored by Republican senator Mayes Middleton, who following the vote claimed "our schools are not God-free zones. We are a state and nation built on 'in God we Trust. Litigious atheists are no longer going to get to decide for everyone else if students and educators exercise their religious liberties during school hours."

However Texas was founded, its leaders on March 2, 1861 evidently took a break from their commitment to the Almighty when the state seceded from the Union in its God-fearing effort to maintain their right to own other human beings. The motto "In God We Trust" was placed on coins during the Civil War but was omitted when the coins were redesigned a few decades later. It did not reappear until 1956 amidst an alliance of conservative businessmen and Protestant clergymen embarked on a "faith, freedom, and free enterprise" crusade. Even GOP legislators in Texas ought to know that 1956 was some 180 years after the nation's founding.

A similar bill passed the Texas senate in was 2023 and was being considered by the House Public Education Committee when a portion of the hearing, the questioning of bill sponsor Candy Noble, was posted by Democratic Representative James Talarico.

Texas Republicans are trying to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

I told the bill author: “This bill is not only un-constitutional and un-American, it’s deeply un-Christian.” #txlege pic.twitter.com/TI7TmGvIKM

— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) May 3, 2023

Talarico currently is enrolled in the Master of Divinity Program at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in the USA, the nation's dominant- and relatively liberal- Presbyterian sect. According to the LGBTQIA+ organ PRIDE, Talarico quoted Scripture. Then drawing upon the Apostle James, he stated "A religion that hs to force people to put up a poster to prove its legitimacy is a dead religion, and it's not one I want to be a part of. It's not one I am a part of."

A divinity student is capable of a more complex and nuanced reading of Scripture, though any challenge to the professed and questionable religious faith of the proponents of such a bill should be welcome. More profoundly and significantly, Talarico added (emphasis his)

Every time on this committee that we try to reach students values like empathy or kindness, we're told we can't because that's the parent's role. Every time on this committee that we try to teach basic sex education to keep our kids safe, we're told that's the parent's role but now you're putting religious commandments- literal commandments- in our class room, and you're saying that's the state's role. Why is that not the parent's role? 

Good question? No- great question.

It's a great question not only because it cuts to the core of right-wing hypocrisy. It also points the way toward the proper balance between church and state, and between parents and the public school. Immediately before he made that remark, Talarico asked Noble "do you believe schools are for education and not indoctrination?" After Noble answered "absolutely," Talarico stated "I guess what I'm trying to figure out is why is having a rainbow in a classroom is indoctrination and not having the Ten Commandments in a classroom."

Having the Ten Commandments in a classroom is indoctrination. So, too, is having a rainbow in a classroom (except as representation of an optical phenomenon). Recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance falls into the same category.

Each is a form of indoctrination. Yet, there is a critical difference setting one apart from the other two. Of "from many, one," historian Thomas A. Foster noted

Although “In God We Trust” is the official motto, “E Pluribus Unum” has long been acknowledged as a de facto national motto. After all, it is on the Great Seal of the United States, which was adopted in 1782. Moreover, in the 1770s and ’80s Congress opposed a theistic motto for the nation, and many of the founders worked hard to prevent one from being established.

It is not government's role to promote a religion, or religion, especially among children in a classroom. Nor is it government's role to prevail upon children the official perspective on gender or sexuality, except through implementation of wise public policy.

As diversity among public school students grows, there will be more children of families which do not practice Christianity or claim a Judeo-Christian heritage. Some of these students, because of their faith parental influence, and/or other factors, will not accept the dominant mentality of the day toward LGBTQ+ issues. So be it.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance also is indoctrination, yet an indoctrination of a different sort, and necessary. As time marches on and the world continues to flatten, there will be more students who were not born in this country or whose parents were not born here. But now they are Americans- or if not, should be encouraged to become Americans. They are heirs, all of them, to a great historical tradition: of a nation birthed not of a people but of an idea, "flawed in execution but pure in spirit," enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.  It's more difficult to foster that idea than ever. It is also more important.

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Much, Much More Than Sports

He once told us that he's "the Chosen One." More recently, he emulated Napoleon Bonaparte by tweeting (all capitalization his, obviously)  "he who saves his Country does not violate any Law." A few days afterward, he tweeted "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan,and all of New York,is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!" So it was only a matter of time that a confrontation would take place:

Maine’s Democratic governor and President Donald Trump got into a tense exchange at the White House Friday morning after Trump threatened to withhold federal funding unless Maine complies with his recent executive order barring transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

“You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding,” Trump told Gov. Janet Mills during an event with the National Governors Association captured by a press pool recording.

“We’re going to follow the law sir. We’ll see you in court,” replied Mills, who is attending the organization’s winter summit.

“Enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be an elected official afterwards,” Trump responded.

Before the exchange, Mills and other Maine officials said the state would not be intimidated by Trump after the president singled out Maine during a Thursday speech at the Republican Governors Association meeting.

“Anyone here from Maine?” the president asked the crowd. “They are still saying they want men to play in women’s sports and I cannot believe that they are doing that…so we’re not gonna give them any federal funding until they clean that up.”

The executive order, which the president signed on Feb. 5 as part of the administration’s broader anti-trans agenda, rescinds federal funds from “educational programs” if schools fail to adhere to the ban.

The administration is asking federal agencies to interpret Title IX — a federal civil rights law barring schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination — in a way that complies with the order.

In a statement shared early Friday, Mills said “the State of Maine will not be intimidated by the president’s threats.”

“If the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides,” Mills said.

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said any attempt by the president to cut federal funding to Maine over the issue “would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders.”

“Fortunately,” Frey wrote in a statement, “the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.”

He added, “It is disturbing that President Trump would use children as pawns in advancing his political agenda"...

The Maine Principals Association’s transgender participation policy was in effect from 2013 to 2021, when the Maine Human Rights Act was amended to include gender identity as a protected class. As the Bangor Daily News pointed out, in 2023, the organization testified that during the time their policy was in place, they heard from “56 transgender students wishing to participate in high school athletics with four being transgender girls.”

Later on Friday, the USA Department of Education (still in existence) notified its counterpart in Maine that it had been directed to investigate the state because of its policy. Then in response to the controversy, Governor Mills identified the both the immediate issue in play when she noted

No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.

Though as a Democratic politician she cannot directly acknowledge it, Mills understands that the immediate issue is a narrow one: "this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field." Recognizing the larger issue, she continued 

Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end?

This harkens back to a voice from history, Reverend Martin Niemoller, a German theologian and Lutheran minister and early critic of Adolf Hitler, who retrospectively- and probably, presciently- wrote in 1946: 

First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.. Then they came 

Then they came for me- and there was no one left to speak for me.

Less prophetic, but similarly eloquently, the sanguine Sammy Johns in 1984 (1984? Really?) wrote America, about America, for Waylon Jennings, who sang 

Some have said down through history

If you last, it's a mystery

But I guess they don't know what they're talking about.

That was in 1984. Extended forty-one years, it has been a good run. However, it turns out they did know what they were talking about because in the age of Trump-Musk, it's going to take many more people like Janet Mills for Martin Niemoller not to be proven prophetic.

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Shedding Tears Over the Death of Orenthal James Simpson

Orenthal James Simpson has died, and he leaves behind an impressive, in a manner of speaking, record of misbehavior.

In 1964, Simpson as a juvenile had his first run-in with the law. In 1989, he was arrested after wife Nicole Brown Simpson, who went to the hospital with severe bruising and cuts, told the police "he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me." Orenthal pled guilty to spousal abuse and was fined and placed on probation.

The year after Orenthal and his wife divorced in 1992, Mr. Simpson broke into the rental home occupied by Nicole and the (ex-) couple's two children. Nicole called the police and reported "he always comes back."

In June of 1994 Mr. Simpson stabbed to death Mrs. Simpson and an acquaintance, Ron Goldman, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Orenthal immediately fled to Chicago, then promptly returned to Los Angeles, dumping somewhere along the line the knife he used. Simpson failed to appear after the L.A. Police Department, through the suspect's attorney, offered Orenthal a chance to surrender. Simpson was arrested after the famous "white Ford Bronco" chase.

Simpson in October, 1995 was acquitted, as is almost universally believed, because a majority of the jury was black. However, in February of 1997 a civil court jury found him liable for the murder of Goldman and responsible for beating Nicole on the night of the murders.

Over the next dozen years, Simpson is accused of a burglary and theft at a girlfriend's house, with no charges filed; acquitted of a felony; had his home searched by federal law enforcement in response to a drug-smuggling scheme; lost a civil suit filed by DirecTV over signal stealing' and arrested after he broke into a Las Vegas hotel room to steal memorabilia which he later claimed was his own  property. For that he was ound guilty of weapons, robbery and kidnapping, sentenced to thirty-three years in prison and granted parole in 2017.

So what in the Almighty was this all about?

 

So I'll say this.  Our thoughts are with his families during this difficult time, obviously with his families and loved ones. And I'll say this- I know they have asked for some privacy and we're going to respect that. I'll just leave it there.

There is little doubt that the abomination known as Jean-Pierre wanted to "leave it" at sympathy for the Simpson family, which had issued a tweet which included "his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace."  By contrast, the father and the sister of Ron Goldman, in neither their statement to NBC News nor a subsequent statement sent to reporters, asked the public for privacy or anything else.

(As any believing Christian will tell you, "grace" is "unmerited favor." Why the Simpson family would suggest that the favor of privacy is unmerited is curious.)

This incident bears a similarity to the occurrence in 2024 of International Day of Transgender Awareness on the same day as Easter Sunday. The President could have merely signed a standard proclamation recognizing transgender day, but he went much further. He attacked "extremists" for "proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families" while decrying "the bullying and discrimination that transgender Americans face." Biden blamed these unnamed individuals for "worsening our Nation's mental health crisis," described the Administration's efforts on behalf of the transgender community, and pledged "my entire Administration and I have your back."

All on Easter Sunday, which the President later realized he had to acknowledge, thus issuing an anodyne statement of recognition. 

As of this writing, the Administration still has not noted the murders of two innocent people, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Those murderers were, beyond of a shadow of doubt, committed by Orenthal James Simpson. As longtime sportscaster Bob Costas, a friend of Simpson until the latter slashed two people to death, put it

If I could give him the benefit of any doubt, I would. And I'm sorry I have to say this on the day that he passed away, but someone asked me once "do you think O.J. did it"? I said "yes." They said "why"? I said "because I live on this planet."

Bob Costas recalls someone once asking him how he could possibly believe OJ did it, and responding: "Because I live on this planet. The evidence just adds up to nothing else." pic.twitter.com/4sIT9gNx0U

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 11, 2024

Joe Biden and Karine-Jean Pierre live on this planet, as do the Republicans, who criticize the President for a weak economy which is very strong, declining oil production which has risen to record levels, and  the rising crime in cities which is not occurring. Of course, expressing sensitivity for the death of a convicted felon rather than to the families of two individuals he earlier murdered is not in their wheelhouse.

But that doesn't absolve the President of responsibility for considering Transgender Visibility Day more important than Easter, nor for being more concerned about the death from chronic disease of an elderly criminal than for his victims.  Something is askew in the values at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and at some point someone will notice. 

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Whomever You Are, Please Stand Up

Will the real Joe Biden please stand up? On March 31, the Office of The White House issued a Statement maintaining

Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating Easter Sunday. Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection.

As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities. And with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people.

From our family to yours, happy Easter and may God bless you.

With "the promise of Christ's Resurrection" and "Jesus sacrifice," the President couldn't have gotten any more Christian without risking the praise of even his sycophants on MSNC. But not to worry because

Created by a Michigan-based transgender activist, Rachel Crandall, in 2009, International Transgender Day of Visibility (often shortened to Trans Visibility Day) falls on March 31 every year. In 2024, that date coincidentally falls on Easter Sunday, which is determined annually by marking the first Sunday after the full moon occurring on or after the Spring Equinox.

President Joe Biden marked the push for transgender rights with a statement recognizing Trans Visibility Day on Friday that immediately set off alarm bells on the far right.

Left-leaning reporter Rachel Dobkin at right-leaning Newsweek wrote "On Friday, the White House sent out an announcement proclaiming March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. This announcement is just a formality as the date of this annual event has already been set and is a way for the Biden administration to celebrate the holiday." Yet midway through this "formality," the President took a sharp left turn as he proclaimed

extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids and their families — silencing teachers; banning books; and even threatening parents, doctors, and nurses with prison for helping parents get care for their children.  These bills attack our most basic American values:  the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to make your own health care decisions, and even the right to raise your own child.  It is no surprise that the bullying and discrimination that transgender Americans face is worsening our Nation’s mental health crisis, leading half of transgender youth to consider suicide in the past year.

Acknowledging International Transgender Day of Visibility would be a formality, much as it was when Biden acknowledged World Hearing Day on March 3, World Obesity Day on March 4, or International Client's Day on March 19. You may have missed the President's proclamation issued on those days. We all did.

His statement on Easter Sunday was not a mere formality but a hearty endorsement. Nor was, to be fair to the President, the blessing he bestowed upon Easter.  So on the same day that Biden referred to Christ's resurrection and sacrifice, he spent five paragraphs (before the standard "Now, therefore, I") issuing brazenly political remarks. 

The issue is not whether Biden's remarks reflected good policy or values but one of context, especially when it's likely transgender day was set intentionally to fall periodically on Easter Sunday or Good Friday.. When it occurs on almost any other day on the calendar, the timing of Biden's remarks would have been more appropriate.

But it didn't, and they weren't, no matter the President's habit of inserting "God" into speeches. Conventional wisdom would argue that the "Easter" Joe Biden is the real Joe Biden, a good, traditional Catholic and Christian, who periodically must pander to woke progressives. Alternatively, the real Joe Biden is the one who told transsexual- uh, er, transgender- Americans yesterday "you are America" rather than "you are as American as anyone else" or "you are America, just as all of us are." In that case, the Joe of faith and religious conviction is the man of deception and diversion.

The devout and dedicated Catholic he usually presents as would not have delivered a slap to the face of committed Christians that he did early yesterday- unless he was coerced into the transgender statement or didn't know what was being issued in his name. It's only fair, then, in the face of an election pitting himself against a candidate who is not physically and mentally well, that we ask who the real Joseph Robinette Robinette Biden is.

 

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Trans Today, Something Else Tomorrow

Poor Jen Psaki. She was a very effective press secretary for President Biden, and is now a sub-par host on a weekly show on MSNBC and frequent guests at other times on the network. However, it may pay fairly well- or will when she gets more face time- and must be far less stressful.

In the video, a segment from her most recent Sunday show, attached to the tweet below, Psaki makes a couple of strong points, then fails, though in a way which probably pleases her new bosses. She remarks

Just to summarize, the right-wingers, the conspiracy theorists, the birthers, they now want us to forget the years they spent fear-mongering about Muslims and Islam. Ten years ago, standing against Sharia law was the key G.O.P. litmus test.

Now that litmus test seems to be how fervently you oppose transgender people?

As long as she's asking the question- however rhetorically- the answer is an unqualified "no."

The Britannica Dictionary defines litmus test as "something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that is used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable." In no Republican presidential nominating contest has every Republican been required to say something nasty or crude about transgender people. Moreover, views about the LGBTQIA++ community vary from Republican to Republican, both privately and publicly.

The only transgender issue, and an extremely narrow one, on which no Republican will take a dissenting view is whether biological males should be able to play womans' sports. Even on this, some Republicans will choose to remain mum.  Nonetheless, Psaki states "just look into what Trump himself has to say about that. Even he doesn't exactly know why he's attacking them," then plays a video of Donald Trump stating

It's amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see, I talk about cutting taxes, people go like (pretends to applaud politely. When I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought- five years ago- you didn't know what the hell it was?

That doesn't qualify it as a litmus test. It means only that the very small minority of conservatives which will take time out of their busy day, travel to a venue, stand in line, then wait until Trump appears to talk get excited when the issue is raised.

Psaki is assuming that in the excerpt she played, Trump was telling the truth, an odd assumption coming from a Democrat. Even if he were, the response among his followers is in part because they believe he is telling them what other politicians are too fearful to do. These persons need not applaud hysterically when Trump- or any GOP official- calls for lower taxes. Major Republicans all do.

They all do because lowering taxes- i.e., income taxes- for everyone is one point in the Republican three-legged gospel. (They differ from Democrats in wanting income taxes cut for the wealthy and corporations, but they advocate reductions for all.)

The other two parts are cutting regulations and size of the government. While they often fail to do the latter when they are in power, no Republican anywhere or at any time will question the necessity of curbing taxes, regulations, or the size of government. The Republican may be  a culture warrior such as Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Tim Scott or a media- proclaimed "moderate" such as Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu, Chris Christie, or Will Hurd,. None will concede that reducing taxes for the wealthy increases the deficit, government regulations help prevent such disasters as recently occurred in East Palestine, Ohio, or that small government typically means a government which protects individuals against extremes of the market.

Nonetheless, Psaki continues

So what you just heard in that video sounds an awful like, and reminiscent of, what George Wallace, a staunch segregationist, once told a newspaper editor: "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been a part of my career, and nobody listened And then, I began talking about n _ _ _ _ _ _ and they stomped the floor.

George Wallace was a Democrat. His last meaningful involvement in politics was a half-century ago when his bid for a presidential nomination was failed in the aftermath of being shot.  He died years later, and were he today still alive, around, and active, would almost certainly be a Republican. Nonetheless, he could not have been part of a GOP playbook which Psaki believed she was describing and which she made explicit upon adding

So let's be clear. This sit he same old GOP playbook and their cynical ploy to tear up the fabric of our society and damage the idea that out of many, we are one. All because they so desperately want to regain the White House.

Those are the Republican candidates for President who want most of all to regain the White House. GOP senators, being senators, want most of all to be re-elected, secondarily that their party regains control of its chamber. GOP Representatives, being United States Representatives, want most of all to be re-elected, secondarily that their party regains control of its chamber.

We're noticing the reemergence of an old ploy straight from the GOP playbook, only this time the party has a new target...@jrpsaki breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/wZ55u20476

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) July 2, 2023

Psaki is correct that the Republican Party wants to rend the fabric of society and damage the idea that out of many, we are one. However, that is most critically played out in uniform GOP support for "school reform," including charter schools, vouchers, and aid to religious schools.  There have been common principles in American society because the default choice of parents has been to send children to the traditional, local public school where those children are taught to honor traditional American values. Send most of them off to private, charter, or religious schools, and what binds our society together disintegrates.

It's understandable that the public school system would not be uppermost in Psaki's mind. At her liberal network, non-progressive network hosts, contributors, and guests come through daily to promote contemporary liberal values, advocating the rights of racial minorities, sexual/gender minorities, women, and immigrants. One of the primary issues on which that unanimity is missing is support for pubic secondary schools.

With those priorities inviolate, it is unsurprising that Jen Psaki would yield to the temptation of arguing that transsexualism, the issue du jour of all proper-thinking liberals, is the same for Republicans and the hill they'd want to die on. It is transsexuals today, just as it has been fetanyl, immigrants massomg at the border, CRT (typically not spelled out), urban crime, and other issues, each for a brief spell over the past few years.

That's how it works. But a Republican becomes unacceptable if he or she does not mention, and remain true to (at least rhetorically), low taxes, little government regulation, and shrinking government. Jen Psaki and all Democrats must keep their eye on the ball.

                                            HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

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Peril Ahead

In the Colorado web designer case of 303 Creative v. Elenis, the State of Colorado neglected to perform its due diligence.. CNN reports

The Colorado web designer who wanted to refuse LGBTQ customers and just won her case at the Supreme Court had claimed in court filings that a man inquired about her services for his same-sex wedding.

But the man says he never reached out to Lorie Smith, the web designer who argued at the Supreme Court that she shouldn’t be forced to create same-sex wedding websites because of her religious objections. In fact, the man says he’s straight and married to a woman.

The man was identified as “Stewart” in court filings and as someone who requested graphic designs for invitations and other materials for a same-sex wedding with his fiancé, Mike. CNN contacted Stewart through information in court filings. He asked for his last name, which is not in the filing, not to be used.

In an interview with CNN Friday, Stewart said that he “did not submit a request” to the company, 303 Creative, and is a “happily married man to a woman of 15 years.”

“I don’t know Mike,” Stewart said. “I’ve never asked anybody to design a website for me, so it’s all very strange. I certainly didn’t contact her, and whatever the information in that request is, is fake.”

Stewart, who previously worked for CNN, said that he is a web designer himself, and that “it would make zero sense to hire a web designer when I can do that for myself.”

Stewart said he was unaware of his information being a part of the court record until he was contacted by media outlet The New Republic on Wednesday.

“It is concerning that nobody connected with this case over the last six years has ever thought to call me, email me, text me to try and corroborate that communication in any way,” he said, adding: “I don’t necessarily think that would be a tipping point in this case at all, but at the very least … a case of this magnitude should be corroborated, should be fact checked along the way.”

Smith, who opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and runs a business designing websites, sued the state in 2016 because she said she would like to accept customers planning opposite-sex weddings but reject requests made by same-sex couples wanting the same service. She was never penalized for rejecting a same-sex couple — and it's unclear if she ever did — but sued on hypothetical grounds.

Clearly, Ms. Smith  did not have standing to sue under the three-part test adopted in 1992 by the Supremes themselves for plaintiffs in federal cases. NBC News points out

Smith, who opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and runs a business designing websites, sued the state in 2016 because she said she would like to accept customers planning opposite-sex weddings but reject requests made by same-sex couples wanting the same service. She was never penalized for rejecting a same-sex couple — and it's unclear if she ever did — but sued on hypothetical grounds.

The plaintiff thus probably should not have been granted certiorari. However, for what it's worth- and it's not much, in this case- the Court probably was correct on the merits of the case. As the plaintiff argued, she was being forced to express a message she disagrees with (or would have had there been a real case). And she expresses more creativity than would most other businesspersons, such as a coffee purveyor or a florist, who might be involved in a wedding.

Although the plaintiff's counsel, the Christian right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, invoked a claim of denial of religious freedom, the Court's majority opinion leaned instead on freedom of speech.  Had the Court decided the case on the grounds of "religious liberty," the implications of the ruling may have been even greater and the consequences even more dire.

Instead, as Justice Gorsuch contended, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that the government may not interfere with an 'uninhibited marketplace of ideas" and the Constitution takes precedence over a state law. In light of the "marketplace of ideas," this Colorado news outlet explains,

the court said “creative” or "expressive" businesses do not have to speak a message or create content they don't believe in based on their religious beliefs.

That means a hotel or a bus company would still not be able to turn someone away because of who they are, but the state can’t force a business to create a message or content — like a wedding cake, a wedding website or even a floral arrangement — that may go against what they believe.

Nonetheless, there is no bright line separating "creative" or expressive" businesses from others. Judges  are similar to economists- put ten in a room,get eleven opinions. A court may consider a music band, catering service, or photographic work creative expression, or not. A law professor in one of my graduate school classes often would pose a question, then answer it himself: "it depends." As a lawyer, he chose not to admit that it depends not only upon the facts of the case, but upon the magistrate herself.

Additionally, a Court may find that a web designer or another professional may deny services to a couple on the basis of race or religion.  The Court would be more likely to uphold the right of the state to uphold its anti-discrimination statute when race or religion is the protected class at issue.

This is a dispute decided by a High Court which won't address matters which have harmed far more individuals and with more obvious consequences. The "entire case," as one journalist opposed to the ruling noted, "is built around the idea of gay people doing something that they have not yet done, nor ever will do." Gay couples would not seek a web designer who disapprove of their union. In the rare instances in which they do so and are turned away, they can find other another web designer. Little harm, little foul.

Nevertheless, this was not what was at stake. The Court majority wanted to give a thumbs-up to providers of other services to gay couples, to "expressive" businesses which want to deny assistance to other unions they disapprove of, or both. In any case, the ramifications of the Supreme Court in 303 Creative v. Elenis are almost unimaginable and .almost certainly deleterious.

 

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Keep It Serious

What do President Joseph R. Biden and New York City Pride demonstrators have in common? 

            

The PRIDE flag was displayed as prominently as the American flag and both movements evidently are unconcerned about provoking a backlash:

NYC Drag Marchers chant “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” https://t.co/ucK1qM4fv5 pic.twitter.com/OhBguhWwZY

— Timcast News (@TimcastNews) June 24, 2023

Just a guess here, but that might not be good politics.  Undoubtedly meant as a joke, it does provide fodder for endless clips on Fox News. 

Of *course* we should live in a country where everyone can joke about everything. You think I don’t know Jewish jokes? I don’t tell them because half America is entitled kids who *can’t handle it*—they take such jokes as concessions, and exploit what they perceive as new license.

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 26, 2023

The last sentence of the second tweet below gives a glimpse into the connection with Joe Biden:

Having said all this, *yes*, most of those in the video were saying "we're not going shopping!" And perhaps the person who yells "we're coming for your children" was an agitator. How could I know? How could anyone? So the point stands that certain jokes *must* stay out-of-bounds.

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 26, 2023

Perhaps members of the LGBTQIA++  community shouldn't be telling jokes in full public view, video likely to follow at a more strategic time.  (Fox News showed plenty of clips before last fall's election of violence from the black lives protest of 24+ months earlier.) Nor should others. In a major upset, in the tweet below, propaganda outfit RNC Research is taking nothing out of context.

BIDEN (last week): "I sold a lot of state secrets and a lot of very important things..." pic.twitter.com/eyEaQEevRp

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 26, 2023

The remark comes quickly, at :08 of the gathering with India's Prime Minister Modi and others.

 

This was presumably meant in jest. (It had everyone rolling on the carpet.)  As we've all noticed, Donald Trump and other Republicans periodically say something offensive, are called on it, and then claim to have been joking.

Joe Biden is no Donald Trump. However, his remark was so out of context and lacking in cleverness that it only can be presumed to have been a joke. With some exceptions- and these two occasions were not that- comedy should be left to comedians. The best remedy for the President and for LGBTQIA++ activists is not to try to be jocular or humorous, witty or whimsical. Just play it straight. Well, sort of.

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Swindling the Gay Rights Movement

It's a shame, really. Unlike the left, this lady knows something isn't right. She is aware of the explosion in the number of individuals who identify as LGBTQIA or as "trans," the individuals who once were understood as transsexuals. And she wants to believe that it is a conspiracy among, and hatched by, forces she virulently disagrees with for other reasons. It is truly unfortunate, even tragic, that individuals such as she are completely unaware of the special interest(s) that is impelling so many young people today to identify as "trans.

What’s terrifying about this isn’t just the overt bigotry.

It’s the utter detachment from reality for such an influential group on the Right.

And it’s the tacit acceptance of it all in the name of pluralism among self-styled conservative intellectuals who should know better. https://t.co/qsr3nB1ZDJ

— Josh Cowen (@joshcowenMSU) May 22, 2023

It's not bigotry and it's not quite terrifying. However, itdoes represent an utter detachment from reality. It's not teachers' unions, it's not Biden, and only Lord knows what she is referring to by the ubiquitous "money." Nonetheless, she speaks for tens of millions of Americans. The gay and Republican Andrew Sullivan ("The Queers Versus the Homosexuals"), though he'd disagree with her, understands what has gone seriously awry and explains

The core belief of critical queer theorists is that homosexuality is not a part of human nature because there is no such thing as human nature; and that everything is socially constructed, even the body. Because heterosexuality is the overwhelming norm, and homosexuality the exception, and because society is nothing but a complex of oppression, homosexuals are defined by their rejection of heteronormativity. To be queer is inherently to exist on the margins; to be odd, peculiar, weird, queer, hated, oppressed, and in revolt and rebellion. To be queer is to be dedicated to subversion, to mock conventions, to deconstruct language, to dismantle the human body, to defy “nature” and, above all, to liberate humankind from the prison of gender.

To be homosexual, in contrast, is merely to be attracted to the same sex, and gays and lesbians run the gamut of tastes, politics, backgrounds and religions. Some are conservative, some radical, some indifferent. Some gays are queers. But most aren’t. And queers now run what was once the gay rights movement. (For a longer, piercing reflection on the takeover, read historian Jamie Kirchick’s new essay in Liberties. For a discussion of the homophobia of the new queer activism, see Ben Appel’s excellent essay in Spiked.)

No one held a news conference and announced that from 2015 on, after Obergefell, the gay rights movement had changed its entire rationale. But they sure gave hints. The Human Rights Campaign, once a relatively moderate group, replaced “gay” and “lesbian” with the acronym “LGBTQ+” and expanded the word “queer” to describe anyone gay, lesbian, transgender, or even straight who defied heteronormativity. They changed the flag from a simple rainbow, to one that included some races (only black and brown — no Asians or whites) and transgender ideology. Their building in DC is festooned with a massive banner declaring their mission: “Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter.” Their new head is a woman who calls herself “queer,” not lesbian.

Then they quietly changed the meaning of the word “gay” so that it no longer referred to same-sex attraction, but to same-gender attraction; and changed the word “men” to include people with vaginas and uteruses, and the word “women” to include people with dicks and balls. Checkmate for the gays! We are all now just bigots with “genital preferences,” just like the Christianist right used to claim. Just to add to the confusion, hundreds of new “genders” were adopted — because some teens on Tumblr once invented them and queer theorists loved them.

Gay hook-up apps now include biological women seeking gay men and straight men looking for chicks with dicks. “NO MEN” some profiles now say — on what was once a gay man’s app. There are fewer and fewer exclusively gay male spaces left. Lesbian bars? Almost gone entirely. Lesbians themselves? On their way out. Dylan Mulvaney is exemplary of the new queer order: a femme gay man who had to take female hormones to stay relevant. (Compare and contrast with disco icon Sylvester’s view of gay liberation: “I could be the queen that I really was without having a sex change or being on hormones.” We are going backward, not forward.)

Then the queers upped the ante and did something we gays never did: they targeted children. If they could get into kids’ minds, bodies and souls from the very beginning of their lives, they could abolish the sex binary from the ground up. And so they got a pliant, woke educational establishment to re-program children from the very start, telling toddlers that any single one of them could be living in the wrong body, before they could even spell.

Kindergartners were told to pick a pronoun, and thereby a sex, as soon as they arrived. Endless kiddie books reiterated the queer theory mantra about gender: “You can be a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else entirely!” And if the sex the child chose did not match their physical body, they were told they could just change it — and change it back if needed — no questions asked. Fun! If a boy said he was a girl, or vice-versa, it was in fact unethical to ask any further questions. From now on, he was a girl. Parents? A problem to be overcome.

No one held a news conference and announced that from 2015 on, after Obergefell, the gay rights movement had changed its entire rationale. But they sure gave hints. Yes, the LGBTQIA+ movement has promoted the harebrained idea that sex- or gender, as it now must be called- is merely a social construct. Moreover, the genesis of this radical rejection of reality came not coincidentally with the same-sex marriage ruling.

If written in 2023, this could have been what Steelers Wheel was referring to with "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right," though I believe the reverse is probably more accurate. The cultural far left cannot seriously believe- can it?- that biology does not determine sex. By contrast, the right really does seem to believe that, as does the woman recognized by Josh Cowen as detached from reality, a human being's sex at birth cannot be changed by surgery.

Rank-and-file conservatives know that we are not all bigots simply because we choose not to join this very odd socio-political movement.  Unfortunately, they also seem to believe that it has something to do with Joe Biden or liberals or unions or whatever, and their leaders, who know better, are treating them like mushrooms.

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Not Homophobia (Gayphobia?)

I like Aaron Rupar and Donald Trump Jr. is reprehensible. But Rupar is simply wrong here.

"He's the gay guy, so we gotta give him something, let's make him Transportation Secretary" -- unvarnished homophobia from Donald Trump Jr on Newsmax pic.twitter.com/L4VuGQANi8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2023

A "phobia" is a fear and there is no indication that Donald Trump Jr. fears gay people. Presumably, Rupar simply means that Junior's tweet reflects hostility toward homosexuals. (The term is "homophobia," not "gayphobia.") 

On December 3, 2020 President-elect Biden

said he had a meeting scheduled with the NAACP on Tuesday. NAACP President Derrick Johnson told CNN Wednesday that his organization and other civil rights groups had requested time with Biden and Harris to discuss the incoming administration and ensuring minority and civil rights representation in their agenda.

“Their job is to push me,” Biden said, noting every advocacy group is “pushing for more and more and more of what they want. That’s their job.”

“My job is to keep my commitment to make the decisions,” Biden said. “And when it’s all over people will take a look and say, I promise you, you’ll see the most diverse Cabinet representative of all folks, Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ, across the board.”

As of that date, he had made four nominations to his cabinet. They were a black woman as UN Ambassador; a Cuban-American to be the Secretary of Homeland Security; a South Asian as director of the Office of Management and Budget; and a black woman to be chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors.  The diversity, as Biden's statement suggested, was not coincidental.

After the former vice president's pivotal victory in the South Carolina primary, Buttigieg withdrew from the presidential race, after which Amy Klobuchar did the same. Klobuchar then endorsed Biden and within hours Buttigieg had done so, also.

To be sure, when Biden announced the nomination of Buttigieg twelve days after boasting there would be a Cabinet of Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, LGBTQ, across the board," he did not cite the sexual preference of the former mayor and presidential candidate, Instead, he described him as "a patriot and a problem solver."  Buttigieg is indeed a patriot. However, he had never established himself as a problem solver and clearly has not done so as transportation secretary, ineffectually responding to deceptive practices and flight cancellations of airlines and insufficiently regulating railroad safety procedures.

He did, however, offer something Klobuchar, whom it appears was not offered a cabinet post, could not. The President-elect had Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latinos covered; also, obviously, women. Yet, something was missing. 

If Buttigieg wasn't selected in part because he is gay, the nation's news media was thoroughly fooled. On February 2, 2020, The New York Times reported

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, to be transportation secretary, putting in place the official who will help oversee President Biden’s overhaul of the nation’s infrastructure.

By a vote of 86 to 13, the Senate made Mr. Buttigieg, 39, the nation’s first openly gay cabinet secretary to be confirmed by the upper chamber and Mr. Biden’s youngest cabinet member.

The Times, recognizing the importance of the Secretary's challenge to help transform the nation's infrastructure, waited until its second sentence to note that Buttigieg was "the nation's first openly gay cabinet secretary." ABC News and NPR eagerly noted in their very first sentence that he had "made history" as "the first openly gay" individual to win Senate confirmation to run a Cabinet department. 

Pete Buttigieg's failure thus far to be an effective Transportation secretary has nothing to do with his sexual preference and if he succeeds in the future, it will have nothing to do with his sexual preference.  It's unclear whether Aaron Rupar nor Donald Trump Jr. fully understands this, and there is a tremendous amount of things to criticize the latter for. However, when he asserts that the former South Bend mayor was selected because he is gay, he is not homophobic and very likely not wrong.

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