The dividing line in America “is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.”
In the 1968 presidential campaign, third-party candidate George Wallace, the once and future governor of Alabama, proclaimed: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican parties.”
That might or might not have been entirely true even back then, 55 years ago, but it’s certainly not true today in 2023.
The political ideologies of the Republican and Democratic parties have never been more diametrically different on virtually every issue than they are today.
In her rebuttal to Democratic President Joe Biden’s by turns schizophrenic and manic-depressive State of the Union address on Feb. 7, Arkansas’ new Republican governor, Sarah Sanders, spelled out those differences with scalpel-like precision and moral clarity, unlike any other explanation we’ve heard in recent memory.
Other Republicans—especially the Mitch McConnell wing of the party in the Senate—could learn from the Sanders speech how to frame the issues and by extension, the debate.
Unlike Biden, who talked a lot but said pretty much nothing, Sanders said more in 11 minutes than he did in 72.
In a series of broadsides, she differentiated the president’s and most other Democrats’ far-left positions on the issues from her own and those of most Republicans.
“I’ll be the first to admit President Biden and I don’t have a lot in common. I’m for freedom. He’s for government control,” she said, warming to her task, beginning with what’s perhaps the starkest of all of the ideological differences between the two parties.
“I’m the first woman to lead my state, and he’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is,” she said later.
While most Republican governors and state lawmakers understand the biological distinction between XX and XY chromosomes and have acted on it legislatively by banning opposite-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and body-mutilating surgery for minors and by barring biological males from taking part in girls and women’s athletics, science-denying Democrats are in political thrall to the minuscule but militant transgender lobby and have resisted those commonsense measures supported by large majorities of the electorate.
(Inexplicably, however, there are still some country-club Republicans who appear to regard transgenderism battles as distasteful or even “icky” and are hesitant to deploy them as the effective political wedge issue against Democrats that they could and should be.)
Sanders summarized other partisan ideological divisions equally succinctly, noting that the dividing line in America “is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.”
“In the radical Left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country,” she said, adding: “Whether Joe Biden believes this madness, or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical Left.”
Sanders completely dismantled the president and his party’s policies on a range of other issues as well.
“President Biden inherited the fastest economic recovery on record. The most secure border in history. Cheap, abundant, home-grown energy. Fast-rising wages. A rebuilt military. And a world that was stable and at peace,” she said. “But over the last two years, Democrats destroyed it all.”
So, what’s the takeaway from the Arkansas governor’s State of the Union rebuttal?
Simply this: As Ronald Reagan advised conservatives back in 1975, bold colors beat pale pastels every time. It was as if to answer Wallace and assert that there should indeed be more than “a dime’s worth of difference” between the two parties.
In his speech to the 1975 Conservative Political Action Conference, Reagan observed: “Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”
All of this is to say that had the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee consistently employed messaging as pointed as Sanders’ in the lead-up to the November midterms, rather than the predictable “Stupid Party” pabulum, that red wave the GOP was expecting might not have been reduced to a rivulet.
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Scientist Richard Dawkins says he will 'use every one of the harmful words' like 'blind, gender and fitness' that academics want phased out
Acclaimed British biologist Richard Dawkins says he will continue to use 'every one of the prohibited words' amid calls in the scientific community to ban 'harmful' gendered terms.
The British author and scientist, 81, has slammed a project led by three academics saying words such as male, female, man, woman, mother and father should be scrapped.
As part of a crackdown on 'harmful terminology' in science, members of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Language Project - founded by scientists in the US and Canada - yesterday published a list of 24 'harmful terms'.
Instead, they recommend terms such as 'sperm-producing' and 'egg-producing' or 'XY/XX individual' should be used to avoid reinforcing 'societally-imposed ideas of a sex binary'.
But Professor Dawkins, who has long questioned whether people can choose their gender, said he would not be following the recommendations, The Telegraph reports.
Speaking to the newspaper, he said: 'The only possible response is contemptuous ridicule.
'I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words. I am a professional user of the English language. It is my native language.
'I am not going to be told by some teenage version of Mrs Grundy which words of my native language I may or may not use.'
Prof Dawkins, whose books include The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene, has been joined by other eminent academics who have expressed concerns that the 'absurd' alternative phrasings could lead to confusion in the scientific community.
They argue that 'egg producing' and sperm producing' are not gender-neutral, and are instead simply synonyms for male and female.
Professor Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added: 'I think that when you characterise terms like male/female, mother/father as harmful you are abandoning science for ideological advocacy.
'Regardless of intent, the project of re-engineering language will cause confusion to many and the last thing that scientists need is a lack of clarity about the meaning of the words they use.'
The EEB Language Project was launched this month by a team that includes Dr Kaitlyn Gaynor, Dr Alex Moore and Dr Danielle Ignace — three University of British Columbia researchers.
It comes amid a broader push for language to be changed to be less offensive, with doctors last summer claiming the term 'morbidly obese' should be ditched.
Writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, researchers said efforts to 'champion inclusive language' in science is 'particularly important for redressing the ongoing marginalization of many groups'.
As well as male and female, the words mother and father are criticised for perpetuating a 'a non-universal' view of 'the parenting and birthing process'.
'Parent', 'egg donor' and 'sperm donor' are suggested as replacement terms.
It also flags 'survival of the fittest' as a problematic term that promotes 'Eugenics, ablelism, and social Darwinism'.
Instead, 'natural selection' or 'survival differences' should be used, it states.
Even the term 'double-blind', which is used to describe studies where neither volunteers or scientists know which participants are taking a drug or a placebo, could be harmful to people with disabilities, the website states.
Writing in the journal, the researchers said: 'Mitigating the institutional problems in EEB will take significant effort and resources, and examining the role of language in these problems must go beyond attention to scientific terms.
'It must also include consideration of how language is used among scientists more broadly, and how English is often treated as the dominant language for scientific work.
'Nevertheless, we propose that inclusion can be fostered by a collective commitment to be more conscientious and intentional about the scientific terminology we use when teaching, mentoring, collaborating, and conducting research.'
Prof Dawkins' comments, meanwhile, come after he was stripped of his 'Humanist of the Year' title in April 2021 after comparing transgender people to the American activist Rachel Dolezal - who posed as a black woman for more than ten years.
The American Humanist Association (AHA) revoked its honour from the evolutionary biologist, 80, after he appeared to question whether people could choose their gender.
The move came 25 years after the evolutionary biologist received the honour for his 'significant contributions' as a science communicator.
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Catholic woman prosecuted for silently praying outside abortion clinic is CLEARED after arrest by police
A Catholic woman who was prosecuted for silently praying outside an abortion clinic has been acquitted.
In a video that went viral, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, director of anti-abortion group March for Life UK, was seen being searched and arrested by three police officers after saying that she 'might be' praying inside her head.
Ms Vaughan-Spruce was confronted by police when she was standing on the street outside the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham, on December 6.
Her arrest sparked a fierce debate, with supporters saying she was effectively arrested for 'thoughtcrime', a term which her legal representatives ADF UK used - but today she has been cleared of all charges.
Reacting to the not guilty verdict this morning, Ms Vaughan-Spruce said in a statement outside court: 'I'm glad I've been vindicated of any wrongdoing. But I should never have been arrested for my thoughts and treated like a criminal simply for silently praying on a public street.
'When it comes to censorship zones, peaceful prayer and attempts to offer help to women in crisis pregnancies are now being described as either 'criminal' or 'anti-social'.
'But what is profoundly anti-social are the steps now being taken to censor freedom of speech, freedom to offer help, freedom to pray and even freedom to think.
'We must stand firm against this and ensure that these most fundamental freedoms are protected, and that all our laws reflect this.'
Prosecutor Ekene Pruce told the hearing at Birmingham Magistrates' Court that the CPS had dropped four charges of failing to comply with a PSPO brought against Father Gough and charity volunteer Ms Vaughan-Spruce.
The withdrawn charges related to dates in October, November and December last year.
During brief separate hearings on Thursday, Ms Pruce said both cases had been judged not to meet the 'full code test' for prosecutors - which assesses whether prosecutions are in the public interest and if there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
ADF UK legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole said: 'Isabel and Father Sean's cases show that the current plans to introduce censorship zones across England and Wales constitute a dangerous step towards an illiberal society.
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NY Times op-ed defends J.K. Rowling after staffers, celebs blasted paper’s ‘anti-trans bias’
The New York Times published an op-ed on Thursday defending author J.K. Rowling from accusations that the “Harry Potter” author is transphobic — just a day after the newspaper’s staffers and other celebrities criticized its “anti-trans bias.”
Pamela Paul, an op-ed contributor for the Gray Lady, penned a lengthy piece under the headline: “In Defense of J.K. Rowling.”
The op-ed was published a day after GLAAD — the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — posted an open letter demanding that the Times “improve their coverage of transgender people.”
The letter was signed by several Times staffers as well as high-profile Hollywood celebrities, including Judd Apatow, Gabrielle Union-Wade, Jameela Jamil, Maragaret Cho and Lena Dunham.
Paul on Thursday criticized a “noisy fringe of the internet and a number of powerful transgender rights activists and LGBTQ lobbying groups” of whipping up a “campaign against Rowling” that is “as dangerous as it is absurd.”
She wrote that the accusations of transphobia that have been hurled against the best-selling British author have left Rowling vulnerable to “verbal abuse, doxxing and threats of sexual and other physical violence, including death threats.”
Paul wrote that Rowling’s critics have lashed out at her due to her touting “the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons.”
Rowling has “insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is sufficient,” while “defend[ing]…detransitioners and feminist scholars who have come under attack from trans activists,” Paul wrote.
Paul insisted in her op-ed that “nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic.”
“There is no evidence that she is putting trans people ‘in danger,’ as has been claimed, nor is she denying their right to exist,” Paul wrote of Rowling.
The GLAAD open letter doesn’t mention Rowling by name, though it does denounce Paul as a “noted cisgender heterosexual” who has been granted “space for her unfounded thoughts about how LGBTQ people should describe themselves…”
“For those of us who truly treasured the Times coverage for so many years, it is appalling to see how the news and opinion pages are now full of misguided, inaccurate, and disingenuous ‘both sides’ fearmongering and bad faith ‘just asking questions’ coverage,” the GLAAD letter read.
The group demanded that the Times “immediately” cease “printing biased anti-trans stories.” It also demanded that Times management agree to hold a meeting within the next two months during which the newspaper’s leadership “listen to trans sources, trans people, and organizations working with trans people.”
The Times warned staffers about signing the petition in a statement released Thursday.
“We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums,” the statement said.
Rowling, who became a billionaire after she wrote the best-selling seven-volume “Harr Potter” series of children’s books that was later adapted to a blockbuster movie franchise, has been a subject of controversy on social media over her stance on transgender women.
In 2020, Rowling penned an essay defending her previous comments wading into the hot-button issue of gender status and transgender people.
“When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman … then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” Rowling wrote.
In June 2020, she criticized a news article that referred to “people who menstruate” instead of “women.”
In subsequent tweets, Rowling held firm on her stance.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction,” she tweeted. “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.”
Rowling added: “It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/new-york-times-staffers-celebs-blast-op-ed-defending-jk-rowling/
************************************************Australia: Doctor scrutiny on gender clinic reveals legal and safety fears
Doctors treating children at a major public hospital gender clinic have questioned the basis of the “gender-affirming” approach in medicine, highlighting sparse evidence justifying the use of puberty blockers, instances of serious side-effects from the drugs, ongoing mental distress following transition and the significant potential for later regret among patients.
Senior physicians at the NSW Children’s Hospital Westmead’s gender clinic have studied the physical and mental health of 79 patients in a rare academic study of the outcomes of children who presented with gender distress and gender dysphoria. The findings cast doubt on the scientific basis of the gender-affirming approach followed by the nation’s other children’s hospitals.
In an open access academic paper, CHW psychiatrists, endocrinologists and other physicians, and a senior medical ethics expert, called for a “much more nuanced and complex approach” as analysis revealed 88 per cent of children presenting at Westmead’s gender clinic had at least one co-morbid mental health condition, with more than 50 per cent diagnosed with behavioural disorders or autism. One in five children who consulted the clinic with gender-related distress later had these feelings resolved, and almost one in 10 with a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, some who had taken puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, later discontinued transitioning.
Given this, the adoption of a “neutral therapeutic stance” and provision of “a much more diverse range of treatment options and pathways as an alternative to medical gender transition was necessary”, the doctors concluded.
One of the central justifications for gender-affirming medicine – that it alleviated psychological distress – was not borne out in the experience of the young people studied, with 44 out of 50 patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria reporting ongoing mental health concerns four to nine years after presentation at the gender clinic, many after transitioning.
Parents of children with gender distress are often told their child is at high risk of suicide if the gender-affirming path is not followed. “An unanswered question in the paediatric literature is whether gender-affirming medical treatment improves or does not improve mental health outcomes and quality of life,” said CHW doctors, including paediatric psychiatrist Kasia Kozlowska, paediatric endocrinologists Geoffrey Ambler and Ann Maguire and physician Joseph Elkadi.
Former Yale Law School medical ethics expert Stephen Scher was also a co-author. “In the era of evidence-based medicine, the evidence base pertaining to the gender-affirming medical pathway is sparse and, for the young people who may regret their choice of pathway at a future point in time, the risks for potential harm are significant,” the authors said.
The study comes as the approach of doctors practising gender-affirming medicine comes under scrutiny in court, as parents seeking to block prescription of puberty blockers to their children call expert witnesses to challenge the evidence. One recent Family Court case initiated by a parent seeking to halt their child being prescribed puberty blockers was settled midway through evidence as doctors from a major children’s hospital gender clinic called as witnesses came under scrutiny.
Solicitor Bill Kordos, who acted for the parent, said: “What became apparent to me running the case is that the science and the evidence didn’t seem to support the recommendations of the gender clinic. The unravelling of the science and the medicine was so telling that I in fact became alarmed that, if this is one case, and there are hundreds of children being put on what seems to be a conveyor belt, and young children are being told they have gender dysphoria without the whole picture being addressed, at the end of this court case I felt it was a form of child abuse.
“I also formed the view that they appeared to have politicised healthcare, which directly threatens the welfare of children. An inquiry should be held as to how these clinics are operating. I think they’re exposing themselves to a massive class action.”
The Australian litigation comes as senior doctors from the UK’s Tavistock Clinic spoke out in a new book by British journalist Hannah Barnes at their growing concerns the gender-affirming approach they were following ”wasn’t actually safe” and may amount to a medical scandal. The Cass Review in the UK, which led to the shutdown of Tavistock, has said it was now examining gender-affirming medicine guidelines set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
The gender-affirming approach has been championed in Australia by paediatrician Michelle Telfer and colleagues at the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital. Dr Telfer helped author the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for trans and gender-diverse children and adolescents, following The Netherlands model and based heavily on World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines.
Australian Professional Association for Trans Health standards are followed by most doctors treating patients with gender dysphoria in Australia, from major children’s hospital clinics to general practitioners. Gender-affirming care is designed to support and affirm an individual’s perceived gender identity, including the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone treatments to medically affirm the patient’s perceived gender. The guidelines stipulate decision-making, including relating to medical intervention and social transitioning, “should be driven by the child or adolescent wherever possible”.
The ABC’s failure to cover the closure of Britain’s Tavistock serves as another example of the national broadcaster… not wanting to tell Australians an “inconvenient truth,” Sky News Digital Editor Jack Houghton says. Media Watch host Paul Barry pointed out the ABC had no trace of the story and, More
CHW doctors disputed that these standards amount to national guidelines. “The title is actually misleading,” the authors write. “In Australia there are no official or authorised government-commissioned standards for assessing or treating gender dysphoria.”
The Royal Children’s Hospital and Associate Professor Telfer, director of the RCH Gender Service, declined to respond to questions surrounding the standards of care, the evidence base underpinning the gender-affirmative model, risk of regret among patients and potential harms of drug treatments.
AusPATH president Clara Tuck Meng Soo did not respond to a request for comment.
The CHW doctors have raised concerns that “many unknowns remain” regarding the long-term effects of puberty blockers, which are described by the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne as “reversible in their effects”. International evidence is in fact casting greater doubt on whether the effects of these medications are reversible. Endocrine reviews of the CHW patient cohort documented side-effects in 23 of the 49 young people prescribed puberty blockers, including low bone density, hot flushes, weight gain and anxiety. The CHW doctors raised concerns about long-term effects on patients’ sexual function in adulthood.
Within the 9 per cent cohort of patients with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria who had desisted – that is, discontinued the transgender pathway 4-9 years after consulting the gender clinic – three had undergone puberty suppression beginning at the average age of 12. Three had taken cross-sex hormones, one from as young as 15, but not prescribed by CHW. The effects of cross-sex hormones, including infertility, are irreversible.
Transgender activists claim rates of transition are in the order of less than 1 per cent. But the CHW doctors say the “emerging voices of detransitioners are identifying important issues”, and remain concerned that – even when exploratory psychotherapy is emphasised, as per the more conservative Finnish, Swedish and new British guidelines – “a serious problem remains” in identifying those young people who may regret their transition.
The hospital said it appeared many young people were accessing cross-sex hormones from unregulated sources or providers, as 51 of the cohort they studied had commenced treatment outside the institution, 20 of whom were under 16. Six young people studied had undergone gender-affirming surgery such as mastectomy.
The CHW doctors also identified concerns around the increasing prevalence of predominantly female patients with “late-onset, rapid-onset or adolescent-onset gender dysphoria” with no prior history of gender distress presenting at gender clinics. “The absence of prior history raised questions that this particular group of adolescents were being drawn to the construct of gender dysphoria because of some evolving social process,” the doctors said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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