‘Rip it up’: Horrific scenes at University of Sydney student council meeting
A “reprehensible display”, caught on camera, at a University of Sydney student meeting on Wednesday night has been condemned.
Tearing up a document that you disprove of certainly represents strong disagreement but it is hardly sexual violence
University of Sydney students have been left appalled by a “reprehensible display of misogyny” at a student council meeting on Wednesday night.
During the meeting, two male students tore up copies of a landmark report that exposed the systemic culture of sexual violence, hazing, elitism and inaction at Australia’s university colleges.
The annual meeting – held after the student elections for Representatives-Elect of the 97th Student Representative Council – was recorded and live-streamed in its entirety by USYD’s student newspaper, Honi Soit – a fact that attendees are fully aware of.
The incident occurred during a presentation by incoming SRC Women’s Officers and current Sexual Violence Officers, Ellie Robertson and Martha Barlow, that addressed the recent bullying incident at St Paul’s College and the “years and years of abhorrent and disgusting behaviour” at USYD, particularly at its “unreformable” residential colleges.
“Even after The Red Zone Report – which we are handing out to all you college apologists – and the Broderick Report, we have seen more instances of hazing, bullying and sexual violence. This is a continuing result of the elitist culture of these institutions,” Ms Robertson told attendees, while Ms Barlow passed out copies of The Red Zone Report to the elected Student Representatives.
“This is a continuing result of the elitist culture of these institutions.”
In response to Ms Robertson and Ms Barlow’s presentation, two male students ripped up the report – one remarking “no one cares”, while a third male student picked up the shreds of it and threw them in the air. All three boys are affiliated with the campus’ Young Liberals-aligned political group.
The students’ actions have been condemned by the university, meeting’s attendees (most of whom were “appalled by the behaviour”), and the authors of and participants in The Red Zone Report, who spoke to news.com.au about the boys’ “insulting and shameful” display.
Ms Barlow, who was the one to pass out the copies of the report, said it was “horrific, but perhaps not surprising” that the response of the Liberals and colleges’ representatives was to “laugh in my face, tear it up, and throw the pieces at us”.
“It is a quite frankly reprehensible display of misogyny to so blatantly laugh...(at the) victim-survivors (in the report), and an incredibly telling one,” Ms Barlow told news.com.au.
“Just like the colleges themselves, these student representatives would prefer to ignore the problem of sexual violence altogether and pretend it doesn’t exist. To this we say that the time is long past to sweep this under the rug.”
Just three months ago, the USYD’s Annual Report on Sexual Misconduct revealed that staff and student reports of sexual assault or harassment had more than doubled since 2022, up from 121 to a total of 246 in 2023.
To “laugh, undermine and ridicule” incidents of sexual violence at colleges, Ms Robertson told news.com.au, particularly when there were victim-survivors in the room, “is extremely vile and harmful”.
President of the USYD SRC for 2024, Harrison Brennan, said the actions of the councillors from the Liberal and College tickets “are nothing short of deplorable”.
“In a week already marred by reports of degrading hazing and assault at St Paul’s College, these individuals, aligned with the conservative campus club, tore up a report on sexual violence, harassment, and hazing within the colleges,” he told news.com.au.
“Their behaviour shows nothing has changed.”
Commissioned and published by End Rape on Campus (EROC) in February 2018, The Red Zone Report: an investigation into sexual violence and hazing in Australian university colleges, contained 200 pages of graphic photos, screenshots and police reports – as well as the stories of dozens of rape and hazing survivors – documenting the culture of sexual violence within Australian universities’ residential colleges, including those at USYD.
Its lead author, Nina Funnell, and EROC founder, Sharna Bremner, said in a joint statement they were “disgusted by the behaviour” at the SRC meeting.
“To hear current students remark ‘no one cares’ as they laughed about rape and hazing is not a slap in the face to us as The Red Zone authors,” they said.
“It is a slap in the face to those who were harmed in the colleges and survived, and to the loved ones of those who didn’t.”
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My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
*********************************************
Thursday 31 October 2024
Monday 28 October 2024
Are different political opinions a relationship deal-breaker?
I am one of those who think not. My girlfriend, for instance is a fierce antisemite but I just see her as a basically good woman and ignore it. And she copes with my Zionism
In a surprising move, former US First Lady Melania Trump recently declared her support for abortion rights, breaking rank with her husband’s staunchly pro-life views and policies. Confused observers were left wondering how the Trumps can maintain opposing political beliefs.
Navigating political differences in personal relationships can be challenging, especially during key events such as elections and holiday celebrations. While all relationships require compromise, should our political views be up for negotiation?
Are different political opinions a deal-breaker?
The dynamics of politically cross-cutting relationships were part of a study released earlier this year by Dr Emily Van Duyn, associate professor of political communication at the University of Illinois.
Van Duyn found evidence that political ideology is related to morals and values, with different ideologies emphasising certain morals over others.
“This divide in values prompted many differences that were insurmountable, like concerns over whether their partner was a ‘good’ person,” Van Duyn says. “Political incompatibility could also be insurmountable when it caused conflict that was persistent, unhealthy, or unresolved.”
It’s not all bad news. When conflicts and disagreements arose, so did an opportunity for recognition and discussion of those differences.
Van Duyn calls this process “negotiated exposure”, and, in some cases she observed, it strengthened a relationship. In others, it caused individuals to become more insular and engage in less conversation with their partner, triggering anxiety and bolstering the strength of their own political beliefs.
Lucy Banks has been with her partner for two years and says that navigating their opposing political opinions has been a challenge. She is progressive and a fierce feminist, while her partner is much more conservative and has expressed support for Donald Trump.
Early in their relationship Banks struggled to reconcile that their values aligned, while their politics didn’t. It challenged many of her assumptions about romantic relationships.
“There were times conversations got so heated that one of us would have to walk away or leave the room,” Banks says. “I think it initially brought up red flags for each of us.”
Since establishing ground rules for navigating conflict, their differences have provided opportunities to set a positive example of healthy communication for Banks’ teenage son.
“We don’t avoid discussing our differences, and if it comes up, we talk about it. He’s got a heart of gold and wants the best for people, and that’s why he takes an interest in politics. He just sees things differently because he’s walked a different path, but we both have the same values.”
Banks’ experience is indicative of a wider trend in Australia. According to a study by Flinders University, more people are willing to date outside their political alignments than they were 25 years ago.
The study found that Australian women have been steadily shifting to the political left for some time, with the Coalition in the 2022 federal election receiving the lowest share of the women’s vote in history. While women shift to the left, men’s political views remain stagnant.
The growing political divide
Politically mismatched relationships could become more common if political views continue down divergent gendered paths. In the US, 30 per cent of people are in romantic relationships with people who do not share their political views.
While this dynamic can work, a partner’s political views can have real-life implications on gender role expectations, the division of domestic labour, child-rearing responsibilities, and financial decision-making.
Hannah*, a 24-year-old psychology graduate from Sydney, has experienced friendship and relationship breakdowns because of political differences.
“I had a slow falling-out with multiple male friends because they tended to be a little bit more right leaning or socially conservative,” she says.
She broke up with her ex-boyfriend for similar reasons, with his remarks about her queer friends driving a wedge between them.
“If you’re constantly a little bit uncomfortable walking away from hanging out with your partner or close friends, it just grinds on the relationship over time, and that’s been my experience.”
To avoid these scenarios, psychotherapist and marriage counsellor Dr Melissa Ferrari encourages conversations about expectations early in a relationship. This will reveal whether a potential partner sees you as their equal.
Ferrari says we need to remember we aren’t friends or partners with people because of their politics, but because we love who they are. Keeping this at the fore of conflicts – instead of leading with pride or your ego – is the most important step.
“Something people don’t realise is that the need to be right can compete with a relationship.”
**********************************************************
Extremist influencer Candace Owens’ Australian visa cancelled by immigration minister
Antisemitic views like hers are widely heard. Why are hers not tolerated
Extremist US provocateur Candace Owens’ Australian visa has been cancelled, as the Labor government warns that her attacks on Jewish, Muslim and trans people have the capacity to incite discord.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke confirmed that the Donald Trump-aligned influencer – who has claimed that Israel was founded by a “cult” and that “secret Jewish gangs” operate in Hollywood – would not be allowed in Australia as federal Labor attempts to lower the temperature on domestic protests about the war in the Middle East.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [German SS officer Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” he said.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
Owens rose to fame for her conservative activism. She was a communications director for Turning Point USA from 2017 to 2019 and in 2021 joined conservative media company The Daily Wire to host her own political talk show. However, in March this year she was dismissed following a series of antisemitic comments.
She now hosts her own YouTube channel and has 18 million online followers. Owens’ comments have included describing Mengele’s experiments on Auschwitz prisoners as “bizarre propaganda”.
Jewish groups called for Owens’ visa to be cancelled in August as Burke indicated he would block it, telling this masthead: “Tickets to these events are selling for $100. I hope she has a good refunds policy.”
Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan also said in August that Labor should block Owens’ visa to avoid the spread of “hateful messages”.
Owens vowed to push on with her Australian tour in defiance of the calls to reject her visa.
Speaking on Sydney radio station 2GB in August, the far-right influencer – who thinks Trump has become too moderate – said she was excited about travelling to Australia for her November tour.
“It’s kind of incredible to think people could be so fearful of just speech and conversation,” she told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
“I was quite surprised to see that: they were like ‘Don’t give her a visa, she’s a bad person’. But I promise you it is not going to harm you to hear different ideas.”
The event website describes Owens’ tour as a delivery of “raw and unfiltered commentary on politics, culture and everyday life” as ticket costs range from $95 to $1500.
Shows are scheduled in November in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Entertainment company Rocksman is listed as the host for Owens’ tour, which describes itself as an organisation that specialises in “helping businesses and individuals develop strong personal and corporate brands”.
***************************************************
Australian Jewish leaders take radical cleric Wissam Haddad to court amid government inaction
The country’s peak Jewish body has taken a radical cleric to the Federal Court after a slew of sermons referring to the Jewish community as “vile and treacherous people” and peddled anti-Semitic tropes.
The legal action is an example of the escalation of testing how, and whether, hate speech can be prosecuted in Australia.
The action comes after state and federal police recently laid charges against people who waved the flag of listed terror group Hezbollah, and high-profile restaurateur Alan Yazbek for displaying the Nazi swastika symbol.
On Friday, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry instigated proceedings in the Federal Court against extremist preacher Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, and his Bankstown-based Al Madina Dawah Centre.
The Australian in January revealed how the ECAJ had lodged a vilification complaint with the country’s human rights body against the preacher and the Bankstown centre, given perceived police inaction and an inability to lay charges, partly due to NSW’s “toothless” hate-speech criminal provisions.
The proceedings are made under part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act – which outlaws offensive behaviour based on racial hatred – and brought to the court by the ECAJ’s co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim AM, and deputy president Robert Goot AO SC.
Mr Wertheim said attempts at mediation between the parties at the Australian Human Rights Commission had failed and that the court move was a last resort forced upon the Jewish community and its leaders.
“We have commenced proceedings to defend the honour of our community, and as a warning to deter others seeking to mobilise racism in order to promote their political views,” he said.
Among other things, the ECAJ is seeking declarations that Mr Haddad and his centre contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, injunctions to remove the sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot are also seeking publication of a “corrective notice” on the centre’s social media pages and costs, although no order for damages or monetary compensation is sought by the ECAJ.
Among other things, Mr Haddad, or speakers at his Al Madina Dawah Centre, have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing, described them as “treacherous people” with their “hands” in media and business, encouraged jihad, and urged people to “spit” on Israel so Israelis “would drown”.
In most cases, he has claimed that he was referring to or reciting Islamic scripture.
The ECAJ separately filed a vilification complaint at the AHRC against Sheik Ahmed Zoud, who said Jewish people “ran like rats” from Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks.
That conciliation process remains ongoing but could be exhausted soon, and The Australian understands the ECAJ could file separate proceedings at the same court against Mr Zoud and his As-Sunnah mosque in Lakemba.
Mr Wertheim said Australia was a “multicultural success story” with different faith and ethnic communities living in “harmony and mutual respect”, and that the court move against Mr Haddad was to protect the Jewish community, but also the country’s social harmony.
“We are all free to observe our faith and traditions within the bounds of Australian law, and that should mean we do not bring the hatreds, prejudices and bigotry of overseas conflicts and societies into Australia,” he said, adding that the ECAJ had “no alternative” than to pursue court action.
“Maintaining and strengthening social cohesion is the role of governments and government agencies, but lately they have failed us. It should not fall on our community, or any other community, to take private legal action to remedy a public wrong, and to stand up to those who sow hatred.”
Federal and state political leaders criticised that “policing” had fallen on the shoulders of Jewish leaders, with opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson calling it “profoundly unjust”, saying the Albanese government had “vacated the field”.
“Incitement to violence against another community is a crime and it should be enforced through criminal proceedings,” Senator Paterson said.
“If we had strong leadership from our Prime Minister, and if police enforced the law, the Jewish community never would have been left to fend for themselves like this amid an unprecedented anti-Semitism crisis.”
NSW senator Dave Sharma said he was “appalled” that a community organisation had been forced to bring private legal action, “not only to protect its own members but to uphold values and norms we all cherish”.
“That the ECAJ has been forced to take matters into its own hands demonstrates just how weak and conflicted this government is,” he said, adding that Australian values and social cohesion must be “fought for”.
NSW Upper House deputy president Rod Roberts said no religious or ethnic community should be having to do “their own policing”.
“Regardless of which community, it should not be their role and they shouldn’t have to do it,” the former police officer said, adding that Mr Haddad’s “inflammatory” comments harmed society as a whole.
Since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 2023, debate has raged as to whether law enforcement agencies have the legislative tools to clamp down on hate speech.
In the past few weeks, police have successfully charged people under legislation outlawing support for terrorist groups and Nazi symbols, and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has cancelled the visas of American speakers Khaled Beydoun – for calling October 7 a “good day” – and extremist influencer Candace Owens.
“Non-direct” hate speech, however, has been harder to prosecute, given the narrow and high thresholds of both state and commonwealth legislation that outlaw very specific calls to violence, failing to capture hatred or broad incitement against an ethnic or religious community.
NSW’s hate-speech provisions, enclosed in Section 93Z of the state crime code, are subject of a Law Reform Commission review, given operability concerns.
************************************************************
Texas AG suing doctor for giving trans treatment to kids; are you kidding me?
Texas Attorney General’s office: “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a North Texas doctor [May Chi Lau] for blatantly violating Texas law by providing prohibited ‘gender transition’ treatments to nearly two dozen minors.”
“…Growing scientific evidence strongly suggests that ‘gender transition’ interventions prescribed to or performed on children in an attempt to anatomically or hormonally alter their biological sex characteristics have damaging, long-term consequences. Additionally, the prohibited treatments are experimental, and no scientific evidence supports their supposed benefits.”
“Evidence obtained by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that a Dallas-area doctor illegally provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of ‘transitioning’ the child’s biological sex.” (link in footnote)
A lawsuit. But what else?
THE DOCTOR BROKE THE LAW.
No criminal charges? What the hell is going on?
The doctor gives overtly damaging treatments to kids, to “transition” them. The kids don’t know what they’re agreeing to. How could they?
And the doctor isn’t arrested and charged? Why? Because she’s a doctor? Whereas, if she were a bricklayer or a truck driver, she’d be sitting in a jail cell right now? Is that it?
“Well, you see, it would be undignified to drag a medical doctor into court. The jury would be forced to hear how she dosed kids with destructive hormones, and that’s just too much. And the press might hear echoes of Nuremberg. Medical treatment that’s actually torture.”
Well, these hormones ARE torture. They rip into the natural processes of the body and try to turn them in a different direction.
What doctor would do that?...
My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
*********************************************
I am one of those who think not. My girlfriend, for instance is a fierce antisemite but I just see her as a basically good woman and ignore it. And she copes with my Zionism
In a surprising move, former US First Lady Melania Trump recently declared her support for abortion rights, breaking rank with her husband’s staunchly pro-life views and policies. Confused observers were left wondering how the Trumps can maintain opposing political beliefs.
Navigating political differences in personal relationships can be challenging, especially during key events such as elections and holiday celebrations. While all relationships require compromise, should our political views be up for negotiation?
Are different political opinions a deal-breaker?
The dynamics of politically cross-cutting relationships were part of a study released earlier this year by Dr Emily Van Duyn, associate professor of political communication at the University of Illinois.
Van Duyn found evidence that political ideology is related to morals and values, with different ideologies emphasising certain morals over others.
“This divide in values prompted many differences that were insurmountable, like concerns over whether their partner was a ‘good’ person,” Van Duyn says. “Political incompatibility could also be insurmountable when it caused conflict that was persistent, unhealthy, or unresolved.”
It’s not all bad news. When conflicts and disagreements arose, so did an opportunity for recognition and discussion of those differences.
Van Duyn calls this process “negotiated exposure”, and, in some cases she observed, it strengthened a relationship. In others, it caused individuals to become more insular and engage in less conversation with their partner, triggering anxiety and bolstering the strength of their own political beliefs.
Lucy Banks has been with her partner for two years and says that navigating their opposing political opinions has been a challenge. She is progressive and a fierce feminist, while her partner is much more conservative and has expressed support for Donald Trump.
Early in their relationship Banks struggled to reconcile that their values aligned, while their politics didn’t. It challenged many of her assumptions about romantic relationships.
“There were times conversations got so heated that one of us would have to walk away or leave the room,” Banks says. “I think it initially brought up red flags for each of us.”
Since establishing ground rules for navigating conflict, their differences have provided opportunities to set a positive example of healthy communication for Banks’ teenage son.
“We don’t avoid discussing our differences, and if it comes up, we talk about it. He’s got a heart of gold and wants the best for people, and that’s why he takes an interest in politics. He just sees things differently because he’s walked a different path, but we both have the same values.”
Banks’ experience is indicative of a wider trend in Australia. According to a study by Flinders University, more people are willing to date outside their political alignments than they were 25 years ago.
The study found that Australian women have been steadily shifting to the political left for some time, with the Coalition in the 2022 federal election receiving the lowest share of the women’s vote in history. While women shift to the left, men’s political views remain stagnant.
The growing political divide
Politically mismatched relationships could become more common if political views continue down divergent gendered paths. In the US, 30 per cent of people are in romantic relationships with people who do not share their political views.
While this dynamic can work, a partner’s political views can have real-life implications on gender role expectations, the division of domestic labour, child-rearing responsibilities, and financial decision-making.
Hannah*, a 24-year-old psychology graduate from Sydney, has experienced friendship and relationship breakdowns because of political differences.
“I had a slow falling-out with multiple male friends because they tended to be a little bit more right leaning or socially conservative,” she says.
She broke up with her ex-boyfriend for similar reasons, with his remarks about her queer friends driving a wedge between them.
“If you’re constantly a little bit uncomfortable walking away from hanging out with your partner or close friends, it just grinds on the relationship over time, and that’s been my experience.”
To avoid these scenarios, psychotherapist and marriage counsellor Dr Melissa Ferrari encourages conversations about expectations early in a relationship. This will reveal whether a potential partner sees you as their equal.
Ferrari says we need to remember we aren’t friends or partners with people because of their politics, but because we love who they are. Keeping this at the fore of conflicts – instead of leading with pride or your ego – is the most important step.
“Something people don’t realise is that the need to be right can compete with a relationship.”
**********************************************************
Extremist influencer Candace Owens’ Australian visa cancelled by immigration minister
Antisemitic views like hers are widely heard. Why are hers not tolerated
Extremist US provocateur Candace Owens’ Australian visa has been cancelled, as the Labor government warns that her attacks on Jewish, Muslim and trans people have the capacity to incite discord.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke confirmed that the Donald Trump-aligned influencer – who has claimed that Israel was founded by a “cult” and that “secret Jewish gangs” operate in Hollywood – would not be allowed in Australia as federal Labor attempts to lower the temperature on domestic protests about the war in the Middle East.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [German SS officer Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” he said.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
Owens rose to fame for her conservative activism. She was a communications director for Turning Point USA from 2017 to 2019 and in 2021 joined conservative media company The Daily Wire to host her own political talk show. However, in March this year she was dismissed following a series of antisemitic comments.
She now hosts her own YouTube channel and has 18 million online followers. Owens’ comments have included describing Mengele’s experiments on Auschwitz prisoners as “bizarre propaganda”.
Jewish groups called for Owens’ visa to be cancelled in August as Burke indicated he would block it, telling this masthead: “Tickets to these events are selling for $100. I hope she has a good refunds policy.”
Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan also said in August that Labor should block Owens’ visa to avoid the spread of “hateful messages”.
Owens vowed to push on with her Australian tour in defiance of the calls to reject her visa.
Speaking on Sydney radio station 2GB in August, the far-right influencer – who thinks Trump has become too moderate – said she was excited about travelling to Australia for her November tour.
“It’s kind of incredible to think people could be so fearful of just speech and conversation,” she told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
“I was quite surprised to see that: they were like ‘Don’t give her a visa, she’s a bad person’. But I promise you it is not going to harm you to hear different ideas.”
The event website describes Owens’ tour as a delivery of “raw and unfiltered commentary on politics, culture and everyday life” as ticket costs range from $95 to $1500.
Shows are scheduled in November in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Entertainment company Rocksman is listed as the host for Owens’ tour, which describes itself as an organisation that specialises in “helping businesses and individuals develop strong personal and corporate brands”.
***************************************************
Australian Jewish leaders take radical cleric Wissam Haddad to court amid government inaction
The country’s peak Jewish body has taken a radical cleric to the Federal Court after a slew of sermons referring to the Jewish community as “vile and treacherous people” and peddled anti-Semitic tropes.
The legal action is an example of the escalation of testing how, and whether, hate speech can be prosecuted in Australia.
The action comes after state and federal police recently laid charges against people who waved the flag of listed terror group Hezbollah, and high-profile restaurateur Alan Yazbek for displaying the Nazi swastika symbol.
On Friday, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry instigated proceedings in the Federal Court against extremist preacher Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, and his Bankstown-based Al Madina Dawah Centre.
The Australian in January revealed how the ECAJ had lodged a vilification complaint with the country’s human rights body against the preacher and the Bankstown centre, given perceived police inaction and an inability to lay charges, partly due to NSW’s “toothless” hate-speech criminal provisions.
The proceedings are made under part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act – which outlaws offensive behaviour based on racial hatred – and brought to the court by the ECAJ’s co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim AM, and deputy president Robert Goot AO SC.
Mr Wertheim said attempts at mediation between the parties at the Australian Human Rights Commission had failed and that the court move was a last resort forced upon the Jewish community and its leaders.
“We have commenced proceedings to defend the honour of our community, and as a warning to deter others seeking to mobilise racism in order to promote their political views,” he said.
Among other things, the ECAJ is seeking declarations that Mr Haddad and his centre contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, injunctions to remove the sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
Mr Wertheim and Mr Goot are also seeking publication of a “corrective notice” on the centre’s social media pages and costs, although no order for damages or monetary compensation is sought by the ECAJ.
Among other things, Mr Haddad, or speakers at his Al Madina Dawah Centre, have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing, described them as “treacherous people” with their “hands” in media and business, encouraged jihad, and urged people to “spit” on Israel so Israelis “would drown”.
In most cases, he has claimed that he was referring to or reciting Islamic scripture.
The ECAJ separately filed a vilification complaint at the AHRC against Sheik Ahmed Zoud, who said Jewish people “ran like rats” from Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks.
That conciliation process remains ongoing but could be exhausted soon, and The Australian understands the ECAJ could file separate proceedings at the same court against Mr Zoud and his As-Sunnah mosque in Lakemba.
Mr Wertheim said Australia was a “multicultural success story” with different faith and ethnic communities living in “harmony and mutual respect”, and that the court move against Mr Haddad was to protect the Jewish community, but also the country’s social harmony.
“We are all free to observe our faith and traditions within the bounds of Australian law, and that should mean we do not bring the hatreds, prejudices and bigotry of overseas conflicts and societies into Australia,” he said, adding that the ECAJ had “no alternative” than to pursue court action.
“Maintaining and strengthening social cohesion is the role of governments and government agencies, but lately they have failed us. It should not fall on our community, or any other community, to take private legal action to remedy a public wrong, and to stand up to those who sow hatred.”
Federal and state political leaders criticised that “policing” had fallen on the shoulders of Jewish leaders, with opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson calling it “profoundly unjust”, saying the Albanese government had “vacated the field”.
“Incitement to violence against another community is a crime and it should be enforced through criminal proceedings,” Senator Paterson said.
“If we had strong leadership from our Prime Minister, and if police enforced the law, the Jewish community never would have been left to fend for themselves like this amid an unprecedented anti-Semitism crisis.”
NSW senator Dave Sharma said he was “appalled” that a community organisation had been forced to bring private legal action, “not only to protect its own members but to uphold values and norms we all cherish”.
“That the ECAJ has been forced to take matters into its own hands demonstrates just how weak and conflicted this government is,” he said, adding that Australian values and social cohesion must be “fought for”.
NSW Upper House deputy president Rod Roberts said no religious or ethnic community should be having to do “their own policing”.
“Regardless of which community, it should not be their role and they shouldn’t have to do it,” the former police officer said, adding that Mr Haddad’s “inflammatory” comments harmed society as a whole.
Since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 2023, debate has raged as to whether law enforcement agencies have the legislative tools to clamp down on hate speech.
In the past few weeks, police have successfully charged people under legislation outlawing support for terrorist groups and Nazi symbols, and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has cancelled the visas of American speakers Khaled Beydoun – for calling October 7 a “good day” – and extremist influencer Candace Owens.
“Non-direct” hate speech, however, has been harder to prosecute, given the narrow and high thresholds of both state and commonwealth legislation that outlaw very specific calls to violence, failing to capture hatred or broad incitement against an ethnic or religious community.
NSW’s hate-speech provisions, enclosed in Section 93Z of the state crime code, are subject of a Law Reform Commission review, given operability concerns.
************************************************************
Texas AG suing doctor for giving trans treatment to kids; are you kidding me?
Texas Attorney General’s office: “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a North Texas doctor [May Chi Lau] for blatantly violating Texas law by providing prohibited ‘gender transition’ treatments to nearly two dozen minors.”
“…Growing scientific evidence strongly suggests that ‘gender transition’ interventions prescribed to or performed on children in an attempt to anatomically or hormonally alter their biological sex characteristics have damaging, long-term consequences. Additionally, the prohibited treatments are experimental, and no scientific evidence supports their supposed benefits.”
“Evidence obtained by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that a Dallas-area doctor illegally provided high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of ‘transitioning’ the child’s biological sex.” (link in footnote)
A lawsuit. But what else?
THE DOCTOR BROKE THE LAW.
No criminal charges? What the hell is going on?
The doctor gives overtly damaging treatments to kids, to “transition” them. The kids don’t know what they’re agreeing to. How could they?
And the doctor isn’t arrested and charged? Why? Because she’s a doctor? Whereas, if she were a bricklayer or a truck driver, she’d be sitting in a jail cell right now? Is that it?
“Well, you see, it would be undignified to drag a medical doctor into court. The jury would be forced to hear how she dosed kids with destructive hormones, and that’s just too much. And the press might hear echoes of Nuremberg. Medical treatment that’s actually torture.”
Well, these hormones ARE torture. They rip into the natural processes of the body and try to turn them in a different direction.
What doctor would do that?...
https://jonrappoport.substack.com/p/texas-ag-suing-doctor-for-giving-trans-treatment-to-kids
**************************************************My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
*********************************************
Sunday 27 October 2024
The Left’s New Approach: Hide the Science
Forget following the science. Now it’s about hiding the science—at least when it comes to experimental gender transition medical procedures for children.
“U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says,” blares a New York Times headline earlier this week.
This study, which involved putting 95 children struggling with gender dysphoria on puberty blockers, was led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles who has long been involved in promoting experimental medical treatments for minors.
It would seem that the study, which followed the children for two years, didn’t have the results Olson-Kennedy was looking for.
“The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care,” states the article’s subhed.
That’s a major finding—and one that the public deserves to have access to.
After all, the argument for providing these experimental medical treatments for children is that they will help the children’s mental health. That was seen as a pro that for some outweighed the cons of puberty blockers, which pose health risks along with the unknowns about the long-term effects of delaying a young person’s development.
But this data won’t be released because “the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court,” writes New York Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, summarizing Olson-Kennedy’s reasoning.
In other words, when it comes to how to medically treat children suffering from gender dysphoria, it’s not about the science. It’s about the ideology—and ensuring that ideology triumphs in American law and all states.
In early December, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case about whether Tennessee’s ban on experimental medical treatments for children suffering from gender dysphoria violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, is the defendant. The Supreme Court decision in the case will likely have ramifications for other state bans.
Olson-Kennedy may want to smear these bans as political. But listen to the stories of detransitioners—who now regret having experimental trans medical treatment as minors that will affect their lives permanently—and it’s clear that this isn’t about politics.
It’s about ensuring that vulnerable minors aren’t making life-altering medical decisions after encouragement from activist doctors.
Take the story of Clementine, who recently spoke to Billboard Chris, a Canadian activist who walks around wearing “billboards” that spur conversations about gender ideology and its effect on children. When talking to Clementine, he wore a billboard stating, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
Clementine said she went on puberty blockers when she was 12 and testosterone when she was 13, then had “top surgery”—a double mastectomy— at 14. “Totally messed my life up,” she said.
“I was sexually abused as a child, and that was totally ignored,” Clementine recalled. “I started having a lot of negative feelings about my body around puberty.”
“I was egged on by some guidance counselors that I might be transgender, and I later decided that I was really a boy,” she added, “and my life would be so much easier because of all this abuse that I had experienced because of being a woman and I totally just rejected womanhood because I thought that all that it meant for me was pain.”
Later, Clementine was able to discuss her sexual abuse in therapy and she started to change her mind about her gender transition.
“The loss of my fertility and my body just started to really sink in and I realized like, ‘Oh, my God, I built this entire persona around misogyny,’” Clementine told Billboard Chris.
“Politics” might have saved Clementine from losing her fertility. (She admits that she’s not absolutely sure she can’t have kids, but it doesn’t look likely to her.)
“Politics” also might have saved her from stopping her own natural puberty and suffering the effects of using testosterone, which she said gave her “psychosis” for years.
Don’t today’s Clementines—and their parents or guardians—deserve the latest scientific data as they grapple with this issue?
Nor is this the first time that politics, not science, are driving the gender activism movement.
In an amicus brief supporting Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, details how a prominent Biden-Harris administration official changed a medical group’s recommendations for treatment of transgender kids.
This only became known because Marshall, in the course of a legal fight over Alabama’s ban on children with gender dysphoria receiving experimental medical treatment, gained access to emails from Adm. Richard Levine. A trans person who is a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services, Levine now wants to be known as Rachel.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, in 2022 emailed Levine proposed new guidelines recommending that children be 14 or older to receive cross-sex hormones, 15 to get mastectomies, 16 for facial surgery, and 17 for hysterectomies.
Levine objected to these age minimums.
Marshall writes in the brief: “According to a WPATH participant, Levine ‘was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth … and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse.’ Levine’s solution was simple: ‘She asked us to remove them.’”
WPATH initially resisted Levine’s request, which came after health professionals had been consulted on the guidelines. Then the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, got involved. Between the pressure from the Biden-Harris administration and the American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH caved, eliminating almost all age recommendations.
“[B]oth the United States and AAP sought, and WPATH agreed, to make changes in a clinical guideline recommending irreversible sex-change procedures for kids based purely on political considerations,” writes Marshall.
“Dr. [Eli] Coleman was clear in his deposition that WPATH removed the age minimums ‘without being presented any new science of which the committee was previously unaware,’” adds Marshall, referring to the University of Minnesota sexologist who chaired the committee behind WPATH’s guidelines. (Emphasis mine.)
So much for the Left’s “follow the science” mantra.
At a bare minimum, we owe it to kids and their parents to give them the latest scientific data about these medical experimental treatment for gender dysphoria.
It’s a shame that the Left is prioritizing politics over science—and the rights of parents and children to make informed decisions.
The Myth of Underfunded Public Schools
Do you know how much you spend per student in your local public school? Surveys find that most Americans cannot answer this question. And public education interest groups such as teachers unions benefit from this knowledge gap because then they can ask for more spending and few, if any, taxpayers and voters know what the figures are or how the money is being used.
This election year, lobbyists in states such as California, Missouri, and New Mexico are asking taxpayers directly to increase spending on K-12 schools through ballot initiatives, claiming schools are underfunded.
Yet spending patterns tell a different story. In each of these three states—and nationwide—public education spending is increasing and has been for many years. Since the 1969-1970 school year, inflation-adjusted spending per child in California and Missouri has nearly tripled, while New Mexico school spending has more than doubled.
How educators use resources is crucial. Missouri’s Show Me Institute, a research and policy organization, recently published a guide on education spending in the state and explains that school budgets are devoting less to instruction and more to noninstructional uses today than a decade ago. Notably, while the number of students in Missouri public schools has been on the decline, there has been a sharp uptick in the number of teachers—and administrative staff, in general. In fact, the number of staff has increased by 44%.
The increase in administrative staff is part of a national trend. Our colleague, Lindsey Burke, testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in 2022 and reported that the number of principals and assistant principals has increased 37% since 2000. The number of school district administrative staff has increased 88%.
Kennesaw State University professor Ben Scafidi studies administrative bloat in K-12 schools and finds that the increase in noninstructional staff over the last 30 years is more than double the size of student enrollment increases. Teachers make up only 48% of the K-12 workforce today.
It’s not news that students are struggling in class, but the price tag on this underperformance is staggering. In California, the fiscal year 2023-2024 K-12 budget was the size of the entire state budgets of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee—combined ($128 billion). Approximately 3 out of 4 students are performing below grade level in core subjects.
Yet special interest groups have introduced a ballot proposal to authorize $10 billion in general obligation bonds for K-12 and community colleges. The bonds are estimated to cost state taxpayers a whopping $500 million per year for 35 years. The Reason Foundation finds that California school districts already have $220 billion in debt and liabilities, the equivalent of $40,000 per current enrolled student.
These spending figures do not account for the substantial influx of federal funding that school districts nationwide received during the COVID-19 pandemic, amounting to $190 billion in additional spending. This was on top of the annual federal funding public school districts also receive. Prior to the pandemic, federal taxpayers provided K-12 schools about $70 billion each year.
As part of the COVID-19 relief packages, California alone was awarded more than $23 billion, Missouri about $3 billion, and New Mexico around $1.5 billion in new federal funds. As of early August 2024, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education, each of these states still had roughly 10% of funds left to allocate.
Forthcoming research by this op-ed’s co-author, Madison Marino Doan, and Kennesaw State’s Scafidi will reveal that school districts are more financially secure than ever before. Several factors contribute to this, including higher property tax revenues since 2020, which account for nearly half of most school district budgets; healthy cash reserves built up prior to the pandemic to manage economic downturns; the large influx of COVID-19 relief funds, which allowed districts to bolster their reserves and invest in infrastructure projects that reduce future costs; and record-high state “rainy day” funds put on reserve in 2022.
Few Americans know how much taxpayers spend per student in their hometown, nor do they realize the extent of the increase in school district bureaucracy or the massive federal funding districts received during the pandemic. This surplus in funds has not reliably translated into more instruction or improved student achievement. So, before voters decide on whether to increase spending on public schools, they should know where their money is going and whether it’s truly benefiting students in the ways that matter most.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams Undermines Harris’s ‘Fascist’ Accusation Against Trump, Makes Call To ‘Dial Down The Temperature’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams differed Saturday with Vice President Kamala Harris’s Wednesday labeling of former President Donald Trump as a fascist.
Adams — together with Deputy Mayor Chauncey Parker, New York City Police Department (NYPD) interim commissioner Tom Donlon and other NYPD leadership — was speaking at a security briefing ahead of former President Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.
Adams, when asked by Politico political reporter Emily Ngo if he believed Trump was fascist, said, “My answer is ‘no.’ I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like.”
Adams then claimed some political leaders in New York City had “hurled” the terms “fascist” and “Hitler” at him as well.
“I think — as I’ve called over and over again — that the level of conversation — I think we could all dial down the temperature,” he said.
“There’s no agency in the world better prepared to ensure the safety of this event than the NYPD,” Parker added.
In response to critics who demanded Trump not hold the rally, Adams said, “I strongly disagree. This is America. This is New York. And I think it’s important to allow individuals to exercise their right to get their message clear to New Yorkers. And our job as a city and as a police department is to make sure that you do that in a peaceful way.
“I think that we must be extremely cautious of— the heat we turn up today, pre-election, is going to have to be the heat we’ll have to govern in,” Adams added.
During a Wednesday presidential town hall event, Harris, when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she thought Trump was a fascist, said, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.”
Harris was referencing Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired General Mark Milley. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Calls Trump ‘Fascist’ In CNN Town Hall)
Kelley called Trump a fascist during recent interviews with The New York Times. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back, saying Kelly had “beclowned” himself. Trump also responded, labeling Milley a “lowlife,” “a total degenerate” and a “bad general,” CBS News reported.
Thirteen former Trump administration officials have openly backed Kelly’s claim, according to Politico.
Milley called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and “a fascist to the core,” according to an upcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Milley also feared being court-martialed should Trump become president again, the Guardian reported.
Trump had confirmed in early October that his campaign rented the iconic Madison Square Garden for the major rally. The arena previously hosted a number of key political events in U.S. history, according to The Associated Press.
Trump and Adams both attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City on Oct. 17 to benefit charity. As part of the annual event’s lighthearted proceedings, Trump made several jokes about the absent Harris as well as prominent Democrats seated nearby on the dias, including Adams and indictment over bribery charges.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Kamala’s Inane Talking Points
As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd.
Claiming that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work — especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Nor was the next Harris meme convincing that the frenetic and non-stop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter — or sometimes not workdays at all.
But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged President Joe Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.”
Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging — and for a variety of reasons.
First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions.
On the one hand, is the prior Trump 2017-20 concrete record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military — and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports and the woke/DEI agenda.
On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12-20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’s earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular DEI/Woke agenda.
Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of their hard left-wing agendas — policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.
So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped.
Now she is for more of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking, and for increasing, not cutting, defense.
In fact, several endangered incumbent Democratic senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president.
Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’s own.
Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist.
But mouthing ad nausaem “January 6th” no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone. They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020 — at least 25 killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested — that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protestors.
Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake Steele dossier and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop.
Trump certainly did not coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He did not use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news.
Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.
The Republican House majority did not impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decades-long removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences.
Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They did not nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they did not anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life.
Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He does not seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He is not demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan senate seats.
Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum,” it depends on what were the Biden-Harris standards?
Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?”
Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “f—ing a—hole” and “son of a b—ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him?
Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments?
The election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake media-generated narratives.
Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?
**************************************************
My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
*********************************************
Forget following the science. Now it’s about hiding the science—at least when it comes to experimental gender transition medical procedures for children.
“U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says,” blares a New York Times headline earlier this week.
This study, which involved putting 95 children struggling with gender dysphoria on puberty blockers, was led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles who has long been involved in promoting experimental medical treatments for minors.
It would seem that the study, which followed the children for two years, didn’t have the results Olson-Kennedy was looking for.
“The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care,” states the article’s subhed.
That’s a major finding—and one that the public deserves to have access to.
After all, the argument for providing these experimental medical treatments for children is that they will help the children’s mental health. That was seen as a pro that for some outweighed the cons of puberty blockers, which pose health risks along with the unknowns about the long-term effects of delaying a young person’s development.
But this data won’t be released because “the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states, one of which will soon be considered by the Supreme Court,” writes New York Times reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, summarizing Olson-Kennedy’s reasoning.
In other words, when it comes to how to medically treat children suffering from gender dysphoria, it’s not about the science. It’s about the ideology—and ensuring that ideology triumphs in American law and all states.
In early December, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case about whether Tennessee’s ban on experimental medical treatments for children suffering from gender dysphoria violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, is the defendant. The Supreme Court decision in the case will likely have ramifications for other state bans.
Olson-Kennedy may want to smear these bans as political. But listen to the stories of detransitioners—who now regret having experimental trans medical treatment as minors that will affect their lives permanently—and it’s clear that this isn’t about politics.
It’s about ensuring that vulnerable minors aren’t making life-altering medical decisions after encouragement from activist doctors.
Take the story of Clementine, who recently spoke to Billboard Chris, a Canadian activist who walks around wearing “billboards” that spur conversations about gender ideology and its effect on children. When talking to Clementine, he wore a billboard stating, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
Clementine said she went on puberty blockers when she was 12 and testosterone when she was 13, then had “top surgery”—a double mastectomy— at 14. “Totally messed my life up,” she said.
“I was sexually abused as a child, and that was totally ignored,” Clementine recalled. “I started having a lot of negative feelings about my body around puberty.”
“I was egged on by some guidance counselors that I might be transgender, and I later decided that I was really a boy,” she added, “and my life would be so much easier because of all this abuse that I had experienced because of being a woman and I totally just rejected womanhood because I thought that all that it meant for me was pain.”
Later, Clementine was able to discuss her sexual abuse in therapy and she started to change her mind about her gender transition.
“The loss of my fertility and my body just started to really sink in and I realized like, ‘Oh, my God, I built this entire persona around misogyny,’” Clementine told Billboard Chris.
“Politics” might have saved Clementine from losing her fertility. (She admits that she’s not absolutely sure she can’t have kids, but it doesn’t look likely to her.)
“Politics” also might have saved her from stopping her own natural puberty and suffering the effects of using testosterone, which she said gave her “psychosis” for years.
Don’t today’s Clementines—and their parents or guardians—deserve the latest scientific data as they grapple with this issue?
Nor is this the first time that politics, not science, are driving the gender activism movement.
In an amicus brief supporting Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, details how a prominent Biden-Harris administration official changed a medical group’s recommendations for treatment of transgender kids.
This only became known because Marshall, in the course of a legal fight over Alabama’s ban on children with gender dysphoria receiving experimental medical treatment, gained access to emails from Adm. Richard Levine. A trans person who is a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services, Levine now wants to be known as Rachel.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, in 2022 emailed Levine proposed new guidelines recommending that children be 14 or older to receive cross-sex hormones, 15 to get mastectomies, 16 for facial surgery, and 17 for hysterectomies.
Levine objected to these age minimums.
Marshall writes in the brief: “According to a WPATH participant, Levine ‘was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to health care for trans youth … and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse.’ Levine’s solution was simple: ‘She asked us to remove them.’”
WPATH initially resisted Levine’s request, which came after health professionals had been consulted on the guidelines. Then the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, got involved. Between the pressure from the Biden-Harris administration and the American Academy of Pediatrics, WPATH caved, eliminating almost all age recommendations.
“[B]oth the United States and AAP sought, and WPATH agreed, to make changes in a clinical guideline recommending irreversible sex-change procedures for kids based purely on political considerations,” writes Marshall.
“Dr. [Eli] Coleman was clear in his deposition that WPATH removed the age minimums ‘without being presented any new science of which the committee was previously unaware,’” adds Marshall, referring to the University of Minnesota sexologist who chaired the committee behind WPATH’s guidelines. (Emphasis mine.)
So much for the Left’s “follow the science” mantra.
At a bare minimum, we owe it to kids and their parents to give them the latest scientific data about these medical experimental treatment for gender dysphoria.
It’s a shame that the Left is prioritizing politics over science—and the rights of parents and children to make informed decisions.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/26/johanna-olson-kennedy-talks-delay-of-puberty-blocker-study/
**********************************************************The Myth of Underfunded Public Schools
Do you know how much you spend per student in your local public school? Surveys find that most Americans cannot answer this question. And public education interest groups such as teachers unions benefit from this knowledge gap because then they can ask for more spending and few, if any, taxpayers and voters know what the figures are or how the money is being used.
This election year, lobbyists in states such as California, Missouri, and New Mexico are asking taxpayers directly to increase spending on K-12 schools through ballot initiatives, claiming schools are underfunded.
Yet spending patterns tell a different story. In each of these three states—and nationwide—public education spending is increasing and has been for many years. Since the 1969-1970 school year, inflation-adjusted spending per child in California and Missouri has nearly tripled, while New Mexico school spending has more than doubled.
How educators use resources is crucial. Missouri’s Show Me Institute, a research and policy organization, recently published a guide on education spending in the state and explains that school budgets are devoting less to instruction and more to noninstructional uses today than a decade ago. Notably, while the number of students in Missouri public schools has been on the decline, there has been a sharp uptick in the number of teachers—and administrative staff, in general. In fact, the number of staff has increased by 44%.
The increase in administrative staff is part of a national trend. Our colleague, Lindsey Burke, testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in 2022 and reported that the number of principals and assistant principals has increased 37% since 2000. The number of school district administrative staff has increased 88%.
Kennesaw State University professor Ben Scafidi studies administrative bloat in K-12 schools and finds that the increase in noninstructional staff over the last 30 years is more than double the size of student enrollment increases. Teachers make up only 48% of the K-12 workforce today.
It’s not news that students are struggling in class, but the price tag on this underperformance is staggering. In California, the fiscal year 2023-2024 K-12 budget was the size of the entire state budgets of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee—combined ($128 billion). Approximately 3 out of 4 students are performing below grade level in core subjects.
Yet special interest groups have introduced a ballot proposal to authorize $10 billion in general obligation bonds for K-12 and community colleges. The bonds are estimated to cost state taxpayers a whopping $500 million per year for 35 years. The Reason Foundation finds that California school districts already have $220 billion in debt and liabilities, the equivalent of $40,000 per current enrolled student.
These spending figures do not account for the substantial influx of federal funding that school districts nationwide received during the COVID-19 pandemic, amounting to $190 billion in additional spending. This was on top of the annual federal funding public school districts also receive. Prior to the pandemic, federal taxpayers provided K-12 schools about $70 billion each year.
As part of the COVID-19 relief packages, California alone was awarded more than $23 billion, Missouri about $3 billion, and New Mexico around $1.5 billion in new federal funds. As of early August 2024, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Education, each of these states still had roughly 10% of funds left to allocate.
Forthcoming research by this op-ed’s co-author, Madison Marino Doan, and Kennesaw State’s Scafidi will reveal that school districts are more financially secure than ever before. Several factors contribute to this, including higher property tax revenues since 2020, which account for nearly half of most school district budgets; healthy cash reserves built up prior to the pandemic to manage economic downturns; the large influx of COVID-19 relief funds, which allowed districts to bolster their reserves and invest in infrastructure projects that reduce future costs; and record-high state “rainy day” funds put on reserve in 2022.
Few Americans know how much taxpayers spend per student in their hometown, nor do they realize the extent of the increase in school district bureaucracy or the massive federal funding districts received during the pandemic. This surplus in funds has not reliably translated into more instruction or improved student achievement. So, before voters decide on whether to increase spending on public schools, they should know where their money is going and whether it’s truly benefiting students in the ways that matter most.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/25/myth-underfunded-public-schools/
*******************************************************NYC Mayor Eric Adams Undermines Harris’s ‘Fascist’ Accusation Against Trump, Makes Call To ‘Dial Down The Temperature’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams differed Saturday with Vice President Kamala Harris’s Wednesday labeling of former President Donald Trump as a fascist.
Adams — together with Deputy Mayor Chauncey Parker, New York City Police Department (NYPD) interim commissioner Tom Donlon and other NYPD leadership — was speaking at a security briefing ahead of former President Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.
Adams, when asked by Politico political reporter Emily Ngo if he believed Trump was fascist, said, “My answer is ‘no.’ I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like.”
Adams then claimed some political leaders in New York City had “hurled” the terms “fascist” and “Hitler” at him as well.
“I think — as I’ve called over and over again — that the level of conversation — I think we could all dial down the temperature,” he said.
“There’s no agency in the world better prepared to ensure the safety of this event than the NYPD,” Parker added.
In response to critics who demanded Trump not hold the rally, Adams said, “I strongly disagree. This is America. This is New York. And I think it’s important to allow individuals to exercise their right to get their message clear to New Yorkers. And our job as a city and as a police department is to make sure that you do that in a peaceful way.
“I think that we must be extremely cautious of— the heat we turn up today, pre-election, is going to have to be the heat we’ll have to govern in,” Adams added.
During a Wednesday presidential town hall event, Harris, when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she thought Trump was a fascist, said, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.”
Harris was referencing Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired General Mark Milley. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Calls Trump ‘Fascist’ In CNN Town Hall)
Kelley called Trump a fascist during recent interviews with The New York Times. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back, saying Kelly had “beclowned” himself. Trump also responded, labeling Milley a “lowlife,” “a total degenerate” and a “bad general,” CBS News reported.
Thirteen former Trump administration officials have openly backed Kelly’s claim, according to Politico.
Milley called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and “a fascist to the core,” according to an upcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. Milley also feared being court-martialed should Trump become president again, the Guardian reported.
Trump had confirmed in early October that his campaign rented the iconic Madison Square Garden for the major rally. The arena previously hosted a number of key political events in U.S. history, according to The Associated Press.
Trump and Adams both attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City on Oct. 17 to benefit charity. As part of the annual event’s lighthearted proceedings, Trump made several jokes about the absent Harris as well as prominent Democrats seated nearby on the dias, including Adams and indictment over bribery charges.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/10/26/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-donald-trump-not-fascist/
***************************************************VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Kamala’s Inane Talking Points
As Vice President Kamala Harris slips in the polls, the Democratic National Committee/Harris campaign/mainstream media fusion talking points become even more absurd.
Claiming that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were “weird” did not work — especially given the genuinely odd behavior of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and would-be First Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Nor was the next Harris meme convincing that the frenetic and non-stop Trump was somehow “exhausted,” “senile” and “confused.” Voters know the workdays of the younger Harris are usually far shorter — or sometimes not workdays at all.
But Harris also falsely claimed the physically and mentally challenged President Joe Biden was, in her words, “absolutely authoritative” and “very bold and vibrant.”
Now Harris asserts that Trump is a “fascist,” a “dictator” and “unfit” for office. But this new talking point will also not stop the Harris campaign’s hemorrhaging — and for a variety of reasons.
First, voters see the election as a conflict of two absolutely antithetical visions.
On the one hand, is the prior Trump 2017-20 concrete record: border security, no major wars abroad, calm in the Middle East, a deterred Russia, Iran and China, low inflation, low interest rates, lower crime, lower taxes, strong deterrent military — and opposition to mandatory electric vehicle mandates, biological males competing in women’s sports and the woke/DEI agenda.
On the other hand, is the Biden-Harris 2021-2024 record: the unchecked entry of 12-20 million illegal aliens and a destroyed border. People still struggle under Biden-Harris’s earlier hyperinflation and high interest rates. The horrific regional wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Biden-Harris embraces the unpopular DEI/Woke agenda.
Harris herself knows that the Biden-Harris years were a failure. That is why she has shed almost all of their hard left-wing agendas — policies she has embraced for much of her adult life.
So suddenly, in the last 90 or so days, Harris has completely flipped and flopped.
Now she is for more of, not defunding, the police. She pivots for a secure border, not 20 million illegal aliens pouring across it. Harris brags about fossil fuel energy, not banning fracking, and for increasing, not cutting, defense.
In fact, several endangered incumbent Democratic senators in swing states are claiming more allegiance to Trump’s issues than identifying with Harris and her unpopular record as vice president.
Voters likely conclude that if Trump doubles down on his record, while even Harris and many senators temporarily piggyback on it, then it must be more effective and popular than Harris’s own.
Second, Harris now claims Trump is a fascist and insurrectionist.
But mouthing ad nausaem “January 6th” no longer persuades voters that Trump is a danger to anyone. They recall that Harris bragged of the far more violent demonstrations of 2020 — at least 25 killed, $2 billion in damage, 1,500 law enforcement officers injured, 14,000 arrested — that the unrest would not and “should not” stop, while drumming up support to bail out jailed violent protestors.
Nor does the slur that Trump is a fascist resonate. The Obama and Biden-Harris administrations weaponized the CIA and FBI to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections by peddling the fake Steele dossier and suppressing all the embarrassing news about Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop.
Trump certainly did not coordinate, as Biden did, with local, state and federal prosecutors to wage lawfare prosecutions to destroy his political opponents. He did not use the FBI to partner with social media to suppress the news.
Neither Trump nor his supporters tried to remove Biden from state ballots.
The Republican House majority did not impeach Biden twice despite the Biden family’s corruption and Joe Biden’s unlawful, decades-long removal of classified papers to several insecure private residences.
Trump and the Republicans never coercively removed the party’s primary-winning nominee. They did not nullify the will of 14 million primary voters. And in backroom fashion, they did not anoint a candidate who had never entered a single primary in her life.
Nor did Trump support packing the Supreme Court. He does not seek unconstitutional means of destroying the Electoral College. He is not demanding an end to the Senate filibuster or the creation of two new states to obtain four partisan senate seats.
Third, as for Trump being “unfit” and lacking “decorum,” it depends on what were the Biden-Harris standards?
Having a trans activist reveal his breasts on camera at a White House “pride party?”
Biden’s reportedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “f—ing a—hole” and “son of a b—ch?” Bragging about locking Trump up, while waging lawfare against him?
Unleashing son Hunter Biden with impunity to shake down foreign governments?
The election will not be decided on these empty talking points or fake media-generated narratives.
Instead, only two criteria matter: Which candidate’s past record and current agenda best appeal to voters? And which candidate seems the most authentic and genuine?
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My main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
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Friday 25 October 2024
Poll: Most Americans Support Requiring Photo ID, Proof of Citizenship to Vote
Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—support both early voting policies as well as photo ID and proof of citizenship requirements for elections, according to a new poll.
Despite the ongoing divide between elected Republicans and Democrats over requiring photo ID to vote, a whopping 86% of Americans support it.
The poll comes just days from the presidential election with voting underway across the country.
Support varied by political party, with 98% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 84% of independents supporting requiring photo ID to vote.
Another 83% of Americans support “requiring people who are registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship.” By party, 96% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 84% of independents agree.
Voter ID hits at the intersection of Republican concerns about election integrity and illegal immigration, which has soared in recent years.
Many Republicans argue that illegal immigrant voting is a major issue and that those voters trend toward Democratic candidates.
Some Democrats have pushed back on voter ID efforts, saying they are an attempt to suppress or discourage certain groups from voting and that illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote. Republicans have pushed back saying Democrat officials have found workarounds to not enforce restrictions on illegal immigrants voting.
“Partisans’ views of most of the election law policies are generally stable; however, Democrats’ and Republicans’ opinions have each shifted significantly on one of them,” Gallup said. “Democrats are now 14 points more likely than they were in 2022 to support requiring photo identification to vote, and Republicans’ current 57% support for early voting—while not significantly different from 2022—is down from 74% in a 2016 survey.”
The poll asked about other election policies as well:
“Smaller majorities of Americans—60% each—favor automatic voter registration, whereby citizens are registered when they do business with state agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, and sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters,” Gallup said. “In contrast, majorities of Americans oppose removing people from voter registration lists if they haven’t voted in any elections in five years (64%) and limiting the number of drop boxes or locations for returning absentee ballots (58%).”
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"Free" Over-the-Counter Birth Control?
The Biden-Harris administration has proposed a rule implementing Obamacare’s controversial contraception mandate—again. Under the proposal announced Monday, certain health insurance plans would be required to cover over-the counter birth control.
The text of the law creating Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, doesn’t explicitly require that plans cover contraceptives, so how did we get here?
What’s the Contraception Mandate?
Obamacare, passed by Congress and signed into law in 2010 by President Barack Obama, requires health insurance companies to cover certain kinds of preventive services with no enrollee cost-sharing. It instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to specify the types of preventive services for women that insurance plans must cover.
In 2011, HHS issued guidelines that insurance plans must include coverage for all contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Plans that already covered millions of women were “grandfathered” and exempted from the requirement to provide preventive services with no cost-sharing. Many of these plans are still in effect today.
The contraception mandate sparked more than a decade of litigation, including famous victories for religious liberty at the Supreme Court for companies such as Hobby Lobby and groups such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns.
Regulations for religious and moral exemptions to HHS’ contraception mandate were strengthened under Obama’s successor, President Donald Trump. Last year, the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris proposed a rule to weaken those exemptions again. That rule has not been finalized yet.
Like the original contraception mandate, this week’s proposal to cover over-the-counter contraception is possible because Congress didn’t actually lay out the nitty-gritty, specific requirements in the text of Obamacare. Policy details were left to the discretion of the executive branch.
Proposed Biden-Harris Change
A press release from the Department of Health and Human Services lays out the gist of the changes.
“[M]ost group health plans and health insurance issuers” must cover over-the-counter methods of birth control such as emergency contraception, condoms, and pills “without cost sharing or requiring a prescription.”
The proposal also requires insurance plans to cover “a broader array” of pills and intrauterine devices, or IUDs, the press release says. Right now, plans must cover only one drug in different categories of contraception methods.
Exactly how this change would be implemented remains to be seen. The Biden-Harris administration is seeking public comment during a 60-day countdown as soon as the proposed rule formally hits the Federal Register. If finalized, the rule would mark another major change for contraception coverage under Obamacare.
Birth Control
The new rule is significant for several reasons. The Food and Drug Administration only recently approved an over-the-counter birth control pill. It’s called OPill and is sold at retailers such as Walgreens, Costco, and Amazon for about $20 per month.
Additional brands will follow suit and seek FDA approval to be sold over the counter. Another brand already has started the process for its drug, Zena.
Not everyone is cheering over-the-counter pills, though.
Beyond altering a woman’s menstrual cycle, birth control pills significantly affect a woman’s hormones. They can have mild to severe side effects—both mentally and psychologically—that vary widely from person to person.
Some experts are understandably concerned that medication that could have such drastic effects on the body would be available without consultation with a doctor. It even would be available to minors without their parent’s knowledge or consent.
Emergency Contraception
The HHS mandate also includes coverage for emergency contraception such as Plan B (levonorgestrel) and Ella (ulipristal acetate).
Until 2022, the label on both medications warned that the drug could prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman’s uterus. For those who believe human life begins at fertilization, this means that these drugs could induce an abortion.
In 2022, the FDA modified the Plan B label to remove this warning, but it remains the case for Ella.
Plan B is available over the counter, but Ella requires a prescription. Under current rules, both Plan B and Ella are covered under Obamacare only if the woman has a prescription.
Under the Biden-Harris proposal, Plan B would be covered if a person purchases it over the counter.
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Why Trump at McDonald’s Matters
This week, Donald Trump set the political world afire with an appearance at a McDonald’s in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
There, he donned the famous McDonald’s apron, cooked up some fries and served customers at a drive-thru window. All the while, he looked like he was enjoying himself thoroughly—which he certainly was. Trump has the momentum, and he knows it.
But it’s more than that.
Whatever Trump’s other failings, at his root, Trump likes people. And not just people of his class or who share his background. He likes dealing with human beings.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to commemorate Oct. 7 with Trump, where he met with the family of an American hostage held by Hamas in Gaza. Trump connected with them on an emotional level. Whether it’s Jewish Americans from New Jersey dealing with the horror and tragedy of having their son held by the world’s most vicious terrorist group or Pennsylvania voters who just want to meet Trump and pick up a Happy Meal, Trump is comfortable with his fellow Americans because he’s unapologetically what he is.
That’s simply not true of Kamala Harris.
Off-script, Harris remains a disaster. Her “60 Minutes” interview with Bill Whitaker was filled with word slaw, spin, and platitudinous drivel. Her Fox News interview with Bret Baier flew completely off the rails, with Harris unable to defend even the most basic decisions by the Biden administration.
She took time off the campaign trail to prepare for an NBC News interview as well as a CNN town hall—events that, for a normal candidate, would require zero prep time in a hotel conference room. Then again, this is the same woman whose staff had to hold a “mock dinner” to prepare her for a dinner with Washington journalists and newsmakers. Axios reported, “Harris aides even considered including wine in the mock prep so Harris could practice with a glass or two.”
What’s more, Harris seems to be a permanent resident of the uncanny valley. She does a mildly credible job of appearing warm and human … but only just. Her interactions always reek of the staged and the manipulated. Every move is calculated—and transparently so. Twelve-time Best Actress nominee Katharine Hepburn once reportedly described Meryl Streep’s acting as too mechanical: “Click, click, click,” she reportedly told biographer Scott Berg, “referring to the wheels turning inside (Streep’s) head.”
That’s Harris with actual, real human beings. And it shows.
Which is why the media have gone apoplectic about Trump’s McDonald’s visit. Trump’s critics pointed out that the McDonald’s was actually formally closed for his visit and claimed that the event was “staged”—a peculiar critique, given that Trump has been the victim of two assassination attempts, and presidential campaigns require places of business to be secured before candidates enter.
The critics even went so far as to attack the local franchise for its health record years ago. The desperation comes from an obvious place: This was a Trump win.
And it was a Trump win because Trump wasn’t pretending. He didn’t don jeans and a T-shirt in order to cosplay as one of the boys, Tim Walz-style. Instead, he showed up in his traditional suit, put on an apron, and started handing out fries and chitchatting with the customers.
It was a moment of authenticity, and it showed as such, compared with the polyester joy presented by the Harris campaign.
Harris can’t shake the fundamental reality that she has been, for decades, a highly stylized political product. Kamala 1.0 was a progressive prosecutor; Kamala 2.0 was a hard-charging prosecutor; Kamala 3.0 was the furthest left member of the U.S. Senate; Kamala 4.0 was a moderate. And Kamala 5.0 is whatever she needs to be at any given moment.
But what she truly needs to be is human. And that’s the problem: She isn’t.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/24/why-trump-mcdonalds-matters/
***********************************************China accuses Australia of ‘systemic racism and hate crimes’ as Xi meets Putin in Russia
The Peace of Westphalia ended a long episode of war. It said that governments should not meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. Regrettable that Australia has not followed that
China has accused Australia of “systemic racism and hate crimes” and “hypocrisy” after an Australian diplomat raised international concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet in the UN.
In some of the sharpest comments launched at Canberra by Beijing during the “stabilisation” era, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Li Jian on Wednesday evening denounced Australia for criticising China publicly.
“Out of their ideological bias, Australia, the US and a handful of other Western countries stoked confrontation at multilateral platforms for their selfish political interest,” said the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, in response to an apparent dorothy dixer by China’s national broadcaster CCTV.
“Australia, long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes, have severely violated the rights of refugees and immigrants, and left Indigenous people with vulnerable living conditions,” the Chinese government spokesman continued.
“Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other countries during their military operations overseas.
“These Western countries turn a blind eye to their severe human rights issues at home but in the meantime point their fingers at other countries. This says a lot about their hypocrisy on human rights,” he said.
Anthony Albanese said Australia had been “clear and consistent” with China in its concerns over Beijing’s human rights abuses.
“We, of course, will always stand up for Australia’s interests. And when it comes to China, we’ve said we’ll cooperate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, and we’ll engage in our national interest” Mr Albanese said at a press conference in Samoa on Thursday.
“And we’ve raised issues of human rights with China. We’ve done that in a consistent and clear way,” the PM said.
Opposition foreign Affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said Australia’s ambassador to the UN had been “factual, balanced and considered”.
“Australia has acknowledged that none of us is perfect on human rights, yet that is what China pretends,” senator Birmingham said.
But he said the government’s words underscored that Foreign Minister Penny Wong had fallen “a long way short of delivering on the tough talk of sanctions” she made before the last election.
The diplomatic tussle comes as President Xi meets with Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, a key plank in their shared efforts to increase China and Russia’s voices in the international system and reduce the clout of America and its allies.
The group’s original members include countries with strategic ties with America, such as India, and countries that are openly hostile to Washington, such as Russia.
Chinese state media has hailed the grouping, which it argues is reshaping the international system to give more clout to marginalised non-Western countries.
China’s official newsagency Xinhua noted that Xi had compared the five original members of the BRICS group, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to the fingers of one hand.
“They are short and long if extended, but form a powerful fist if clenched together,” Xi reportedly said.
China’s fresh diplomatic fight with Australia — redolent of the near daily tirades it launched at the Morrison government for much of 2020 and 2021 — demonstrates the intense struggle that continues below the surface of “stabilisation”, the Albanese government’s euphemism for its modest expectations for relations with Beijing in the Xi era.
China’s president has ordered his diplomats to show “fighting spirit” when their country is criticised.
Earlier this week, Australia’s UN Ambassador James Larsen told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee that Canberra, on behalf of its partners, had urged Beijing to implement all the recommendations made by a UN report into human rights abuses in Xinjiang, home to most of China’s Muslim Uighur population.
The Australian Ambassador noted that rather than meaningfully address the UN’s “well-founded concerns”, China had instead labelled the UN assessment “illegal and void”.
Mr Larsen called on Beijing to allow “unfettered and meaningful” access to Xinjiang and Tibet for independent observers, including from the UN, to evaluate the human rights situation.
“No country has a perfect human rights record, but no country is above fair scrutiny of its human rights obligations,” the Australian diplomat said.
“It is incumbent on all of us not to undermine international human rights commitments that benefit us all, and for which all states are accountable,” he said.
Chinese diplomats were able to blunt the criticism by rounding up countries — almost entirely members of its Belt and Road Initiative — to support its position or withhold support for the Australian motion.
Pakistan, a huge recipient of Chinese financial support, delivered a joint counter statement on behalf of 80 countries that said any issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet were internal matters for China.
Australia’s joint statement was supported by Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the US.
Benjamin Herscovitch, an expert on the bilateral relationship, at Australian National University, said despite the “diplomatic sparring”, both the Australian and Chinese governments would keep prioritising their respective trade and investment agendas.
“This is sharper rhetoric than we usually see from either Canberra or Beijing in the recent stabilisation era. But it’s unlikely to cause serious turbulence in bilateral ties.
“Disagreements over human rights are baked into the Australia-China relationship,” Dr Herscovitch told The Australian.
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Tuesday 22 October 2024
Liz Cheney versus Uncle Donny
For years, I’ve suggested an essential method to deciding who to support for president would be based on who you trusted to run a McDonald’s for a day or watch your children for an afternoon. Perhaps intimidated by the former president’s success at the former measure, Cheney suggested at her event with Vice President Harris this weekend that the latter measure would disqualify Donald Trump — who she endorsed in 2020 — as an unacceptable giver of childcare. “If you wouldn’t hire someone to babysit your kids, don’t make them president,” she said to Harris’s laughter.
Among the valid complaints about Donald Trump, many of which I share, this one makes no sense to me at all. Obviously and to the man’s credit he has one of the best relationships any president in the modern era has had with their children and grandchildren, unmarked by any type of dysfunction except in the fever pitch of online leftists.
The Donald Trump babysitting experience only runs into the danger that he will spoil them to the nth degree, ordering them the giant box of McNuggets with all the sauces, teaching them how to hit wiffle balls off the back porch and giving them free reign to watch every Disney+ movie they want to their heart’s content. You’ll come home from the night out with the wife and find them on a sugar and Moana high demanding that Uncle Donny come back again as soon as possible.
An evening with Liz Cheney, on the other hand, is assured to result in them casting paranoid eyes at mommy and daddy, reversing their audio devices to spy on the other rooms and demanding to know if you’re all paid up on your camera-issued parking tickets. You know they’re important for maintaining roads and bridges, right? Just hope she doesn’t try to teach them how to shoot dart guns, or they’ll put your eye out.
The New York Times’s coverage of Trump’s McDonald’s escapade included throwing an unbelievable amount of shade at him throwing salt over his shoulder, suggesting it was an act of paranoia, waste and failure of efficiency. We’re entering the silly season of 2024 when Democrats and their fellow travelers just start to throw everything at the wall, attempting desperately to achieve some kind of stability as their candidate flails toward a likely loss. A winning campaign at this moment would be focused on the economy, security, stability and defending the rights of women. Instead they’re rolling out Liz Cheney, Usher and Lizzo. Given the choice of those three, I’m definitely going for a different sitter.
https://thespectator.com/topic/condition-let-liz-cheney-babysit-kids/
*************************************************CHOGM: UK Government rules out slavery reparations and apology
THE UK Government has ruled out paying reparations to countries affected by the slave trade or making a formal apology.
Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Samoa later this week, amid calls for reparations from Labour MPs and Caribbean governments.
At the summit, leaders will elect a new secretary general for the Commonwealth to replace Patricia Scotland, who held the position from 2016.
All three candidates in the running have called for reparations for countries which were plundered during the slave trade.
But the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson has ruled out compensatory payments and an apology from the Government.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “Reparation’s not on the agenda for the Chogm meeting.
“The Government’s position on this has not changed, we do not pay reparations.
“The Prime Minister’s attending this week’s summit to discuss shared challenges and opportunities faced by the Commonwealth including driving growth across our economies.”
Asked about an apology, the spokesperson added: “The position on apology remains the same, we won’t be offering an apology at Chogm, but we will continue to engage with partners on the issues as we work with them to tackle the pressing challenges of today and indeed for the future generations.”
Five Labour MPs told The Guardian on Monday that the Government should at least be open to discussing reparations. Among others, Nadia Whittome (above) said the UK must open “up a dialogue with those countries whose wealth we extracted, about the impact of colonialism and slavery on their society and how the wrongs of the past can be righted”.
A Commonwealth spokesperson said: “The Commonwealth has historically facilitated frank conversations about difficult issues that have resulted in positive outcomes. Reparatory justice, which is more than just about reparations, may be discussed at Chogm, if any government proposes it. If so, the heads of government will decide how the discussions will proceed.’
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-government-rules-slavery-reparations-124303778.html?guccounter=1
*****************************************************Elon Musk's ex Grimes sparks debate by claiming she became 'way less gay' after getting pregnant
Elon Musk's ex-girlfriend Grimes sparked a debate on her X/Twitter account Tuesday, proclaiming she felt a shift in her sexuality after she became pregnant.
The Canadian singer-songwriter, 36, put out a statement and a follow-up question on the social media platform now owned by her ex.
'I became way less gay after I was pregnant' said the Flesh Without Blood artist, who shares three children with the Tesla CEO. 'My ability to focus on reading and writing went way up, as did my general creativity, but my ability to focus on technical things went *way* down.'
Grimes asked her 1.3 million followers, 'Is this all explained by hormones?'
The SpaceX CEO and Grimes are parents to four-year-old son X Æ A-12 Musk; three-year-old daughter Exa Dark Sideræl; and son Techno Mechanicus, whose exact age has not been publicly disclosed
The Vancouver native, whose full name is Claire Elise Boucher, answered questions from followers who responded to her initial inquiry.
When a follower said that her gay feelings hinged on 'being in a heterosexual relationship' with a less-agreeable partner, Grimes said in response, 'I feel like that [should] make me more gay tho.'
One user told Grimes that the platform owned and operated by Musk wasn't the best place to get good answers on the topic.
'Ask a doctor, X is not the best place, because you'll get 100 different theories,' the user told Grimes, who said she was 'kinda curious [about] the theories' floating around on the subject.
Grimes noted that she 'was reading [about] grey matter loss but improved neuroplasticity associated [with] pregnancy.'
Grimes said her 'testosterone is way down' after a user suggested she get her testosterone and DHEA levels checked, adding that she planned on following up with the doctor about it.
Asked for clarification on what she meant in saying 'by being less gay,' the musical artist said she was 'just less interested in dating girls.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13990243/elon-musk-ex-grimes-gay-pregnant.html
************************************************Australian councillor says he was forced to fly back to Russia to speak freely
London: A regional West Australian councillor says he has travelled to Russia to speak openly about how free speech is suppressed in Australia and warned he has been persecuted for his views on Vladimir Putin, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adrian McRae, a member of Port Hedland Council, doubled down on his praise for “Russian democracy” ahead of the three-day BRICS summit in Kazan, a city in south-west Russia, telling journalists he has been slurred as being “pro-Putin” for questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and for praising the Russian electoral system.
McRae, who contested the last federal election as a candidate for The Great Australian Party, founded by former WA senator and conspiracy theorist Rod Culleton, in the seat of Durack, previously travelled to Moscow in March to act as an independent observer for the presidential election.
“The reason we are at 11.59pm on the nuclear military conflict clock, it’s primarily because ... if the world understood what you know, those of us who dare to look outside the mainstream narrative for information,” McRae told journalists on Tuesday.
“If the world understood both sides of the conflict in Ukraine ... and they were able to talk openly and discuss it, then the decency of, I think people all over the world, would not allow their governments to get away with the nonsense narratives that were constantly being spoon-fed through our television sets.”
McRae, whose comments have previously been condemned by Australia’s Ukrainian community and WA Premier Roger Cook, said he had been turned into a villain by Australia’s mainstream media for airing his “informed” opinions, as well for his recent successful council motion, which urged authorities nationwide to immediately stop the use of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The motion passed by the town’s council, based around 1800 kilometres north of Perth, was centred on an unverified study from Canada in 2023 which found “high levels of residual plasmid DNA present in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 modified mRNA vaccine”.
“The fact that we no longer have any sort of semblance of free speech in our country – I have to come here to Russia to talk in a mainstream way because such a thing will never be permitted in Australia,” McRae said.
“Again, the usual smear is I’m pro-Putin, in the hope that this slur will be enough to make anything that I say across Australia be viewed as some sort of conspiracy or lie, which is quite frightening.”
He said he’d previously travelled to Russia with preconceived media-driven notions about the country and was embarrassed to say that everything he saw “left any democratic and election process that I’ve seen, certainly in my country or anywhere in the West, it in its wake”.
McRae’s latest comments were widely shared on several pro-Russian channels on social media following a weekend interview on Sputnik News, where he applauded Russian state-owned media organisations for “giving an alternate voice”.
Along with John Shipton, the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, McRae has travelled as a guest to the summit, the biggest gathering of foreign leaders in Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
BRICS is an alliance started by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The meeting comes 19 months after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges.
In the same weekend interview McRae quoted Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi political theorist, while attacking mainstream media reporting on the recent Russian election. The comments were first reported by the North West Telegraph.
“I think it was the German philosopher that said: ‘You have to have an enemy figure to create a cohesive society’. And of course, the enemy figure at the moment in the Australian media, in the Australian narrative is Russia,” he said.
In a social media post following his interview, McRae wrote that he was unsurprised the Australian media was acquainted with Schmitt’s work, since it had applied Schmitt’s “Friend & Foe” theories in “a desperate attempt to destroy my reputation”.
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Monday 21 October 2024
London Police Officer Who Shot Dead Black Man Found Not Guilty of Murder. Why Was He Ever Charged?
A police officer who shot dead black man Chris Kaba in south London after he tried to ram his way out of a police roadblock has been cleared of his murder.
Martyn Blake, a Scotland Yard armed officer, fired a single shot through the windscreen of Chris Kaba’s Audi Q8 killing him, when he tried to escape after being stopped by police in Streatham on the evening of September 5th 2022.
While Kaba’s identity was not known at the time, the vehicle had been linked to two previous firearms incidents including a shooting outside a primary school the night before.
Despite this Mr. Blake, 40, who had an unblemished record with the Metropolitan Police, was charged with murder with prosecutors claiming his actions had not been “reasonably justified”.
The decision to charge him followed a lengthy investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
However following a three week trial at the Old Bailey a jury took three hours to find him not guilty of murder.
The verdict was greeted with relief by Mr. Blake’s colleagues, friends and family, but will lead to inevitable questions about why he was ever charged in the first place.
Despite being cleared of the criminal charge, Mr. Blake could still have to face a gross misconduct hearing which could result in him being sacked.
Mr. Blake told jurors he genuinely feared for the lives of his colleagues, when Kaba attempted to ram his way through a roadblock in a residential street.
He also told jurors he had not intended to kill Kaba but had simply wanted to stop the car driving at his colleagues.
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Scotland Says There Are 24 Genders
Scotland’s SNP Government has said there are 24 genders in a list of options attached to official guidance for data collection bodies.
Scotland’s SNP Government has been branded “disconnected from the real world” after allowing people to choose their gender from a list with 24 options.
Trans people in the country can choose from options including some more mainstream options like “trans man”, “trans woman”, “genderfluid” and “androgynous”.
But among the two dozen options are other terms like “questioning”, where they do not yet know what gender they are, and “autigender” which is described as “an autistic person (who) thinks about and relates to their gender label… in the context of autism”.
The list was attached last week to guidance for public bodies in Scotland who collect data on sex and gender. It allows them to classify freehand answers given to questions about trans status.
But it comes after First Minister John Swinney in July confirmed there were only two genders.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/21/snp-says-there-are-24-genders/
****************************************Australia: Big demand for State selective schools
More than 200 parents a year try to convince the Education Department their child deserves a place in a selective school despite failing to meet the increasingly high entry standard.
Analysts say the proliferation of tutoring and coaching colleges is giving parents false hope and misguided notions about how talented their child is.
The department does not accept appeals if they are based on grounds that should be made through the illness and misadventure process. They can, however, include “what happened to prevent your child from doing his or her best” in the test and supply evidence to support their bid. Parents can also pay $40 to have the writing section remarked, but appeals to remark multiple choice responses are not accepted by the department.
This year, 279 parents have so far requested a review of the outcome for the selective skills test, up from 246 results that were challenged by parents last year. Of those, only eight had their outcome changed.
Competition for selective schools has grown sharply, with more than 18,500 children applying for 4200 spots in fully or partially selective schools for entry next year.
Australian Tutoring Association chief executive Mohan Dhall said the promises made by coaching colleges were leaving parents with unrealistic expectations of gaining entry.
“You have parents who are vulnerable because there are a limited number of places in a highly competitive system and businesses who present themselves as authorities,” he said.
“They call themselves the selective school experts. They amplify it by saying things like: ‘90 per cent of our students got into these schools’. I can understand why vulnerable parents might think, ‘I trust these people more than the Department of Education’.
Coaching colleges target selective students and ‘undermine’ HSC
“With only 3 per cent of students successfully getting a variation in outcome – it says parents should accept the mark they’re given and not query the department. Instead, they should query the commercial coaching colleges.”
Unlike regular public high schools, selective high schools do not have catchments and some students travel two hours to get there. That includes students from Sydney catching the train to get to selective school Gosford High on the Central Coast.
Central Coast Council of P&Cs president Sharryn Brownlee said parents met earlier in the year to discuss the issue of local children being unable to go to Gosford High.
“The reason the meeting was held was because of the population growth on the Central Coast since the pandemic and that the local children are denied the opportunity to go there,” she said.
“We are calling for the Department of Education to have a realistic catchment so students do not spend their whole time commuting,” Brownlee said.
She also said travelling for hours on the train each day was not fair on students who were disconnected from the local school community.
University of NSW gifted education expert Professor Jae Jung said the department should consider adding more places in selective schools in some circumstances.
“If it is obvious that gifted students cannot access a selective school in some areas due to population growth, and this is reflected in a substantial increase to the number of applications to selective schools in these areas, the department should consider increasing the number of places at selective schools,” he said.
“I think that’s a responsible thing to do. There continues to be a huge demand for selective schools, and they play an important role in supporting many gifted students.”
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Katter's Australian Party candidates campaign for corporal punishment
The Katter's Australian Party (KAP) is calling for a return to physical discipline such as the cane as the party seeks to increase its vote share in Queensland Parliament.
The conservative-leaning party holds four seats in the north of the state and is campaigning on a tough-on-crime policy ahead of the October 26 election.
In a video posted to Facebook, KAP candidate for Townsville Margie Ryder asked followers if they knew anyone whose parents had disciplined them with a jug cord.
"Well, I do, and he turned out wonderful. So good I married him," Ms Ryder said. "The fact of the matter is parents have lost their rights to discipline their children. "Some kids need a smack, a kick up the arse, a ruler or even a hug."
The former Townsville City councillor, who lost her seat at the March 26 local election, went on to say she had met a mother who had been reported to the Department of Child Safety for giving her 14-year-old daughter "a kick up the arse".
Reuben Richardson, the KAP candidate for the seat of Thuringowa based in Townsville's northern suburbs, posted a video with a similar message.
"When I was young there was a healthy fear of doing the wrong thing. You never wanted to go to the principal's office as the cane was always in the back of your mind," Mr Richardson said.
"Did student behaviour deteriorate when we got rid of the cane?"
The cane, wooden spoon, belts, and other threats such as the cord from the kitchen jug were used against children in homes and schools last century.
Corporal punishment was abolished in Queensland state schools in 1995.
It remains lawful under the Criminal Code for Queensland parents to use "reasonable" physical punishment to discipline their children.
When asked if he condoned the use of the jug cord or the cane on children, party leader and Member for Traeger Robbie Katter said: "I condone parents doing whatever they have to do to discipline their kids."
"That can come in any form, you can throw all sorts of examples, you can say a samurai sword, look I don't know.
"I'm not prepared to say what is good and what is bad."
Mr Katter said the corporal punishment policy was borne out of youth crime issues and feedback from First Nations communities.
"Most of the elders in the community will tell you: 'We lost control a long time ago when we lost the right to smack our kids'," he said.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have rejected claims the policy is coming from the grassroots community.
Townsville youth intervention program manager and elder Aunty Irene Leard said she worked with five traditional owner groups and rejected suggestions Indigenous communities wanted a return to corporal punishment.
"The cane, the jug cord, the belt, that is going to cause more issues because you're introducing violence to these young people," Aunty Irene said.
"Back in the day I got the belt, but we're a different society now. It is not going to work.
"You're actually setting the scene, again, for generations to hit kids whenever they feel frustration."
'Irresponsible' policy
University of Queensland associate professor in social sciences Renee Zahnow said videos promoting corporal punishment were irresponsible and could encourage a "small minority" of parents who take punishment too far.
"We have a responsibility to young people and it is not to teach them through physical abuse," Dr Zahnow said.
She said hurting children teaches them that violence is acceptable and it can cause long-term mental health issues.
KAP member for Mirani Stephen Andrew said he wanted the government to consider returning corporal punishment to Queensland state schools.
Candidates for Cook and Mulgrave, police officer Duane Amos and high school teacher Steven Lesina, also pledged their support for physical discipline.
What is allowed in Queensland?
Most non-government schools across Australia banned corporal punishment more than two decades ago.
Independent Schools Queensland said corporal punishment was not used in the sector.
Mr Katter said the government should not have any say in domestic discipline.
"With words like 'reasonableness' there is an element of subjectivity," he said.
"It's not for the government to prescribe how [parents] should be disciplining their kids.
"They don't need to be double-thinking that they could be reported to child safety."
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21 October, 2024
Good riddance to Sinwar. Now, we brace for what happens next
One of the most remarkable things about the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is the somewhat unremarkable way in which he was found. After a year-long hunt for the October 7 mastermind involving advanced warfare technology, US intelligence and the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, in the end, IDF troops seem to have accidentally stumbled on the terrorist kingpin sitting in a dust-covered armchair in a shelled building.
While Sinwar was suspected to be in the area, it seems the 828th Battalion was not aware of the identity of the man in the chair when they opened tank fire on the Rafah apartment block. It was only after the troops inspected the body, and DNA testing and dental record matching had taken place, that Israel was able to confirm that Sinwar had been killed in the strike.
This is cause for celebration in Israel, and around the world. No decent person will mourn his loss.
As The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes today, it is impossible to exaggerate the significance of Sinwar’s demise. “It creates the possibility not only of ending the Israel-Hamas war, returning Israeli hostages and bringing relief to the people of the Gaza Strip,” Friedman says. “It creates the possibility for the biggest step toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians since Oslo, as well as normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia – which means pretty much the entire Muslim world.”
But, Friedman argues, there’s a catch.
“The death of Sinwar alone is not the sufficient condition to end this war and put Israelis and Palestinians on a pathway to a better future,” he writes. “Yes, Sinwar and Hamas always rejected a two-state solution and were committed to the violent destruction of the Jewish state. No one paid a bigger price for that than the Palestinians living in Gaza. But while his death was necessary for a next step to be possible, it was never going to be everything.
“The sufficient condition is that Israel has a leader and a governing coalition ready to step up to the opportunity Sinwar’s death has created.”
US President Joe Biden certainly agrees this should represent a before-and-after moment. “Now’s the time to move on,” he told reporters. “Move on, move towards a ceasefire in Gaza, make sure that we are moving in a direction that we’re going to be able to make things better for the whole world. It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was singing from the same song sheet, calling Sinwar an enemy of peace-loving people everywhere. “His death is a significant moment and can be a vital turning point in this devastating conflict.”
I’m not so sure whether any of this will change the trajectory of the war in the Middle East, at least in the short term. Israel is yet to launch a retaliatory strike for Tehran’s firing of 200 ballistic missiles at the start of this month; IDF troops and Hezbollah terrorists are still fighting in southern Lebanon; and the Sinwar killing shows that Hamas operatives continue to hide out in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave no indication that the war would end. “Today we have settled the score. Today evil has been dealt a blow but our task has still not been completed,” he said in a recorded video statement. “To the dear hostage families, I say: this is an important moment in the war. We will continue full force until all your loved ones, our loved ones, are home.”
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Texas Attorney General Charges Doctor With Violating Law Against Irreversible Transgender Procedures for Kids
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a doctor for allegedly providing irreversible transgender medical procedures to 21 minors.
A Texas law, which took effect in September 2023, prohibits experimental transgender medical interventions for children, including such as surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapy.
The Office of the Attorney General of Texas says it obtained evidence revealing that Dr. May Chi Lau illegally provided sex-change hormones to 21 minors for the purpose of “transitioning” the children. The doctor allegedly used false diagnoses and billing codes to mask these unlawful prescriptions, according to Paxton’s news release.
Lau is the medical director of the adolescent and young adult clinic at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Paxton’s lawsuit, filed Thursday, marks the first time a state attorney general has sued an individual doctor over transgender procedures for minors, NBC News reported.
“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous, unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Children’s Medical Center Dallas is one of 225 hospitals and health care facilities that have provided irreversible transgender procedures to children, according to medical watchdog Do No Harm’s database.
Children’s Medical Center Dallas, where Lau practices, had 49 sex-change patients and wrote 361 prescriptions for hormones and puberty blockers before the Texas law banning transgender procedures for children passed.
An adolescent medicine specialist, Lau is a co-author of several papers on child gender dysphoria, including “Transition from Pediatric to Adult Care for Transgender Youth: A Qualitative Study of Patient, Parent, and Provider Perspectives”; “Developing a Curriculum on Transgender Health Care for Physician Assistant Students”; and “Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy in Cystic Fibrosis: A Case of New Pseudomonas Infection.”
Lau’s profile on the Children’s Medical Center Dallas website said she “particularly enjoys” helping patients though “various adolescent issues.”
“Adolescents have their parents to guide them during these sometimes-tough years, and as an adolescent medicine physician, Dr. Lau endeavors to assist parents in this process as adolescents and parents face the most difficult issues,” her biography says.
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UK: New teachers plan to give children as young as five lessons on colonialism, slavery and the 'lasting impact of imperialism'
Trainee teachers plan to give lessons to children as young as five on 'colonialism, slavery and the lasting impact of imperialism' – as the woke agenda spreads from universities to schools.
The new generation shows strong support for teaching which 'challenges the long-standing dominance of Eurocentric and colonialist perspectives'.
They also believe that Christianity should not be the priority in RE, according to a survey.
Nearly 250 trainees were questioned about their understanding of and backing for decolonising the primary curriculum.
In history lessons – which generally consist of the Egyptians, The Great Fire of London and the Ancient Romans – 97 per cent of trainees supported a move 'beyond a Western-centric focus' which breaks down the 'Eurocentric biases' and covers 'historically oppressed groups'.
In geography lessons, traditionally taken up with weather patterns, volcanoes, continents and capitals, the new view is to highlight the complexities of societies beyond Europe.
Just 34 per cent agreed with putting the highest priority in RE on Christianity, but 84 per cent prefer the diversity of religious expression and resisting norms.
The research, by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, was published in the latest edition of the International Journal of Social Policy & Education.
In contrast, a poll by the Policy Exchange think-tank suggests most communities, whatever their racial makeup, do not support decolonising of the curriculum.
Its survey of 3,400 adults revealed that all ethnic minority groups view Britain as a positive force throughout history and 'emphatically reject the view of some white progressives that it is wrong or racist' to be taught to be proud of British history.
Ethnic minorities polled were as proud as any other demographic of Britain's role in the world wars, Magna Carta, the industrial revolution and the abolition of the slave trade.
A minority of trainee teachers were concerned that it could destabilise pupils' understanding of their cultural heritage.
But critics said children were being indoctrinated by an agenda that reduces complex and nuanced humanities topics to 'goodie and baddies'. Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'It is no wonder that there is a teacher shortage.
'Education "thought police" are the new witch-finder-generals, silencing those who do not conform to a woke ideology that labels
Britain as forever stained by the original sin of colonialism and general wickedness.'
Professor Dennis Hayes, of Academics for Academic Freedom, said: 'Decolonisation is a codeword for an elite attack on contemporary British culture and values by waging a war on the past. It shows contempt for ordinary people's loyalty to family, community and country.'
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Australia: Methodist Ladies College students forced to remove their 'cross' over fears they will offend
Girls at a prestigious church-founded private school claim they've been ordered to take off Christian crosses because they offend classmates.
Year 12 students at Melbourne's Methodist Ladies College (MLC) in the affluent eastern suburb of Kew claim that students are allowed to wear furry ears, tails and rainbow-themed pride items but not crosses signalling their Christian faith.
An unnamed student told the Herald Sun that the school was practising 'religious discrimination' because teachers were asking those who had them as jewellery to take them off when other students complain they are offensive to non-Christians'.
'My friend was wearing a cross and there was another girl in our class who said she found the cross really offensive and so the teacher told her to take it off,' she told the publication.
'My friend's parents, who are very religious, tried to get answers from the school and were told 'it's not a good look for the school'.
'This is supposed to be a religious school but they are listening to minority opinion rather than mainstream religious students.'
Students who wear Christian crosses have reportedly asked put them on longer chain so they are not visible, but students says they are being told to take them off.
Methodist Ladies College, which charges close to $39,000 in fees for a Year 12 student and an extra 36,000 to board, has strict uniform requirements and does not allow make-up, jewellery or untied long hair.
The school is also very strict on inappropriate dress lengths and non-approved clothing.
A school spokesperson told the Herald Sun they were 'deeply committed to fostering a culture of inclusion, respect, and diversity'.
'Our Christian heritage serves as a foundation for welcoming individuals of all faiths, cultures, and backgrounds, fostering an environment where every student is supported in expressing their identity and beliefs,' the spokesperson said.
'Regarding religious jewellery, such as cross necklaces, the College's uniform policy supports consistent presentation among students while respecting individual beliefs.
Parents pay thousands in school fees for their daughters to attend Methodist Ladies College
'We apply all policies with care and sensitivity, ensuring that individual beliefs are respected while supporting our shared identity through the MLC uniform.'
In August 2022, it was reported a year eight student attending a private girls' school in Melbourne was being allowed to 'identify as a cat'.
'No one seems to have a protocol for students identifying as animals, but the approach has been that if it doesn't disrupt the school, everyone is being supportive,' a source close to the family told the Herald Sun.
The school did not confirm this but said they were 'dealing with a range of psychological issues'.
In a statement, the school said students were presenting 'with a range of issues, from mental health, anxiety or identity issues'.
'As a non-denominational and multicultural college, we value diversity and broad expressions of achievement,' the school website states.
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