It Is Hard Enough

Transitioning is hard enough with an accepting family but what happens when your father rejects you and he is famous?

Elon Musk's transgender daughter, in first interview, says he berated her for being queer as a child
In an exclusive interview, Vivian Jenna Wilson said her father’s recent statements, including that she is “not a girl,” inspired her to speak out: “I’m not just gonna let that slide.”
NBC News
By David Ingram
July 25, 2024

Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first interview that he was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.

Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead,” and he alleged that he had been “tricked” into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for her when she was 16.

Wilson said that Musk hadn’t been tricked and that, after initially having hesitated, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required consent from her parents.

It is so hard to come out to your parents but when one parent is totally against her transition it must be doubly hard. It must complicate things when your father believes in authoritarianism.

Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present.

“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”

Macho man, macho man…

Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.

“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,” she said. “It was cruel.

The Washington Posts reports that,

In an interview with Jordan Peterson, Musk alleged he had been “tricked” into approving gender-affirming care for Wilson at 16 and had subsequently “lost” his son. The experience, he said, made him an ardent opponent of gender-affirming care and fueled his quest to “destroy the woke mind virus.”

On X after the interview, Musk said that his child was born “gay and slightly autistic” and claimed these traits “contribute to gender dysphoria.” Wilson shot back soon after on Threads, dismissing her father’s characterization of her childhood as “entirely fake.” She criticized him for peddling harmful stereotypes about trans and queer people in “an attempt to garner sympathy points.”

“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” the 20-year-old said in one post. And when her father was present, Wilson said, he “relentlessly harassed” her for her “femininity and queerness.”

[…]

The dispute marks a rare public spat between Wilson and Musk, whose frustrations over her transition have been central to his well-documented rightward political shift. In recent years, Musk has been embraced by prominent conservatives such as Tucker Carlson, spoken out against corporate diversity initiatives and amplified right-wing commentators on social media.

That political shift apparently cemented this month, when Musk endorsed former president Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

I believe that Ms. Wilson doesn’t want all this publicity, that it is all her father’s doing, I believe that he hates us so much that he is willing to drag her though the political mud storm. Contrary to popular belief about starting Tesla from scratch the U.K. news outlet Independent writes,

“We went to this guy’s prefab and he opened his safe and there was just stacks of money and he paid me out, £80,000, it was a huge amount of money,” Errol Musk [Elon’s farther] said, according to Business Insider. Errol Musk was then made another offer: to spend £40,000 on an emerald mine. “I said, ‘Oh, all right’. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years,” Errol Musk said.

As a result of this, the teenage Elon Musk once walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His father said: “We were very wealthy. We had so much money at times we couldn’t even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there’d still be all these notes sticking out and we’d sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.”

Money makes money and having $22 million in seed money helps a lot…

It was Confinity’s own money-transfer service, PayPal, that became the official title for the banking venture - but eventually Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO in 2000 and PayPal was bought by eBay in 2002. Musk, as the largest shareholder in the company, received over $100 million, with reports saying the full figure is somewhere between $165 and $180 million.

With all this wealth it doesn’t guarantee that he would not be an A**hole. NBC Today writes about her brothers and sisters,

Musk wears many different hats, and in addition to the above, he’s also a father of 11 children that he's had with three different women.

The X owner shares three kids with the musician Grimes, twins with tech executive Shivon Zilis and five children, a set of twins and triplets, with his ex-wife, Justine Wilson.

“He believes that people should have many more children,” author Walter Isaacson, who published both a biography and Time magazine cover story about Musk in September 2023, said while appearing on TODAY Sept. 11, 2023. Isaacson added that Musk "wants to have a lot of children.”

No wonder why he likes Trump, they both came from the same mold… super rich fathers, they both  objectify and sexualize women. Both have a history of making disparaging remarks about women, and both faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Two peas on a pod.

I wish Ms. Wilson all the best, she has a parent who will spend unlimited money against her because of hate.

A Long Shot…

But worth the try. A trans woman was fired at the Christian Liberty University and she is suing.

ACLU of Virginia sues Liberty University for firing transgender employee
Virginia Mercury
By: Nathaniel Cline
July 30, 2024

Liberty University, a private institution in Lynchburg, is facing a lawsuit for allegedly firing an employee after she disclosed her identity as a trans woman.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia announced that it and the law firm Butler Curwood filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ellenor Zinski, who they claim was fired in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Liberty University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“No one should be fired because of who they are — but Liberty University made it clear that’s exactly why it fired Ellenor,” said Wyatt Rolla, the ACLU of Virginia’s senior transgender rights attorney, in a statement. “Workplace discrimination against transgender people is against the law, and it’s especially telling that Liberty University sees a practicing Christian’s gender identity as so antithetical to its mission that it was willing to flout the law in order to cast out one of its own.”

There is a “Yeah but…” in there, the university writes,

Liberty University is a Christian college that aligns with the evangelical tradition…

Right there is the monkey wrench that is going to gum up the legal proceedings, it is their "Get out of jail free" card with this Supreme Court.

According to the ACLU, Zinski was hired to work at Liberty’s IT Helpdesk last year and received a positive review from her supervisor. Three months after being hired, her supervisor told Zinski that her performance was above average and she was “on the path to success.”

However, things started to change after she notified the university’s Human Resources Department that she identifies as a trans woman and planned to change her name legally.

[...]

Officials read a termination notice aloud, citing “denying biological and chromosomal sex assigned at birth” as the basis for her termination, stating a conflict with Liberty’s Doctrinal Statement that names “denial of birth sex by self-identification with a different gender” as a “sinful act prohibited by God.”

They have said the magic words that allows them to ignore the law and have special rights to discriminate “sinful act prohibited by God.”

“The first time anyone ever told me God made me this way was at Trinity Episcopal Church,” said Ellenor Zinski. “Christianity has been so weaponized against the LGBTQ community, but there doesn’t need to be a conflict: You can be transgender and Christian. I am.”

Good luck! Their “religious freedom” trumps our “religious freedom” with Trump’s Supreme Court.

Sadly Trump's Team Is Bring in Racism.

The Trump team is getting desperate and is using its trump card to rally their masses…

Trump attacks Kamala Harris’ racial identity at Black journalism convention
NPR
By Stephen Fowler.
July 31, 2024

Former President Donald Trump made inflammatory remarks about Vice President Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists convention Wednesday, questioning her biracial background.

Harris is Black and Indian American. When asked if he agreed with comments from some Republicans who claim Harris has political power because of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Trump falsely suggested Harris has changed how she discussed her racial identity.

“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?"

The question is how low will the Trump team go?

Trump’s Racist Attacks on Kamala Harris Are Part of a Larger, Unhinged Plan
Team Trump believes questioning Harris’ racial identity is smart politics — and is behind him “100 percent,” says a person close to Trump
Rolling Stone
By Asawin Suebsaeng, Andrew Perez
August 2, 2024

Donald Trump’s comments on Wednesday questioning whether Vice President Kamala Harris is Black were not an off-the-cuff expression of racism, but part of a broader campaign strategy that Trump and many of his key lieutenants plan to make a heavy focus of their final three-month sprint to retake the White House.

Asked on Wednesday about Republicans accusing Harris of being a “DEI hire” or “DEI candidate,” Trump responded by questioning Harris’ racial identity. “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” he said, adding: “She made a turn, and she became a Black person, and I think somebody should look into that.”

The Cut writes,

On Thursday, Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance defended Trump’s false comments about Kamala Harris’s biracial identity, saying the former president was merely pointing out “the fundamental chameleon-like nature of Kamala Harris.”

“All he said is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon,” Vance — who has three biracial children — told reporters from the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. He also said that Harris “presents to be somebody different, depending on which audience she’s in front of. I think it’s totally reasonable for the president to call that out.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Vance is making his own racist comments…

Vance trolls Harris at Air Force Two
The Hill
By Yash Roy
August 7, 2024

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) approached Air Force Two “to check out” the plane after both he and Vice President Harris landed at the same airport in Wisconsin.

When he told gathered press what he was doing, Vance also attacked Harris for not answering questions from the media.

“I figured that I would come by and get a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months,” Vance said in front of Air Force Two. “I also thought you guys may get lonely, because the VP doesn’t answer questions from reporters.”

[…]

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) also weighed in on Vance’s decision to approach Air Force Two, making a dig about the size of Vance’s crowds at rallies. She quote-posted Vance’s post of a photo of him walking away from Harris’s plane with about a dozen people.

“Looks like @JDVance brought all his rally attendees to the airport with him today,” she wrote.

But if that wasn’t crazy enough they then makes a racist comment about how the plane smells.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, also weighed in on Vance’s appearance before Air Force Two, responding to Vance’s post on social platform X, saying, “Make sure AF2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what Kamala Harris and her team have done on there.”

“The smell alone on that plane must be crazy,” Cheung added.

Sen. Vance when after Harris’ VP pick military service record, the British newspaper reports…

JD Vance attacks Tim Walz’s military record as election race heats up
Vance, who served as a correspondent in the marines, accused Walz of ‘stolen valor garbage’
The Guardian
By Martin Pengelly
7 Aug 2024

JD Vance went on the offensive on Wednesday, attacking the military record of Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick.

Speaking in Michigan, Donald Trump’s Republican running mate said: “You know what really bothers me about Tim Walz? When the United States Marine Corps … asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do and I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of that service.

“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Now a US senator from Ohio, Vance, 40, deployed to Iraq in 2005, as a military journalist. Despite his title – combat correspondent – he did not experience combat.

Walz, 60, was in the army national guard for 24 years, in infantry and artillery, deploying in response to natural disasters on US soil and to Europe in support of operations in Afghanistan. He retired in 2005, to run for Congress, shortly before his unit deployed to Iraq.

And this is from a candidate whose party nominee for president is know as “Mr. Bone spurs”!

An article in Newsweek reports pushback from veterans,

Ohio Senator JD Vance has been criticized by veterans after he attacked the military record of Tim Walz, the recently announced running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris.

[...]

Retired lieutenant general Mark Hertling, a former commander of American ground forces in Europe, posted on X: "It's unbecoming and unprofessional for anyone—especially veterans—to openly disparage anyone who has served in uniform.

"I'm personally very thankful for all who have worn the cloth of our country—for any amount of time—and who have served in our professional force."

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut who was on the shortlist to be named Harris' running mate, posted: "Hey JD Vance, did you forget what the USMC taught you about respect?

Politico write about Vance’s attack on Walz’s service record…

Vance runs a Swift Boat attack against Walz’s military service

The broadside is similar to the campaign to discredit 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry over his Vietnam service.
By By Jared Mitovich, Meridith McGraw and Connor O’Brien
August 7, 2024


Ohio Sen. JD Vance slammed the timing of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s retirement from a more-than-two-decades-long military career as a means of avoiding a deployment to Iraq on Wednesday, calling it “stolen valor garbage” and testing a new line of attack on the newly minted Democratic vice presidential contender.

There is no evidence that Walz retired to avoid a wartime deployment, and it’s a move that may not work — Walz has faced similar attacks from opponents before during successful races for Congress and governor, in which he explained his Army record in detail but did not make it a central part of his campaign.

The Republicans are desperate, they are throwing lies against the wall to see what sticks.

“He has not spent a day in a combat zone,” Vance, who deployed to Iraq as a combat correspondent in the Marines but did not experience combat, told reporters at a campaign event in Michigan on Wednesday. “Do not pretend to be something that you’re not … I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”

They are treading on thin ground because Trump avoided the Vietnam war draft by claiming he had bone spurs!

ABC News writes,

The Harris-Walz campaign issued a statement saying that "in his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American's service to this country -- in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It's the American way."

[…]

By 2005, Tim Walz had logged 24 years with the Army National Guard and earned the rank of command sergeant major -- the highest enlisted rank for his unit and one with considerable responsibility.

[…]

According to records by the National Guard, the 1st Battalion of the 125th Field Artillery received an alert order on July 14, 2005, – two months after Walz retired. The mobilization order came in August and the unit mobilized in October.

Then we have an article in USA Today...

JD Vance endorsed a book calling far-left 'unhumans,' and praising fascist dictators

By Josh Meyer

August 8, 2024

Before he was tapped as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, enthusiastically endorsed a new book by a far-right conspiracy theorist that praises fascist dictators for violently suppressing leftists − or, as the book calls them, "unhumans."

Vance was one of several prominent conservatives to blurb the book, which links current American progressives to past communists and other “unhumans” that need to be “crushed” by any means necessary.

“In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people,” Vance says in a blurb on the back cover of “Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them).”

“In Unhumans,” Vance adds, authors “Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.”

Posobiec, an influential Trump supporter, rose to MAGA-world fame in 2016 by advancing conspiracy theories including "PizzaGate" which falsely claimed Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor that led to a man storming the restaurant with an assault rifle.

GLUB, glub, glub.

These "unhumans" need to be suppressed by those willing to emulate right-wing dictators like Spain’s Francisco Franco, they write.

After overthrowing Spain's democratically elected republic in 1936, Franco and his far-right Nationalists instituted martial law. During the ensuing Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists sent more than 500,000 people to concentration camps and executed another 100,000 persons. After the war ended, during Franco's subsequent dictatorship, they killed another 50,000, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

He is going down for the count!

It’s getting worse for JD Vance

A half-dozen polls in recent weeks have shown his already-underwhelming image deteriorating. And they suggest his past comments about childless women aren’t helping.

The Washington Post

by Aaron Blake

August 7, 2024

Two weeks ago, I noted that the early signs for JD Vance as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee were not encouraging. He was a historically unpopular running mate. The polls seemed to confirm what was already evident: He wasn’t a particularly voter-friendly pick, dating back to an underperforming 2022 Ohio Senate campaign in which every other Republican running for statewide office did better in their races.

The signs since then have only gotten worse.

A half-dozen polls have now tested views of Vance more than once in the last few weeks. In each of them, his already-underwhelming image ratings have deteriorated — sometimes significantly.

And crucially, his struggles appear particularly pronounced among educated voters and women. That would suggest that his derisive past comments about childless women are indeed proving to be liabilities.

But first, the big picture. Vance’s net favorable rating (favorable vs. unfavorable) is now nine points underwater in the FiveThirtyEight average. That’s a marked contrast to other recent running mates, who have generally polled in popular territory.

I have to wonder if Trump will go down with the ship or if he will jump ship to another VP?

I think that this whole strategy of racism and lies plays great for the far right-base and the more desperate they get the more mud they sling the more they turn off the American people, they are digging their own grave.

My prediction: the Republicans will get a big dose of reality with VP Harris and Dalz win with over 60% and they will win back Congress and flip some states. It will be women votes and 18 to 30 year old voters will bring in the victory. However, we can't sit on our laurels, we must vote!

But I am worried, I’m concerned that as they go down in defeat they will be grasping at straws and it could get violent… he did it once and he can do it again.

 

I'm voting Blue for the the Harris Waltz... I'm voting for the Harris/Walz team they are going to waltz into the White House.

Some Thoughts -- Reprint

Reprint: November 2, 2014

I have company at the cottage so I reprinted th1s article.

[rant]
You’re so brave.
How many times have I heard that! I know they mean well but it is not being brave unless you consider doing what you have no choice it doing brave. I didn’t have any choice I saw my life going nowhere, I didn’t see any future except to continue to live my life in misery. I made a choice to live not because I’m brave but because I wanted to live.

Lifestyle.
Driving around in a convertible sports car in a polo shirt and white shorts with a tennis racket in the back seat is a “life style.” Being trans is not! You chose a life style you are born transgender, I have no choice in being trans that was how the cards fell. It is the same as being left handed, I didn’t choose to be left handed but it is a physical part of me, I was born left handed. Why do people continue to think we had a choice in being gay or lesbian or bi or trans? The nuns tried to beat my left handedness out of me but that didn’t work and neither trying to make me “straight.”

Acceptance.
Can you imagine someone saying “I accept your cancer” or “I accept your blindness” or “I accept your blue eyes?” Why do we need your acceptance to be who we are? Who are you to tell me that I can’t be myself because it makes you uncomfortable? Who are you to tell me that I have to live my life in misery because I violate your religious beliefs?

I don’t want your acceptance. I don’t want to be tolerated. I don’t care what you think. What I care about is that you treat me like you treat everyone else, that you treat me as a person.
[/rant]

I was reading comments on a news website and they pressed the wrong button at the wrong time and I was going to write this on the website but I decided to write it here instead.

Life On A Sandbar

As they say in a commercial… The three “P” Price, Price, and Price.
Gas = $$$.
Food = $$$$
Housing = $$$$$.

P’town is 60 miles from the mainland and that 60 miles adds $$ to the price of everything! You need gravel for a walkway, well that gravel has to hauled 60 miles up the Cape and then the empty truck has to be driven 60 miles back down tot he mainland.

Houses! HA!

Back when I bought my cottage in Wellfleet in 2018 I looked at a loft condo in P’town. It was 20 x 30, main floor, a bathroom, and a large open room with a kitchen, up a ladder to the loft with a bed. It did have a nice deck overlooking the harbor… but… but no parking! However, the town does allow for seasonal parking. $300,000!!!!!

 

There is a mini price boom in P'town (For those who haven't figured it out yet P'town is shorthand for Provincetown.) which is changing the character of the town, it is becoming more like Nantucket... $$$$$.

 

Another side effect of the housing boom in prices is that P'town harbor is filling up with boats. When I first started visiting P'town around the turn of the century the harbor was mostly a working harbor with fishing boats and whale excursion boats, there are about a hundred small pleasure craft boats in the harbor.

There is a lack of housing for seasonal workers who come from Asia and former Soviet Block nations. Almost all the summer help is here on J-1 visas, American teenagers don’t want to work summer jobs, too low of pay so instead we have Asian, Jamaicans, Slavic summer workers. While when you go to the beach, all the American youth are laying out on the beaches or surfing.

A summer home when for 1.5 million dollars that is only 50 feet away from the cliff and the ocean, I give it 3 or 4 years the fish will have a new home.

Living on a sandbar you have to be aware of the tides and its ebbs and flows.

Switch Day. I remember when I first heard that, I was eating a brunch at the Post Office Cafe in P’town and we heard a rumble and it was getting louder and the waiter said… “Switch Day!” and we went “Hun?” he said “Saturdays and Sundays, in the morning they have to be out of the cottages by eleven and everyone walks down to the pier to catch the ferry back to Boston. The rumble we heard were the suitcases. At one the flow reverses and the f-rries atrrive for Boston.

The something can be said about Rt. 6, the long lines of cars exiting P’town and like the tides the flow reverses in afternoon.

 

---

 

I have family up at the cottage this week, so these are all pre-written posts.

On Vacation!

I'm taking the next couple of days off, to be with family!

Once Again…

The right-wing steamroller spreads its lies and animosity. In their paranoid to “Defend America’s Women” they throw intersex women under the bus. The ideal woman for a Republican is… White, Christian, pregnant (or has a dozen little ones in her brood.).

Imane Khelif wins fight and declares, 'I want to tell the entire world that I am a female'
“We have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women ... and who have competed for many years as women,” Thomas Bach said.
NBC News
By David K. Li, Minyvonne Burke and Rima Abdelkader
August 3, 2024

Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif, backed by a sizable cheering section, beat Hungarian Anna Luca Hamori in a unanimous decision on Saturday, clinching an Olympic medal.

Her victory came just hours after International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach defended its decision to allow her and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting to compete, saying concerns over their gender identity are “totally unacceptable.”

With Khelif’s latest win, she is guaranteed at least a bronze medal.

“I dedicate this medal to the world, and to all the Arabs and I tell you, ‘Long live Algeria!’” she told reporters in a wild scrum after the match.

Khelif appeared to fight back tears and had an Algerian flag wrapping around her back as she spoke.

“I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female,” she said.

For the Republicans the only woman is a fertile woman! All others are “fake women!”

“She’s a real female. She never changed her orientation, her sex," Mahdgoubi said. "Her father showed photos of her as a child. She’s grown up as a female.”

It must break the father's heart to have to defend her this way. In their blind rabid attacks on the “Definition of a woman” have de humanized intersex people. What it must do to these athletes to have their very self questioned by the bigots.

Misinformation persists online after super-brief Olympic boxing bout
How 46 seconds in the ring ignited a firestorm
CBC News
By Brock Wilson
August 03, 2024

The online reaction was swift, relentless and ill-informed.

Within hours of her victory on Thursday over Italy's Angela Carini, unfounded claims that Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is actually a man or "biological male" swirled online — amplified by the likes of Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling, Logan Paul and Caitlyn Jenner.

It all started when the fight stopped — after just 46 seconds with a punch to Carini's nose.

The extremely brief bout, plus Carini's refusal to shake hands with her fellow welterweight afterward, fuelled speculation they had not been fairly matched.

It was "the purest form of evil," wrote Logan Paul — a noted and notorious influencer perhaps best known for tasing dead animals and being temporarily suspended by YouTube after posting video in a forest in Japan near what seemed to be a dead body — on X, who seemed to think the Olympics had just showcased a man beating up a woman. Paul has since deleted the post.

The Republicans went into a feeding frenzy over this with their lies. The lies brought out all the vengeful conservatives to defend “Womanhood” from the liberals! Their lies are not innocent little white lies but do damage, they are lies that deny a person’s humanity and right to exist.

The word came on down from the cult leader… attack and they crawled out of the swamp to heed the call. The New Republic wrote,

At the Paris Olympics on Thursday, Imane Khelif of Algeria defeated her opponent after only 46 seconds, when Italy’s Angela Carini stopped the fight and forfeited the match. Then the rumors started flying, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator J.D. Vance wrongfully called Khelif a “man” and somehow made it about Democrats.

[…]

Vance, who is also the Republican vice presidential nominee, was quick to try to somehow blame the nonissue on the Democratic presidential candidate. “This is where Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it,” he weighed in.

[…]

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was quick to join the fray. “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Lies hurt, lies tears down one soul, lies kill!

You read the comments on these articles and they are down right brutal! The are just a bunch of angry parrots repeating the party line, they know nothing about biology. 

• The Algerians showed up in force to see their MALE fighter beat up another WOMAN.
• don't matter how much he wants to live in his make-believe world he is a man.
• "I'm a handsome billionaire!!!!" Was worth a shot. Still nothing. I'll try doing it at the bank tomorrow. I'll let you know if anything happens. Hahahahahahahaa!
• She is a woman. Born a woman. Played sports in school as a woman. Her gender is unabashedly female, so can we stop with the hit pieces? No? Of course not because it riles up the right. 
• I don't think so, dude...maybe try a little rouge.

But the Republicans have no problems with lies… as long as it gets them votes. They are like a rabid animal that scents blood, and any weakness that the Republican think they can exploit they do.

I’m voting for the lady, not the tramp.

They Are In A Tizzy Again!

Yep, they been set off into a frenzy again… talk about snowflakes!

Christian scolds ready to burn Disney at the stake over queer space witches on “The Acolyte”
One Million Moms has launched another boycott campaign over the show's "LGBTQ agenda."
LGBTQ Nation
By John Russell
July 14, 2024

The conservative Christian scolds of One Million Moms (OMM) have their torches and pitchforks out for Disney once again, this time over the queer space witches on Disney +’s Star Wars drama series, The Acolyte.

“Alerting all parents!” a petition posted July 2 on the anti-LGBTQ+ organization’s website warns. “Currently available to stream on Disney+, Disney’s latest series, Star Wars: The Acolyte [sic], pushes the LGBTQ agenda and witchcraft.”

The latest Star Wars streaming series from out showrunner Leslye Headland (co-creator of Netflix’s Russian Doll) centers on a pair of “Force sensitive” twins played by out actor Amandla Stenberg. Response to The Acolyte has been polarized: Reviews from critics have been largely favorable, while the franchise’s most toxic fans have blasted the show for its revisionist take on Star Wars lore and its centering of non-white, non-male characters.

OMG! Oh My Gosh! Blasphemy... they said Acolyte!!!!

Um… what is an Acolyte by the way?
 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

acolyte
noun

: one who assists a member of the clergy in a liturgical service by performing minor duties

So what is Christian about that? Why do they think that they have the corner of the word?

Me thinketh that thou dost protest too much.

According to OMM, “This exclusively gay moment makes it apparent where Disney+ stands in the culture war – if parents were not already aware of the media company’s cultural stand.”

“Parents presume that a streaming platform such as Disney+ is designed for children and is the last place parents would expect their children to be confronted with content regarding sexual orientation and sorcery,” the petition continues.

That assertion, of course, is absurd on its face. While the company’s vast library of children’s content is front-and-center on Disney+, the platform has for years also streamed films and TV series aimed at adults. And Disney’s animated films from Snow White to Frozen have depicted witches and “sorcery.”

GROOMERS! Groomers! OMG!

One Million Moms’ latest campaign asks supporters to tell Disney that they “disagree with the LGBTQ agenda and witchcraft” the company is “pushing on families” in The Acolyte. According to the organization’s site, the petition has so far received over 15,000 signatures.

Witchcraft! They are pushing witchcraft on our children! For shame, for shame!

You know, I have to wonder what type of life they live? I wonder if they ever read science fiction? There are thousands and thousands books that have Acolytes in them and thousands about witchcraft. I am listening to one right now that have “Gods” in them that’s right plural.

They do not watch them and they think that they can prevents others from watching them just because it is again their religion so nobody else can read them.

The Christian Post also chastised the show

The group contends that such themes are not only inappropriate for a platform widely regarded as child-friendly but also indicative of a larger agenda by Disney to engage in the cultural war rather than provide neutral, family-oriented entertainment.

“Disney+ has been under pressure from the gay community to portray openly gay relationships in its TV shows and movies, including those created for families,” the group said in a statement.

This new series seems to be a response to those demands, with its overtly lesbian storyline — a move that has not gone unnoticed by parent groups, said One Million Moms, which has responded with a call to action, urging parents to sign a pledge boycotting Disney and Disney+ unless the company recommits to producing content that aligns with traditional family values.

It seems to me that it is the other way around! They are not succumbing to pressure from the left but rather giving the audience what they want but rather they are not succumbing to your arm twisting.

---

 

Beware! Beware!

If you read Project 2025 tell how the Republicans will ban books!!! This is on their wishlist.

Lit Hub writes,

The Republicans’ Project 2025 is disastrous for books.
James Folta
By James Folta
July 25, 2024

If you’ve been following political news, you’ve likely heard about Project 2025, the massive conservative “wish list for a Trump presidency.” The 900-page document is a blueprint for an authoritarian, Christian nationalist America, created by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has influenced many of America’s most regressive and conservative policies since the Nixon administration.

Project 2025 is pitching a horrifying vision of America and American government. BBC’s succinct explainer breaks down the Project’s more eye-popping proposals, including “expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, sweeping tax cuts, a ban on pornography, halting sales of the abortion pill, and more.”

What does this document have to say about books? Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author and a co-founder of Authors Against Book Bans, shared some of the Project’s extreme proposals on Bluesky.

Authors Against Book Bans single out a shocking line from early in Project 2025’s manifesto:

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children…has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”

And breaks down what this would mean in practice:

“Translation: All LGBTQ+ content will be regarded as pornography. This is already the pernicious lie being used to ban books all over the nation. First Amendment rights will not apply, meaning we will no longer have freedom of speech to protect us.”

They end with...

 Readers, writers, and anyone who believes in freedom of expression or art, should be worried Project 2025’s incendiary plans for books.

This is not from a far-left news outlet but…

Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life. There is more great literary content online than ever before, but it is scattered, easily lost—with the help of its editorial partners, Lit Hub is a site readers can rely on for smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books. Each day—alongside original content and exclusive excerpts—Literary Hub is proud to showcase an editorial feature from one of its many partners from across the literary spectrum: publishers big and small, journals, bookstores, and non-profits.

But Project 2025 is the bucket list for the Republicans.

I Hope…

That schools get their pants sued off of them, that they have to walk around wearing a barrel.

They are forcing students to attend public schools with Christian religious teaching on the walls!

Editorial: Religious freedom under attack in Oklahoma schools
LA Times
By The Times Editorial Board
Aug. 1, 2024

For people who supposedly revere the Founding Fathers, some Christian conservatives seem to have no problem ignoring one of their most abiding principles: the separation of church and state. Now the chief of schools in Oklahoma is demanding that all public schools teach the Bible from grades 5 through 12, saying it is necessary for an understanding of the country’s history. It is more of an attempt to ignore much of that history.

[…]

While he didn’t say it explicitly, Walters’ [Supt. of Public Instruction] language strongly implies the very thing that the 1st Amendment sought to prevent: that the United States be governed as a Christian nation. It is certainly the predominant faith in the country, but the Constitution prohibits religion from being imposed on others by popular vote or political mandate.

Remember on January 6, 2011 when the Republicans in Congress raised their little copies of the Constitution as a symbolic gesture to emphasize their commitment to constitutional principles. But they seemed to have never gotten to the First Amendment!

The careful wording can’t mask what is clearly an effort by Christian conservatives to blur the line between church and state in the classroom, especially in a country that is growing in religious diversity. It goes alongside the Louisiana governor’s recent order to place the Ten Commandments in public schools and a recent decision by Oklahoma’s state board to approve a Catholic charter school. Charter schools are privately operated but publicly funded, and the state Supreme Court rejected the use of taxpayer money for a religious school.

You know the Republicans are two faced they totally ignore the laws they don’t like. This will end up in the Supreme Court will they pull another rabbit out of a hat like they did in the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District where they allowed a football coach to kneel at midfield after games to offer a quiet prayer of thanks.

If it goes to the Supreme Court it will be place your bets and spin of the roulette wheel.

---

In Oklahoma, schools are saying... wait a minutes for the Ten Commandments in the classrooms,

Which Oklahoma schools are pushing back against Walters' classroom Bible directive?

Since State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ directive requiring the incorporation of the Bible in Oklahoma classrooms in June, school districts have been questioning the superintendent’s legal authority to mandate the instructional materials.

KGOU

By Beth Wallis

July 29, 2024

Asked to weigh in on the mandate at the time, the attorney general’s office said Oklahoma law already allows Bibles in the classroom and enables teachers to use them in instruction. The office said it did not read Walters’ memo to school districts as requiring the Bible to be taught.

Oklahoma law leaves determining “instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks” up to the exclusive purview of school districts.

The Hill wrote,

Educators in Oklahoma are refusing a state order to incorporate the Bible into their lesson plans, setting up an inevitable showdown with the start of the school year just weeks away.

[...]

“To date, schools have been advised by legal counsel (School Board Association and State Attorney General) to not follow the guidance because it goes against current Oklahoma State Law,” said Lee Northcutt, superintendent of Caddo Public Schools, in an email.

The day the guidance was released, a lawsuit was filed against Walters by Joseph Price, a resident of Mayes County. Price says in the suit he is “a concerned citizen and parent of children attending public schools in Oklahoma,” adding that the order violates the separation of church and state.

In a statement to The Hill, a spokesperson for Walters said, “Oklahoma school districts are required by state law to teach the historical significance of the Bible. Superintendent Walters will hold teachers and administrators accountable. Rogue, left-wing activists who refuse can leave Oklahoma and go to California.”

Um... I don't know how to tell you this, the law doesn't work that, you are the one who is breaking the law, not the person who is complaining about the law.

“Our history teachers have always incorporated religious texts as part of that full study, because it is important to do that, but that’s kind of where the line has to be drawn,” Miller said.

  Um... once again, if you want to teach how religious books influenced history that is fine, however, you cannot just use one religious book you also need to include the Islamic holy books, Quran, Hadith, and the Tafsir; the Hindu holy scriptures  the Holy Vedas; for the Theravada Buddhists it is the Tripitaka while Mahayana Buddhists revere the Mahayana Sutras, and of course for Christians you just can't use the Kings James version, you have to include New American Standard Bible, The Message, English Standard Version (ESV), if you only use the KJV then you will be endorsing that religion.

---

When you are racist, you use racist language around your friends but sometimes you forget and use it in your daily speech. You forget that it is racist.

Donald Trump missteps stir growing Republican worry, campaign seeks Vance reset

USA Today

By Zac Anderson

August 3, 2024

"I think we’re starting to see the old Trump that a lot of Republicans got tired of in 2020, got tired of defending him,” Vermont GOP Chairman Paul Dame told USA TODAY, adding: “If the next three months is defined by more examples like this I think he’s going to see some of that soft centrist support deteriorate."

Trump is going on the defensive, which consist of name calling and lies.

For his part, Vance must avoid "losing President Trump's confidence," said Marc Short, who served as chief of staff for former Vice President Mike Pence. “(Trump) forms opinions quickly too, so I think that’s probably a bigger risk.”

Vance better watch out when Trumps senses he is losing he will strike out at anyone to blame instead of himself.

His view is shared across large parts of the GOP, which sees plenty of solid openings to go after the Biden-Harris administration this summer and fall by talking about Democratic policies. “Rather than focusing on those positions, or on the border crisis or on inflation we’re debating whether she’s Indian American or African American,” Short said. “Seems a missed opportunity to me.”

 Remember JD that Trump goes for the back when he feels betrayed.

 

---

Update: 8/6 @ 9:00AM

I just came across this article on AP News, in an article about the Louisiana arguing to dismiss a law suit about the Ten Commandments...

Lawmakers also specified which version of Ten Commandments be used — a condensed version of the Scripture passage in Exodus. It has ties to “The Ten Commandments” movie from 1956, and it’s a variation of a version commonly associated with Protestants.

So the Bible that they are pushing is used by the evangelical Christians!
 

Traitor Or Patriot?

It all depends upon who you talk to but more and more Republicans are saying to Trump… Wait a minute!

Trump splits with GOP lawmakers on national security, raising alarm
The Hill
By Alexander Bolton
July 1, 2024

National security-minded Republican lawmakers are alarmed by what they see as a growing split between themselves and former President Trump on key issues, including the war in Ukraine, preserving the NATO alliance and protecting Taiwan from Chinese aggression.

Trump’s actions over the past three weeks have stirred confusion and concern among Republican senators who voted earlier this year to approve tens of billions of dollars to contain Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to deter China from attacking Taiwan, an important U.S. ally and trading partner.

Defense-minded GOP senators viewed Trump’s invitation to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to visit him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the NATO summit in Washington as a worrisome development, given Orbán’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his efforts to undermine NATO’s support for the defense of Ukraine.

Then look at his choice for VP and how JD voted against aid to Ukraine.

GOP senators who support U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine were dismayed when Trump selected Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who led the opposition to the Ukrainian assistance package, as his running mate.

I wonder if he asked his friend Putin first?

I believe that Putin has something on Trump, I think he got some dirt on Trump when the Miss Universe pageant was in Moscow in 2013. It was right after that he ran for president.
And Senate Republicans are feeling uneasy about Trump’s assertion that Taiwan should pay more for its defense and refusal to commit to defending the island.  

[…]

“There’s no question where JD Vance is,” the lawmaker said of Trump’s selection of the Ohio senator as his running mate.

Traitor Or Patriot? 

---

Updated 8/4 @ 4:30PM

 

Don't you think that was little too palsy–walsy to say about a dictator?

Donald Trump's Message for Putin Draws Rebuke From Critics
Newsweek
By Natalie Venegas
August 04, 2024


Following a prisoner swap this week between the United States and Russia, former President Donald Trump's message for Russian President Vladimir Putin at a campaign rally on Saturday sparked criticism from people on social media.

[…]

On Saturday, Trump traveled to a campaign rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in Atlanta. During the rally, Trump, the GOP's 2024 presidential nominee, spoke about the prisoner exchange as he congratulated the Russian leader.

"By the way I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal. Did you see the deal we made?" Trump asked.

"We?"

Playing Hooky

 I'm playing hooky this week, no Saturday 9.

Them Lyin' Eyes

Have you noticed that the Republicans live in their little own fantasy world?
 

Did you know that it was really Trump who got the prisoner swap, in their twisted world, the Russians agreed to the swap because they feared Trump when he got elected “The Art of a Deal” man would drive a harder bargain, so in fear they made a deal with President Biden.

 

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes
Lyin' Eyes Songwriters: Glenn Lewis Frey / Donald Hugh Henley

JD Vance desperately tries to find a way to credit Trump for Biden’s prisoner swap
Ohio senator claims historic Russia-West prison swap only occurred ‘because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office’
Independent
By James Liddell
August 2, 2024

JD Vance is desperately trying to give his new running mate credit for the high-profile prison swap carried out by the Biden administration – wildly claiming the historic moment is a “testament to [Donald] Trump’s strength”.

On Thursday, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva were among 16 prisoners released from Russian prisons in the largest prisoner swap with the West since the end of the Cold War.

[…]

But Vance, who became Trump’s running mate just days following the assassination attempt last month, appears to be doing all he can to hand the credit to the former president instead.

The Ohio senator wildly claimed that the hostages were released because the Kremlin is fearful of a second Trump administration.

Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until the dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on, dream on
Dream on, oh
Dream On Songwriter: Steven Tyler

Fact check: Trump, who approved multiple prisoner exchanges, falsely claims he gave up ‘nothing’ to get Americans back
CNN
By Daniel Dale
August 2, 2024

In May, former President Donald Trump declared that he was the only person who could obtain the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison. After President Joe Biden proved the claim wrong on Thursday by securing the release of Gershkovich and others in a multi-country prisoner exchange, Trump posted a series of skeptical questions on social media.

Among other things, Trump wrote: “Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs? Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps. Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING – and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse.”

However...

Facts First: Trump’s claim that he gave opposing countries “NOTHING” to secure the freedom of American prisoners is false. Though Trump obtained or helped to obtain the release of some Americans held abroad without having to release anyone in return, he also presided over at least four exchanges in which he approved the release of prisoners from US detention in exchange for foreign governments releasing Americans.

Fact Check writes,

Criticizing the Biden administration’s recent prisoner swap of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for WNBA star Brittney Griner as “a one-sided disaster,” former President Donald Trump wrongly boasted that his administration “got 58 hostages released from various hostile countries without paying any money, or giving up anything.”

In fact, several of the deals resulting in the release of Americans held hostage or being wrongfully detained abroad came as a result of prisoner swaps during Trump’s time in office.

• In November 2019, the Trump administration secured the release of American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who were being held by the Taliban, in exchange for the release of three senior Taliban leaders being held in jails in Afghanistan.
• In December 2019, the U.S. did a prisoner exchange with Iran, freeing Xiyue Wang, a graduate student at Princeton University who was serving a 10-year sentence in Iran on espionage charges. To secure Wang’s release, the U.S. freed Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist convicted of export violations.
• In July 2020, the Trump administration secured the release of Michael White, a Marine veteran jailed in Iran on charges of insulting the country’s supreme leader, in exchange for the release of a dermatologist convicted on export violations.
• In October 2020, a deputy assistant to Trump helped broker a deal to free two Americans being held hostage by Iranian-backed militants in Yemen in exchange for the release of about 250 Houthi rebels being held in Oman.

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes

Trump Boasted He Could Get Evan Gershkovich Released from Russia if Re-elected
The former president had boasted repeatedly that he could get the reporter freed right away on the basis of his relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The New York Times
By Neil MacFarquhar
August 1, 2024

Former President Donald J. Trump turned the imprisonment of Evan Gershkovich into a campaign issue about three months ago, after facing criticism in March — when The Wall Street Journal correspondent marked one year in prison — for not demanding his release.

Mr. Trump has boasted repeatedly that he could get Mr. Gershkovich, 32, freed right away, saying that his relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would ensure the release as soon as he won the U.S. presidential election in November. He also claimed, without evidence, that Russia was probably demanding billions of dollars in ransom.

Mr. Trump’s most high-profile statements on the issue came during the debate with President Biden in June. “I will have him out very quickly, as soon as I take office, before I take office,” Mr. Trump said, without mentioning Mr. Gershkovich by name. “As soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out.”

[…]

“Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!” one post said.

Before such statements, The Wall Street Journal had published an editorial questioning why Mr. Trump had remained silent on the issue, while the Biden campaign accused him of avoiding any criticism of Mr. Putin.
President Biden said this zinger in response to Trump’s boast…
Mr. Biden responded, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?”

There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes
Honey, you can't hide your lyin' eyes

I’m not voting for the guy who’s has lyin’ eyes, I’m voting for the gal who tells the truth!

Have You Heard Of The Hatchet Job… The Cass Report?

It did a hatchet job on our healthcare which resulted in the termination of our healthcare in Britain!

British Medical Association takes aim at Cass Review
UnHerd
By Laurel Duggan
July 31, 2024

The British Medical Association has criticised the Cass Review for allegedly using weak methodologies to support its findings, according to a Wednesday announcement.

The BMA called for the Cass Review’s implementation to be halted, and for cross-sex medical treatments to continue “regardless of [patients’] age]”. It plans to publish a full critique at the end of the year, which is slated to focus on “weaknesses in the methodologies used in the Review and problems arising from the implementation of some of the recommendations.”

[…]

The BMA is joined by several other organisations, including a group of researchers at Yale University and a separate group of university researchers in the UK, that have criticised the Cass Review. These organisations have defended youth gender transitions, arguing that it will be used to politicise transgender health care and justify legal restrictions on gender transitions.

Over here on the other side of the pond, other are questioning the report.

The UK’s New Study on Gender Affirming Care Misses the Mark in So Many Ways
It’s like the DeSantis administration wrote it.
Mother Jones
By Henry Carnel
May 10, 2024

Five individuals sit on a stone bench looking towards a building. You can see their backs, their colorful hair, and the pride flags draped on their soulders.

Protesters gathered in August 2021 outside the office of the Prime Minister demanding an end to discrimination against the trans community in the United Kingdom.Vuk Valcic / ZUMA
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Last month, the UK’s four-year-long review of medical interventions for transgender youth was published. The Cass Review, named after Hilary Cass, a retired pediatrician appointed by the National Health Service to lead the effort, found that “there is not a reliable evidence base” for gender-affirming medicine. As a result, the report concludes, trans minors should generally not be able to access hormone blockers or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and instead should seek psychotherapy. While the review does not ban trans medical care, it comes concurrently with the NHS heavily restricting puberty blockers for trans youth.

The conclusions of the Cass Review differ from mainstream standards of care in the United States, which recommend medical interventions like blockers and HRT under certain circumstances and are informed by dozens of studies and backed by leading medical associations. The Cass Review won’t have an immediate impact on how gender medicine is practiced in the United States, but both Europe’s “gender critical” movement and the anti-trans movement here in the US cited the report as a win, claiming it is the proof they need to limit medical care for trans youth globally. Notable anti-trans group the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine called the report “a historic document the significance of which cannot be overstated,” and argued that “it now appears indisputable that the arc of history has bent in the direction of reversal of gender-affirming care worldwide.”

The problem is that our healthcare has become highly political! There is bias on both sides, but for the conservatives it has become their quest to force us back in the closet.

In the case of gender-affirming care, decades of research exists showing “gender-affirming care confers key benefits to those who desire and qualify for this care, including youth,” McNamara explains. “It would not make sense ethically to conduct a randomized control trial.” The Federal Drug Administration suggested as much last year, when it told researchers conducting a study on estrogen for trans patients not to use an RCT. That clinical study may include youth as young as 13, per suggestion from the FDA.

I was a Principal Investigator for a grant that the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition and the Hartford Health Collective (Formerly Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective) received from Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) and studying the trans community with a randomized control trial is almost impossible with trans people making up only somewhere around 0.5 to 1.0 percent of the population. The sampling base is way too small for random sampling.

The evidence supporting medical interventions for trans youth comes from primarily observational studies, meaning those conducting the research collected data on people undergoing gender-affirming medical care. These kinds of studies are used 70 percent of the time in research on health care, McNamara explains. Alex Keuroghlian, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a clinic psychiatrist and director of education at Fenway Health in Boston, emphasizes that gender-medicine providers are not making choices arbitrarily or without robust research. “It’s really setting a double standard in terms of expectations for evidence supporting medical intervention. It is not the standard we expect in other contexts,” they say.

This is what we know.

• Puberty blockers have been used since the 1980s, over 40 years ago.
• They have been used since then for precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is when a child starts puberty too young.
• About 1 in 5,000 to 10,000 children are affected by precocious puberty
• Endocrinologists mainly treat precocious puberty with GnRH analogues (i.e. Puberty Blockers)
• Side effects such as bone health risks typically only occur with prolonged use past the age of puberty.

Now they are saying that the there is a problem with using them in trans children… Um, there is no difference between using the blockers for precocious puberty or trans children. In both cases the drug is used to temporally stop puberty.

But all of sudden the puberty blockers are being called “Unsafe” by the right-wing conservatives.

They want to make political decision about the drug and not a scientific decision.

 

---

 

Politics!

 

Bad news for Trump,

 

Newsweek reports...

Kamala Harris is now leading her opponent, Donald Trump, in eight national polls.

RMG Research is the latest pollster to find Harris leading Trump in the national popular vote. The firm released a survey on Friday showing her with a 5-point lead (47 percent to 47 percent) over the former president. The poll was conducted among 3,000 registered voters from July 29 to July 31.

A poll conducted by Civiqs between July 27 and July 30 also showed Harris with a 5-point lead over Trump. Among 1,123 registered voters, Harris leads Trump 49 percent to 45 percent. Her lead is outside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Harris is ahead of the Republican presidential nominee by 3 points in a poll by Leger conducted between July 26 and July 28. The poll, which surveyed 1,002 U.S. residents and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, showed she was leading Trump with 49 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That represents a 4-point increase for the Democrat since Leger's June poll.

When third-party candidates were included in the Leger poll, Harris' lead over Trump grew to 7 points, to 48 percent, compared to the former president's 41 percent.

I imagine right about now the Trump team is popping anti-acids and running around in circles panicking dreading the wrath of Trump. Heads will roll over this, the narcissist will be blaming eveyone but himself.

My Story Part 200: I remember…

College… term papers… the card files… the stacks! The typewrites, and ribbons, and white out.
That is something that today’s college student knows nothing about. Hunting in these narrow aisles with glass floors.
 

So what brought this on?
 

I’m watching this video of driving through the Badlands and I thought, I wonder how the Badlands were formed?
 

In my college days that would have been an all day adventure, driving to the city library digging through the card files to find a list of books. In some libraries you wrote down the books you wanted and they got them for you. While you had to go into “the stacks” in the New Britain Library if I remember correctly had large glass windows with glass floors.

I asked Google that question and it lead me here… The NPS,

The buttes and spires of the park were formed through the geologic processes of deposition and erosion. The rocks of Badlands National Park were deposited as early as 75 million years ago and began eroding just 500,000 years ago. As erosion continues today, fossils buried in the rock slowly reveal themselves and park paleontologists study them to learn about ancient life in the area.

I remember my grandmother used to talk about hitching up the buggy to go up to Greenfield Hill to brother’s house and it was a couple of hour trip up there from Fairfield. Then she set with up to watch the men walk on the moon.
 

This is a knowledge revolution. It is just like my grandmother going from horse and buggy to watching men walk on the moon. We have gone from many hours and traveling to find an answer to that question to find the answer in micro seconds! Think on that for a second.

I asked my favorite AI, Perplexity AI this question…

Answer
The Badlands, particularly those in Badlands National Park in South Dakota, were formed through a combination of deposition and erosion processes over millions of years.
Deposition
Deposition is the process where material is added to a landform. In the case of the Badlands, this process began around 75 million years ago. The area that is now the Badlands was once covered by a shallow inland sea, which deposited layers of sediment over time. These sediments include various types of rock such as sandstones, siltstones, mudstones, claystones, limestones, volcanic ash, and shale. The deposition process continued until about 28 million years ago, creating a layered "layer cake" structure of rock formations. Key formations include:

•     Pierre Shale: The oldest layer, formed from marine sediments.
•     Yellow Mounds Formation: Created from the weathered Pierre Shale.
•     Chadron Formation: Formed from river floodplains during a subtropical climate.
•     Brule Formation: Deposited during a cooler, drier period, characterized by stream and floodplain deposits.
•     Sharps Formation: The youngest layer, formed from volcanic ash and sediment from river channels.

Erosion
Erosion began about 500,000 years ago, primarily driven by the Cheyenne and White Rivers. This process carved the landscape into the rugged terrain seen today, featuring narrow channels, canyons, and sharp peaks. The Badlands erode at a rapid rate of approximately one inch per year due to the softness of the sedimentary rocks and the area's climatic conditions, which include infrequent but heavy rainfall and minimal vegetation. The erosion process is ongoing and is expected to continue shaping the landscape.
Summary
The Badlands were formed through a long history of sediment deposition followed by significant erosion. The combination of these processes has created the distinctive and dramatic landscape characterized by steep slopes, deep gullies, and a high drainage density. The region's geological history is preserved in its layered rock formations, which provide a window into the Earth's past

I find that amazing! It even give you the references that it used. It blows me away!

But, but now watch this from CBS "60 Minutes"…



Think for a second, a quantum computer and AI… what will it create?

Think about the children who now sitting around listening to grandma and grandpa talk about “In my days we had to drive down to library to find a book in “The Stacks.” What world will they have when they turn 70?

Vengeance Is Mine Saith The Republicans!

They passed laws in Florida banning our precipitation in school sports, a mom let her trans daughter play in school sports and the long arm of the Republican law reached out and grabbed her!

Florida school board suspends employee who allowed her transgender daughter to play girls volleyball
AP News
By TERRY SPENCER
July 30, 2024

A Florida school employee who let her transgender daughter play on her high school’s girls volleyball team is being suspended for 10 days after the district’s board found on Tuesday that she violated state law but said firing her would be too severe.

The Broward County school board voted 5-4 to suspend without pay Jessica Norton ‘s employment at Monarch High School, where her 16-year-old daughter played on the varsity volleyball team the last two seasons. She can also no longer work as a computer information specialist but must be given a job with equal pay and responsibility.

Notice that the mother was in no way responsible anything with sports in her job!

What would they have done if she worked for a business instead of the school system? Require the company to punish her in some way?

Norton, who was removed from the school after the violation was discovered in November and then placed on paid leave, called the vote an “incorrect decision” but said it was better than being fired. She said she wasn’t sure if she would accept the punishment and return to work. She wanted to talk it over with her daughter, who left the school even though she had been her class president and a homecoming princess. Maybe they could return together, she said.

Notice what the students think… “class president and a homecoming princess” those are elected positions by the student body! The kids get it, the grown-up don’t!

Hixon said she wanted Norton moved from her job as a computer information specialist because in that position she could learn of another transgender student who was playing girls sports and might not report that to administrators.

How does he know that the new person he puts in her place would not do the same thing? Is he going to require a loyalty test for the new employee?

Why did the school board take such harsh treatment against the mom?

Still, Hixon said, Norton put the district in a legally difficult spot by falsely attesting her child was born female on her state athletic eligibility form. The Florida athletic association fined Monarch $16,500 for violating the act, put the school on probation, and the district could be sued under the act if another student believes she was kept off the volleyball team and lost scholarship opportunities because of Norton’s daughter.

The most common reason… revenge!

Okay, I have a question for all you legal people out there.

It appears to me that Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) should have been a private session or the names not used.

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The Advocate has an article about states and teaching stuff about us, the LGBTQ+ community.

Connecticut (honorable mention)

Connecticut is a special case — it is the only state in the country where law requires the education department to create LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, but does not require schools to use it.

You see it is like this.

Each town has rule over it own school systems, so there are 169 fiefdoms in Connecticut and woe be to anyone who interferes with their silo. Any Don Quixote who wants to tilt their windmills be prepared for battle! They don't have to adopt LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum but if the school system doesn't follow the GIE non-discrimination laws they can be subjected to law suits.

Second Thoughts

I bet that Trump and company are having second thoughts about JD, he is becoming a boat anchor for Trump. The polling numbers show it!

Bloomberg reports,

Kamala Harris has wiped out Donald Trump’s lead across seven battleground states, as the vice president rides a wave of enthusiasm among young, Black and Hispanic voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

Harris was backed by 48% of voters to 47% for Trump — a statistical dead heat — in the swing states that will likely decide November’s election. That’s a stronger showing than the two-point deficit for President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race. The Democratic vice president overtook her GOP rival in Arizona and Nevada, and more than doubled Biden’s lead over Trump in Michigan.

The Economist (It is a couple of days old which shows you how fast things are moving) writes…

Donald Trump v Kamala Harris: who’s ahead in the polls?
July 31st 2024


On November 5th Americans will go to the polls to elect their next president. Until June 27th it seemed that the match-up would be between the same two candidates as in 2020: Joe Biden, the Democratic incumbent, and Donald Trump, his Republican predecessor in office. But that night Mr Biden delivered a disastrous debate performance. It immediately made Democrats question Mr Biden’s fitness for the job. On July 21st he bowed to pressure and withdrew from the race. He endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic candidate.

Polls after Mr Biden dropped out suggest Ms Harris is closer to Mr Trump than her predecessor was. The chart above shows the latest national averages. Ms Harris has the support of enough delegates to the Democratic National Convention to win the nomination. She will have little time to unite her party, fire up voters, and counter Mr Trump’s campaign. Mr Biden’s presidency has been defined by high inflation, big industrial-policy bills and turmoil abroad, things which Republicans will seek to pin on Ms Harris too. But she has one clear advantage over Mr Biden: her age. At 59 she is over two decades younger than he is, and 18 years younger than Mr Trump.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, has a dismal record: supporters tried to overturn his election loss in 2020; he faces federal charges over his alleged participation in that scheme and has been convicted of felonies relating to his 2016 presidential campaign. On July 13th, at a rally in Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old man shot at Mr Trump, grazing the former president’s ear and killing a bystander. After this assassination attempt, politicians of all stripes urged allies and rivals to lower the political temperature. Mr Trump, who showed rare restraint in the aftermath of the shooting, has since returned to his divisive rhetoric in speeches.

The Arab news outlet Aljazeera writes,

United States Vice President Kamala Harris has erased former President Donald Trump’s lead in the race for the White House, with the Democratic and Republican standard-bearers now locked in a dead heat, newly released polling shows.

Harris has closed the gap with Trump both nationwide and in key battleground states since becoming the de-facto Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race, according to a series of polls published on Tuesday.

In another Bloomberg article,

Kamala Harris has wiped out Donald Trump’s lead across seven battleground states, as the vice president rides a wave of enthusiasm among young, Black and Hispanic voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.

The University of California at Riverside the school's newspaper writes,

Polling expert draws early conclusions from Harris vs. Trump
Andy Crosby advises that - as ever - the election will be decided in the battleground states
Author: J.D. Warren
July 30, 2024


A couple weeks back, the 2024 presidential race was upended by the decision of President Joe Biden not to seek reelection. Since then, political pundits have scrambled to assess the new Harris-Trump dynamic. The dust is settling on a flurry of polls, and we asked UCR polling and survey expert Andy Crosby, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, to weigh in on trends. He approached his assessment below from the perspectives of Harris’ introduction to the race; the effect of JD Vance as the GOP’s vice presidential choice, and the importance of considering trends not in the popular vote, but in the electoral college vote.

[…]

One of the changes we have seen is an increase in Vice President Harris’ favorability in the polls recently. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday, 43% of respondents reported having a favorable view of Harris, compared to just 35% one week ago. Harris’ favorability rating is also now higher than both President Joe Biden (37%) and former President Donald Trump (36%). A large majority of Democrats are also enthusiastic about Harris’ candidacy: 88% of respondents reported being either “very enthusiastic” or “somewhat enthusiastic” about Harris’ candidacy.

And how did Trump’s boat anchor affect the polling?

In addition to Vice President Harris, we also have another newcomer to our political polling for the presidential election: Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance of Ohio. The New York Times/Siena College poll mentioned above shows slightly more respondents viewing Vance unfavorably than favorably (36% favorable, 40% unfavorable). In the ABC News/Ipsos poll mentioned above, which is slightly more recent, 24% of respondents indicated they had a favorable opinion of Vance, and 39% indicated they had an unfavorable opinion. Notably, a considerable portion of respondents in the ABC News/Ispos poll responded that they either had no opinion of Vance (17%) or they did not know (19%). Like Harris, we may see movement in these results as voters get to know Vance more and we may potentially see a televised debate featuring him and the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

Glub, glub, glub as he pulls Trump down underwater.

Then we have who will be the choice for VP Harris for VP…

The importance of battleground states is also one reason that Vice President Harris may select a running mate who is popular in a battleground state, such as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Although these potential vice-presidential candidates do not register large percentages of either favorable or unfavorable views at this point in the race, this is mostly because they are not as well-known outside of their home states. That will likely change once voters get to know the candidate.

My choice for VP is Sen. Mark Kelly. Wikipedia says,

Mark Edward Kelly (born February 21, 1964) is an American politician, former astronaut, and United States Navy Captain who has been the junior United States senator from Arizona since 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected in the special election held following the death of Senator John McCain, defeating incumbent Republican Martha McSally.

You might remember his wife who was also in politics, Kelly married U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords of Tucson, Arizona, on November 10, 2007, who was the target of an assassination attempt.

 

My prediction is VP Harris will win by a landslide! I think Trump will go on the defensive, more belittling, more name calling, more lies, and it will turn voters from him. They will open their eyes tot he real Trump. But this election will be won by who can get the voter out the vote!

VOTE! This November vote Blue, vote all Blue… the Reds want to tear the country down.