Is it True?

There’s a view, widely spread and spreading, that members of the Progressive-Democratic Party and their Leftist supporters don’t like America very much.

Then something happened Saturday morning during newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s (R, CA) acceptance speech. He said he was going to reopen the Capitol Building, which sits on Capitol Hill and holds both houses of Congress.

“My friends—this chamber is now fully open for all Americans,” he said, which was met with thunderous applause from Republicans. Democrats in the chamber remained silent.

That’s not dispositive, but it is strongly indicative. Where was—where is—the Left’s and their Party’s enthusiasm for welcoming us average Americans into our own house, and in which those we elect to represent us…work for us?

The Federal Judge is Right

Federal Judge Joseph Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia has upheld West Virginia’s law barring transgender student athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, even from playing on girls’ and women’s teams. Goodwin

found that West Virginia’s definition of “biological sex” for school sports is “substantially related to its important interest in providing equal athletic opportunities for females.”

Goodwin further ruled that

the law was designed to “prevent transgender girls from playing on girl’s sports teams,” but said this was legally permissible if there was a substantial government interest in doing so.

The State’s government most assuredly has that interest. After all, as Goodwin also wrote,

While some females may be able to outperform some males, it is generally accepted that, on average, males outperform females athletically because of inherent physical differences between the sexes. This is not an overbroad generalization, but rather a general principle that realistically reflects the average physical differences between the sexes.
…there is much debate over whether and to what extent hormone therapies after puberty can reduce a transgender girl’s athletic advantage over cisgender girls. …
The fact is, however, that a transgender girl is biologically male and, barring medical intervention, would undergo male puberty like other biological males. And biological males generally outperform females athletically. The state is permitted to legislate sports rules on this basis because sex, and the physical characteristics that flow from it, are substantially related to athletic performance and fairness in sports[.]

Biological men—which is what they are, from the bottom of their DNA and XY chromosomes on up through their stronger muscles and larger bones (which actually began their development differing from women development in the womb)—regardless of how they might self-identify or how much hormone therapy or gender surgery they might have gone through, have no business competing against women in sports. That denies the women contestants their own opportunities for recognition and financial aid.

Sports, too, are the path out of poverty-ridden neighborhoods for girls and young women just as it is for lots of young men; this path would be denied them by transgendered men competing against them.

Biological men, however transgendered, by competing against women in sports erases women, their very womanhood, in sports.

There is a Title IX case, using the transgendereds’ logic that the law’s specification of sex is broader than biology, for sports programs to create Transgender Athletic Associations/Conferences/Leagues for transgender athletes to compete in. They should make that case. Better, though, would be for Congress to update Title IX to the current state of medical technology and mandate explicitly transgender athletic programs.

Goodwin’s ruling can be read here.

One More Instance

…of NATO’s European members, especially its central and western European members, shying away from honoring their commitments to NATO—and to their mutual defense generally.

When France wanted to send Leclerc tanks to bolster the defenses of NATO ally Romania in September, fellow alliance member Germany opposed trucking them across its highways. The problem wasn’t peace protesters or political opposition. It was the heavy French tank-transporters.
The flatbeds’ weight on each axle exceeded the legal limits for most German roads, said government authorities, who proposed a route that Paris deemed unacceptable. Instead, France sent the tanks by rail, delaying the shipment.

And

The EU invests billions of euros annually in transportation infrastructure, but has rarely made military mobility a concern.

And

Retired General [ex-CG United States Army Europe, Ben] Hodges says national regulations remain too onerous and governments aren’t sufficiently focused on the problems. “Until I see money being applied to it and real changes, we’re not going to get this fixed,” he said.

Logistics is where wars are won or lost. Neither the combat skills and courage of the soldiers, nor their equipment or technological advantages, matter if they can’t be supplied and resupplied. Even those central and western European government men and women understand that.

They just don’t care.

California Gun Control

California has a new law, with effect at the start of this year, that requires semiautomatic pistols sold there to have microstamping capability on the pistols’ firing pins. The tech would stamp the brass when the pistol discharges a round, and from that, the brass could be tied back to the pistol that fired it.

As part of the implementation, the California Department of Justice now asks Firearm manufacturers and Interested Parties a number of questions about how the rule should be implemented. These questions include

  • Who is best suited to provide the microstamp to the DOJ?
  • When should the microstamp be provided to the DOJ?
  • How should the microstamp be provided to the DOJ?
  • If a microstamp part needs to be replaced, should the regulated replacement part have the same microstamp as the original?

This Interested Party offers some answers, even though I’m not a citizen of California, being glad instead to be a citizen of Texas:

  • No one
  • Never
  • N/A, see above
  • N/A, see above

California’s move is just another in a long chain of efforts by gun control…persons…to build up a database of who has what firearms so they can be seized at a later date.

Anti-Semitism

…and hypocrisy.

Much is made by what passes for the press in the United States about the anti-Semitic actions—both real and imagined—of a few famous Americans, like Kyrie Irving, who tweeted about an anti-Semitic movie, and former President Donald Trump (R), who shared a meal with a couple of unsavory persons.

But that same gang of “journalists,” in the main, carefully avert their eyes and keypads when it comes to their favored institutions, like the United Nations.

The United Nations General Assembly last year passed 15 resolutions critical of Israel, while passing just 13 resolutions on other countries, according to a non-governmental watchdog [UN Watch Director].

Those other countries, given a once-over-lightly, included such terrorist-supporting and human rights abusing nations as Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Syria. The UN also was careful to single out the US for its special opprobrium. Meanwhile, Venezuela and genocidal People’s Republic of China got complete passes, no mention at all by the UN of their abuses.

But Israel: that nation, a bastion of democracy and religious freedom in the Middle East and core participant in the Abraham Accords, is especially hated by the UN.

Hypocrisy. And bigotry.