Tag Archives: politics

This is Why

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Leave aside the minor fact that embryos differentiate into boys and girls in important ways that are irreversible at any time later in life.

This table, which compares some swimming times of American high school boys with those of the world’s adult women, makes plain the utter insanity of letting post-pubescent biological males compete in biological girls’ sports, purely from a simple competitiveness standpoint.

It’s important to note that US high school boys still swim in yards, while the world’s adult women swim in meters. The original table was pulled from Powerline because many commenters emphasized that distance discrepancy.

Here, though, are some of the women’s times converted for distances in yards:

50 meters Freestyle vs 54.7 yards (50m): women’s world record time shortened to 50 yards swum: 21.64 seconds, a nearly 12% difference favoring the boys

100 meters Back vs 109.4 yards: women’s world record time shortened to 100 yards: 52.51 seconds, a nearly 15% difference favoring the boys

400 meters Free Relay vs 437.4 yards: women’s world record time shortened to 400 yards: 3.18 minutes, a nearly 10% difference favoring the boys

As is plain, shortening the women’s swimming distances to match the high school boys’ distances (and assuming the 9%-ish shorter distance would shorten the women’s times only linearly), US high school boys still swim much faster than the adult women of the world.

 

h/t Powerline

A Progressive-Democrat Governor and a Surtax

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New Jersey’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Phil Murphy once promised to let the State’s 2.5% surtax on businesses with incomes greater than $1 million expire and then, by implication, to leave it alone. He did the first part, and it did expire. But it turns out he dissembled on the second part.

Mr Murphy and his [Progressive-]Democratic Legislature are scrambling for money even though tax revenue has increased 35% over the past five years—faster than inflation.
…
Mr Murphy now wants to re-impose it on income above $10 million, retroactively to the start of this year.

Progressive-Democrats are so addicted to taxing Americans and our businesses that their promises to lower taxes or to leave alone existing taxes are worthless. Which calls into question the value of any other of their promises. Indeed, their addiction is so powerful that they’re not capable even of saying the words “cut spending,” much less actually doing so.

Maybe Murphy’s renewed surtax will hit only the wealthiest businesses, many based in other states, hard enough to persuade those in New Jersey to relocate to more business—and average American—friendly locations and persuade those based in other States to reduce or forgo doing business in New Jersey.

“How an Iranian-Backed Militia Ties Down US Naval Forces in the Red Sea”

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So read The Wall Street Journal‘s headline. The article went into it:

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Iran-backed Houthi rebels have lobbed missiles, drones, and other weapons at commercial vessels and warships nearly every day. Although most of the weapons have been shot down, at least 77 cargo ships have been hit, and one British-owned ship carrying 20,000 tons of fertilizer aboard was sunk.
Though largely ineffective, the Houthi attacks have been able to disrupt shipping and keep the US and its allies tied down, frustrating the Navy’s decades-old mission of keeping open the region’s critical sea lanes.

And this:

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said in congressional testimony last month that the US-led effort has been insufficient to deter the militant group’s targeting of ships and that the threat will “remain active for some time.”

Yes, it has, but while the article’s news writers mentioned the cause, they don’t seem to understand that they have. They centered the article on the frustrations of the Navy’s continuing inability to reopen those shipping lanes.

The root cause:

The Biden administration has limited its military response to the Houthi attacks, hoping to avoid being drawn into a wider Middle East conflict. But that has meant the flotilla of US and allied warships has spent weeks and even months patrolling the Red Sea on alert—and the attacks have kept coming.

It’s as simple and straightforward as this: Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is too timid to take serious action. He’s more interested in appeasement of the Houthis’ boss, Iran, and in a failed Vietnam-esque “measured response” tit-for-tat procedure.

What’s actually needed is a concerted effort to destroy Houthi bases, whether or not they’re launching facilities and whether or not any launching facilities are “preparing to launch.” What’s further needed is active interception or sinking, if interception isn’t feasible, of Iranian shipping bringing arms and ammunition—not limited to ballistic or cruise missiles or drones—to the Houthis. What’s further needed is recognition of the central role Saudi Arabia plays in Middle East security, along with (if not alongside) Israel and the US, and from that recognition active support of the Saudis in their attempts to restore legitimate government in Yemen and destruction of the Houthis.

None of that will happen, though, while Biden is in office, at the continued expense of shipping disruption, cost of lives lost by allowing the Houthis to continue their operations, and unpredictable (in detail, anyway) ripple effects of that continued timidity.

The Fifth Circuit Issued a Ruling

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Some time ago, recall, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, with the full and enthusiastic support of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, put into effect a Rule (referred to as Guidance Documents in the court’s ruling) that sought to rewrite Title IX to claim that a child’s, or near-adult college student’s, claim of “self-identified” gender was sufficient to allow a boy or a near-adult male access to girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic endeavors as “teammates.”

Texas demurred, and the Fifth Appellate Circuit Court agreed.

Among other things, the court wrote [citations included, emphasis added]:

The Guidance Documents build on previously enjoined guidance issued under President Barack Obama. See Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence B-2, 89 Fed. Reg. 33,474 (Apr. 29, 2014) (“Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity.”); see also 2016 Dear Colleague Letter on Title IX and Transgender Students 2, US Dep’ts of Educ & Justice (May 13, 2016) (informing educational institutions about the new “Title IX obligations regarding transgender students”). This Court enjoined implementation of these prior guidance documents as contrary to law because “the plain meaning of the term sex as used in § 106.33 when it was enacted by [the Department] following passage of Title IX meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.” Texas v United States, 201 F. Supp. 3d 810, 832–33 (N.D. Tex. 2016) (O’Connor, J.).

And [citation included]

…Defendants maintain that their actions will only be final when they apply these interpretations to particular factual circumstances via enforcement. But a substantive interpretation that will eventually result in investigative and enforcement activities constitutes final agency action even if an application to specific individual cases has yet to occur. Cf. MPP, 597 U.S. at 809 n.7 (noting agreement between the majority and dissenting opinions that final agency action exists when the action results in a final determination of rights or obligations regardless of some contingent future event).

And:

Regarding the first vacatur-versus-remand factor, the Department will not be able to justify its decision to create law that Congress did not pass and that the Supreme Court did not allow.
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Not only are the Guidance Documents contrary to law and in excess of the Department’s authority, but the Department will also not be able to substantiate its decision on remand because there is no possibility that it could correct the fundamental substantive and procedural errors.

Thus, the matter won’t even be sent back to the DoEd for correction: there is no deficiency here that the department is capable of correcting.

And, as bluntly as court rulings get:

Thus, the Court applies this default remedy and VACATES the Guidance Documents on the grounds that the Department enacted a substantive rule that is contrary to law, did so in a manner beyond the scope of its legitimate statutory authority to promulgate it in the first place….

In fine, as the court emphasized at the outset of its ruling,

Having considered the briefing and applicable law, the Court concludes that Defendants cannot regulate state educational institutions in this way without violating federal law.

However, in the end, the ruling applies Texas-wide only; it does not apply to the whole of the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction. The other States in the circuit—Louisiana and Mississippi—will have to go to the expense of bringing their own suits.

The court’s ruling can be read here.

 

h/t Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton.

The Left’s Antisemitic Bigotry

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The blind hatred of the Left for America’s Jews, Israel’s Jews, and for Jews everywhere was on full display in New York City, and the hatred and bigotry is showing no signs of doing anything but growing.

On Monday anti-Israel protesters wouldn’t even let a tribute to Israelis murdered at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 be held in peace.
Hamas massacred some 260 people, mostly young, at that festival. Women were raped and their bodies mutilated before they were killed. The butchery and sadism were the point, inflicted out of hatred merely because the victims were Jews.
The protesters in New York didn’t kill anyone, at least not yet. But the hatred for Jews was on ugly display. The protest was part of a “Citywide Day of Rage” that targeted New York’s museums. The group Within Our Lifetime, which organized the protests, says cultural institutions are “drenched in the blood of Palestine’s martyrs.” They seem to mean the museums’ Jewish donors.
“Long live Intifada,” the crowd cheered, waving flares outside the exhibit commemorating the hundreds who were massacred at the Nova festival. “Israel, go to hell.”

This is the Left from which the Progressive-Democratic Party draws so much support. It’s instructive that, so far at least, the Progressive-Democratic Party as a whole is determinedly silent, choosing to not condemn their supporters’ bigotry, even as the dominant faction of Party, led by Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI) and by Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY), actively celebrates Hamas’ terrorism and their own Jew-hatred.