Take Two Puberty Blockers and Call Me in the Morning? Justice Sotomayor Under Fire For Aspirin Analogy in Oral Argument

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is under fire today for seemingly dismissing medical concerns over the risks of puberty blockers and gender surgeries for minors with a comparison to taking Aspirin. In the oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, Sotomayor pointed out that there are risks to any medical procedure or drug. However, the analogy belittled the concerns of many parents and groups over the research on the dangers of these treatments. It also highlighted how the Biden Administration and liberal justices were discarding countervailing research inconveniently at odds with their preferred legal conclusion.

The Biden administration is challenging Tennessee’s law banning gender-changing drugs and procedures for minors. That state cites studies that indicate serious complications or risks associated with the treatments for children.

While the conservative justices acknowledged studies on both sides of the debate over risks, the liberal justices seemed to dismiss studies that were inconsistent with striking down the law as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. That issue produced a difficult moment for Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar when Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito confronted her about statements made in her filing with the Court.

Alito quoted Prelogar’s petition to the Court that claimed that there was “overwhelming evidence” supporting the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments as safe with positive results for children.

Justice Alito, however, cited extensive countervailing research from European countries showing significant risks and potential harm. The World Health Organization has recognized these risks and lack of evidence supporting these procedures and researchers in Finland recently published a study showing that suicides among kids with gender dysphoria are extremely rare in contradiction to one of the common arguments made for adolescent treatment.

Alito also cited the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, released shortly after her filing. The Cass study found scant evidence that the benefits of transgender treatment are greater than the risks. He then delivered the haymaker: “I wonder if you would like to stand by the statement in your position or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw your statement.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio (who has previously argued that children as young as two years old can identify themselves as transgender) seemed to later acknowledge that very few gender-dysphoric children actually go through with suicide, but insisted that the procedures reduce suicidal inclinations.

Justice Sotomayor seemed intent on defusing the problem with the opposing scientific research in her exchange with Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice. In his argument, Rice stated that “they cannot eliminate the risk of detransitioners, so it becomes a pure exercise of weighing benefits versus risk. And the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left to the legislature.”

That is when Sotomayor interjected: “I’m sorry, counselor. Every medical treatment has a risk — even taking Aspirin. There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that is going to suffer a harm.”


According
to studies, aspirin can have potential side effects that are largely quite mild. The studies cited by the state are raising far more serious risks and medical changes, including irreversible double mastesctomies, genital surgeries, sterilization and infertility. There can also be long-term effects in bone growth, bone density, and other developmental areas. Those risks have led European countries to change their policies on the treatments pending further study.

The point is not that the justices should resolve this medical debate, but that it is properly resolved elsewhere, including in the state legislative process.

Sotomayor’s aspirin analogy seemed gratuitously dismissive for many and reminiscent of the response to scientists who questioned Covid protocols and policies from the six-foot rule to mask efficacy.

Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (who is now nominated to lead the National Institutes of Health) and others were vilified by the media over their dissenting views on the pandemic and efforts to show countervailing research. He and others signed the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration that called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.

All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.

Some scientists argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.

Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.

Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics.

Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.

For scientists attacked and deplatformed for years, Sotomayor’s statements were painfully familiar. They also cited European and countervailing studies that the media dismissed as fringe views or conspiratorial viewpoints. In the same way, Justice Sotomayor’s analogy seemed to treat those raising these concerns (including parents) as akin to questioning the risks of aspirin. The import seemed to be that stopping taking aspirin based on minor concerns would be ridiculous and so too are objections to gender changing treatments and procedures.

The fact is some analogies are poorly chosen or misunderstood. However, the thrust of the comments from the justice were dismissive of the science supporting Tennessee and the 23 states with similar laws. That is roughly half of the states which want to adopt a more cautious approach. No one was arguing against adults being able to opt for such treatment, but these states do not want children to be subject to the treatments in light of this ongoing debate.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

318 thoughts on “Take Two Puberty Blockers and Call Me in the Morning? Justice Sotomayor Under Fire For Aspirin Analogy in Oral Argument”

  1. Don’t you just love headlines?

    “Watch: Top GOP state senator urinates on himself during DUI hit-and-run arrest”

    https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-gop-senator/

    I think there will be a lot more former republicans, now known as trumpets, that will pee on themselves in the coming years as the deranged cult leader takes office. Sad for the country to watch, but it sure is funny when the GOP eats their own people.

  2. You never prove risk. You can only prove safety. Whatever is not proven safe, automatically constitutes risk. There is no equation.

    1. “You never prove risk. You can only prove safety. Whatever is not proven safe, automatically constitutes risk. There is no equation.”

      Ridiculous statement. One can prove (in the sense you imply) neither risk nor safety for the *future*, one can only project probabilities, largely based on analogy to historical results.

    2. “You never prove risk. You can only prove safety. Whatever is not proven safe, automatically constitutes risk. There is no equation.”

      Ridiculous statement. One can prove neither risk not safety for the *future*. Once can only project probabilities, largely based on analogy to historical performance.

  3. Jonathan: Speaking of medical science did you see who DJT nominated to be head of the NIH? Of course you did. It’s Jay Bhattacharya, one of the co-authors of the “Great Barrington Declaration” you have heralded in many columns. Do doubt you will be pleased by the nomination. But that nomination could prove dangerous to human health.

    In the GBD Battacharya claimed “herd immunity” would protect Americans from the COVID-19 virus. Battacharya opposed Covid-19 vaccines. That theory has been debunked by most of the world medical community. Dr. Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southhampton, said the GBD was a “very bad idea”. Head doubted that vulnerable people would be able to avoid Covid-19 if it was allowed to become widespread. Head’s prediction was shown to be true as Covid-19 spread across the world. As it turns out it wasn’t “herd immunity” that saved millions of lives. It was the pandemic restrictions and the 2 vaccines that saved millions of lives. That’s why the majority of health organizations around the world have condemned the GBD as “junk science”.

    But DJT holds grudges. He hates Dr. Fauci for resisting DJT’s quack remedies for Covid-19–like household bleach. So DJT has chosen the one guy to head the NIH who will guaranteed not to follow the science. Some scientists are predicting a bird flu epidemic in the near future–maybe under the second DJT administration. H5N1 poses a real threat of human transmission. So will Dr. Battacharya follow the science and recommend vaccines? Stay tuned because the next 4 years may be life threatening for all of us!

    1. I think it is great! I hope Anthony Fauci and his ilk are run out of town and are fully investigated and punished.

      Health? Have you seen the statistics on obesity, hypertension and diabetes? Our health has never been worse.

      1. “I hope Anthony Fauci and his ilk are run out of town and are fully investigated and punished. ”

        I read (on JTN site, iirc) that there is a rumor that Biden is considering more blank check pardons; for Fasci, among others. That might not be doing him a favor, considering that recent events in NYC could indicate medical vigilantism to be on the rise. I don’t advocate such conduct, but in Fasci’s case, I must admit that my eyes would remain perfectly dry.

    2. Dennis
      Bhattacharya and the great barrington declaration have proved almost entirely correct.
      https://gbdeclaration.org/

      I started refuting the things you posted one by one.

      But the FACT is pretty much every single assertion in your comment is provably false.

      Are you really so ignorant of reality that you are unaware of the total FAILURE of so called public health experts.

      BTW Bhattacharya and the leaders of the GBD as well as many of the signatories are among the best epidemiousists in the world.

      Fauxi and the idiots you listend to are not in their league.

      Can you name ANYTHING that your Covid Leaders were right about ?

      ANYTHING ?

      Actually READ the GBD and tell me what in it has proven WRONG ?

      Also READ it because – it is clear from your idiotic assertions that you are completely unfamiliar with Bhattacharya as well as the GBD
      and really just a complete moron writing totoal nonsense about things you know nothing about.

      With respect to Fauxi – hopefully the DOJ will prosecute Fauxi for perjury before congress.

      Regardless the man is a fraud.

      I do not care what DJT thinks about him – he should be run out of town on a rail, and prosecuted for lying under oath.
      And BOY did he lie.

      Frankly you should listen to the nonsense he has said more recently.

      He is now Denying that he ever was critical of the claim that the virus originated in the WIV.

      BTW Bhattacharya IS the science – not Fauxi.

    3. Dennis,

      As I have said repeatedly – All you have to do to be correct all the time is check your facts before writing them.

      Please read the GBD that I linked below.

      Every single thing you have said about it, Bhattacharya, Fauxi, and the current concensus of world scientists regarding Covid 19 is FALSE.

      I do not think you have a SINGLE claim correct.

      Worse still – all you would have to do before making a fool of yourself is look any of the claims you made up.

      Actually read the GBD

      And get your head out of the ass of public health experts from 2020 like Fauxi who have ALL been thoroughly discredited.

      BTW the GBD has nearly 1M signtures.

      Including almost 15,000 Medical & Public Health Scientists
      almost 50.000 Medical practitioners

      The overwhelming majorty of whom are from the US, UK and Germany.

    4. “Battacharya opposed Covid-19 vaccines.”

      You’re lying about him — again.

      He opposed *government-coerced* vaccinations. His view is, in fact, the only civilized one: that vaccinations are a *private* matter between patient and doctor.

    5. Dennis, if you are paying attention the WH is discussing a Pardon for Fauxi.

      You pardon people who committed crimes – like Hunter Biden.

  4. Megyn Kelly speaks with Skermetti and a lot about the admission by Strangio that transitioning does NOT decrease suicide.

  5. Lin, I just read Skrmetti’s brief as you suggested and agree with you that it does a good job dealing with Bostock. A lot there for Gorsuch to grab on to.

  6. Take government payment medical insurance out of the picture and make all hormone treatments and surgeries an out of pocket expense and 99% of this will go away. This is a multi billion dollar industry. Forbid this to anyone who is not a consenting adult 18-21 years old (same as booze and cigarette ban) and the surgeries will drop 99.5%. Make it legal to sue the doctors and big pharma with no statute of limitations who are pushing this and it will go down to virtually zero.

    How bizarre. Only in a rich and self absorbed affluent society would this ever be considered normal. The poor child is forever dependent on big pharma for the rest of their lives and the irreversible damage has been done. The child is forever stuck.

      1. UpstateFarmer,

        Tickle my ear. You always like to brown nose. Then come back and attack.

          1. Well folks, that’s how UpstateFarmers modus operandi is.

            It is a warning, “desolation of abomination’

            1. Another of the things Upstate does is
              the more times he says ‘well said’, ‘good comment’, etc.
              the more he’s in the ‘spotlight’ here. He’s really needy like that.

              1. Not even close. In this day and age of “likes” or up thumbs, I think it is better to respond to people with actual words of appreciation. It is simple and lazy to just “like” a comment. It takes more effort to respond to a well thought out comment with a “Well said,” or “Thank you.” Shows effort. Also more important in this day and age of mechanization. To form more and better bonds with others. As I have noted, there are more than a few people here on the good professor’s blog who I would gladly meet up in real life for a cup of coffee and good conversation.
                Then, there is you.

        1. “Tickle my ear. You always like to brown nose.”

          Are you saying that you defecate through your ear? That would explain much.

      2. Upstate Farmer,
        Thanks. It is unfathomable that any fair minded person could find this acceptable and not be repulsed by the evil that is afoot.

    1. From “Them”, June 28, 2024:

      “Contrary to modern conservative propaganda, gender-affirming surgeries for minors are exceptionally rare, and are almost always performed for cisgender — not transgender — youth, according to a new study of U.S. medical data.

      Published Thursday in the online Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) network, the study took a cross-section of U.S. medical data from 2019 to examine the overall rates of gender-affirming surgeries, both with and without a gender dysphoria diagnosis, during that year. Researchers disqualified intersex individuals receiving surgery, as well as any person who received surgery for another reason, such as an injury or illness. The data, drawn from the research database Inovalon, only included patients who used insurance to pay for their procedures and did not represent those who paid out of pocket.

      Researchers found roughly 150 cases in which a minor received gender-affirming surgery in 2019. But of those cases, 146 — about 97% — were chest reduction surgeries performed on cisgender male youth, constituting gender-affirming care for conditions like gynecomastia (which can develop nearly half the time among those undergoing testosterone-dominant puberty). No trans or gender-diverse (TGD) youth under 12 years old received any gender-affirming surgeries, researchers noted, and the rare few that were performed on 13-17-year-olds were almost exclusively chest-related procedures. The numbers demonstrate that “concerns around high rates of gender-affirming surgery use […] may be unwarranted,” researchers determined.

      Those findings fly in the face of years of Republican anti-trans bills and talking points, as conservatives have attempted to use gender-affirming care as a political wedge issue. Following an explosion in anti-trans laws across the U.S., 25 states currently ban gender-affirming care for minors, including medications and surgeries, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project.

      “Health policy should be driven by facts. We hope that our study will help policymakers understand how gender-affirming surgery is being used by both cisgender and TGD people,” lead author Dannie Dai of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said in a press release accompanying the study on Thursday. “Our findings highlight a bitter irony: that by banning gender-affirming care for only TGD people, these bills are targeting a group that in reality accounts for the minority of gender-affirming care use and for whom gender-affirming care has been most clearly shown to be lifesaving.”

      1. Big pharma and the industrial medical complex endorse putting a child in complete dependence on drugs and surgeries for the rest of their lives.

        They rename such atrocities as “affirming care.”

        Any fair minded person knows that every teen knows “everything.” Then comes the responsibilities of an adult and years later after year of having g to get up and go to work, pay bills and seek a life partner. What if they want children? Oops! Thanks to big pharma and activists who pushed this lifestyle on them they are sterile. They have been deprived of a fundamental right.

        What happened to men and women? We all come in a variety of shapes, sizes and characteristics.

        How insulting it is to be cubby-holed into categories. Why? Is this to “manage” us? Why not celebrate people for who they are and leave out the mutilation and pharmaceutical destruction.

        I certainly don’t want to pay for this and am shocked anyone thinks a child should be victimized and ruined for life.

    2. Only in a rich and self absorbed affluent society would this ever be considered normal.

      It is far worse than that. A Jewish rabbi reviewed Dr Jordan Peterson’s new bestseller book in WSJ and states:

      Jordan Peterson Wrestles With God

      We live in an age of profound biblical ignorance. Last year, an episode of “Jeopardy!” featured a clue that only decades ago nearly everyone could have answered: “This Bible book gives us the line ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ ” All three contestants stared blankly until the buzzer sounded.

      Mr. Peterson thus offers an important insight: A culture that forgets biblical teaching not only loses its own identity; it is in danger of becoming a hell. As such, whatever disagreements the biblically learned might have with his insightful work, all can agree that it is an unalloyed good that a book about the Bible could be so widely read.

      Rabbi Soloveichik is director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York.

      https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-wrestles-with-god-new-book-bible-philosophy-totalitarianism-nature-of-evil-f5e24fa3

      He is right of course.

      No God = No Peace
      Know God = Know Peace

      Looks like a good read

      “We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine”
      by Jordan B. Peterson
      https://www.amazon.com/We-Who-Wrestle-God-Perceptions/dp/0593542533

      1. “No God = No Peace
        “Know God = Know Peace”

        That’s good. It fits on a bumper sticker.

        Too bad you can’t fit the countless religious wars on one.

  7. Hmmm….wouldn’t the parents of an intersex baby give a s***? Ignoring things you just don’t know what to do about is by stating they just don’t matter….????

    1. This is not about the very tiny number of intersex babies.

      Regardless leave this up to parents, and while mistakes will be made, they will be less common and less harmful than anything that results from government.

      1. Can the parents allow their kids to smoke or is this child endangerment? Can the STATE intervene?

  8. OT. Anyone care to speculate WTLF this is about? I’ve struggled with it all day, and the only thing that comes to mind is that Lt. Michael Byrd has incriminating information about prominent Democrats and their possible involvement in deliberately instigating the J6 misbehavior. Maybe he was executing some kind of officially sanctioned behavior when he murdered Ashli Babbitt?

    Democrats pressed Capitol Police to show favoritism to officer who killed J6 protestor, memos show
    https://justthenews.com/accountability/hldofficer-who-shot-j6-protestor-shown-favoritism-capitol-police-under-political
    “”He is very upset about how he is being treated. He wants us to figure this out and now,” a top congressional aide to then-House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, wrote to Capitol Police in November 2021 pressing for more assistance to Lt. Michael Byrd after he killed Babbitt. The records show that pressure also came from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff and from then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, causing Capitol Police to find any solution they could to make Byrd and Democrats happy. Despite the extraordinary assistance, Byrd expressed dissatisfaction and continued to insist he deserved more, to the chagrin of Capitol Police officials, according to records assembled by Congress.

    1. Number 6,
      I read that. Why would he need any kind of “assistance” of that kind of money? He was never shot, wounded in the line of duty. There appears to be other CPD who were much more entitled to that kind of money for real reasons outside of Jan6th.

      1. “Why would he need any kind of “assistance” of that kind of money? ”

        As I implied, the only logical explanation that I could formulate is that they are buying his silence, for whatever reason.

  9. I do not know the specifics of the Tennessee Law – but this case is Trivial.

    If you are not an adult you require your parent or guardians permission OR a court order to obtain ANY non emergency medical treatment. PERIOD.
    It is absolutely the business of the stated to interfere – even criminalize third party interference in a minor’s medical care.
    It is absolutely NOT the business of the state to interfere in parents treatment of minors absent conduct by the parents sufficient to terminate a parents rights.

    Separately it is absolutely NOT the business of government to adjudicate claims based on GENDER.
    You are free to identify however you please. But you are NOT protected from PRIVATE discrimination or derision based on your CHOICE of identity.
    This extends to all forms of identity AND conduct. Frankly this should be true with respect to ACTUAL sex and Race.
    All forms of private discrimination are constitutional. Most forms of government discrimination are NOT.

    Aside from being constitutionally CORRECT, this also gets the courts out of the business of adjudicating nonsense.

    Turley notes the fights among justices over various studies. These have NO PLACE in courts. I am hard pressed to think of any instance in which the courts or govenrment
    should be trying to decide what the “science” is on anything.

    The question in the Tennessee case is NOT who is right regarding “gender dysphoria” – I do not give a schiff whether “gender dysphoria” is entirely fake and delusional or an absolutely proven fact with proven effective treatment. In NEITHER case is it governments business to make medical care decisions, or to limit medical care choices.

    The ONLY legitimate question before the courts is WHO has the RIGHT to make these decisions – NOT are those decisions good decisions or not.
    And the answer is that Adults are free to make their own decisions, and the adults specifically responsible for minors have the right to make those decisions absent termination of those rights.

    Personally I think all of this is NUTS. Frankly we do not know near enough about genetic sex and sexual orientation, much less “gender”.

    We do not know – and the left will not even commit to whether sex, gender or sexual orientation are a choice or are immutable.
    They seem to want the protections for immutable characteristics while insisting these are choices.

    This is actually important. Government as an example can not discriminate against immutable characteristics and MAY be allowed to prohibit private discrimination based on immutable characteristics. Though there is excellent evidence and arguments that even private discrimination based on immutable characteristics is self correcting and not the business of government.

    But discrimination based on CHOICES is 100% legitimate. Certainly privately and in most cases even for government.

    Put differently Government can not discriminate against you if you ARE black. And MAYBE it can bar private discrimination against you if you ARE black.
    But if you merely “identify” as “black” – that is entitled to no protection – privately or publicly.

    We are absolutely free to discriminate against people because of the CHOICES they make.

    I can discriminate against people seeking employment – if they committed a crime, or advocate for the genocide of jews.
    MAYBE government can preclude me from discriminating against people who are ACTUALLY black or ACTUALLY a women.

    You can not have a functioning society where you can not make YOUR CHOICES, based on YOUR view of the CHOICES of others.

    1. John Say,
      This is yet another example of leftist Democrats trying to get the state to interfere with parents rights. As we have seen, this is one issue that really gets parents and even non-parents concerned. We do not need both elected and non-elected bureaucrats telling people what is right for their children. Not only when it comes to their physical well being but their education as well.

      1. To paraphrase Churchill
        Parents are the worst people to make choices regarding their children – Except everyone else.

        There are lots of $hitty parents out there. But Charles Manson is what you get when government raises a child.

        Hillaries “It takes a village” is Nonsense.

    2. “And the answer is that Adults are free to make their own decisions, and the adults specifically responsible for minors have the right to make those decisions absent termination of those rights.”

      John, line drawing is an art. Who takes charge of the decisions for a minor, the parent who is a Jehovah’s Witness, or the State when medical professionals determine that to sustain life, a child requires blood.?The parent or the State?

  10. Transgender: one of the most annoying statements from the Trans-Community “one’s sex assigned at birth” who or what has the power to assign one sperm to swim faster than the rest towards that egg, being born of either sex is a crapshoot. Now the conflict between accepting your birth sex or choosing to assume the opposite sex (by assume I mean there is NEVER a way to transform the human body into the opposite sex, you can replace parts and supplement or enhance cell structure but you’re still the sex of your birth). The American Psychiatric Association went from naming this conflict as ‘gender identity disorder’ to ‘gender dysphoria’ requiring clinical care and management to ‘depathologize’ which means (stops treatment as a mental disorder). And therein lays the problem not accepting physiology, hedonism maybe. If we’re to suppose that the gender question is not a disorder and is an individual’s right, then the question becomes can that right be usurped and by whom?

    1. The APA is fundamentally a political organization, not a professional organization.

      “one’s sex assigned at birth” who or what has the power to assign one sperm to swim faster than the rest towards that egg, being born of either sex is a crapshoot.

      The birth takes place nine months after that swimming meet. The objectionable language is “assigned” as if the doctor is randomly assigning the sex. That is denier terminology. The reality being denied is that the doctor observes the sex and writes it down. It should be one’s sex observed at birth, regardless of whether it can be changed thereafter . . . which of course it cannot, as you point out, being as it is a chromosomal thing.

    2. GW – while you are right in noting the absurdity of much of this. the problem is that immutable characteristics can not be discriminated against by government, And MAYBE govenrment can bar private discrimination against immutable characteristics.

      But CHOICES are ALWAYS subject to the judgement of others.

    1. Third from the left person just said, “only telling someone “yes” is not an act of love. At 23.00 minutes in. “Only affirming” is enabling, she said.

  11. A message about Trump’s cabinet pick, a drunken, woman hater Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    Everybody and their mother knows Hegseth’s mother snitched on him. Time to dump this dead beat.

    The military women of Peru. Roll the video.

    1. Do you have any actual evidence or are you just parroting “anonymous” sources?

      1. Yeah, after 12 midnight Pete Hegseth can drink you under the table & whoop you.

          1. He is just jealous he isn’t an attractive, handsome, warrior male like Pete Hegseth, and it is understandable. With as many identities as he uses on this blog, not even he wants to sexually stimulate himself

            🤣

          2. UpstateFarmer,

            Who the hell is your source? What bugs you? My postings? You want to rumble?

            1. Why would I have a source? Your postings are nothing more than un-named, anonymous sources spreading allegations that they cannot, nor will they provide evidence. Yet you parrot them as if they were true. Which is rather funny when you scream about the lack of evidence when anyone makes mention of the BCF, their shell companies, receiving millions of dollars for what exactly? Even shaking down Chinese business men for what exactly?
              Do I want to “rumble?” What does that even mean? We are going to meet in the high school parking lot after school and duke it out? What are you? 14? What a big bad a$$ you are on the interwebs.

              1. Yeah, up your ass farmer,

                You crashed my post and you want some action. Farmer just acts likes a drunk after 12 midnight.

                What did you post: “Which is rather funny when you scream”

                And then China: “Even shaking down Chinese business men for what exactly?”

                Rumble means: I want to punch you upside your head & beat your yams in.

                Its time to crash Farmers posts. This is fun!

                1. I crashed your post by pointing out the obvious that you are making allegations based off anonymous sources with no actual evidence? Is that why you are so butt hurt? Your post was so flimsy it could not nor would not stand up to scrutiny? That I pointed out that the BCF, with all their shell companies and, yes, shaking down a Chinese business man, we have the text messages in exchange for what exactly?
                  Well, if anyone’s posts read like a drunk after midnight, that would be your posts. I dont drink very often, so, yes I am a light weight and I am usually in bed by 9:30-10-ish. I get up early. By the time I fire up my computer, I have already been at work for two to three hours. Having my first cup of tea as I read the good professor’s column of the day.
                  Wow. Again, such a big bad a$$ on the interwebs. From behind a keyboard. In your mom’s basement. Stuffing your face with hot pockets and cheesy poofs.
                  What is fun is dismantling your simplistic, even juvenile posts. Easily.

                  1. @UpstateFarmer: I’m guess that Anonymous Birthing Boy’s biological as well as mental age could be as high as 14. Probably one of Tampon Tim’s boys, finally experiencing what it’s like to be on the rag for the first time since he self-identified with help from Coach Tim.

                    The hardest challenge he will successfully meet in his life is sticking with it throughout the four years it took him to complete Grade Three.

                    But there is hope he can contribute even more to society in the rest of his life.

                    Signing an organ donor card is about the only path open to him to achieve the status of being a contributor rather than a leech that I can see, however.

                    1. Old Airborne Dog,
                      Well said.
                      However, I would only say that this anonymous mental age of a 14 year old is equal to a blue haired 20 or 30 something year old, living in their mom’s basement, no real job, eating hot pockets and cheesy poofs. Clearly it has no critical thinking, common sense, or logic. Just read it posts.
                      Lame.

                    2. Old Airborne Dog States : I’m guess that Anonymous Birthing Boy’s biological as well as mental age could be as high as 14. Probably one of Tampon Tim’s boys, finally experiencing what it’s like to be on the rag for the first time since he self-identified with help from Coach Tim.

                      Keep your dirty nose out of this!

                      By the way Airborne Bag, I served with 5th Special Forces. Captain. Call sign Comanche.

                      Your comment confirms why US soldiers were killing each other in Vietnam to settle a score before sunrise. Hey Airborne Bag, you said “organ donor card is about the only path open to him to achieve the status of being a contributor rather than a leech that I can see, however. THAT’S A DEATH THREAT AIR BAG!

                      I’d like to show you some Comanche interrogation tactic tricks Air Bag. It’s OK, you can scream. There is no shame.

    2. “A message about Trump’s cabinet pick, a drunken, woman hater Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”

      Hoping you can make NBC’s “Kavanaugh 2.0” fly this time, Camel Ho Harris?

    3. ATS – where do you get the idea that people believe you – about anything ?

      Trump, Vance and 53 or 54 senators get to decide who the Sec Def will be – and they get to do so based on FACTS.
      Not idiotic claims from left wing nuts like you, or NBC or ….

      BTW Hegseth’s mother has publicly repudiated the email, claiming she was angry and called Pete up an hour later and they worked it out.
      She also claims that she and the entire family – including Ex’s have good relations and a strong family.
      And to be clear that is HER words in a public interview not something from some lying scum MSM reporter.

      Learn something for the past election –

      YOU don’t matter anymore.

      Not only those who voted for Trump – but the almost 10M voters from 2020 who did not vote in 2024 have ALL determined that
      You, the left, democrats LIE and con not be trusted.

      If you said the un will rise tomorow – I would wonder how you are twisting that.

      YOU ARE NOT TRUSTED.

      You have done this to yourself.

      Rather that rant about Trump’s choice of Sec Def – which is really not your business and which you have no voice in and no trust.

      Go figure out how to restore your credibility.

      A good way to start is to STOP spraying nonsense you are not sure about.

      The actual EVIDENCE regarding Hegseth does NOT support your claims.

      First he self evidently LOVES women – lots of women.

      Catting around is NOT the same as misogyny.
      At one time I would have considered it cause to preclude someone from a position of Trust – but Hegseth is clarly NOT Bill Clinton or Rep. Swallwell or Doug Emhoff, or Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or ….. who those of you on the left seem to think are trustworthy.

      If you wanted this to be a qualification for public office – then you should not have excused non-monogamous sexual conduct in others.

      There is not a different standard for republicans than democrats.

      Hegseth served two combat tours in the mideast. If he did not get Drunk occasionally when returning home – THAT would be surprising.

      While there is evidence that Hegsoth parties, there is no evidence he drives drunk or that his use of alcohol has ever prevented him from doing his job.
      Even those who are alleging that he has showed up at work hung over or smelling of alcohol have confirmed that:
      He showed up – ALWAYS.
      That he did his job – ALWAYS.

      I do not care if Hegsoth gets drunk occasionally.
      I care whether drinking interferes with doing his job.
      It has not.

      Regardless – you lost your right to an opinion when you were caught lying over and over.

      Hegsoth will get confirmed – or not – without regard for your views.
      He will withdraw or not – without regard for your views.

      If he is not confirmed or withdraws – Trump will find someone else – who you are unlikely to like any better.

      Be honest with yourself – what you hate about Trump’s appointees is NOT drinking of catting around, it is that they are going to do what Trump promised to do throughout the campaign and in the GOP Agenda 47 Platform.

      No matter who is Sec Def – they are going to reign in the woke nonsense at DoD. Restore the military to doing its JOB, Cut unnecessary spending and fix the recruiting disaster that has resulted from left wing nut wore idiocy.

      So you can rant about Hegsoth – but cleaning house is happening Regardless.

      Personally I do not care much about Hegsoth.
      I do care about cleaning house at DoD.

    4. From an Anonymous Democrat (a coward hiding with Dennis in their dank lair after posting):
      A message about Trump’s cabinet pick, a drunken, woman hater Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

      A message from one of the anonymous Democrat cowardly losers who told those lies, while refusing to allow their names to be published beside those lies.

      Everybody knows Democrats are cowards that usually try to post their lies anonymously. Some of them actually know who their parents are, and for a few of them, their mothers don’t totally hate them yet.

      Pete Hegseth’s coworkers of the last ten years have responded to your lies…

      ‘100 Percent Bullsh-t’: Hegseth’s Coworkers Shoot Down NBC’s Smear Campaign Against Pete Hegseth
      https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/04/100-percent-bullsh-t-fox-news-talent-shoot-down-nbcs-smear-campaign-against-pete-hegseth/

      The left-wing outlet’s trafficking of anonymous slanderous and unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing by Hegseth bears a striking resemblance to the smear tactics deployed by media hacktivists in their bid to defeat Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court nomination. Lacking any journalistic integrity, these so-called “reporters” ran with any and all claims laundered by the judge’s accusers with virtually no pushback or skepticism.

  12. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio (who has previously argued that children as young as two years old can identify themselves as transgender) seemed to later acknowledge that very few gender-dysphoric children actually go through with suicide, but insisted that the procedures reduce suicidal inclinations.

    It is delightful to see the Left consistently, purposefully and with gusto, surpass the mythical treatment of Galileo by the Catholic Church. Grand Inquisitor Dominican Friar Tomás de Torquemada had nothing on these Leftist elites. The Left today, as foam at the mouth, raving zealots, make the Aztecs and Incas look like patsies.

    “I think we face an equal but much more sinister challenge from the left, in the shape of cultural relativism – the view that scientific truth is only one kind of truth and it is not to be especially privileged.”
    Richard Dawkins, an atheist

    Memo to Pope Francis: bring back the Crusades

    🥳

    1. Estovir– “Memo to Pope Francis: bring back the Crusades.”

      Good idea but this Pope is just as likely to convert to Islam.

      To twist an old saying, “Is the bear a Catholic? Does a Pope s**t in the woods?”

    2. From the link: “Galileo was, in fact, treated surprisingly well.”

      Galileo was forced by a combined power of church and state to recant his ideas. So much for free speech and open scholarly discourse.

      He was sentenced, by a combined power of church and state, to a lifetime of house arrest. His “crime?” That he “injured the holy faith.”

      What’s missing from that work of fiction is the numerous scientists who were persecuted, prosecuted, tortured by the Church. Consider how “surprisingly well” the Church treated Giordano Bruno, a follower of Galileo’s heliocentrism. The Church convicted him of blasphemy. Then it clamped a metal plate over his tongue, stripped him bare, and burned him alive at the stake.

      Just as communist whitewash their horrific history, so too do religionists.

  13. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court of the United States is bringing its many decades of collective legal experience to bear as it carefully considers whether a guy slicing body parts off of children with a giant knife is bad. Legal scholars have submitted thousands of pages of amicus briefs for review as justices wrestle with the nuances of the morality of drugging children and sterilizing them.

    Read the whole story:

    https://babylonbee.com/news/scotus-to-carefully-weigh-whether-its-okay-for-guys-to-slice-off-childrens-body-parts-with-giant-knife

    The Bee is also reporting on the following developments:

    – ‘Allahu Akbar’ replaces ‘Cheerio, Mate’ as most popular greeting in UK
    – To increase excitement, MLB to allow each team to call in one tactical air strike per game
    – Daniel Penny jury deliberations delayed due to three jurors being beaten on subway ride to courthouse
    – Confused senior citizen pledges $1 billion to exiled Nigerian prince
    – Jaguar announces special offer: trunk-load of Bud Light with new vehicle purchase
    – Early reports of unrest in South Korea indicate ‘everybody was Kung Fu fighting’
    – Joe Biden pardons the 2024 Chicago White Sox
    – NYC prosecutes Spider Man for saving people on subway
    – God announces he believes in Jordan Peterson but only as a metaphorical idea
    – Trump announces plan to annex Canada and rename it Gay North Dakota
    – Hunter asks if he can get his baggie of cocaine back from the White House now
    – Doctors report startling rise in testicular injuries among women athletes

  14. On one hand the blob wants us to bow to the “democracy” (read: central authoritarian world police that must censor populists), on the other it gives us two complete incompetents, sotomajor and brown – we have the lowest effort blob ever, there is simply no way you can bow to that.

      1. The idea that the trans community is a discrete and insular minority effectively excluded from the political process is absurd. The Federal Government, the media, the academy, the public schools establishment, the pharmaceutical companies, the medical associations, the athletics associations, at least half the states and others are largely in their camp on issues such as “gender affirming care” and boys in girls’ sports.

        1. The “Whole-of-Society” manufactured crises crap is coming to an end, sry, not sry.

        2. The idea that the trans community is a discrete…..

          How many “trans community” members do you see on the street, in grocery stores, in restaurants, in every day life? If you saw more than 1 in 1 month, it would be on the high side. They are not a community. They are a population, and they hate each other, hate women and hate gays & lesbians. Women, Feminists, Gays & lesbians have declared all out war on the so called “Trans community”, and they do not mince words.

          Martina Navratilova, a far left, Lesbian:

          “Initially, being the Democrats and the women that we are for the most part, we in this group were trying to find every single possible way to include trans-identified men, males who identify as women, into women’s sports,” she said. “And the more we try to find a way to mitigate the advantage, to handicap, to somehow to include, the more we figured out it’s not possible. It’s not possible to do it in a fair way and here we are in a much different position.

          “As I got deeper into the issue, I also saw the connection between women’s sex-based spaces and women’s sports – they are totally interconnected, and I’m sure the swimmers at Penn could tell you all about that. You heard about Lia Thomas, right?”

          “Now, it’s, ‘Oh, you’re a homophobe.’ Go figure. I’ve been out since ’81, yeah, I’m a homophobe,” she said, rolling her eyes. “‘You’re a bigot, you’re a transphobe, you’re a Nazi, you’re a fascist, you’re a communist,’ everything and everything in between. And this is coming from the left. I am the left! My people are turning on me. They’re turning on us, women, who speak up for women’s sex-based rights.”

          https://www.foxnews.com/sports/martina-navratilova-mad-republicans-more-outspoken-than-dems-about-trans-athletes-girls-sports

        3. Perhaps you should re-read the famous footnote and the decades of civil rights jurisprudence, which followed.

          In no way does support from those groups factor into whether or not a discrete and insular minority deserves protection under the law.

          The U.S. has a long history of limiting rights to trans individuals based on strict policing of their bodies and clothing. Starting in the 1800s, masquerade laws required individuals to dress in ways stereotypically associated with their sex assigned at birth. The laws were allegedly a means of stopping tax evading farmers from fleeing town but were repurposed to socially and lawfully police gender expression. These policies and acts of aggression and suppression from the 1600-1800s were early forms of “walking while trans” laws.

          This group is arguably the most singled out community in public discourse today. How can you say that they haven’t been excluded from the political process when, immediately on the election of a member of this group to Congress, their access to public accommodations (Mace’s bathroom policing nonsense) was in question?

          1. Are “they” in the room now?
            What do “they” look like”?
            What are “they” telling you?

          2. JONATHAN TURLEY
            Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

            Civility Rule

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            Like all sites, we attract trolls and juvenile posters who want to tear down the work of others. It is a sad reality of the Internet and the worst element of our species. Don’t feed the trolls. Ignore them. They are trolls and live under cyber bridges for a reason.

            We have often been described as a place where people can have passionate but respectful discussions. That is not for everyone. Indeed, one of the leading legal blogs expressly rejected a civility rule as boring and unnecessary. We disagree. If you find it difficult or unfulfilling to discuss issues without personal insults or foul language, please move on. Our Guest Bloggers are asked to avoid any tit-for-tat fight with trolls and critics. Likewise, most of our regulars refuse to engage in such exchanges. Please help us keep this an island of civility and mature discourse on the Internet. Address the issues and not the individuals in our debate. Be passionate but don’t let it get personal.

            And thanks again for being part of our blog community.

            Jonathan Turley

            1. BEYOND THE PALE

              It is eminently within the bounds of reason that this profane and abrasive “commenter” be subjected to a permanent ban.

            2. BEYOND THE PALE

              It is eminently within the bounds of reason and decorum that this “commenter” be subjected to a permanent ban.

  15. Since (as was previously pointed out) sex is determined pre-birth at the embryonic chromosomal/genomic stage, the medical treatment should more aptly be “sex-affirming” not “gender-affirming.” This should take care of “dysphoria” and external influences affecting kids.
    “Gender-affirming” simply placates wishes and preferences.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9967/

    1. Don’t you meant “sex-disapproving care”? These are cases where the patient’s biological sex is alleged to be bothersome to the patient, who therefore wants to change it.

      1. Oldman–

        Worse than that. I don’t care what adults do but involving children who simply lack the mental resources to give informed consent to these procedures is morally, ethically and legally wrong.

        I imagine that there will be civil lawsuits when these kids get old enough to understand what has been done to them.

        There are likely many things at play in these cases and not all of them spring from the same causes, but one possible cause is particularly disturbing if true.

        Munchausen’s by proxy.

        You likely noticed that a number of celebrities have claimed to have a transgender child who is dragged around and displayed like a fashion accessory, a new purse, cute new shoes, a transgender child to dress up…look at me! So au fait! As with Munchausen’s, it is often [usually?] women who are doing it and fathers who are fighting it. A father in California just lost a case trying to prevent a mother from transitioning their child.

        Deranged social contagions seem to be common these days.

        People need to relearn how to simply say: “Bull***t!”

  16. In my opinion, the Court’s two intellectual lightweights are Justices Sotomayor and Jackson.

    1. Those aren’t “intellectual lightweights,” those are affirmative action non-entities.

  17. Justice Sotomayor’s analogy with aspirin is a logical fallacy. Attorney General Rice was arguing that the legislature in pasing this law was attempting to balance risk versus benefits. Justice Sotomayor;’s analogy using the risk of aspirin implies that the legislature was not engaged in a risk-benefits balancing act but in attempting to eliminate all risk. Thus she engaged in an exercise of creating a strawman and poking holes in him..

    State legislation does this risk-benefit balancing in other adjacent areas affecting the health of children such as imposing an age limit for tattoos, smoking, drinking alcohol, driving, purchasing a gun, etc. This law is well within the wheelhouse of normal legislative powers.

    1. True, and that is precisely why it is likely to be upheld, seeing that there are currently at least five Justices who understand the respective roles of the judicial and legislative branches.

    2. Exactly Arnold N.. it’s what they always do. They change the subject and hook people into talking about the new topic instead. The demeanor is always haughty or feigned humility displaying the narcissistic pride in their accomplishments. It’s deceitful and dishonest.

      Sorry ladies, you have no robes on said the child.

      Justice Alito is prepared for the cases unlike Sotomayor and others.

      The lgbtq community has shown itself as quite ill as a group willing to experiment on, mutilate and abuse children like little rats in a lab. Another look at adoptions by this group is necessary.

    3. No, her comment pushed back on the utilitarian framing of Rice’s cost-benefit analysis when he asked how many minors must be harmed.

      She said: “There’s always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer a harm. So, the question in my mind is not, ‘do policymakers decide whether one person’s life is more valuable than the millions of others who get relief from this treatment?'”

      The real point was that (a) no treatment is not without complications; and (b) this utilitarian decision-making is not at issue in this case.

      The focus should be the appropriate level of scrutiny to apply.

      1. Listening to the oral arguments, the DOJ is making the argument that a birth sex male can receive testosterone treatment for the purpose of getting a deeper voice but a birth sex female cannot receive the same testosterone treatment for the purpose of gender transitioning by this law. Therefore this is claimed to be sex discrimination. To the extent that the hypothetical of the male receiving testosterone treatment is actual, the purpose is quite different which is what the state claims. Justice Sotomayor and Jackson seem to think that the natural development of boys and girls are the same – which is simply not the case. To support their argument that heightened scrutiny applies, the DOJ claims that transgenderism is immutable otherwise one would scrutinize the law on a rational basis. Given the very subjective and ephemeral nature of individual claims of transgenderism it seems to me that transgenderism has not been shown to be immutable. I would be astonished if the court does not lean on a rational basis.

        1. * Well, it’s schizo. There are 2 people involved . The male you and the female you. 😂 prosecute for murder. They’ve killed one actively.

          It there weren’t harm to the abused and innocent it wouldn’t be in courts. It would be with physicians with conscience, intelligence, common sense with reverence for life and the patient. It’s in the courts because of harm and abuse of children.

          On the otherhand there’ve always been eunuchs, castrated males of the slave class and Amazon Greek women removed one breast for archery. Slaves can be castrated in childhood and have no worth btw. Anthropology

      2. * Wait until you’re 18 and then take the aspirin. It’s not FOREVER.

        It’s the same argument they used in mifepristone. It doesn’t matter if there are 10 casualties if it’s for even just one. No kidding, it’s not a joke.

        The problem is more specific. There are some obvious very serious birth defects that are genetic damage in the sex chromosomes at birth, Undescended testes for one. Physicians can fix this via surgery. Doctors cannot be hindered in such surgeries.

        Children don’t understand reproduction. At two they don’t know if it’s their foot or yours.

  18. Jonathan: Tennessee has a long history of discrimination against minorities. The KKK was founded in the state in 1865. In 1870 white racist Tennessee politicians amended the state constitution to prohibit racial integration in the state’s public schools. We often forget the in 1925 Tennessee was the setting of the infamous Scopes trial where a public school teacher was charged with violating state law by teaching evolution. White Tennessee politicians have always fought science and the equal rights of its citizens under the US Constitution and its Amendments. Over 1,100 books have been banned from school district libraries in the state. Even Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” has been banned. When it comes to “free expression” Tennessee is at the bottom of the barrel!

    Given Tennessee’s history of discrimination we have the oral arguments yesterday in US v Skrmetti in which Tennessee’s AG, Jonathan Skrmetti, asked the Court to extend the Dobbs decision to allow his state to ban gender affirming care in addition to abortion. Skrmetti wants to not only control the bodies of women but also those seeking gender affirming care.

    As the author of the Dobbs decision Sam Alito was sympathetic to the AG’s argument. As you say in your column Alito “cited extensive countervailing research for European countries showing significant risks and potential harm” from transgender medical care. That’s a gross misstatement of the European research. In fact, neither the UK, France, Sweden nor in Norway has transgender care been banned. That has happened only in Russia. In Norway minors can still receive puberty blockers and get hormone treatment starting at age 16. In the aforementioned countries they have tightened restrictions on who qualifies but in none of these countries has transgender care been banned. Research continues in these countries to determine when a minor should be given transgender care–and at what age.

    As he did in Dobbs, Alito has to resort to fabricated facts to make the case that Tennessee should be entitled to ban transgender care. And you provide a echo chamber for Alito’s false dichotomy. If Alito and his right-wing majority have their way transgender youth will join women in being deprived of their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. For Alito the Constitution has never stood in the way of imposing a new era of patriarchy. And if the SC sides with Tennessee DJT will then call for a nationwide ban on gender affirming care–even for adults. Not a good sign for individual rights under the next DJT autocratic regime!

    1. Gender affirming care
      🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
      Total oxymoron, more Lefty language mutilation to support the mutilation of children.

      Why does a psychological condition require surgical intervention?

      I’ve got a bad cold, time to head to my barber for a bloodletting🤣

      So medieval, so barbaric. Why do you hate children?

      1. OldFish,
        Your bad cold and bloodletting reminded me of the TV show, The Addams Family, where Uncle Fester has a headache and uses those giant clamps on his head, screws them down till you hear the “pop!’ Yep. That is the leftists version of “gender affirming care.” Just keep applying pressure till the patient is cured!

      2. Go easy on Penis McIntyre. He says that he is a native Californian, and 73 years old, and if so, there may be a medical basis for his mental deficiencies. Think smog here, and large congested highways, etc. He has probably been exposed to more lead in the atmosphere than the average American, and there is a scientific basis that this fact has caused mental illness in over 151 million Americans – to wit:

        “In 1922 the idea of adding lead to fuel to improve fuel efficiency and protect car engines from knocking apparently seemed brilliant – spewing out a metal even the ancient Romans knew was toxic, what could go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turned out. However, chemical engineer Thomas Midgley, Jr., who was also responsible for ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, was undeterred, and enlisted the power of two of the world’s mightiest industries behind him.

        The United States eventually banned leaded petrol in 1996, and other nations slowly followed suit, but we are still discovering the cost. In 2015 more than 170 million people – over half the population – had been exposed to dangerous levels of lead in the blood while their brains were still developing.

        A mountain of research shows that exposure to lead during childhood damages the developing brain, with consequences both for the mental health of the individual affected, and those around them. Establishing how large that effect has been, given the need to separate it from many other factors that can cause the same problems, is trickier, but Dr Aaron Reuben of Duke University has tried.

        There has also been a lot of work on reduced IQ and loss of income, but Reuben and Professors Michael McFarland and Matt Hauer of Florida State University have looked at a neglected aspect; the mental health of those exposed. In some ways this is an even more difficult question to assess using public data, because our reporting of mental health has changed so much over the years. People who would now get treatment for anxiety or depression were once told to pull themselves together, and their condition might never be recorded.

        To address this, the team used evidence of the link between different levels of lead exposure and mental illness observed in two small closely-studied populations to calculate the consequences in what they call “General Psychopathology points”. They then scaled this up by known levels of exposure in the American population. “This is the exact approach we have taken in the past to estimate lead’s harms for population cognitive ability and IQ,” McFarland said in a statement. That work concluded that the US population lost a cumulative 824 million IQ points to leaded gasoline.

        Bad as that sounds, the mental health effects are arguably worse. “We saw very significant shifts in mental health across generations of Americans,” Hauer said. “Meaning many more people experienced psychiatric problems than would have if we had never added lead to gasoline.”

        The effects the trio are measuring are not just an increase in sadness or susceptibility to stress within normal levels, but diagnosable depression, anxiety, and conditions like schizophrenia. The authors calculate there were an extra 151 million of those. Even allowing for many people suffering more than one additional disorder, that means tens of millions of people affected to a diagnosable degree.”

        https://www.iflscience.com/leaded-gasoline-was-responsible-for-150-million-cases-of-psychiatric-disorders-in-america-alone-77087

        This could also explain the high level of craziness in California, particularly in the high population areas.

      1. Yes, it wasn’t the ham sandwich, it was the ensuing heart attack – had she had an aspirin on that ham sandwich she may have survived…to her next ham sandwich.

    2. @Dennis

      Anyone still using the phrase, ‘the patriarchy’, in 2024 can very safely be ignored. Go blow, dude. Pfft. You, like Gigi, are an idiot. Nobody cares.

    3. Lincoln was for mass deportation and “colonization to Liberia” “before he was against it,” a la John Kerry. 

      Lincoln was in contrast to and in violation of the fundamental and statutory law of the United States. 

      The American Founders allowed only “free white person(s)” admission to become citizens in their immigration law, the Naturalization Act of 1802, which was the law of the land and never abrogated legislatively.  Lincoln’s denial of not prohibited and fully constitutional secession was unconstitutional causing every subsequent act of Lincoln and his successors to be similarly unconstitutional by extension, including, but not limited to, the “Reconstruction Amendments” promoted by Karl Marx to Lincoln in his letter of 1865: “They consider…that it fell to…Abraham Lincoln,…to lead his country through…the reconstruction of a social world.”  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

      Abortion was retroactively corrected and struck down by the Supreme Court after 50 years.  By the same token, in observance of the law, the high-criminal failure of Lincoln to enforce immigration law as the Naturalization Act of 1802, in full force and effect on January 1, 1863, must be similarly retroactively corrected and struck down by the Supreme Court after 150 years. 
      ________

      Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, and 1802

      United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790

      Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…

    4. Dennis

      It is not 1870,
      it is not 1925

      With respect to Scopes – it is NOT up to teachers what they are allowed to teach our children – it is up to their parents.

      This is NOT about science – if it was YOU would lose.

      Gender can not concurrently be both immutable, and a choice.
      300,000 years of human history strongly indicates that sex is immutable.

      If you wish to claim that gender is different from Sex – fine – then it is a choice.
      If it is a choice YOU LOSE.
      We can descriminate against people based on their choices.
      We are not obligate to provide to others the ability to acheive their choices.

      The left should not be talking about book banning – as it is the left that has sought to keep Mark Twain out of schools – and to kill a mockingbird, and …

      Any parent that wants Maus can order it from Amazon.

      A typical small public school library may have anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 books
      There are currently 1,314,394 books listed on Amazon.com in children’s.
      Maus is not one of those.

      It is considered to be a significant work on the holocaust.
      It is also terrifying, brutal, horrific,
      and not appropriate for children.

      I do not know the details of the TN law or Skrmetti,

      But the case should have nothing to do with Dobbs or the idiocy that is “gender affirming care”.
      It is about who gets to decide regarding minors.
      And the Answer is parents. Not government, not teachers, not even courts.
      Certainly not the medical industrial complex that is creating life long drug dependents with this nonsense.

      Women are free to control their own bodies – a fetus is IN a womens body it is NOT a women’s body.

      “That’s a gross misstatement of the European research. In fact, neither the UK, France, Sweden nor in Norway has transgender care been banned. ”
      Your again engaged in semantics. All have dramatically scaled this idiocy back as the real world results are that it is a waste of money and does more harm than good.

      This should have been trivial to figure out – humanity is 300,000 years old, only within the last century has it been possible to surgically change sexual presentation.
      Only within the past 20 years has it not be EXTREMELY dangerous. We still have no evidence of the long term effects, but virtually every short term study has been AT BEST neutral.

      The FACT – which again is supported by the science. is that only a miniscule percentage of alleged cases of “gender dysphoria” are not other mental disorders being mis-diagnosed.

      In the UK (and the US) Myriads of other disorders like Bulima and Anerxia went away with the advent of easy misdiagnosises of GD.
      An incredibly large portion for FTM GD is girls who are being sexually abused who beleive that will stop if they are no longer girls.

      Whether you like it or not Europe – which on most everything else is further left than the US has realized that something else is going on and there is not some sudden epidemic of GD.
      And that pretending there is constitutes Medical Malpractice.

      You make claims regarding Europe – but as usual – you do not address the Truth – Europe has RADICALLY reduced the availability of “gender afirming care”.
      GD is MUCH harder to diagnose, and while the tratments are not banned they are Much harder to qualify form and the mass epidemic of GD has been ended.

      Studies have found that 97% of males diagnosed with GD resolve as Gay by their early 20’s NOT Trans. The situation is WORSE with women where GF diagnosis has replaced almost all other mental health diagnosis in teens,

      The FACT is that GD is MASSIVELY over diagnosed and the consequenced of “Gender Affirming care” care are exactly what you would expect from that kind of orwellian nonsense.

      Regardless if you are an adult – you can dress as you please, have whatever surgery you can pay for, take whatever medicine you can pay for, and deal with the consequences of those choices. And I as another adult can refuse to hire you or associate with you or let you into the bathroom or locker room with my daughter.

      With respect to Minors – choices are the right of their parents. The worst choice EXCEPT all others.

      If you wish to F#$K up your kids for life – your the one who gets to live with what you have done.

    5. First Gender affirming care is more orwellian nonsense.

      What you are doing is using drugs and surgery that has only recently been available to overcome nature.

      That “afirms” nothing.

      If “gender” is a choice – then it is NOT an entitlement. If you can chose to be a sex different from your birth then you can chose to be the sex of your birth.

      As an adult you are free to choose to be a dolphin or a turtle if you wish – no one is obligated to aid you in that delusion.

      If gender is NOT a choice – if you were “born that way” – then there is some medical evidence of that.

      Doctors and Hospitals do not give people whatever drugs or treatment they ask for. The treat the ACTUAL physical symptoms.
      We do not remove kidneys because people identify as having kidney cancer.
      We treat cancer when we find cancer.

      If the only evidence is in your head – then you have a mental disorder.

      When people think they are christ – we diagnose them as crazy.
      We do not play into their delusions and nail them to a cross.

      When man think they are women – we diagnose them as crazy.

      I will be happy to reconsider when you can provide biological evidence of something beyond a mental disorder to treat.

      The hypocratic oath starts “First do no harm” – “gender affirming care” violates that oath.

      Provide a SCIENTIFIC basis for claims to the contrary.

      Those of you on the left have put the cart before the horse.

    6. From the swedish governments policies on GD

      “The evidence base is considered insufficient to determine the effects of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone therapy on gender dysphoria, psychosocial health and quality of life in children and adolescents, and the risks of such interventions probably exceed the expected benefits. Hormone therapy can be given in special cases if the criteria in the Dutch Protocol are met and treatment is established as part of a clinical trial”

      The UK is now suing the same criteria as Sweden.

      Further the Dutch Protocol – which is based on a long term study of only 55 patients is generally considered statistically poor – even though it is the coundation for pretty much everything.

      One of the many problems with the dutch protocol – and one of the reasons that European countries are backing away from this nonsense is that even in a liberal environment where “Gender affirming care” is provided easily – well over 90% of those receiving it DROP OUT over several years.

      Put more simply, increasing the europeans are deciding that there is no reason to provide care that those who received the care within a short period have decided that it is not beneficial.

      Should government be “banning” Care ?

      Absolutely not.

      Should government be paying for it or requiring insurance companies to pay for it, or allowing minors to get it without the permission of adults ?
      Absolutely not.

      We can add to the mental disorders of the left – beyond TDS, GDS – Gender Delusion Syndrome.

      Regardless as is common for those on the left – you confuse a choice with a right.

      You can choice to be a frog if you want to. But you have no right to be whatever you want. and nature rarely provides the means to transform your choices into possibilities – much less rights.

      You are entitled to your delusions, you are not entitled to force others to share them or worse still to pay for you to hold on to them.

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