This is not fake news: U.S. Surgeon General warns that parenting is a health hazard

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The US Surgeon General, Dr Vivek Murthy, just issued an official advisory warning against the stressful nature of parenting and labelling it “an urgent public health issue.” The document says Surgeon General Advisories “require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.” So, according to the Surgeon General, what exactly is the urgent issue and what immediate actions should be taken to rescue parents from the stress of raising their own children?

In short, the advisory cites data showing that parents experience more stress than non-parents and that sometimes, some parents’ stress levels are so high they cannot function. It says parental stress can negatively affect children. It says major sources of parental stress include “financial strain and economic instability, time demands, concerns over children’s health and safety, parental isolation and loneliness, difficulty managing technology and social media, and cultural pressures.”

All true.

I’m a mom of five children, and I birthed four of them within a time span of roughly five years. 12 years later, I had a baby in my 40s. We had diapers and dating going on at the same time. I’m no stranger to stress. I have known financial strain, the instability of layoffs, bone-deep fatigue, and so much more.

As for not being able to function, that depends on your definition of the word “function”. (Does inventing games where I lay motionless on the bed while my kids pile heaps of clean laundry on top of me count as “functioning”?) Parenting has beat the stuffing right out of me at times. But through all these years, I never saw my children as a threat to my mental health.

Children are a danger to their parents

This Surgeon General’s Advisory is the first time I recall seeing an official government entity framing children as a clear and present danger to their parents. It reminds me of radical feminist Sophie Lewis’ assertion that babies in utero commit “fetal violence” toward their mothers by introducing health threats to and demanding nourishment from their unfortunate maternal hosts. Likewise, Suzanne Sadedin says an unborn baby employs “manipulation, blackmail, and violence” against its mother while floating in the womb and usurping whatever sustenance it can suck from her body.

Collectivism is always the answer

What does the Surgeon General say should be done about this assault on parents’ health? The “We Can Take Action” section of the advisory starts with this preface: “[W]hile parents and caregivers may have the primary responsibility for raising children… [it] is a collective responsibility.” It then gives a laundry list of collectivist solutions including the following:

  • “Bolster support for childcare financial assistance programs such as childcare subsidies and child income tax credits; universal preschool; early childhood education programs.”
  • “Establish a national paid family and medical leave program.”
  • Prioritise “poverty reduction, prevention of adverse childhood experiences… and improve access to healthy food and affordable housing.”
  • “Strengthen public and private insurance coverage of mental health care.”
  • Expand workplace policies, including “paid parental, medical, and sick leave” and “access to childcare (in the community or on-site)”.

Unsurprisingly, most of the solutions call for more government intervention and lots more childcare. (Sorry, but universal preschool has not been shown to improve the situation of the majority of children or their parents.) We will never fix the problem by encouraging less family unity and more government “help” that comes at the cost of higher taxes.

There doesn’t seem to be acknowledgment in the Surgeon General’s Advisory that the separation of parents and children for most of the waking hours of every day and the reality of both parents focusing most of their time and efforts outside the home may be contributing to the very problem they’re trying to solve: the widespread breakdown of the mental health and happiness of both children and their parents.

The advisory does have some solid suggestions that deserve kudos. For instance, it urges friends and family members to offer practical support to parents, including “lending assistance with household chores, childcare responsibilities, or running errands” and “looking for ways to support parents and caregivers so they can take breaks, attend needed appointments, and engage in self-care activities.” Bravo.

Humble solutions

Here are some additional suggestions for policymakers and individuals:

  • Live near family. Grandparents and others can offer vital support. Studies show that living near grandparents can benefit children, parents, and grandparents.
  • Ease parents’ financial burdens by lowering taxes; do this by eliminating social programs, not increasing or expanding them. Largely let families solve their own problems with their own money.
  • Cultivate an economy in which one parent can primarily support the family financially, and one parent can primarily focus on the physical and emotional needs of their children.
  • Spend more time and effort preparing children for parenthood. Cultivate selflessness, sacrifice, and responsibility in children (Hint: Large families often foster this.)
  • Limit time spent on electronic devices for both parents and children (for more vital information on this, see my articles here and here.)
  • Revitalise THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. Initiate simple neighbourhood gatherings to get to know the people around you. Use social media neighbourhood groups to support each other, like offering to pick up a gallon of milk, etc., for the family next door.
  • Don’t wait for the government to save you. If you are overstressed — as I was at one time when my kids were young — ask another parent to swap babysitting with you every week (or as often as needed.) Doing this reduced my stress level significantly.
  • Reconsider and revise your priorities. If work has become more dominant than home life, or if your life is overrun with too much to do, simplify and sacrifice in order to focus on what matters most to you.

Despite the often chaotic and stressful nature of parenting, most parents see their children as a deep and satisfying source of joy — despite the pain. There is work and struggle in parenthood. That’s part of what you sign up for when you decide to welcome a helpless person into your life.

But you also sign up for a life of purpose and boundless adventure beyond what you could have imagined. And almost all parents rise to the occasion. They embrace the adventure of raising a family, and it gives them both daily and lifelong purpose. At the end of the day — and at the end of their lives — most parents consider themselves better off rather than worse off for having embarked on the irreplaceable adventure of becoming parents.

What do you make of the US Surgeon General’s advisory? Leave your thoughts below.

AUTHOR

Kimberly Ells is the author of The Invincible Family. Follow her at Invincible Family Substack.

EDITORS NOTE: This Mercator column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Radicalized And Increasingly Out Of Touch’: Texas Dem Abandons Party

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A Texas Democrat ditched her party in a scathing rebuke Friday and added that she plans to defect to the GOP.

Shawn Thierry declared the party switch while attending the Moms for Liberty summit in Washington, D.C., noting that she cannot support some of the liberal policies like sex change surgeries for minors and stripping Title IX protections for female athletes. The Democratic representative lost in the May primaries to opponent Lauren Simmons, which kept Thierry from a fifth term, The Texas Tribune reported.

“This is not the party I grew up with,” Thierry said in a statement posted to X. “I have witnessed firsthand how the so-called ‘liberal’ left now stifles thoughtful debate, silencing dissent with an iron fist—demanding blind allegiance to ideology, where one must ‘comply or be cast out.’ This is not the Democratic Party I once supported and represented.”

“As the years have passed, I have watched with dismay as the party I once knew has drifted far from its roots,” Thierry said. “It has become almost unrecognizable—radicalized and increasingly out of touch with the values that millions of everyday Americans hold dear.”

Thierry faced significant backlash from her liberal constituents and the Democratic party for supporting a bill banning cross-sex hormones and sex change surgeries for minors, a press release accompanying Thierry’s statement notes. The representative now serves in her fourth term in the Texas Legislature.

“In 2024, the Republican Party champions economic empowerment, by investing in Historically Black colleges and universities like the one I proudly graduated from,” Thierry noted in her statement. “It’s the party of parents, believing that they have the fundamental right to determine the best educational environments for their children to learn, grow, and succeed.”

“I am leaving the left because the left has abandoned Democrats who feel betrayed by a party that has lost its way, lost its commitment to hard working families,” Thierry’s statement says.

AUTHOR

Jennifer Nuelle

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tim Walz’s Lies: The Top 7

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CNN thinks it understands what sets Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz apart from the average politician: honesty. “[W]hat Walz has — and it’s rare in politics these days — is that he’s totally comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He’s authentic. And he doesn’t try to be someone else,” said CNN’s Chris Cillizza.

Yet Walz stands accused of purveying a string of lies, errors, and prevarications stretching back to his earliest days in politics, fibbing about everything from his military service to whether he won an obscure award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce as a 29-year-old man. Here is a far-from-exhaustive list of the mistruths Walz has communicated.

1. Stolen Valor #1: Serving in War

Tim Walz served 24 years in the National Guard, an honorable action worthy of praise in its own right. During his National Guard service, Walz was stationed in Norway and, when a different unit deployed to Afghanistan, he took their place in Vicenza, Italy from August 3, 2003, until 2004, according to NPR. Walz retired in 2005, as the unit he led was about to be deployed to Iraq.

Yet over the years, he has implied he faced combat during the War on Terror, as well as allowing others to repeat the claim without correction. In a video clip the Harris-Walz campaign shared of a 2018 event calling for gun control legislation against law-abiding citizens in violation of the Second Amendment, Walz said, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.”

The campaign muddied the waters, telling CNN, “In his 24 years of service, the [g]overnor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country.” A Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, later claimed Walz “misspoke.”

Yet the errors had piled up for years. A 2006 article in The Atlantic claimed Walz faced a hostile interrogation at a George W. Bush rally after security saw evidence that Walz supported 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry:

“His challenge prompted a KGB-style interrogation that was sadly characteristic of Bush campaign events. Do you support the president? Walz refused to answer. Do you oppose the president? Walz replied that it was no one’s business but his own. (He later learned that his wife was informed that the Secret Service might arrest him.) Walz thought for a moment and asked the Bush staffers if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.”

Numerous video clips have shown figures, including then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), claiming Walz served in combat, without any correction, provoking charges that Walz engaged in “stolen valor.”

A group of 50 military veterans in Congress wrote a letter to Walz expressing their “grave concern” over the fact that Walz may be “a heartbeat away from becoming the Commander-In-Chief. You’ve already demonstrated your unwillingness to lead in time of war and a lack of honor through your blatant misrepresentations exploiting and co-opting the experiences of America’s combat veterans for personal gain.”

The lead author of the letter — Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) — lost both legs while serving in Afghanistan.

“America’s veterans and servicemembers are rightfully concerned about what would happen to them should you ascend to the Presidency. When America asked you to lead your troops into War, you turned your back on your troops.”

“Until you admit you lied to them, there is no way you can be trusted to serve as Vice President,” they wrote.

Those who served in uniform seem the most upset.

Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who escaped Appalachian poverty first by enlisting in the Marine Corps, before enrolling in Ohio State University and Yale, said when his country “asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with.”

“For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a command sergeant major, which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies,” said Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia.

“I served in the Minnesota National Guard with him. He literally abandoned us when we were about to be deployed to Iraq. He’s a coward and should be treated as such,” stated J.R. Salzman. Multiple members of Walz’s unit, including a chaplain, have spoken out against Walz’s misrepresentation of his military record.

Legacy media outlets, so quick to pounce or artifice any misstatement from President Donald Trump, have proven remarkably understanding about Walz’s erroneous comments. The New York Times ran an article “Explaining Claims About Tim Walz’s Military Service,” which noted that four veterans “do not believe the governor is guilty of ‘stolen valor,’ but that he did misrepresent his record at times.” Some seemingly confessed that they have concerns over the political impact of Walz’s claims, which legacy media fact-checkers minimize or otherwise spin. “False and misleading claims of such a trivial nature might not seem particularly harmful, but a deluge of them could easily add up to real damage at the polls, according to experts. This is especially true when they go after a figure such as Walz, who is still relatively unknown on the national stage,” admitted CBS News.

Yet a few have corrected the record. “There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in the position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was. So that is absolutely false when he said that about gun rights out there,” said CNN correspondent Tim Foreman. More recently, USA Today columnist Ingrid Jacques referred to Walz’s “disturbing record” as “a bit of a fabulist.”

2. Stolen Valor #2: ‘Retired Command Sergeant Major’

Walz has repeatedly referred to his rank as “retired command sergeant major,” including in the official Walz-Harris campaign biography. Yet Walz actually retired as a master sergeant, because he failed to complete required coursework at the U.S. Sergeants Major Academy when he quit his unit in 2005 to run for U.S. Congress.

“You have stated that you are ‘damn proud’ of your service, and like any American veteran, you should be. But there is no honor in lying about the nature of your service,” stated a letter from 50 veterans serving in Congress. “Repeatedly claiming to be a ‘Retired Command Sergeant Major’ when you did not complete the requirements was not honorable. Nor was it honorable to claim to carry weapons ‘in war’ when you had not served in war, and abandoning the men and women under your leadership just as they were getting ready to deploy was certainly not honorable either.”

Eventually, the Harris-Walz campaign website stealth edited Walz’s biography. Yet in an official video shown on the third night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention before his vice presidential acceptance speech, said that Walz “served 24 years in the National Guard, rising to Command Sergeant Major.”

3. Walz Claimed His Wife Conceived through IVF

The Democratic Party has repeatedly claimed the 2022 Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade, has unleashed a torrent of pro-life laws that threaten everything from miscarriage care to in vitro fertilization (IVF). Tim Walz claimed to have a very “personal” connection to IVF, claiming he and his wife, Gwen, owe their two children to IVF.

In fact, Walz invoked the Lord’s divine providence for the controversial procedure. “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” Walz told MSNBC in July. Walz weaponized the issue against J.D. Vance in August, alleging, “If it was up to him, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF.” (Vance has spoken in favor of IVF, a controversial procedure in which nine out of 10 children are never born and unknown millions have been “discarded,” aborted, or abandoned.)

But in an August 19 interview with Walz’s wife, Gwen, Glamour magazine reported that the couple did not conceive via IVF at all. The Walzes participated in a different fertility procedure, known as intrauterine insemination (IUI), in which sperm are injected into the uterus. Gwen Walz thanked a nurse in her neighborhood who assisted her “with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process.”

The Harris-Walz campaign attempted to defend Walz’s misleading IVF statements. “Governor Walz talks how normal people talk,” said Mia Ehrenberg, a campaign spokeswoman. “He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”

Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, IVF was never threatened by an 8-1 Alabama Supreme Court ruling which allowed the parents of children negligently destroyed in IVF clinics to file a civil case under the state’s 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

4. Walz Misled about His 1995 DUI

As a candidate for Congress in 2006, Tim Walz apparently misled voters about his 1995 arrest for driving under the influence. Walz had claimed the entire arrest was a misunderstanding, based on hearing loss from his valorous military service. But CNN reported:

“According to court and policerecords connected to the incident, Walz admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was pulled over for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone in Nebraska. Walz was then transported by a state trooper to a local hospital for a blood test, showing he had a blood alcohol level of .128, well above the state’s legal limit of 0.1 at the time.”

Walz accepted a plea deal, admitting that he put himself and others in danger by getting behind the wheel.

“It’s just a dangerous situation,” Walz said in a court transcript, which Alpha News, a conservative Minnesota outlet uncovered in 2022. “Not just to myself, but to others who aren’t even involved with it.”

5. ‘Outstanding Young Nebraskan’?

When Walz ran for the House of Representatives in 2006, his official campaign biography stated that in 1993, he “was named the Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce for his service in the education, military, and small business communities.” Yet he never won any such award.

“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” wrote Barry Kennedy, then-president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, in November 2006. “I am not going to draw a conclusion about your intentions by including this line in your biography. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be considered an endorsement of your candidacy.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Walz’s opponent, Gil Gutknecht, who told The Washington Free Beacon that the fabrication “fits a pattern of misleading and fabricated statements he has made throughout his political and personal life.”

Walz’s campaign later updated the biography, claiming he won an award from the “Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce.” His campaign manager waved off the controversy, telling local media the misstatement had been a “typographical error.”

6. Phony Headlines

Despite the Democratic Party’s continual warning about misinformation — something Tim Walz has erroneously said is not protected by the First Amendment — the Harris-Walz campaign has doctored headlines in its online advertisements.

The campaign reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign ads that presented actual news stories from the Associated Press, USA Today, NPR, PBS, CNN, CBS News, and other outlets — but with glowing headlines written by campaign staffers. The intention is to convince readers the unbiased reporters heaped praise on the candidates.

Some of the website’s purveyors say the campaign’s actions have undermined their journalistic integrity. “They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand,” Steve Hallstrom, president and managing partner of Flag Family Media, told the Daily Caller in August.

7. ‘White Guy Tacos’

Tim Walz appears to have even misled the American people about his pallet. In an online video, he apparently stated that “black pepper” is the spiciest food he eats, although Walz has a taste for spicy food.

In the video, Walz gestures toward a table and tells Kamala Harris, “I have white guy tacos.”

“What does that mean? Like, mayonnaise and tuna? What are you doing?” replied Harris, repeating a racial stereotype.

“Pretty much ground beef and cheese,” explained Walz.

When Harris asks if he “put any flavor in it,” Walz said, “No,” because “black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota.”

“Listen, I’m just not much of a spice guy,” said Walz, posting the clip on social media.

Yet in Minnesota, Walz is apparently known for enjoying spicy food. In January 2022, Walz referred to his “award-winning recipe for Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish” (which contains chiles and other peppers) online.

Rolling Stone magazine, which has a strained relationship with the truth, described Walz’s original comments as a “joke.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Gender-Industrial Complex’ Worth Billions Annually: Report

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The most mysterious feature of the 2023 SAFE Act Wars was that virtually every major hospital system — across 20+ states — lobbied vehemently against the bills. At nearly every public hearing, the speaking roster was saturated by three groups speaking in opposition: transgender activists, families with trans-identifying youth who hadn’t yet come to regret the procedures, and medical professionals, typically associated with a local hospital system.

Yet 2023 was a tipping-point year, in which the number of states with laws protecting minors from gender transition procedures increased from four to 22. This dramatic shift occurred because the dangerous, experimental nature of these surgeries became increasingly apparent. Otherwise progressive European countries such as the U.K., Norway, and Denmark pulled back on providing gender transition procedures to minors. Even state legislators, many of whom lack a medical background, were able to clearly grasp the lack of medical evidence and the potential for harm with these procedures, often articulating those reasons in the legislation they passed.

This raises the question, if the fundamental unsoundness of providing gender transition procedures to minors was evident to everyone from Norway to North Dakota, why couldn’t hospitals see it? A recent report from the American Principles Project suggests an explanation: hospitals and drug manufacturers were blinded by the Benjamins — billions of dollars’ worth.

The American Principles Project (APP) commissioned business consulting firm Grand View Research to conduct a market analysis measuring the volume of the gender-reassignment surgery industry. They recently estimated its value at a whopping $4.12 billion in 2022, with a compounded annual growth rate of 8.4% through 2030. The APP published those numbers this summer in an 88-page report.

Estimate Is Likely an Undercount

Due to various complications in data collection, nearly all estimates of the U.S. gender transition industry will be conservative (tending to undercount rather than overcount), the APP report stated, including the one they commissioned. American health care lacks the comprehensive, centralized data collection of socialized medicine, so researchers must compile data in other ways. For instance, a 2022 study by Komodo Health analyzed insurance claims and found 42,000 minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021, but this necessarily excluded all medical activity not covered by insurance.

Other studies have also struggled to find complete datasets. For example, studies that analyze gender transition procedures based on their medical code will necessarily fail to detect gender transition procedures labeled with a generic medical code. In a 2019 video, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained that this was a deliberate strategy. “For the patient who gets a big bill because their insurance doesn’t cover any transgender-related codes, I usually write ‘endocrine disorder not otherwise specified’ to allow me to order the labs that I want,” Taylor said.

Taylor was influential in convincing Vanderbilt University Medical Center to practice gender transition procedures because “these surgeries make a lot of money.” Based on figures from the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, “female-to-male chest reconstruction could bring in $40,000,” and “around $20,000 for a vaginoplasty,” Taylor cited. “That doesn’t include your post-op visits. That doesn’t include your anesthesia, your OR. So I would think this has to be a gross underestimate. I think that’s just, like, the surgeon’s piece of it.”

Leaked video of the profit rationale behind the gender transition program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center may have played a role in Tennessee enacting legislation to protect minors from gender transition procedures in March 2023.

Another reason to believe these numbers represent an undercount is that estimates of the number of trans-identifying people in America are significantly higher. The pro-LGBT Williams Institute estimated in June 2022 that 1.6 million Americans identify as transgender, including approximately 300,000 youth aged 13-17. While it’s possible that the Williams Institute has a political motive to inflate these numbers, it still yields a much larger estimate than studies that look at medical data.

Transgender activist Robbi Katherine Anthony “(who prefers going by RKA),” APP notes, multiplied the number of transgender-identifying Americans with the “average cost of transition,” estimated at $150,000, to speculate that the potential gender transition market could be valued in excess of $200 billion, “larger than the entire film industry.”

Even if these studies are significant undercounts, they do serve to show the trend. Every study shows a dramatic increase over time in people seeking treatment for gender dysphoria, especially among young people. One study reviewed for the APP report showed that “health system encounters for gender identity disorder rose from 13,855 in 2016 to 38,470 in 2020.”

Costly Procedures

Why such staggering costs? Gender transition surgeries are attempting to reshape — or more accurately, war against — a person’s natural biology. Advanced plastic surgery techniques can recreate the appearance if not the function of different organs. But, as Taylor suggested, the price tag for each individual procedure can be pricey. The APP includes a list of common procedures and their prices:

  • Augmentation Mammoplasty, $6,000-12,000
  • Voice Feminization Surgery, $5,000-9,000
  • Reduction Thyrochondroplasty, $3,500-7,000
  • Orchiectomy, $5,000-8,000
  • Vaginoplasty, $10,000-40,000
  • Chest Masculinization Surgery, $6,000-10,000
  • Scrotoplasty, $4,000-6,000
  • Hysterectomy, $9,500-22,500
  • Phalloplasty, $20,000-150,000
  • Mastectomy, $15,000-50,000
  • Metoidioplasty, $20,000-30,000
  • Facial Feminization Surgery, $20,000-50,000+
  • Electrolysis, $50-200 (one-hour session)
  • Laser Hair Removal, $200-1,000
  • Vocal Training, $50-200 per hour

In general, these are surgeries to a person’s face, throat, chest, or genitalia that result in him or her looking more like the opposite sex. Readers who want more specificity can do their own research. It will not be family-friendly or conducive to good digestion. You have been warned.

These costs add up as trans-identifying individuals pursue multiple procedures. The APP estimated that the “total cost of fully transitioning” ranges from $87,300-410,600 for males and from $66,500-605,500 for females. This assumes five years of puberty blockers (at $3,000-$25,000 per year) and 60 years of cross-sex hormone use (from age 16 to age 76, the average life expectancy, with estrogen estimated at $240-2,400 per year and testosterone at $200-4,200 per year).

These cost estimates do not factor in related medical costs, such as hospital stays and anesthesia. Nor does it factor in the potential for secondary surgeries. “A study in the medical journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that up to a third of patients ‘undergo secondary surgical revision to address functional and aesthetic concerns after penile inversion vaginoplasty,’” cited the report. “A similar study in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reported that revisions for transfeminine vaginoplasty are frequent. These are lifetime, repeat customers, and there are more of them all the time.”

Market Competitors

Whether the market is worth $4 billion annually or a somewhat larger amount, that’s a large pot to split between relatively few players.

According to the market analysis from Grand View Research, 11 hospital and surgery systems account for nearly half (48.7%) of the sex reassignment market revenue in 2022, with other medical systems comprising the rest. Seven of these are in California and New York (including Cedars Sinai, Mount Sinai, and Kaiser Permanente), and the other four are: Regents of the University of Michigan, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and The Johns Hopkins University.

(Keep in mind, however, that hospital and surgery centers operate in somewhat location-specific markets; coastal surgery centers are likely not competing for clients with, for instance, Sanford Health, the pro-transgender hospital giant of the upper Plains states.)

Grand View Research also attempted to construct a snapshot of the top drug companies providing gender transition hormones. However, this picture was far less complete; many puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are prescribed off-label, making them harder to track, the APP explained.

The research only accounted for an estimated 14.6% of the market, totaling $234 million in 2022. The top five companies Grand View Research tracked were Pfizer, Inc. (4.6% estimated market share), AbbVie, Inc. (3.2%), End International plc (2.9%), Novartis AG (2.1%), and Lilly (1.8%).

Disaggregated data such as these contribute to the reliability of Grand View Research’s overall estimates. It shows their work, demonstrating that the overall estimates were not invented out of thin air, but represent the aggregate of more minute and concrete estimates, which are more likely to be accurate.

Lobbying Incentive

With such large potential profits on the line, it puts in perspective the efforts by hospital lobbyists seeking to defeat bills protecting minors from gender transition procedures.

If hospitals view gender-confused children as potential lifelong patients, then state laws protecting children from the depredations of gender transition procedures are a direct threat to their business model. Not only does it delay their ability to profit off these children for five years or so, but it also threatens their ability to recruit that child as a lifelong patient at all. Research cited by the Indiana State Medical Association in 2023 has shown that 60% to 95% of minors with gender dysphoria will eventually embrace their biological sex, if puberty is allowed to occur normally, whereas 95% of children who begin puberty blockers will proceed to cross-sex hormones and surgery.

These lobbying campaigns cannot be reduced to the simple question, what is the best practice medical care for children? The APP report notes, “There lurks beneath the surface of ‘best practices’ an incentive structure and a market, both real and potential.” That incentive structure and market are preventing medical systems from seeking the best interest of their gender-confused patients.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: On the ‘Weaponization of U.S. Healthcare System’ from FDR to Today by Dr. Tamzin Rosenwasser

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘My Grammar’s Not Always Correct’: Fact-Checking Harris and Walz’s CNN Interview

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A full 39 days after being anointed the Democratic Party’s presumptive leader, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down for her first in-depth interview. As CNN’s Dana Bash rattled off numerous flip-flops and apparent lies, Harris said her “values have not changed,” that she is “very proud” of her record on inflation and illegal immigration, and that she has no regrets over describing Joe Biden’s mental health as “strong” in late June. Meanwhile, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz blamed his misstatements about serving “in war” on poor grammar and before pivoting to an alleged “national abortion ban.”

Unlike most presidential candidates, who are elected in primaries and vetted by voters, Kamala Harris — who received the nomination through a virtual roll call 27 days ago — has yet to hold an extended in-person interview. To date, she has not held an in-depth interview or press conference on her own, opting to have Walz at her side throughout the process.

Word Salad

The interview got off to a rocky start. When asked what she would do on day one, Harris replied she would “do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class,” to “look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people,” and provide “a new way forward” filled with “hope and optimism.”

“So, what would you do day one?” Bash repeated.

Twice, Harris said she represents “a new way forward” from polarization “dividing our nation,” because “the last decade … I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.” Bash pointed out Harris has served as vice president for 40% of the last decade.

In a question about her apparently evolving views on fracking and climate change (see below), Harris said: “I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far.”

Harris also received mockery for saying, since “the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter,” the U.S. government “should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Perhaps the most memorable comments of the interview came, not from Harris, but from Walz, when he tried to explain allegations of stolen valor.

Walz Blames ‘Stolen Valor’ Claim on Poor Grammar

Tim Walz has stated he carried “weapons of war … in war,” allowed others to say he served in active combat zones during the War on Terror without correction, and claimed for two decades to have retired from the National Guard at a higher rank than he earned. Critics accuse him of stolen valor, which is viewed as perhaps the most shameful activity among veterans. The Harris-Walz campaign claimed the Minnesota governor “misspoke” in his remarks.

In his CNN interview, Walz blamed poor English skills.

“You said that you were in war,” pressed Bash. “Did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?”

“Yeah,” replied Walz. “My wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct.”

Walz taught English during a stint in the People’s Republic of China, leading to a long series of trips to the communist nation.

Walz’s explanation was “hilarious,” said former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines, scoffing at the notion that falsely “claiming you fought in war is just a silly grammar mistake.”

“I certainly own my mistakes when I make them,” claimed Walz, moments after replying he made counter-factual statements, because “I speak like” the American people.

Bash also asked about Walz’s erroneous remarks that he conceived through IVF. Walz replied his comments cut “quite a contrast [against] folks that are trying to take those rights away from us.” Ultimately, Walz refused to offer any remorse for his statements, saying, “I won’t apologize for speaking passionately, whether it’s guns in schools or protection of reproductive rights.”

Walz then pivoted to a hypothetical “abortion ban.” Most Americans, he said, are not splitting “hairs on IVF or IUI. I think what they’re cutting hairs on is an abortion ban and the ability to be able to deny families the chance to have a beautiful child.”

Donald Trump — who has repeatedly announced he opposes any abortion ban at the federal level during his second term — earlier in the day announced during a rally in Potterville, Michigan, that “under the Trump administration, your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women.” During an unscripted interview, he also implied he would vote for Florida’s Amendment 4 to institute an on-demand abortion regime in Florida before his campaign released a statement walking his remarks back.

‘My Values Have Not Changed’ about Fracking, et. al.

Faced with a series reversals and flip-flops from her previous policy proposals, Harris repeated a variation of the phrase “My values have not changed” three times.

“Let’s be clear. My values have not changed” on “the Green New Deal,” which she supported as a 2020 presidential candidate and co-sponsored as a U.S. senator. “I have always believed and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real,” she said. She repeated the phrase on her anti-fracking stance.

Harris forcefully rejected the notion that she had changed her mind on fracking, despite recordings showing her saying there is “no question” fracking should be banned.

“No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking,” answered Harris. “In 2020 I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I have not changed that position, nor will I going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word.”

Harris appears to be referring to her debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on October 7, 2020. Yet she did not say she opposed a fracking ban during the debate — commenting only that Pennsylvania native Joe Biden did.

“Joe Biden will not end fracking,” said Harris in 2020. Later, she repeated, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

“Nowhere in there does she make clear that she had abandoned her previous support for a fracking ban,” noted CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale about an hour after the interview. “Rather, she repeated that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would himself not ban fracking.”

During the campaign, Harris had endorsed a fracking ban. At a 2019 town hall meeting, a participant asked Harris, “Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office, adding the United States [to] the list of countries [that] have banned this devastating practice.”

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking. Yes,” replied Harris.

“It makes perfect sense that at the time she was speaking on behalf of Biden, the president, not the vice president,” said Dale. “I certainly did not hear anywhere in there Kamala Harris saying she personally had abandoned her 2019 view rather she was speaking for Joe Biden.”

Did Kamala Harris Reduce Illegal Immigration?

Harris defended her record on illegal immigration, as well.

“Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” asked Bash.

“Thee root causes work that I did as vice president, that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits,” replied Harris. “The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we’ve began that work.”

It’s not clear that is correct. After being appointed Border Czar by Joe Biden, Harris raced to pare down the job, saying she merely examined the “root causes” of “migration” from the three countries in Central America that had historically provided the largest share of illegal immigrants aside from Mexico: the “Northern Triangle” nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The number of apprehensions at the southern border fell from 684,000 in fiscal year 2021 to 447,000 in 2023. But experts say those statistics alone do not tell the full story.

The number of illegal immigrants from the Northern Triangle processed for removal under Title 8 exploded from 177,000 in fiscal year 2022 to more than 309,000 in 2023, and the Border Patrol is “on track to make about 418,600 Title 8 apprehensions by September 30,” reported the Center for Immigration Studies. At the same time, illegal entrants from the region who were denied admission at ports of entry steadily rose from about 17,000 in fiscal year 2021, to 21,000 in the following year, to about 48,000 in fiscal year 2023. “In other words, while total apprehensions FY2022-24 (projected) declined by roughly 20 percent, apprehensions under Title 8 grew by 138 percent over the same time period,” states CIS.

In raw numbers, Title 8 expulsions rose by 241,000 in just one year of the Biden-Harris administration, not including other illegal entries. Nor does this include Biden-Harris programs to expedite the legal entry of putative “refugees” from these and other countries.

There are two additional reasons to question the relevance of the statement: While most illegal immigration has come from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, “in December 2023, 54% of encounters involved citizens of countries other than these four nations,” according to the Pew Research Center. And the number of illegal immigrants has broken historic records each consecutive year since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office.

No Regrets about Telling Americans Joe Biden Is ‘Extraordinarily Strong’

“Right after the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?” Bash asked.

“No, not at all,” replied Harris, reiterating, “Not at all.”

A mere 63 days earlier, Harris not only described Joe Biden as the picture of health but placed an onus on those who questioned his acuity. Moments after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, Harris told ABC News Biden had “a slow start, but a strong finish.”

“Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong, and that cannot be debated,” she quipped.

The legacy media have revealed it was precisely the threat of a cognitive test that helped force Biden out of the presidential race. The New York Times reported that, according to two attendees of a July 11 meeting between Biden and U.S. senators, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued an ultimatum (in the Times’ words): “If Mr. Biden wanted to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance that underscored concerns about his condition and mental acuity, he should submit to examination by two independent neurologists who were willing to report their findings at a news conference.”

Harris ‘Very Proud’ of Bidenomics

“You have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?” Bash asked Harris.

“I’m very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%,” the vice president responded.

“So, you maintain Bidenomics is a success?” asked Bash.

After rattling off a list of the administration’s putative accomplishments, Harris concluded, “I’ll say that that’s good work. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.”

Inflation for 2023 stood at 4.1%, a marked increase from the 1.2% the Biden-Harris administration inherited. Wages have barely kept pace with inflation, as groceries, gasoline, and other household staples have increased by double digits — the highest inflation level in 40 years.

Despite pressing for clear answers from the pair, many observers faulted Bash for not following up on key assertions made by both Harris and Walz, as well as her question choice. Megyn Kelly noted Bash asked “not a single Q on the Emotional Support Governor’s radical trans policies.”

CNN also appeared to make a few misstatements about the interview. Although the network prerecorded the interview, the network’s feed claimed it was aired “live.” After the interview, anchor Abby Phillip referred to the closed-doors segment as a “town hall” event.

Despite reports that CNN would not offer a transcript of the interview, CNN has issued its official transcript of the historic interview.

Kamala Harris will debate former President Donald Trump on ABC News September 10 at 9 p.m.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Exposing the transgender money machine

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Transgender advocacy is welded into Kamala Harris’s campaign for US President. Her choice of Tim Walz was interpreted as a strong signal to the LGBTQI+ movement, partly because he made Minnesota a “refuge” for trans people.

The participants in a Zoom call convoked by Trans Folks for Harris recently were confident that she would support them.

“We have so much power,” said activist Charlotte Clymer. “We have way more power than they think, that’s for damn sure. And when we use that power, when we organize together and have each other’s backs, we can do great things.”

If trans folks do have power, part of it is surely due to the poorly appreciated fact that trans medicine is a big, powerful, and growing industry worth billions of dollars. So it’s not just the minuscule number of trans people who are involved, but a myriad of investors, corporations, doctors, nurses, and support staff as well.

A trans entrepreneur told Forbes magazine in 2020 that the potential market is immense. “Trans-tech is a budding industry with an enormous opportunity,” said Robbi Katherine Anthony. “Our estimates place the average cost of transition at $150,000 per person. Multiply that by an estimated population of 1.4 million transgender people, we’re taking about a market in excess of US$200 billion. That is significant. That’s larger than the entire film industry.”

This is just pie-in-the sky hype aimed at attracting venture capitalists. But the trans medicine industry is huge.

Last month the American Principles Project published an eye-opening study of the facts and figures for trans medicine, “The Gender Industrial Complex”. It had commissioned a market research company, Grand View Research, to estimate the cost of the drugs and surgical procedures involved in transitioning, the estimated current and future revenue growth of the market, and the most significant players.

After reading the report, it’s hard not to conclude that “the gender industrial complex” is a factory of cruelty and misanthropy. “The prevention, delay, or whatever pharmacological and especially surgical disruption of the process we call puberty is a crime against humanity. It’s horrible what we do to kids,” one surgeon who used to work in trans medicine told the authors of the report. “The surgeries, the revisions, and all that stuff—it’s big business.”

Some of the findings of “The Gender Industrial Complex” include:

  • While the total cost of transitioning varies widely by individual, lifelong use of cross-sex hormones could cost up to $300,000 or more per person, while a full surgical transition could cost more than $150,000.
  • The potential health effects of undergoing transition are numerous, including increased risk of cancer, nerve damage, chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, mental health issues, and the need for additional surgeries.
  • A number of transgender surgery providers, including Cedars Sinai, the Regents of the University of Michigan, the Mount Sinai Health System, and several others, were each estimated to bring in over $100 million in revenue in 2022 from these practices.
  • Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and AbbVie lead the way in hormone production, with 2022 revenues of $74 million and $51 million, respectively, from those products.
  • Total revenues for transgender drugs and surgeries in 2023 were estimated to surpass $4.4 billion. And by 2030, the market is expected to grow beyond $7.8 billion.

The APP points out that these projections could be very conservative. In 2020 an LGBT think tank, the Williams Institute, estimated that there were about 300,000 minors who identified as transgender. If that is correct, the market for paediatric transitions alone could be as high as $37 billion.

Transgender transitioning is not just a matter of a few visits to a doctor and a few injections. It’s a lifelong commitment to regular medication and a long series of surgical procedures.

The report estimates that a male transitioning to a female will have to spend between $87,300 and $410,600 over a lifetime, assuming that he is on puberty blockers for five years and on feminising hormones for 60 years. The surgical component includes:

  • $20,000 to 50,000 for facial feminisation surgery
  • $6,000 to $12,000 for breast implants
  • $10,000 to $40,000 to create an artificial vagina
  • $5,000 to $8,000 to remove testicles
  • $5,000 to $9,000 for voice feminisation surgery
  • $3,500 to $7,000 for shaving the Adam’s apple

For a female transitioning to a male, the lifetime cost ranges from $66,500 to $605,500. The surgical component includes:

  • $15,000 to $50,000 for a double mastectomy
  • $9,500 to $22,500 for a hysterectomy
  • $20,000 to $150,000 to create an artificial penis
  • $6,000 to $10,000 for chest masculinisation surgery
  • $4,000 to $6,000 to create an artificial scrotum

These operations are not like removing a wart or whipping out an appendix. They are complex procedures which often have painful complications – which involve more visits to the surgeon.

And trans folks are forking out these enormous sums to deal with their gender dysphoria, a psychological condition which probably cannot be solved with hormones and surgery anyway.

Let Dr Shayne Taylor, of the Vanderbilt Clinic for Transgender Health, have the last word.

A whistleblower filmed a presentation that she gave in 2018. She declared that that “gender-affirming care” is “a big money maker.” “A patient just on routine hormone treatment, who we’re only seeing a few times a year, can bring in several thousand dollars because it requires lots of visits and labs that actually makes money for the hospital,” she said.

Transgender medicine turns the Hippocratic Oath upside down. Its first principle is not “do no harm” but “do make a profit”.

Is transgender medicine really that big a deal? Tell us what you think in the comments.    

AUTHOR

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator

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Harris Hiding from Far-Left Record by Plundering Trump Policies

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Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to be unburdened by what has been — namely her far-left political record — by adopting MAGA policies. The latest instance of flip-flopping is Harris’s support for the border wall proposed by former President Donald Trump. According to Axios, the vice president is now pledging to spend an estimated $650 million to complete the border wall Trump started, despite having called the initiative “racist” and “un-American” during Trump’s White House tenure. Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate, commented, “Kamala Harris is a fake. If she wants to build the border wall, she could start right now!”

In recent weeks, Harris has adopted a “tough” persona regarding border security, with immigration consistently ranking as one of the top two most pressing issues for voters ahead of November’s election. In fact, Harris’s latest campaign ad features images of the border wall while touting the Democrat’s past role as a “border-state prosecutor.” The ad claimed that Harris, if elected, would “hire thousands more border agents” and “crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.” The ad concluded, “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”

Yet the incumbent Biden-Harris administration is responsible for at least 10 million illegal immigrants crossing the southern border since taking office in January of 2021, including “at least 99” illegal immigrants on the U.S. terror watchlist, according to a congressional report released earlier this month.

“Americans are used to presidential candidates flip-flopping on unpopular positions they’ve taken in the past, that’s nothing new. But, the outright copying of major pieces of an opponent’s policy agenda in the middle of an election less than 70 days from election day certainly is unprecedented,” said FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter in comments to The Washington Stand. “I think it exposes the Harris-Walz campaign as being fundamentally insecure about the policies they’re offering the American people,” he added.

“This is further evidenced by the fact that their own campaign website is a policy desert, they have no policies listed on their campaign website, and they have only just recently announced the first sit down interview with their candidate on a major news outlet since becoming the presumptive nominee,” Carpenter continued. “To me, all of this suggests a campaign that is not confident in the abilities of their candidate and the appeal of her agenda.”

“Vice President Harris will say and do anything, and she will change her positions on policies like a chameleon … to get elected,” said former acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan in an interview. “They realize now that in every single poll, she’s upside down with respect to their border security policies. What [has] she [done]? A 180 degree-flip flop and now actually shows the picture … of the very tool and resource that she took away from the border control agents, making their job more difficult,” Morgan continued. He added, “Now all of the sudden, she’s acting like she’s for the wall. … I’m hoping the American people are going to see through this and they’re not going to buy this.”

Early in 2021, Harris was appointed “border czar” by President Joe Biden and was charged with stemming the flow of illegal immigration, while the administration dismantled many of the border security measures put in place by Trump. Her handling of the illegal immigration crisis has been described as “one of the most catastrophic failures in American history.” Numerous reports have exposed the “infighting” and “ineffectiveness” of the Biden-Harris administration’s treatment of the border.

The border wall isn’t the only Trump-team initiative that Harris has quickly adopted as her own. Earlier this month, Harris announced plans not to tax service industry workers’ tips, a plan originally devised by Trump and approved by many elected GOP officials. Just days ago, Harris also changed her tune on the Child Tax Credit (CTC). After attacking Vance for supporting the CTC, claiming that supporting and encouraging families is a means of declaring “war” against “childless people,” Harris reversed her position and proposed expanding the CTC, after Vance had already done the same.

While Harris herself has not formally or personally said anything on the subject, unnamed individuals in her campaign have reported that Harris is “changing her position” on several issues, including fracking, gun control programs, and the idea of a “single-payer health insurance program.” Harris has consistently endorsed far-left policies and positions throughout her career. During her tenure in the U.S. Senate, she maintained the furthest-left voting record of any Democrat. The Trump campaign recently released a new ad featuring side-by-side comparisons of Harris complaining about issues such as inflation and bragging about the Biden-Harris policies which have resulted in the issues Harris is complaining of.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Revised 2024 Democratic Platform More Extreme than the Draft

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The final version of the Democratic Party’s 2024 Platform has added references calling transgender procedures “medically necessary,” claiming that Christian schools may further “discrimination,” shifting blame on the U.S. border to the previous administration, and promising American children a more “multilingual” education. The platform maintains its promises to keep “fighting” parents’ efforts to keep pornographic books out of children’s hands, expanding abortion nationwide, and promoting transgender procedures for children and prisoners.

Delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Committee in Chicago adopted the revised platform last week inside Chicago’s United Center. The final version contains minor modifications from the draft platform, which was released on July 13 and obtained by Politico. At that time, Joe Biden remained the presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Curiously, the 2024 Democratic Party Platform did not update that previous version’s references to the nominee’s name: It contains 20 references to 2024 being an election for Joe Biden’s “second term.” For example, the 2024 platform states, “In his second term, President Biden will continue to support access to FDA-approved medication abortion” and “stand with Ukraine.” It contains less than 10 references to Kamala Harris in an individual capacity, rather than conjoined with Joe Biden or as part of the “Biden-Harris administration.”

Yet the alterations made between the two drafts indicate a Democratic Party moving ever further to the Left. The revised platform added a brand new promise — not to average citizens but to the transgender industry: “Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in making health care decisions.”

Yet Minnesota Governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz (D) signed a bill disrespecting the role of parents in their children’s health care by allowing children whose parents will not allow them to undergo transgender procedures to flee to Minnesota, a “sanctuary” where the state will reassign custody until the child has undergone a transition against his/her parents’ wishes. Walz also signed a bill outlawing so-called “conversion therapy,’ even if parents and children want it.” The 2024 Democratic Party Platform doubles down on transgender procedures, adding that Biden “protected transgender Americans’ access to health care and coverage, including medically necessary gender-affirming care” (emphasis added).

The platform also strengthened promises to come after individuals accused of holding the wrong positions on hot-button issues. The revised platform changed its promise of “protecting LGBTQI+ children from bullying and assault” to stopping anti-LGBTQI+ “bullying and discrimination” (emphasis added). The platform still mentions the party’s intent to prosecute “hate crimes,” noting, “The Justice Department is taking an all-of-department approach to protecting LGBTQI+ rights.”

That promise may be directed at Christian schools, which may lose federal funding for holding to biblical morality under the vague language of the 2024 Democratic Party Platform. A new section added to the platform states: “We oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education. Public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate” (emphasis added). Teachers’ unions and LGBTQ pressure groups have accused Christian schools of “discrimination,” because they do not allow teachers who flout biblical morality to set that example for their students, or because they do not allow GSA Networks clubs like the one Tim Walz founded in his high school, which promotes transgender transitions without parental notification. Traditional Christianity teaches that one’s biological sex is unalterable, a gift from God, and should be treasured, as well as opposing all sexual activity outside biblical marriage.

The revised platform also deals with language, promising a greater cacophony inside public schools: “[W]e’re working to provide every student with a pathway to multilingual education, while ensuring equitable access to a high-quality education for English learners, who’ve historically been underserved.”

The revised platform pledges to tax U.S. citizens and their communities to facilitate giving U.S. citizenship to non-citizen immigrants. A new sentence states the Harris administration “will also help to fund community-based organizations that host clinics to assist with immigration cases.”

Seemingly, the revised platform added references to the LGBTQIA+ movement wherever possible. The revised platform adds that, not only did President Joe Biden pardon gay veterans, but he “pardoned approximately 2,000 gay,lesbian, and bisexual veterans who were convicted years ago just for being themselves” (emphasis added). Again, “President Biden … expanded funding for campus sexual assault prevention and is keeping students safe on campus by restoring and strengthening protections under Title IX, including explicit protections for LGBTQI+ students” (emphasis added). At other times, it worsens the reputation of those who disagree. It notes that Biden and Harris “reversed Trump’s un-American ban on transgender service members and ended the disgraceful and discriminatory ban on blood donation by gay and bisexual men” (emphasis added). It also replaced the term “gay” with the ever-more expansive “LGBTQI+.”

The platform still contains its promise to expand taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand nationwide: “With a Democratic Congress, we will pass national legislation to make Roe [v. Wade] the law of the land again. … We will repeal the Hyde Amendment. And in his second term, President Biden will continue to support access to FDA-approved medication abortion, appoint leaders at the FDA who respect science and appoint judges who uphold fundamental freedoms.”

A second abortion-related plank invokes the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, a relic of the 1970s feminist movement led by Gloria Steinem. “Democrats will fight to make the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land,” although the never-ratified ERA has been interpreted to codify both a constitutional right to abortion and women’s eligibility for the military draft.

At times, the revision nods toward reality. It edits a sentence saying “the cost of living can still feel too high” to say the cost of living “is too high.”

The revision specifies that national rent control is coming in a Harris-Walz administration. A new sentence states that their housing policy “offers corporate landlords a basic choice for the next two years: either cap rent increases at 5 percent, or lose a valuable federal tax break.” The new platform added another line on housing policy: “and we will go after negligent landlords who don’t maintain basic habitability standards. We will also crack down on those who violate the Fair Housing Act, and on landlords who discriminate against low-income and minority renters and people with housing vouchers.” The Obama-Biden administration ignored written law and interpreted the Fair Housing Act as though it applied to people who identify as transgender. If you are renting out a room in your home but do not want your children sharing a bathroom with a trans-identifying male, you could become the target of a federal lawsuit.

A new section also alleges that former President Donald Trump “and his allies benefit directly from the housing shortage.”

The language does soften some of its anti-Trump rhetoric in light of the July 13 assassination attempt. Rather than saying, “Trump is a greater danger to democracy than ever,” the revised platform states, “Trump refuses to defend core tenets of our democracy: the Constitution, the rule of law, our system of checks and balances.” In two other instances, the platform changes some variant of the word “threat” to softer language (e.g., “The stakes in this election for the soul of our nation are profound.”). It also deletes a sentence stating Trump “has never respected service because he does not understand sacrifice.”

Yet it seeks to blame Trump and others for an historic influx of illegal immigrants over the last four years, and away from the Biden-Harris administration, discussing “a broke immigration system decades in the making” (emphasis added).

The revised platform contains the pledges made in the previous draft, as well, to continue “fighting” alleged “book bans.”

Since delegates did not revise the nominee’s name — or pronouns — the platform gives an insight into what a Joe Biden reelection campaign might have looked like. Until her rebranding as the candidate of “joy,” Kamala Harris was seen as the weaker link on the ticket, with major publications calling on her to drop out so Biden could choose a stronger running mate in articles with titles such as “The Case for Biden to Drop Kamala Harris,” in New York Magazine last September, or “For the country’s sake, Vice President Harris should step aside” in The Washington Post this March.

The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee adopted a slimmed-down document containing only a handful of campaign promises that resonated with Donald Trump’s campaign. Notably, the 2024 Republican Party Platform jettisoned its traditional language vowing to protect life from the moment of conception until natural death. Over the weekend, vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance indicated that President Donald Trump opposed any federal legislation to protect life, leaving the matter entirely to the states.

That is, however, significantly less pro-abortion than the 2024 Democratic Party Platform.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand c0lumn is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Kamala’s 2024 Dangerous Policies and Radial Agenda website launched

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A new website has been launched explaining Kamala’s, and Tim Walz’s, dangerous and radical policies. During her acceptance speech, Kamala did not discuss her policies.

This website does.

WATCH:

According to the Stop Kamala’s Radical Agenda website:

Kamala Harris is Weak, Failed, and Dangerously Liberal

Not only does Kamala Harris own the weakness, failure, and chaos of the Harris-Biden administration, she is so radical that she makes “the Squad” look like moderates. She wants to abolish our borders, let criminals control our streets, surrender our communities to cartels and a plague of fentanyl, wage war on American energy, and destroy the American Dream.

Here are some key parts of Kamala and Tim’s radical agenda:

Fighting to Set Murderers Free

Kamala Harris supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund, helping to bail out now-convicted murderers and violent criminals. One man freed by the bail fund went on to commit murder. She’ll bring the MFF’s policies to the White House.

Harris’s Positions

Kamala Harris actively supports bailing violent criminals out of jail and allowing violent illegal aliens to roam our streets.

Case in point: Kamala Harris called on her supporters to “chip in” to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

According to new reporting from CNN, that fund went on to bail out at least 65 people in a single county accused of “felony charges involving violence, physical threats or sex crimes. All were convicted.”

The MFF paid bail for looters arrested in the 2020 riots, for a twice-convicted rapist, a man accused of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, a man accused of a vicious assault and robbery, a man charged with attacking a woman in a restaurant bathroom, and even several serial domestic abusers — among dozens of other criminals.

That makes sense considering Kamala Harris supports ending cash bail — even for violent criminals.

More “Bidenomics”—it’s “Working,” Rising Costs are Nothing to Worry About!

Record high gas prices under the Harris-Biden administration are the “price to pay for democracy.” Remember, Kamala proudly delivered the deciding vote that allowed the $1.9 trillion “stimulus” to be passed. Don’t listen to former Obama economist Jason Furman, who said the spending bill is “too big,” or former Obama and Clinton economist Larry Summers, who said the “tremendous wall of money” led to inflation, or former Obama economic advisor Steven Rattner, who called Kamala’s $1.9 trillion stimulus “the original sin” of inflation.

Harris’s Positions

Harris was the deciding vote on the inflation-fueling $1.9 trillion “stimulus.” Harris owns this inflation, and everyone knows it.

Even liberal economists admit Harris’s massive spending spree sent inflation soaring.

Harris now claims her policies are “working” and wants to double down on the exact same agenda that will send prices even higher.

More Taxes to Ensure the Middle-Class Pays Their “Fair Share”

In Kamala’s America, the middle-class will need to pay more. Those are the Harris tax hikes!

Harris’s Positions

Kamala Harris wants to eliminate the Trump tax cuts, which would mean a massive tax hike on middle-income families.

Harris was the deciding vote for the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which decreased the “average after-tax income for taxpayers” at every income level. Americans earning less than $200,000/year saw their taxes rise by $16.7 billion in 2023.

Abolish Borders

Kamala Harris delivered on her promise to open our borders as border czar—just look at the 10 million who have crossed already, an all-time record! Now it’s time to abolish ICE, decriminalize illegal border crossings, give benefits to illegal aliens, and let them vote!

Harris’s Positions

Kamala “Border Czar” Harris is responsible for the worst border crisis in U.S. history.

According to Harris, “the current administration’s immigration policies largely involve undoing the previous one’s work.” Unfortunately, she’s right, and it fueled the invasion.

The chaos we’ve seen though, may be intentional. Kamala Harris said illegal aliens “are not criminals,” and Harris opposed measures to increase border security and decrease illegal immigration.

Bring Back the Green New Deal

Kamala Harris believes American energy is just plain awful. Thankfully, she knows other countries we can import it from. That’s why she wants to ban fossil fuels, ban fracking, end oil drilling, and export our energy supply chain to China. Her $100 trillion GND would do just that, in addition to ending all of those 2 million “dirty” energy jobs. They need to “transition” to new ones!

Harris’s Positions

Harris bragged about delivering “the most ambitious climate agenda in history.” What does that really mean? Hurting our environment, national security, and economy by exporting our energy supply chain to Communist China.

During her campaign for president, Harris said “there’s no question, I’m in favor of banning fracking. She also touted an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, supported cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, which killed 11,000 jobs, and Harris called the record-high gas prices seen under the Biden administration the “price to pay for democracy.”

Indeed, Harris’ commitment to killing American energy is not new. As senator, Kamala Harris cosponsored the radical $93 trillion Green New Deal with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which estimates show could kill up to 2 million jobs and cost an average family $165,000. In 2017, Harris sponsored legislation to ban offshore drilling.

On top of it all, she wants to ban practically everything, including expressing support for banning plastic straws and a national reduction in red meat consumption.

Kamala Believes in Freedom for Individuals Associated with Violent Behavior. (Formally Referred to as Violent Criminals)

Kamala will continue her record from her time as a prosecutor, where San Francisco police officers said she was slow to prosecute numerous murder suspects and said she regularly offered favorable plea deals to resolve cases out of trial.

Harris’s Positions

Harris supports defunding the police. As even CNN reports, her record supporting defund the police is a long one. She said it is “outdated, it is wrongheaded thinking to think” that more police officers make communities safer, and Harris has repeatedly called to “reimagine” the role of police.

As senator, Harris praised L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s $150 million cut in police funding.

When given the opportunity, Harris failed to prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of the law.

  • As San Francisco DA, Harris chose not to seek the death penalty against the murderer of a Hispanic San Francisco police officer, or against an illegal immigrant MS-13 gang member who shot a father and his two sons. And police accused Harris of being slow to prosecute numerous murder suspects and said she regularly offered favorable plea deals to resolve cases out of trial.
    • In 2010, Harris’ DA office had to dismiss over 1,000 drug cases due to a scandal in the police crime lab, with Harris taking “full responsibility” for the failure.
    • Harris’ DA office granted probation to a violent criminal who then went on to murder two men while released.

To make matters worse, Harris said that we should have a “conversation” about whether terrorists like the Boston Marathon bomber should vote from prison.

Ending “Wrongheaded Thinking” That More Police Mean Safer Communities

Kamala Harris was proud to join the Defund The Police movement in 2020. She boldly said the protests “should not” let up and applauded then-L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti for defunding the LA Police.

Eliminate Private Health Insurance

Kamala Harris believes it’s terrible people have private health insurance, and that even if they like their plan, they shouldn’t get to keep it. Under Harris’s plan, all Americans would lose their health insurance in the name of fairness. That’s why she cosponsored a $32 trillion socialist health care takeover plan to make sure that everybody loses choice!

Harris’s Positions

Harris supports abolishing private insurance. She even cosponsored Bernie Sanders’ $32 trillion socialist health care takeover bill.

When asked about her plan, and specifically on if people who like their plan could keep it, she said “let’s eliminate all of that.”

To add insult to injury, while denying Americans insurance, she supports providing taxpayer-funded health insurance for illegal immigrants. Studies also show that her plan would also lead to as many as 50% of rural hospitals closing their doors.

Give Social Security and Medicare to Illegal Aliens

Kamala believes it’s selfish that seniors want to ensure benefits only go to American citizens. They should pay for benefits for illegal aliens! Who cares if that destroys the program. Kamala believes illegal aliens should receive taxpayer-funded benefits, and while she’s at it, she wants to expand the government takeover even if it puts over 50% of rural hospitals out of business. Move to a city!

Harris’s Positions

During the Harris-Biden administration seniors saw the largest ever Medicare Part B premium increase in 2022, jumping 14.5 percent.

Democrats still have NO PLAN to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits — and that tells you all you need to know, especially since Harris wants to give benefits to tens of millions of illegal aliens, which would destroy the program entirely.

The Bottom Line

It is critical for every legal American voter to understand the policies of the Harris/Walz ticket and the Trump/Vance ticket.

Here are the 20 items on the RNC’s Platform for 2024.

  1. Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion.
  2. Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.
  3. End inflation, and Make America Affordable Again.
  4. Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!
  5. Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower.
  6. Large tax cuts for workers, and No Tax On Tips!
  7. Defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.
  8. Prevent World War III, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country – all made in America.
  9. End the weaponization of government against the American people.
  10. Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders.
  11. Rebuild our cities, including Washington DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again.
  12. Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world.
  13. Keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
  14. Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with NO CUTS, including no changes in the retirement age.
  15. Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly burdensome regulations.
  16. Cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, Radical Gender Ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.
  17. Keep men OUT of women’s sports.
  18. Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.
  19. Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship.
  20. Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success.

As we have said before “It’s their policies, stupid!”

Choose wisely.

©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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MUST WATCH VIDEOS: From Vasectomy Vans To Hotties For Harris, The DNC Was Truly A Freak Show

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Throughout the Democratic National Convention, Democrats made a big show out of being “normal,” of standing for “freedom” and traditional, patriotic values. They did their best, but of course it is all a lie; there’s nothing normal about them.

Allow me to guide you through the Democrats’ wondrous world of human freaks and oddities. But first, we must get inside!

Careful, this is a dangerous path. Stay alert as we wade through the crowds of unwashed protesters — rabid, the lot of them.

Feast your eyes on a veritable buffet of causes. Do you want to see the destruction of Israel? Care to donate to Hamas? Perhaps trans rights are more your speed. Or, think bigger: the true idealists here want global intifada or worldwide communist revolution. Purple hair here; blue hair there; is that a man or a woman?

“Excuse me sir, would you like an American flag to burn?”

Over there, you’ll see Planned Parenthood’s free spay and neuter clinic. Excuse me, I mean free abortion and vasectomy “health” unit. Because nothing says “family values” like a mobile clinic for life’s little oopsie-daisies.

“Step right up, folks, get your reproductive rights sorted while you finger paint a Hamas flag!”

And what’s this? A girl holding a sign with the N-word boldly emblazoned. Is this a vicious “white supremacist?” Who’s to say. She may be an over-zealous theater kid striving for an A+ in Performance Art.  Or, like the rest of her fellow travelers, perhaps it’s all a desperate plea for attention.

Now, let’s venture inside where the real circus begins.

It appears we’re too late to see our Dear Leader. Joe Biden might be the President, but that still didn’t secure him a prime time spot. No, the shadowy figures behind the curtains could not allow that. Biden went on some time ago, in the wee hours of the night. Some say you can still hear his voice trailing off if you listen very closely…

Up next, we see the King and Queen of the Democratic Party — although who’s to say which title belongs to whom. The Obamas have reigned supreme for over a decade, yet still they bristle with resentment. What’s that Michelle? You say you’ll “never benefit” from “generational wealth.” Perhaps you should have skipped the  $3,000 pantsuit for this speech.

Here, take this prophylactic before we head into the next exhibit. You can never be too careful around these ladies.

Take a look at the Hotties for Harris. Here you’ll find everything you need to slut it up at the DNC: Plan B from a gumball machine, pregnancy tests and UTI treatments. There’s even a bad bitch boxing corner. And if it wasn’t all Mean Girl enough, there’s a wall of hotties and a wall of notties. All we need now is a Burn Book.

Who’s that stomping onto stage? Here comes Tim Walz, the gesticulating governor from Minnesota. A wave here, a raised fist there, watch as he directs an invisible orchestra with a stride in his step. Is he really such a dorky dad, or is he a beady-eyed communist in disguise? You have to respect his acting chops.

And it looks like he passed down the acting genes. “I love you dad,” cries Little Timmy from the balcony. Watch him stand and cheer, waving almost as madly as the old man. Like father, like son; but how many times did he rehearse this in front of the mirror?

Speaking of the kiddos, take a look at Kamala Harris’ beloved step daughter. She crawled out of the sewers of Bushwick just to show her support. Her tapestry of tattoos tells the story of her life, but her camo Harris-Walz hat is the real statement piece. What’s this quirky girl doing wearing hunting gear? Irony — it’s all the rage these days. She’s wearing it because she thinks it’s ugly, and she wants you to know what she thinks of the people who earnestly share her tastes.

Alas, we approach the end of our pageant of peculiarities. But don’t worry, you can still leave with a souvenir. You record a Tik Tok dance for posterity. If Gen-Z goes somewhere and doesn’t do a TikTok dance, did they ever really leave the house?

Democrats talk a good talk, but they can’t walk the walk. No matter what they do, the weirdness shines through. Sadly, our tour of the DNC has come to an end. But don’t fret. If our screwball heroes prevail in November, you’ll get another four years of the freak show.

AUTHOR

Gage Klipper

Commentary and analysis writer.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.