EXCLUSIVE: Here’s How A Small Band Of Pediatricians Pushed Medical Org Into Nixing Age Minimums For Sex Changes

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A handful of pediatricians who perform sex-change procedures on children led a successful pressure campaign to push a major transgender medical organization to remove age minimums for life-altering sex-change surgeries from its clinical guidance, according to emails exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Emails reveal the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asked just four doctors — all of whom are considered leaders in the field of pediatric sex changes and have performed various transgender procedures — to review and provide feedback on an embargoed copy of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (WPATH) clinical guidance, called the Standards of Care version 8 (SOC-8), weeks before its expected publication.

Based on the four doctors’ review, the AAP strong-armed WPATH into removing sex-change surgery age minimums from the SOC-8.

When the AAP asked the four pediatricians —Jason Rafferty, Ilana Sherer, Juanita Hodax, and Brittany Allen — to review the SOC-8 on the organization’s behalf in 2022, Rafferty, Sherer, and Allen were on the leadership team of the AAP’s Section on LGBT Health and Wellness, a group within the AAP that provides the organization with expertise and education on LGBT issues, according to an archive of its website.

The Biden-Harris administration also pressured WPATH to remove sex-change surgery age limits from their clinical guidance, according to records made public by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall while defending Alabama’s law restricting pediatric sex-change procedures.

In an amicus brief submitted in the upcoming Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti, Marshall explains that Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine — who is openly transgender — had unsuccessfully pressured WPATH to remove the surgical age minimums, but the pressure from the AAP “tipped the scales,” causing WPATH to remove the child sex-change surgery age minimums.

“Thanks to the Biden Administration and AAP, SOC-8 does not contain age minimums for any transitioning hormonal or surgical intervention except for one: phalloplasty, the surgical creation of a neopenis,” reads Marshall’s brief. “WPATH considers all other surgeries and interventions ‘medically necessary gender-affirming medical treatment[s] in adolescents.’”

Tipping The Scales

In August 2022, after securing an embargoed copy of WPATH’s clinical guidance, AAP state government affairs analyst Jeff Hudson asked the pediatricians to review how the guidance aligned with current AAP policy. Rafferty was the lead author of the AAP’s controversial child sex-change policy, first published in 2018, that supported the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries for minors. Reaffirmed in 2023, the AAP’s transgender policy notably excluded age minimums for drug or surgical interventions.

Hudson stressed the importance of reviewing the SOC-8 before it’s publication, noting it would have “implications” for their “existing legal arguments” as they fought state bans on child sex-change interventions in court.

“I explained our position and reasoning behind securing access to SOC-8 before its publication and WPATH agreed that the AAP and AAP chapters are leading the fight to protect access to this care at the state level and needs to be as prepared as possible,” wrote Hudson.

“There are implications for our existing legal arguments that I’ll work through with our counsel once you’ve reviewed and provided feedback.” 

Hudson requested the feedback quickly so that the AAP would have time to “formulate an advocacy strategy and media strategy” before the SOC-8’s anticipated release in September. Emails show a small group from the AAP, which included Hudson, the gender pediatricians and CEO Mark Del Monte, was given access to the embargoed guidance.   

The DCNF obtained a series of heavily redacted emails that appear to be discussions in which the gender pediatricians reviewed and commented on the embargoed draft of the SOC-8. In one heavily redacted email, Rafferty alluded to differences between the AAP’s policy and the WPATH clinical guidance, writing: “I personally continue to support the AAP’s current position over WPATH in my practice as articulated in the statement.” 

Hudson met with WPATH leadership on Sept. 5, 2022, and the following day reached out to Sherer, Rafferty, Hodax, and Allen, sending an attachment with their final “collated” comments on the SOC-8, promising to touch base with them all about “the plan moving forward.”

On Sept. 8, 2022, then-AAP president Moira Szilagyi sent a letter to WPATH letting them know the final version of the SOC-8 “raised concerns” from their clinical experts, who emails revealed to be Rafferty, Sherer, Hodax, and Allen. The AAP specifically took issue with WPATH’s inclusion of age minimums for pediatric sex-change surgery and their validation of “anti-transgender arguments.”

“AAP experts agree SOC8 lacks the evidence to justify the recommended surgery ages,” Szilagyi wrote, ending with a request that AAP subject-matter experts meet with WPATH for further discussion.

Neither Sherer, Hodax, nor Allen responded to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.

‘Very Junior People’

Documents released by AG Marshall detail how the AAP’s refusal to endorse the SOC-8 sent WPATH into chaos.

In response to the AAP’s letter, Scott Leibowitz, a co-lead of the SOC-8 chapter on adolescents, urgently created a task force to review the AAP’s feedback and “figure out next steps,” according to an email sent Friday, Sept. 9, 2022.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)- a MAJOR organization in the United States that is typically very pro-transhealth/gender affirming care- voiced its opposition to the SOC8, specifically due to aspects of the Adolescent chapter. Not only did they say they would not endorse the SOC, they indicated that they would actively publicly oppose it,” wrote Leibowitz.

“Clearly, if AAP were to publicly oppose the SOC-8, it would be a major challenge for WPATH, SOC-8, and trans youth access to care in the U.S.,” Leibowitz wrote.

That same day, Jon Arcelus, one of three co-chair’s responsible for leading WPATH’s SOC-8 development team, wrote to colleagues that he did not agree with bending the knee to the AAP’s request to remove sex-change surgery age minimums. In an email, he referred to the AAP’s policy as a “one sided narrative” and said making the changes they demanded “will make a joke of our methodology” and look “weak.”

“We can’t not [sic] write a document that looks like theirs, as it has a one sided narrative, extremely biased. I will be surprised in their guidelines are used at all,” wrote Arcelus.

“I think it will not be in the benefit of our community to remove ages as an suggestion and to make any of the changes that they are recommending. This will make a joke of our methodology and will see us as weak,” he wrote.

Then-president of WPATH Walter Bouman responded to Arcelus, writing: “I have also read all the comments from the AAP and struggle to find any sound evidence-based argument(s) underpinning these. I am seriously surprised that a ‘reputable’ association as the AAP is so thin on scientific evidence.”

Arcelus wrote he was “shocked” that the comments about the SOC-8 had come from “very junior people at the AAP.”

“I was shocked to see the feedback from very junior people from AAP, my suggestion was not to make any changes,” wrote Arcelus.

Leibowitz declined to comment through a Nationwide Children’s Hospital spokesperson. Neither WPATH, Arcelus, nor Bouman responded to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.

‘Reached A Deal’

In the early hours of Sept. 10, 2022, Arcelus sent WPATH colleagues his comments on the AAP’s requests to change the SOC-8.

“I am including the pdf with the comments from AAP. I have gone one by one through them and add my comments […] as to why we are not going to make changes or if we are say that we are removing it,” wrote Arcelus.

“Time is a problem as we want the SOC-8 to be out for Montreal, so we need to agree tomorrow whether 1) we ignore all their comments 2) we remove the sections that I suggest or more if you feel,” Arcelus wrote.

WPATH was under pressure to resolve the dispute with the AAP quickly, as it wanted to release the SOC-8 before an upcoming scientific symposium that began Sept. 15, 2022, in Montreal, Canada.

Through a public records request, the DCNF obtained 30 hours of recordings from the private WPATH symposium, where several speakers noted the SOC-8 was published the night before the symposium began.

Around midday on Sept. 10, 2022, Arcelus sent Hudson an email titled “Last version with changes.” The email included an attachment titled “SOC8 Final edit as agreed with adolescent chapter,” informing Hudson that WPATH had removed the age minimums from the SOC-8 as “agreed” upon and asking for the AAP’s endorsement.

“Thank you very much for today’s meeting and the support through this process. We have just finished our meeting and we have agreed to remove the ages and to add the sentence we agreed,” wrote Arcelus. “I hope that by doing this AAP will be able to endorse the SOC8 or at least to support it.”

Hudson forwarded the email to Rafferty, Sherer, Allen, Hodax and Mark Del Monte, asking: “Do you approve of these changes?”

“I think these changes are sufficient so that we would not need to oppose SOC8,” Rafferty responded, adding he didn’t see anything that “explicitly or directly contradicts or opposes our policies.”

“For us all, I think it is important to recognize that the [policy statement] is still our official policy even after SOC8 is released. These changes allow SOC8, especially the recommendations themselves, to at least be aligned with the [policy statement] without anything that explicitly or directly contradicts or opposes our policies,” wrote Rafferty.

Later that afternoon, Eli Coleman reported to his colleagues that the AAP was “satisfied with the proposed changes” and that the group was ready to provide a statement in support of WPATH. 

One person on the WPATH email chain, whose name was redacted, wrote: “May I thank each and all of you for the tremendous effort you made to reach a deal with the AAP and to allow the SOC 8 to be published.”

‘So Much More’

Rafferty played a critical role in the development of the AAP’s child sex-change policy, which has no age minimums for sex-change surgery and refers to puberty blockers as “reversible treatments.”

The DCNF obtained an email written by Rafferty in June 2022 responding to a series of questions from the powerful D.C.-based Covington and Burling law firm, which represents the AAP in litigation seeking to overturn Alabama’s ban on pediatric sex-change, about the appropriateness of pediatric sex-change.

“We recently reviewed a lengthy article in the New York Times Magazine entitled ‘The Battle Over Gender Therapy’ […]. Given the prominence of the NY Times and the tenor of the article, which raises many questions about the appropriateness of gender-affirming care, we expect the article may be cited in support of bans on gender affirming care,” the law firm wrote. “Below we’ve listed some points from the article which may be used to support such bans or to challenge our amicus briefs, and some questions from our team.”

Despite the AAP’s push to remove age minimums from the WPATH SOC-8, Rafferty, when referring to gender exploration, told the law firm that some youth “try it out” without needing intervention.

“Do some youth ‘try it out’ – Yes, as children grow up gender exploration is a NORMAL part of development and understanding the society roles [sic] around them. Exploring one’s gender does not mean that any intervention is necessary aside from support and assuring their safety,” wrote Rafferty.

Unmentioned Risks

In his response to the law firm’s questions, Rafferty described how puberty blockers can cause sterility in children and admitted there were no studies evaluating whether puberty suppression leads to sexual dysfunction.

“Long story short, if you start blockers early in puberty before the eggs or cells that give rise to sperm mature (essentially before someone starts to menstruate or ejaculate), then later go directly on directly to cross sex hormone, then you never allow the maturation to occur and will essentially be sterile,” wrote Rafferty.

Rafferty further explained that while patients who’ve received sex-change interventions may have physical limitations in the mechanics of sexual intercourse, the experience of being sexually intimate in their “chosen” sex was “worth so much more to them.”

“Sexual dysfunction: As far as I know there is no study that looks at this, and frankly it would be a difficult study to do,” wrote Rafferty.

“The mechanics of an ‘internal orgasm’ and pleasure are quite different than penile erection, climax, and release of semen,” Rafferty wrote. “A fundamental point, however, is that for many people who are trans female, penile stimulation and external orgasm may actually be quite dysphoric and lead to an aversion or avoidance of sexual activity. I see this commonly in my practice. In adults post-op, I commonly hear that while there may be limitations, the ability to experience intimacy with a partner in a way that is affirming, or simply to be naked and comfortable in one’s body around another person, is worth so much more to them. I know this is not “a study” but it is the experience so many patients have shared with me.”

Puberty blockers stop the maturation process of the reproductive organs, leaving boys with a small penis and lacking the penile tissue needed for vaginoplasty — a sex change surgery that uses genital tissue to create an imitation vagina for men. Rafferty discussed this in his email to the law firm.

“I will also say that a risk you do not mention for trans females who start on blockers early in puberty is that there may not be enough penile tissue to do an inversion and achieve a full depth vaginal cavity. They may take tissue from the GI track or elsewhere to try to extend the cavity but that has led to complications (e.g. GI tissue tends to secrete a lot of mucous and foul odor),” wrote Rafferty.

Rafferty also noted there had been an increase in “top surgery” among teenagers, which he attributed to Medicaid coverage making the surgeries more accessible.

“Today, we have 3 surgeons in [Rhode Island] doing these surgeries and probably half a dozen in [Massachusetts] plus a pediatric plastic surgeon at Boston Children’s specializing in gender surgeries. Most if not all now take Medicaid – very few patients are paying the fully cost of surgery out of pocket. So, the point is that my experience is not that surgery is ‘more popular’ but just more (or simply just) accessible.”

Rafferty did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Pursuit Of Excellence 

On September 15, 2022, WPATH released the SOC-8 without age minimums for child sex-change surgery. Upon its release, Hudson sent an internal memo with the AAP’s statement on the SOC-8, which included a FAQ about the AAP’s policy positions. The FAQ included the question, “What is the AAP’s position on the leaked recommendations on surgeries for minors?” The document gave the following answer: “AAP does not recommend surgical interventions for individuals younger than 18, except in rare cases.”

In December 2022, Jeff Hudson was awarded a Pursuit of Excellence award from the AAP for his work on behalf of “trans” youth, according to a LinkedIn post.

“I am extremely honored to have been awarded the AAP Pursuit of Excellence award for my work on behalf of trans and gender diverse youth,” Hudson wrote in the post.

The AAP previously provided the DCNF with a statement that confirmed their partnership with WPATH but explained that the AAP and peer organizations “develop policy guidance independently.”

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) routinely partners with relevant U.S. medical and mental health associations and global health organizations on a wide range of health issues, including the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH),” an AAP spokesperson told the DCNF.

“While this collaboration is important, the AAP develops policy guidance independently, as do its peer organizations.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics and Jeff Hudson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

AUTHOR

Megan Brock

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.

Top Law Firms Backing Child Sex Changes Funneled Money Into Org That Trains Judges On Gender Ideology

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Transgender activists using litigation to push child sex changes simultaneously sponsor an organization that teaches judges to view cases through the lens of gender ideology.

The Judicial Education Program at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute partners with courts and judicial associations across the country to provide trainings that persuade judges to bring gender ideology into the courtroom, offering primers on the spectrum of sexual identities and suggesting they use pronouns when introducing themselves.

Meanwhile, its donors and corporate sponsors have for years been on the frontlines of lawsuits advancing LGBT causes, from legalizing same-sex marriage to opposing state child sex change bans.

Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he has “long called upon federal judges not to attend subject specific ‘training’ and ‘education’ programs” like the ones offered by Williams Institute.

“Judges can learn about subjects such as LGBT issues and economics on their own without ‘training’ funded by lawyers who argue cases in front of them or organizations that are parties to cases before them,” Painter told the DCNF. “In screening potential Supreme Court nominees for ethics issues, I remember asking about attendance at such ‘free’ seminars.”

One of the reasons Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito passed ethics clearance for appointment to the Supreme Court is because they did not participate in these kinds of programs, Painter noted.

Thousands of judges and their staffs have encountered training material produced by the Williams Institute.

Todd Brower, director of the Judicial Education Program at the Williams Institute, wrote in a 2019 letter to the House Judiciary Committee that he has trained “over 5000 judges, court staff and related court professionals from virtually every state in the United States on sexual orientation and gender identity issues for nearly 15 years.”

The institute’s Judicial Education Program, which operates alongside the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges and the LGBTQ Bar Association, has offered trainings at venues including the New Mexico Judicial Conference, National Association of State Judicial Educators and National Judicial College, according to its website.

Brower taught a webinar for Ohio court personnel in November 2022 titled, “Sexual Identity and Gender Identity in the Courts,” according to a list previously obtained by the DCNF. He taught a course on incorporating pronoun usage and an awareness of gender identity into the courtroom at the Nevada Supreme Court in July 2023, the DCNF previously reported.

The institute was also involved in a May 2023 “Pride & Pronouns” training hosted at the Superior Court of Santa Cruz County.

This work, along with the institute’s research, is funded by several major law firms that do pro bono work to support LGBT-related activist litigation, from opposing child sex-change bans in red states to filing amicus briefs in key Supreme Court cases, according to a packet listing current and former sponsors.

“When a group like UCLA’s Williams Institute or the Climate Judiciary Project, for example, seeks behind-the-scenes access to judges, it is worth asking questions about the group’s funding and sponsors,” Carrie Severino, president of the conservative legal advocacy group JCN, told the DCNF. “Who are the sponsors we don’t know about? Why is the group interested in conducting such a training?”

One sponsor, Covington & Burling, records that it spent 10,200 pro bono hours in 2023 on LGBTQ+ matters, including leading an effort by medical associations to oppose child-sex change bans by filing amicus briefs in cases challenging the red state laws.

The firm represented the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in a case challenging Alabama’s ban on child sex changes. Discovery in the Alabama case revealed WPATH allowed political concerns to influence its Standards of Care (SOC-8) guidelines, succumbing to pressure from the Biden administration and “social justice lawyers.”

Two firms, Akin Gump and Sidley Austin, were part of an effort launched in 2019 with the Human Rights Campaign to bring strategic litigation to “combat the relentless attacks on LGBTQ equality by the Trump-Pence administration.”

Akin Gump joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and another firm to challenge Tennessee’s ban on child sex change procedures last year.

The Supreme Court will consider the Biden administration’s challenge to the same Tennessee law this term.

Another sponsor, Baker McKenzie, partnered with Lambda Legal and the Southern Poverty Law Center to fight Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill in court. The firm received an award from the LGBT advocacy group Stonewall for its litigation to “support and advance opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people across the country.”

The law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter serves as the national pro bono counsel for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), meaning its attorneys “regularly attend board meetings and represent the GLAAD when litigation arises,” according to the firm’s website.

Latham & Watkins helped the Williams Institute file its amicus brief in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case, which legalized same-sex marriage. Research from the brief was ultimately cited in the ruling.

Other firms that support the Williams Institute and engage in pro bono LGBT litigation include Kirkland & Ellis, Munger, Tolles & Olson and O’Melveny & Myers,

The Williams Institute operates with an over $4.5 million annual budget, according to its website.

“The funding of such ‘training’ of judges by law firms with a stake in LGBTQ-related case outcomes doesn’t pass the smell test,” Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF. “And frankly, it would also be a violation of the lawyer’s code of professional ethics to allow private law firms to sponsor these one-sided trainings designed to reach preferred courtroom outcomes.”

These kinds of training are why state courts “have been overtaken by the despotism of ideological newspeak,” she said.

“Within the domestic relations field, for example, there have been increasingly problematic determinations from state judges on issues such a child custody, when a parent who does not automatically affirm a minor child’s expression of gender identity is subsequently divested of custody under the auspices that automatic affirmation by the other parent would be in the child’s ‘best interest,’” Perry said.

Pushing Child Sex Changes

The Williams Institute is tied to organizations that spearheaded the push for child gender transitions.

The institute’s faculty advisory committee now includes Jillian T. Weiss, executive director of Transgender Legal Defense & Education, and Mark Schuster, CEO of the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in California.

Multiple detransitioners, such as Chloe Cole, have sued Kaiser Permanente for administering sex-change procedures like puberty blockers and double mastectomies to them as children.

The institute’s nonprofit donors backed the legal and medical groups that helped erase safeguards for children.

The Chicago-based Tawani Foundation, founded by transgender activist Jennifer (formerly James) Pritzker, has given the Williams Institute more than $1.4 million since 2018, according to tax documents.

Pritzker, a father and retired army lieutenant colonel who now identifies as a woman, is a major funder of WPATH. He received a philanthropy award from the organization for offering “longstanding support” and aid to produce the SOC8 guidelines.

Court documents unsealed in a case challenging Alabama’s ban on sex change procedures for minors revealed WPATH avoided evidence reviews for its SOC8 guidelines on the advice of “social justice” attorneys. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine also successfully pressured WPATH to remove its minimum age recommendations.

The Tawani Foundation awarded $275,000 to WPATH between 2019 and 2020, tax records show.

The foundation also funds a slew of LGBT litigation efforts. Since 2018, it has awarded the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund $437,500, the National Center for Transgender Equality $125,000 and $100,000 to GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, per tax records.

The San Francisco-based Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has given the Williams Institute $282,500 since 2016. Over the same time period, it awarded nearly $1.27 million to the National Center for Transgender Equality, $1.08 million to the Transgender Law Center, $80,000 to the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, $1.7 million to the National Center For Lesbian Rights and $435,500 to Lambda Legal, per tax records.

The left-wing Tides Center works with and financially sponsors the fund’s Haas Leadership Initiatives program, which offers grants to organizations to support litigation that increases “the legal privileges of LGBT people,” according to Influence Watch.

The Williams Institute has also received a total of $283,348 from the David Bohnett Foundation since 2004, according to grants reported on its website. Most recently, the organization gave $5,000 for its 2024 gala.

Bohnett Foundation president Michael Fleming is married to his same-sex partner, California Court of Appeal Justice Luis A. Lavin, according to his bio. Lavin spoke at the Williams Institute’s LGBTQ Bench webinar in 2021.

The David Bohnett Foundation has donated to various other groups pushing cases through the legal system, such as the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Transgender Law Center, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The Williams Institute, Covington & Burling, Akin Gump, Sidley Austin, Baker McKenzie, Sheppard Mullin Richter, Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, Munger, Tolles & Olson and O’Melveny & Myers did not respond to requests for comment. Pritzker also did not respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Katelynn Richardson

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.

Here Are Donald Trump’s ‘Promises Made’ on Transgenderism and Abortion

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As once-and-future President Donald J. Trump strode to the podium to deliver his victory speech after winning the 2024 presidential election, he made his exuberant followers a solemn vow: “I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept.” President Trump, who made greater efforts to keep his campaign pledges as the 45th president than perhaps any modern president in decades, has vowed to protect children from irreversible surgeries, uproot extreme transgender ideology from government, enshrine parental rights, and end the weaponization of government against Christians and pro-life advocates.

Here are some of President-Elect Donald Trump’s most important 2024 campaign promises on transgender issues, abortion, and education.

President Donald Trump’s 2024 Promises on Transgender Ideology

The Biden-Harris administration’s advocacy of extreme transgender ideology did more to return the 45th president to office than any other issue. The Democratic polling firm Blueprint found that swing voters said the top reason they voted against the Democratic candidate in 2024 is that “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” And Republicans spent $65 million on ads highlighting the Democratic Party’s transgender extremism in three months.

But long before the election, President Trump had vowed to reel in the radicalism of the Obama-Biden-Harris administrations.

“Probably number one on my list … I will sign a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation — think of it, sexual mutilation — in all 50 states,” President Trump promised during his speech to the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit. He denounced governors like Minnesota’s Tim Walz (D) and California’s Gavin Newsom (D) for signing “depraved new laws that strip parents of parental rights and that encourage minors to be transported across state lines for sexual mutilation. … We will prosecute those involved in this sick California scheme for violating federal laws against kidnapping, sex trafficking, child abuse, and the deprivation of their civil rights.”

President Trump has long recognized the overreach, and political value, of extreme gender ideology. No later than February 2023, President Trump included a robust, 11-point plan to end gender “madness” in his “Agenda47” blueprint for his next administration. Trump posted these pledges on the Trump-Vance campaign website and articulated these points in a video posted on Rumble on February 1, 2023.

“Here’s my plan to stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation of our children,” said the president.

  1. “On day one, I will revoke Joe Biden’s cruel policies on so-called ‘gender-affirming care,” which Trump called “ridiculous.” As he did at the Pray Vote Stand Summit, he promised to oppose “a process that includes giving kids puberty blockers, mutating their physical appearance, and ultimately performing surgery on minor children.”
  1. “I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age,” he said.
  1. “I will then ask Congress to permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these procedures and pass a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states,” he said, forecasting, “It’ll go very quickly.”
  1. ”I will declare that any hospital or health care provider that participates in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth will no longer meet federal health and safety standards for Medicaid and Medicare and will be terminated from the program immediately.” For instance, Boston Children’s Hospital received $1.4 million from the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) of Massachusetts for inflicting “gender transition services” between January 2015 and May 2023. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also awardeda $3.3 million grant to build a website targeting young people in other states who identify as transgender.
  1. “Furthermore, I will support the creation of a private right of action for victims to sue doctors who have unforgivably performed these procedures on minor children,” said Trump. Within one week, two former victims of the transgender industry — Chloe Cole and Camille Kiefel — sued the doctors who misdiagnosed their mental illness as gender dysphoria and recommended surgical amputations.
  1. “The Department of Justice will investigate Big Pharma and the big hospital networks to determine whether they have deliberately covered up horrific long-term side effects of sex transitions in order to get rich at the expense of vulnerable patients — in this case, very vulnerable,” promised the 45th president. Economic considerations undeniably play a role in Dr. Shayne Taylor convinced Nashville’s Vanderbilt University to begin carrying out transgender surgeries, because “they require a lot of follow-ups. They require a lot of time, and they make money —they make money for the hospital.”
  1. ”We will also investigate whether Big Pharma or others have illegally marketed hormones and puberty blockers, which are in no way licensed or approved for this use,” said Trump about the off-label, experimental uses of drugs intended to temporarily suspend precocious puberty only until it could safely begin.
  1. “My Department of Education will inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school official suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences, including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination and the elimination of federal funding,” he said.
  1. “As part of our new credentialing body for teachers, we will promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique,” said President Trump.
  1. “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth. The bill will also make clear that Title IX prohibits men from participating in women’s sports,” said the president-elect. The injustice of having female athletes like Riley Gaines lose scholarships, prizes, or other opportunities to middling male athletes drove voters toward the Trump-Vance ticket, polls show.
  1. “And we will protect the rights of parents from being forced to allow their minor child to assume a gender which is new and an identity without the parent’s consent,” Trump vowed. When one mother’s former lesbian partner began to teach her four-year-old son about extreme gender ideology, she said the boy’s preschool sent her “edicts by email,” with no consideration that he, or she, may not be fully committed to his social transition.

“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born in the wrong gender,” said President Trump.” Under my leadership, this madness will end.”

President Donald Trump’s 2024 Promises on Abortion

Although the Trump 2024 presidential campaign retreated to a less committed policy on protecting the unborn, the Trump-Vance ticket promised to end the weaponization of the federal government against pro-life advocates and left the door open to some additional pro-life measures.

After the 2022 Dobbs decision, the Biden-Harris administration stood by as Jane’s Revenge attacked pro-life women’s resource centers and churches. It then established a federal task force to prosecute peaceful — often elderly — pro-life sidewalk counselors on flimsy charges that they violated the 1994 Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

“To reverse these cruel travesties of justice, tonight I’m announcing that the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration … so that I can study the situation very quickly and sign their pardons or commutations on day one,” President Trump told the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit. “Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers.”

As president in 2017, President Trump strengthened pro-life policies that protected U.S. taxpayer funds from underwriting abortion around the world. He later enacted regulations preventing those who receive Title X funding from advocating abortion — which led Planned Parenthood to withdraw from the federal family planning program rather than give up abortion advocacy. The administration appears amenable to reenacting these measures. “On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean, our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions. That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view,” said Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance last month.

Vance also personally distinguished between a “national abortion ban” and a “minimum national standard,” such as a bill to protect unborn babies from abortion after 15 weeks — although Trump has not registered his support for the measure.

President Trump kept his promise after he became the first candidate to release a list of potential Supreme Court justices’ names during the 2016 election. After seeing the hand of God deliver him from two assassination attempts, President Trump has found a divine purpose in carrying out his campaign promises. If he keeps these promises, which won the Republican Party eight out of 10 white evangelical voters and more than nine out of 10 pro-life votes, he will go far toward his goal to make America great again.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson 

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Why Young Voters Shifted Towards Trump

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President Donald J. Trump Pledges Educational Gamechanger By Creating The American Academy

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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.

Processed Food Stocks Drop After RFK Jr. Announcement

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Major processed food corporations saw their stock take a dive Friday, a day after President-elect Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Nestle saw its stock reach a 52 week low Friday, according to CNBC. Nestle is one of the top ten companies in the processed food market, along with PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kraft-Heinz and General-Mills, according to market.us.

Similarly, PepsiCo Inc. saw its stock plunge almost 4% Friday, with Coca-Cola Co. decreasing by more than 1%.

Sugary drinks weren’t the only market hit — General Mills, which manufactures products like Bisquick, Cocoa Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, dipped more than 2%.

Meanwhile, Campbell Soup Co also decreased by almost 3%, and Kraft Heinz Co. reached a 52 week low. Kraft products include Heinz, Oscar Mayer, Jell-O, Lunchables, Kraft Mac & Cheese and Kool-Aid.

Trump announced Thursday that he would nominate Kennedy to direct the HHS.

“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS),” he tweeted. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to public health.”

Kennedy has been vocal about public health and the chemicals in America’s food. Food additives like potassium bromate, Titanium dioxide and Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) are banned in Europe but allowed in the U.S., CBS News reported.

“The Democrats, who claim to be all about health care have stood by watching other countries ban these poisons that make our kids sick,” RFK stated in a post online. “Enough is enough. President Trump and I are going to stop the mass poisoning of American children.”

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

General assignment reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Editor Daily Rundown: Trump Taps RFK For HHS Secretary

Pharma Stocks Take Nose Dive After Trump Announces RFK Jr. For HHS

RFK JR’s Family Slams Trump Endorsement As ‘Betrayal’

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

My enlightening Trump victory party on a London street

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‘I bought a Cuban cigar and small bottle of bourbon … and then I sat on a bench’

We just had to get out of town. In 2016, my wife and I did not know what to expect from the election, so we flew to London the day after polls closed to escape. In 2020, COVID stopped us from leaving town – but in 2024, we got out of town again, flying to London just like in 2016.

So there we were standing at Oxford Street at 10 a.m. London time right after the election in the U.S. The air was cold and crisp, my overcoat buttoned up to the neck. Large, light snowflakes like white feathers were floating to earth. My wife and her sister had red cheeks and could see their breaths. Donald Trump was the president-elect of the United States … again. Oh my.

So just like in 2016, I bought a Cuban cigar and small bottle of bourbon in the basement of Selfridges as the girls shopped in the store, and then I sat on a bench on Oxford Street drinking my bourbon and smoking my cigar as thousands (literally thousands) of Londoners and tourists walked by me.

After talking with a couple hundred tourists and Londoners, these are a few of their comments and my assessments:

Dino, a young professional father/husband from Italy was ecstatic about Trump winning. Italy is suffering from illegal immigrants from Africa and from a super low birthrate like in the United States. The oligarchs want more immigrants to offset the low birthrate, while the average Italians are suffering from the huge influx of illegal aliens – so Dino hopes that the MAGA movement will help Italy like it is helping in America.

Daniel, a 35-year-old commodities trader from Scotland was bullish about how the stock market would increase because of Trump.

Paul and Mary, retirees from Boston, were depressed about how Trump would stop the woke direction of the U.S.

Alex, a young man from Latvia working in London, thought that the war in Ukraine would come to a quick end because 70% of Ukrainians want to be part of Russia. He believes that Trump is not going to take any crap from President Zelensky, especially since Ukraine did not investigate the Biden interests with Burisma.

Steve and Pam from Milwaukee sat down and celebrated with me. Too much fun. We cheered Trump like ugly Americans. Steve and Pam knew that Trump would win Wisconsin (a battleground state) since last summer when the Republican convention was in Milwaukee and Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate – two more strategic decisions by Trump that proved successful.

Tokashi, a 30- to 40-year-old tall, handsome professional man from Tokyo, said that all of Japan was overjoyed about Trump because he was the only world leader who was tough on China, and China is the No. 1 economic enemy to Japan. Japan loves Trump.

Allen, a middle-age worker of London, said that the Trump voters were much like the BREXIT voters in the U.K. – workers, not globalists and not politicians. Trump represents the U.S. version of BREXIT – the America First movement like the U.K. First BREXIT movement.

Danny, another middle-age worker of London, informed me that all of Britain knew that Trump would be elected when he rose from the ground with his fist in the air after being shot and then shouted to the crowd to “fight, fight, fight!” Trump is what men and women all over the world want in a leader. Protection. Security. Fearlessness. A leader who listens and understands them. A man’s man. Danny called Trump the messiah, a man on a mission to save America and hopefully save the world also.

Susan, an older visiting social studies teacher from Malaysia, single and childless, was terror-stricken that Trump would stop the progressive global movement for a more woke, DEI-dominated One World Order, and that this loss by Harris would set women’s progress back all around the world.

Abraham, a tall, thin, dark-skinned, smiling visitor from Morocco, was overjoyed about Trump as he explained that everyone in Morocco was joyous because of how Trump supported their sovereign rights concerning the Sahara Desert, whereas Biden/Harris canceled that support. States’ rights.

Amanda from Virginia, single, childless and a public school educator, showed how Trump derangement syndrome is affecting government employees as she threw out obscenities about the president-elect and expressed how she feared that Trump was planning to cut government spending and government employees (public school teachers are government employees).

And Bruce and Sue of London spoke for middle-class working Brits as they explained that Kamala Harris lacked the experience and the smarts to be president while Trump exhibited that he had superior executive skills and intelligence compared to Harris. They watched the debate and many of the interviews of each candidate, and then questioned how Harris could be the Democrats’ nominee without winning any state primary elections.

Those are just a few reactions out of the couple hundred people who shared their thoughts with me. From those conversations and from watching how BBC and SkyNews were covering the aftermath of the election, it’s clear that the world outside the U.S. is much like the world inside the U.S., in that the media and the people are disconnected from each other.

The foreign media can see nothing good about Trump’s win, while average working people from all over the world are rejoicing and optimistic. Those working middle-class people with families are happy, while single professional women, the “childless cat ladies,” and the elites are fit to be tied.

Can President Trump unite Americans with so many disparate views? Can the world unite with so many mutually exclusive objectives? Probably not. That is the definition of mutually exclusive. Only one outcome can occur, and there is no middle ground, no compromise.

But that is the beauty of the democratic process. Those who win get to implement their policies. A majority of American voters selected Trump to do that, so the whole world is watching Trump and the MAGA movement to see if they will make good on their promises.

Yes, the whole world is watching to see if Trump will be a “messiah” who stops all the globalist madness and wars.

©2024 Michael Charles Master. All rights reserved.

Please purchase Michael Master’s latest book is “Trump the Disrupter.”

President Trump Announces Doug Burgum Will Lead the NEW “National Energy Council”

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Energy independence is back!

This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape.

President Trump just announced the forming of a new council called the National Energy Council to propel the nation into energy dominance. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum will lead it.

“It will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation of ALL forms of American Energy. This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”

WATCH: President Trump forms National Energy Council to propel the nation into energy dominance

‘Drill, drill, drill’: New energy council signals Trump to prioritize energy production

By:  – November 16, 2024 

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Friday afternoon that his pick for Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, would also coordinate a new council on energy policy is a sign the incoming administration will make energy production a core part of its domestic policy.

Few details of the new National Energy Council were available Friday, as activists and lawmakers processed the surprise 4 p.m. Eastern announcement. But the move likely reflects a focus by Trump and his next administration on energy production, including fossil fuels.

“They’re signaling ahead of time that this is one of their priority areas,” Frank Maisano, a senior principal at the energy-focused law and lobbyist firm Bracewell LLP, said in an interview.

Burgum “will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,” a written statement from Trump said.

“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”

Trump said the council’s objective to increase U.S. energy supply would benefit the domestic economy and allies overseas and help power “A.I. superiority.”

“The National Energy Council will foster an unprecedented level of coordination among federal agencies to advance American energy,” Burgum said in a written statement. “By establishing U.S. energy dominance, we can jumpstart our economy, drive down costs for consumers and generate billions in revenue to help reduce our deficit.”

It was unclear what the role of the Department of Energy would be in such an arrangement. The current secretary in the Biden administration is Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Stallone’s Right. Trump Could Be Our Next Washington

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Actor Sylvester Stallone came out with a ringing endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump at a Mar-a-Lago event Thursday night. It was so good, in fact, that I’ll forgive him for not making it before the election.

“We are in the presence of a really mythical character,” Stallone said in his speech introducing the president-elect.

“This individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off,” he said of Trump.

“When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world — ’cause without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We got the second George Washington,” he concluded, in what is probably the best public endorsement of Trump in his nearly decade-long political career.

WATCH: Sylvester Stallone introduces President Trump as “the second George Washington.”

But it’s not really even hyperbole. We live in a vastly different country than what George Washington first envisioned. We live in a far different country than our forebears had even three generations back. In fact, America underwent a fundamental transformation in the 1960s, the culmination of our very own Cultural Revolution.

The New Left student movement ushered in a new conception of civil rights and sexual liberation, but it wasn’t just confined to the culture; it was a revolution in law and bureaucracy as well. The Civil Rights Amendment of 1964 ushered in provisions like disparate impact, which morphed into a DEI staple. The Reagan Revolution, far from rolling back the tide, actually facilitated the rise of this cultural Marxism by accepting the government had no role in fighting back in the culture. All the while, the left marched on, as empowered activist-lawyers consolidated and advanced their gains over the decades, resulting in the federally enshrined DEI insanity that we see today. As Chris Caldwell argues in probably the most important social criticism of the 21st century, this was effectively a re-founding of America.

This is the yoke we now live under, colloquially known as wokeness in its advanced and totalizing form. Trump was elected to do what Reagan and generations of Republicans could not: fight back. If he succeeds, he will indeed be just as much a Founder as George Washington.

AUTHOR

Gage Klipper

Gage Klipper writes political analysis for the Daily Caller’s Patriots subscribers. He’s also the resident culture and movie critic, with the Daily Caller’s newsletter, “Cultured.” Equestrian, avid skier and Negroni enthusiast — he’ll die on the hill of smoking indoors.

RELATED VIDEO: The ‘next generation’ is rising in the Trump administration

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

What kind of healthcare did American women really want when they deserted Kamala?

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NEWS UPDATE: President-elect Trump has announced that he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Donald Trump’s stunning victory has everyone talking, especially about the surprising gains that he made with minority, youth, and women voters.

As a woman, I was told that most of us would be voting for Harris because she was a champion of women’s health. It didn’t happen. In fact, Harris barely won the majority of the female vote, and she won women in smaller numbers than her Democratic predecessors .

Why?

Recently, I noticed that a “crunchy” mom, or a mom who adopts a natural, holistic lifestyle, whom I follow on social media shared one of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) posts on her Instagram story. She has hundreds of thousands of followers.

And it got me thinking – what if different health concerns influenced the female vote other than the reproductive healthcare that Harris’s campaign was banking on?

Harris and the Democratic Party felt confident in their standing with women voters due to her outspoken advocacy of women’s reproductive rights. Her campaign saturated the media with stories of women who had not received proper miscarriage healthcare and who had witnessed botched abortions and other pregnancy tragedies. Women’s health was the defining issue of the Harris campaign.

But if the feed in my enclave of Instagram reflects broader trends, as I think it does, and if the crunchy movement is indicative of health concerns shared by many American women, then it is quite possible that the growing number of naturally-minded and holistic health women, particularly mothers, sympathised with RFK.


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The former Democrat turned Trump supporter speaks right to the heart of the issues that crunchy, and even not so crunchy mothers, worry about.

In recent years, several trends call into question the food, medical, and pharmaceutical industries that RFK has vowed to reform.

First, many polls have shown that vaccine scepticism has increased dramatically since the pandemic. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 40 percent of Americans consider vaccines extremely important to the wellbeing of their children, a dramatic shift from in 2019 when this was true for more than half of Americans.

Even before COVID, RFK was lobbying for mercury to be removed from childhood vaccinations. Kennedy’s vaccine scepticism resonates with Americans who regard vaccines critically, forgo certain vaccines, or avoid them altogether.

Second, RFK’s worry about ultra-processed foods is shared by many mothers. The popularity of organic produce and rejection of processed foods have grown stronger in recent years. “Seed oils,” one of the more highly processed and ubiquitous food ingredients, was a word almost unheard of just a few years ago, and now households are seeking alternatives. The most dramatic example is the recent return of raw milk.

The third factor is distrust of doctors and Big Pharma in the face of a growing mental and chronic health crisis. A studythis August by Northeastern University showed that faith in medical professionals has been declining over the past four years, falling from 71.5 percent in April 2020 to only 40.1 percent in January 2024. Many studies have shown that women feel gaslit and ignored by doctors. Add to this the rising mental health crisis and chronic illness crisis and you have a crisis of confidence in the medical profession.

Fourth, a growing number of women think that holistic, alternative, and nutritional health has been sidestepped in favour of quick-fix drugs. RFK has questioned the motives of the pharmaceutical and medical industry, drawing attention to the fact that the more chronic illness and drug-dependency there is, the more money it makes. He has vowed to root out corruption in the medical profession and Big Pharma.

As a mother myself, I can attest that no one feels these concerns more acutely than we do. Mothers on both sides of the political aisle can join hands on this. We are worried to death.

The Democrats made a huge mistake in defining women’s healthcare as abortion labeled as reproductive healthcare. Most women in the US are mothers, and for most moms their children’s health is paramount. For all the left’s talk about abortion and women’s health, perhaps the female vote was more interested in the health and wellbeing of their children. It’s no wonder RFK’s promise of a healthier America resonated with them.

Forward this article to your friends.  

AUTHOR

Rebekah Bills served four years as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency, earning 6 Individual Act Awards, DIA’s Science and Technology Mission Enabler Award, and the Director’s Personal Coin. Now—her best assignment to date—she cares for her two young sons, Gabriel and Emmanuel, and her exuberant Great Dane puppy, Beowulf.

RELATED VIDEO: Let’s make America healthy again and our military strong again!

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

Does Trump signal the end of climate change extravaganzas?

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NEWS FLASH: John Robson, of the Climate Discussion Nexus, reports from Baku about COP29.

The 29th UN climate conference convened in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 11 under something of a cloud. Or rather a pile-up of incoming storm fronts. There were a lot of reasons for delegates to arrive pre-discouraged. And then came the Trump of Doom. Or a peculiar orange formation mistaken for same.

I haven’t actually heard a whole lot of detailed references to the outcome of the American election, which not only put someone openly contemptuous of climate alarmism into the White House but also gave his party control of both houses of Congress. But it’s not as though people didn’t notice. Thus American marquee New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells, who I believe is absent physically but is certainly present ideologically, just wrote bitterly:

“Trump’s election may look like a black dawn to climate activists. And indeed it is: When the timelines of climate action are so short, and the paths to climate stability so narrow and difficult, any setback is a disaster.”

That he then whistled a happy “global renewables boom” tune that couldn’t change the mood. Not least because his own publication’s “Climate Forward” promptly emailed about “Trump’s potential threat to weather data”.

Canada’s “The Hub” chimed in with a typical Canadian perspective, aka something nobody outside Canada cares about at all: “There’s no reason for Trump to put the brakes on Canada’s low-carbon economic growth”. Nor indeed any reason for anyone to care, given our trivial contribution to supposedly planet-roasting “carbon pollution” despite our outsized contribution to sanctimony on the subject.

The strange thing is that Wallace-Wells did have a point, accidentally. It is true that Trump cannot stop America’s renewables boom, or for that matter Canada’s low-carbon economic growth, because neither is happening anyway. And more broadly, Trump can’t derail the COP agenda because it’s already off the bridge and smouldering in broken chunks in the river below.

Petrostate hospitality

As delegates here must be dimly aware, this conference is problematic in many ways. Including being hosted, for the second straight year, by a petrostate. Azerbaijan cannot really be called democratic, except by regime propagandists and I’m not sure how much they bother. (In case you all aren’t from around there, it’s an hereditary dictatorship whose late president Heydar Aliyev, who died in 2003, had been the local Soviet party boss from 1969 to 1983. He rose to that position via a KGB career that saw him reach the Politburo, before falling out with Gorbachev, being “retired”, then becoming president of Azerbaijan in a military coup in 1993. That it is ruled by the New Azerbaijan Party should not mislead you. But I digress.

The key point is that Azerbaijan is a poor country with a messy history and a lot of problems and one big hope: the energy industry. It accounts for about a third of the entire economy and 90 percent of exports, and they can’t just chuck it into the Caspian Sea and go back to living on salt.

In fact, speaking of the Caspian Sea, it’s in terrible condition ecologically. And as with things like having enough food, potable water, sewers, the ability to defend the nation’s borders in a rough neighbourhood, the idea of cleaning up the Caspian relies on generating a lot more wealth than they currently have. And while the government does hope to foster the tourist industry, an aspiration dealt a harsh blow by COVID, the truth is that Azerbaijan is hard to get to and there aren’t a lot of obvious reasons to come here on vacation.

They do have half the world’s active mud volcanoes, which is kind of cool. And also the Gobustan Petroglyphswhich were also. We went and saw both. But it’s no substitute for being the world’s 21st largest oil exporter, into a pipeline through Georgia and Turkey (I told you it was a tough neighbourhood) into Europe.

Azerbaijan is not alone, of course, in being dependent on hydrocarbon energy. Essentially the whole world is. But where many nations are dependent primarily as consumers, no small matter, some are also dependent as producers. And as the current president Ilhan Aliyev pointedly informed delegates, his government wasn’t about to ditch their key industry.

I could get off on a tangent about the challenges of “modernization”, which is actually and crucially Westernization, in a place with Azerbaijan’s history including forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union from 1920 to 1991 after previous forcible incorporation into the Russian Empire and a lot of other seedy ventures before that. They promptly introduced a modified Latin alphabet and phased out the Cyrillic one, though the replacement has 32 letters, about half of which are not pronounced the way we would.

Oh, and the roads are littered with Ladas, sometimes literally, though also in Baku at least you also see a lot of modern cars made everywhere but here. Likewise the name for car, “Avto”, was made in… Russia. Not a good sign.

There. I did get off on a tangent. But not entirely or I would have edited it out. It’s pertinent because the challenges facing anyone trying to create a decent life for the inhabitants of Azerbaijan are enormous (and arguably include its current government). But they would certainly get worse, even catastrophically so, if the economic lifeline were cut. Which brings me back to Donald Trump who, I’m told, is surprisingly popular here among people who have any idea who he is.

A key reason why the second election of Trump is so big delegates can’t cope with it is this. It’s not just that Orange Man Bad, or anti-Americanism, is one of the forms of hatred not merely permitted but encouraged in our modern, tolerant, diverse, equitably bitter world. It’s that the return of Trump, warts and all, is part of a much larger reaction that threatens the COP agenda and much more besides.

For all his flaws, he represents an overdue and necessary backlash of ordinary people against presumptuous elites who despise them and their lives and would casually wreck them, from COVID lockdowns to Net Zero. And whatever else comes along. And the COP delegates here, I think, dimly sense that it’s a powerful force. Only dimly, because they live in an intellectual as well as sociological bubble.

Copping it sweet

Despite the lack of mental diversity or real debate here, another undercurrent of gloom is that, as the name suggests, it’s the 29th such conference. And for the first seven, or even 15, it was possible to believe they really were going to produce a dramatic, rapid, workable solution to the crisis they claim is so immense and urgent that the great and good must gather every year, and often in between, to solve it for the wretched and ungrateful proles on expense accounts funded by same.

But somewhere around COP27 it dawned on a lot of them that they could not remake the world economy to run on wind, solar, unicorns or empty promises. So they switched to this notion that what the Soviets used to call the First World (and the smart set happily went along it), was going to give not billions but trillions of dollars to the “Third World” every year to deal with the effects of bad weather we allegedly caused by driving cars in 1972 or something.

What exactly the 50,000 or so people who have descended on Baku in the largest tourist incursion in its history make of all these considerations is unclear. I do not think 100 of them left the “Galactic metropolis” bubble of airport, taxi, hotel, taxi, conference centre, taxi, hotel, taxi and airport to see the country. It is in one sense a cosmopolitan gathering, with delegates from Scotland to Burkina Faso to Timor Leste to Kazakhstan to Indonesia.

In fact, I met one who was from Indonesia but was on the Kazakh delegation. In some sense it’s all one big if not at the moment especially happy family. And a friend back home asked me how the food was here and I responded that inside the conference centre it was quite good but exactly what you’d find anywhere in the galactic metropolis; it could as easily have been a sandwich and coffee bar in, say, Paris airport, complete with gluten-free apple cookies. They are here to save the world but not to see it or talk to it.

I do not think most of them, despite their pretensions, really know or care what life is like for the average Azerbaijani nor, crucially, what it would be like if their aspirations to “move away from fossil fuels” in short order were realized. For their information, and yours, there are just over 10 million people in this country, about a quarter of them in the greater Baku area, if that’s the right term, and Baku is basically the only metropolis. The rest live very differently, and close to the edge, though many in Baku are in straightened circumstances too.

Abandoning any realistic prospect of getting to “Net Zero” or meeting “Paris targets” or “1.5C” or any of that other insider jargon must nevertheless surely have had a depressing impact, even if many of them pretend it might still happen or at least don’t challenge the ubiquitous slogans on the walls here about it. But gathering year after year to try to extract lavish but insincere promises from First World politicians skilled at same can’t improve the mood much. And now there’s Donald Trump not just saying the whole thing is silly, but saying it on behalf of a massive constituency in America and beyond.

It’s too big and too awful to be discussed except in hushed tones or knowing asides. But yes, he has trumped their ace of conferences. And they know it.

Forward this to your friends!  

AUTHOR

John Robson is the Executive Director of the Climate Discussion Nexus, a documentary filmmaker, a columnist with the National Post, the Epoch Times and Loonie Politics. He holds a PhD in American history from the University of Texas at Austin.

RELATED VIDEO: Oil and gas are “gift of God”, Azerbaijan leader Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev tells climate summit

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

AGENDA 47: The Plan to Dismantle the Deep State

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Agenda 47 is the 20 point plan to dismantle and destroy the deep state while at the same time rebuilding America into a free nation once again.

Agenda 47 restores and strengthens our Constitutional Republic, returns power to the people and makes Americans healthy, happy and prosperous once again.

The 20 point plan

  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 three, 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 the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders
  11. Rebuild our cities, including Washington D,C., 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 to the retirement age
  15. Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and 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

President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels

Ending Veteran Homelessness in America

No Welfare for Illegal Aliens

The American Academy

President Trump’s Pledge to Homeschool Families

President Trump’s Message to America’s Auto Workers

President Trump’s Ten Principles For Great Schools Leading To Great Jobs

America Must Have the #1 Lowest Cost Energy and Electricity on Earth

Returning Production of Essential Medicines Back to America and Ending Pharmaceutical Shortages

President Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Human Traffickers

Rescuing America’s Auto Industry from Disastrous Job-Killing Policies

Rebuilding America’s Depleted Military

Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions

Cementing Fair and Reciprocal Trade with the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act

Using Impoundment to Cut Waste, Stop Inflation, and Crush the Deep State

Addressing Rise of Chronic Childhood Illnesses

Ending the Scourge of Drug Addiction in America

Celebration Of 250 Years Of American Independence at the Iowa State Fairgrounds

Day One Executive Order Ending Citizenship for Children of Illegals and Outlawing Birth Tourism

Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions

Ending the Nightmare of the Homeless, Drug Addicts, and Dangerously Deranged

Liberating America from Governmental Regulatory Onslaught

Watch more here.

The Bottom Line

We know that when President Trump makes a promise he keeps his promise. We also know that there are Democrats and some Republicans who don’t want Agenda 47 fully implemented.

We will be watching what President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and the Trump cabinet will do to implement Agenda 47.

We will also be watching what Congress does.

We believe that it will take up to 20 years to fully implement Agenda 47. Therefore we are looking forward to POTUS 47 to get it started followed by two terms for J.D. Vance to make Agenda 47 into Agenda 48, Agenda 49 and beyond.

©2024 Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.) All rights reserved.

HarrisX Accurately Calls Five of Seven Presidential Battleground States and Outperforms the Polling Industry in the 2024 U.S. Elections

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Preliminary results from 2024 U.S. presidential election affirms HarrisX as one of the most accurate U.S. pollsters

HarrisX battleground polling correctly called 5 out of 7 states, on average within 1.6 percentage points from the actual results in these states

HarrisX national polling called a close race for Donald Trump at 49%-49% among likely voters and 49%-48% among all registered voters

Following two highly accurate presidential election cycles, HarrisX unveils its interactive Election & Politics Hub, furthering the company’s commitment to polling critical elections and events with accuracy

WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire/ © HarrisX – a Stagwell Inc. (STGW) company, named the most accurate pollster in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, continued its track record of accurate polling in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election.

HarrisX’s 2024 battleground state Presidential election polling compared to the industry average and reported results. (PRNewsfoto/HarrisX)

HarrisX’s 2024 national Presidential election polling compared to the industry average and reported results. (PRNewsfoto/HarrisX)

HarrisX polling projected the correct winner in five out of seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. HarrisX final polling data, on average, came within 1.6 percentage points of the actual results across the five states, under the margin of error and outperforming the 538 Polling Industry Average. The odds ratio accuracy for each of these states was above 0.95 and outperformed the industry average (see tables below for a full explanation of this analysis of polls).

Further, HarrisX national polling demonstrated significant accuracy across its various horserace permutations: a 49%-49% tie among likely voters (with an odds ratio of 0.96) and 49%-48% among registered voters (with a near perfect odds ratio of 0.98).

This achievement reaffirms the commitment of HarrisX to provide reliable, data-driven insights that the public and media can trust in the United States and around the globe.

“Our accuracy is our currency. HarrisX is therefore immensely proud to have called two back-to-back United States presidential elections correctly, ranking among the top pollsters in the country” said Dritan Nesho, CEO and chief pollster at HarrisX. Nesho added: “This accuracy is increasingly important with A.I. becoming the dominant interface between those seeking information and the data sources made available to them.”

Outperforming the Polling Industry in 2024

Prior to the election, the FiveThirtyEight election model predicted the average polling error to be 3.8 percentage points across the seven battleground states. HarrisX polling came within 2.2 percentage points of the actual results across the seven states and within 1.6 percentage points across the five states the polling company called correctly for Donald Trump. HarrisX outperformed both the predicted polling error and the aggregated final polling averages as published by FiveThirtyEight.

Winner Margins

HarrisX Final Poll

538 Industry
Average

Actual Result

HarrisX vs
Industry:
More Accurate

National*

TIE

Harris +1.2

Trump + 2.0

HarrisX

States
With 95%+
ballots counted

Georgia

Trump +2.2

Trump +0.8

Trump +2.2

HarrisX

Wisconsin

Trump +0.4

Harris +1

Trump +0.8

HarrisX

Arizona**

Trump +3.5

Trump +2.1

Trump +5.6

HarrisX

Michigan

Harris +0.8

Harris +1.0

Trump +1.5

HarrisX

Nevada

Trump +1.0

Trump +0.3

Trump +3.1

HarrisX

North Carolina

Trump +0.2

Trump +0.9

Trump +3.4

Industry

Pennsylvania

Harris +3.5

Harris +0.2

Trump +2.1

Industry

* Final votes still to be tallied, with the final expected presidential margin to become closer as states like California likely
to give Harris a boost in the current national numbers.
** Ballot counts still pending, at time of reporting in Arizona 92% of votes counted

Percentage Point Difference From Final Results vs Actual Results

HarrisX Final
Poll

538 Industry
Average

HarrisX vs
Industry:
More Accurate

 National*

2.0 %

3.2 %

HarrisX

States
With 95%+
ballots counted

Georgia

0.0 %

1.5 %

HarrisX

Wisconsin

0.4 %

1.8 %

HarrisX

Arizona

2.1 %

3.4 %

HarrisX

Michigan

2.3 %

2.5 %

HarrisX

Nevada

2.1 %

2.9 %

HarrisX

North Carolina

3.2 %

2.5 %

Industry

Pennsylvania

5.6 %

2.3 %

Industry

Average difference in GA, WI, AZ, NV, and
NC from election result

1.6 %

2.4 %

HarrisX

Average difference from election result in
all Battleground States

2.2 %

2.4 %

HarrisX

Battleground States called correctly (/7)

5

4

HarrisX

*Final votes still to be tallied, with the final expected presidential margin to become closer as states like California likely to give Harris a boost in the current national numbers.

HarrisX also outperformed the polling industry in the national polling, showing the two candidates tied at 49 percent each among likely voters and Trump leading at 49%-48% among all registered voters. The average of national polls showed Vice President Harris winning the national vote by 1.2 percentage points.

Unveiling the HarrisX Elections & Politics Hub and Ongoing Tracking for US Elections

To enhance the public’s understanding of the 2024 election landscape and beyond, HarrisX has unveiled its Elections & Politics Hub, an interactive platform featuring real-time tracking, data analysis, and insights.

This Election Hub allows users to monitor political, policy, advocacy and election developments as they unfold, with clear visuals, state-by-state breakdowns, and live updates. The HarrisX Elections & Politics hub is powered by the HarrisX Overnight Poll, which runs nightly 365 days a year, and allows clients to ask their own questions and conduct surveys alongside the findings of the Elections & Politics Hub.

A Commitment to Methodological Rigor Across Online, Phone, and In-Person Polling

HarrisX leverages best-in-class research methods to administer high-quality polling and ensure a representative sample of voters across online, phone, and in-person for our clients.

Our Elections & Politics Hub U.S. respondents are recruited through opt-in, web-panel recruitment sampling. Recruitment occurs through a broad variety of professional, validated respondent panels to expand the sampling frame as wide as possible and minimize the impact of any given panel on recruiting methods. Results are then weighted by age, gender, race/ethnicity, political party, education, income, and previous vote choice where necessary to align with actual proportions amongst the population of Registered Voters within each state.

HarrisX’s methodological rigor is showcased not only through these Election & Politics Hub results, but also through the firm’s ongoing work with the Harvard CAPS/ Harris poll, released monthly with The Hill; the bi-monthly HarrisX/Forbes poll which looks at the intersection of politics, society, and business; its recent in-person exit polling of over 12,000 voters in the 2024 parliamentary election in the country of Georgia with Mtavari Channel; and its 2024 in-person election polling in the Dominican Republic with Noticias SIM.

HarrisX’s pre-election polling in the Dominican Republic, conducted as Enquestas Mark Penn with Noticias SIM, called the race on the head with 57% for Luis Abinader, who was re-lected president.  HarrisX’s comparative statistical analysis of its exit poll in Georgia and the official election results, concluded that the final results as published by the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Georgia are “statistically impossible”. The HarrisX findings have been cited by international media and the President of Georgia as potential evidence of voting irregularities in the disputed election outcome.

For more information on HarrisX’s election coverage and future initiatives, visit elections.harrisx.com.

About HarrisX

HarrisX is a leading public opinion research, data analytics, and strategy consulting company with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore. HarrisX conducts multi-method research in over 50 countries around the world on behalf of global leaders, Fortune 100 companies, public policy institutions, philanthropic organizations, media and NGOs. It was rated as the most accurate pollster is the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election by the Washington Post and American Research Group. HarrisX currently partners on public opinion polling with Harvard University (via the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll), The Hill Newspaper, Forbes Media, Deseret News and Variety. HarrisX is a proud member of Stagwell Inc. (STGW).

© 2024 HarrisX – a Stagwell Inc. (STGW) company. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Art of Getting It Wrong: Behind the Polls’ Faux Harris Lead

VIDEO: Viktor Orban at 2024 EU Political Summit on how Trump will change EU policy ‘and fast’

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Viktor Orban was pretty enthusiastic about Trump’s return.

We took some clips of a conference he did with other EU leaders from the region and had them translated and subtitled. There is his initial speech, and then a Q&A. From what I saw from the rest of them, Orban was the only one worth listening to.

This isn’t the entire session obviously, but its probably the best of it.

WATCH: Viktor Orban at Euro conference

Some additional info here from AP

More on the event with photos 

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Nominates Rep. Matt Gaetz As Attorney General

John Thune Elected As New Senate Republican Leader, Replacing Mitch McConnell

Trump And Biden Pledge Peaceful Transition Of Power In Oval Office Meeting, Biden Says ‘Welcome Back’

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with video posted by is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

UN COP 29 Host Proclaims Oil and Gas ‘Gifts from God’

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In a major embarrassment for the UN climate regime, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, took the stage at COP 29 and proclaimed oil and gas to be gifts from God.

Azerbaijan is the host country for this years UN climate conference.

Aliyev also denounced what he called the “fake news”  media for hypocrisy in labeling Azerbaijan a “petro state,” while the United States and Europe produce many times more oil than his nation.

WATCH: Oil and gas are “gift of God”, Azerbaijan leader Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev tells climate summit

You can’t make this stuff up!

In a major embarrassment for the UN climate regime the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, took the stage at COP 29 and proclaimed oil and gas to be gifts from God.

That’s not exactly how the Left’s climate narrative is supposed to go.

CFACT’s delegation is at UN COP 29, the biggest UN climate conference of the year.  Azerbaijan is this year’s host country.

Aliyev also denounced what he called the “fake news” media for hypocrisy in labeling his country a “petro state,” while the United States and Europe produce many times more oil and gas than his nation.  He also told the assembled conference delegates that Azerbaijan’s greenhouse gas emissions (if that’s your thing) are tiny when compared to other nations and the world.

The UN climate process has degenerated into farce, although it remains an incredibly expensive farce.

The Wall Street Journal called for this to be the last UN climate conference, writing that:

“The real joke of these summits is that so many people still take them seriously. Whatever one thinks of the arguments surrounding climate change, there won’t be a material reduction in global carbon emissions until China, India and other developing countries—such as, say, Azerbaijan—agree to sacrifice their economic growth on the altar of Western green fixations. This isn’t happening in practice, and Mr. Aliyev’s comments suggest leaders of those countries feel less pressure to pretend.

It makes you wonder if COP29 may be the last time anyone tries to organize a spectacle like this. The world should be so lucky.”

The UN climate regime is indeed faltering.  President Biden skipped COP 29 as did many other world leaders.

I told OAN News that, “you don’t see a Macron here, you don’t see a Justin Trudeau here, you don’t see leaders of the various western countries because they would be the ones giving out the money.  What you do see at COP 29 are leaders from a number of developing countries looking for money.”

Donald Trump’s victory poses a major challenge to the UN and the climate Left.

While there is plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual suspects, you’d be surprised how many delegates and attendees here at COP 29 are quietly (sometimes not so quietly) cheering America on for our election results.

As I told OAN, many representatives of the developing world think it is crazy to talk about giving up private automobiles, abundant electricity and eating meat.  They want a high living standard for their countries.  They view President Trump as the leader who can restore sanity to climate and energy policy.

For nature and people too.

AUTHOR

Craig Rucker

Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president. Widely heralded as a leader in the free market environmental, think tank community in Washington, D.C., Rucker is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, written extensively in numerous publications, and has appeared in such media outlets as Fox News, OANN, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hill, among many others.

Rucker is also the co-producer of the award-winning film Climate Hustle, which was the #1 box-office film in America during its one night showing in 2016, as well as the acclaimed Climate Hustle 2 staring Hollywood actor Kevin Sorbo released in 2020. As an accredited observer to the United Nations, Rucker has also led CFACT delegations to some 30 major UN conferences, including those in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Kyoto, Bonn, Marrakesh, Rio de Janeiro, and Warsaw, to name a few.

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

Morano on Fox: President Trump “will pull the UN climate agenda down”

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Marc Morano discusses COP29 and the climate agenda under the new Trump administration on Fox & Friends.

COP 29: The U.S. can finally escape the Paris Climate Accords

Consider the following

During Donald Trump’s years after he pulled us out of the Paris Accords, the global temperature had its ups and downs but was essentially level.  Look what happened.

From  a Close up of Dr Roy Spencer’s site https://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

Now suppose I thought like the mainstream media does about every weather event, but wanted to make my point for my side of the issue.

Here is the headline:

Joe Biden causes a massive temperature jump once America rejoins the Paris accords.

Nothing is further from the truth. Yet if you are a warped propagandist, you can take any event and blame it on someone, in this case, I can blame it on Biden putting us back in the all pain, no gain, Paris Accords

But it would be a lie.

What is true is the Paris Accords are UNABLE TO MEANINGFULLY ALTER THE GLOBAL CLIMATE.  It’s a waste of money and  a useless feel-good exercise.

In fact, the recent jump in temperature should be a nail in the coffin of the man-made climate change pushers for it proves it has to be water vapor linked. The simple intuitive explanation: Increase the water vapor and you increase the amount of energy in the atmosphere, and heat is a measure of energy.

Let us look at water vapors in relation to the whole shooting match.

Source: https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Koutsoyiannis-DogTail-Nov-2024.pdf

Co2 is next to nothing That means the increase in co2 has to have much less effect and is overwhelmed by clouds and water vapor. That man is only responsible for a small amount of that, and the US only about 10% of that, which makes it absurd to be dumping money and support into what is a fool’s errand.

If you simply look at Saturation mixing ratio tables ( I have shown this many times, so I am not going to go over it again), it explains not only why it would warm, but where it is warming most, in the driest coldest places. Much of the warming is in those areas during their cold seasons. Clouds have been decreasing in general across the tropics and increasing in the arctic areas, a sign of a distorted warming pattern brought about by the relationship of water vapor to temperature.

The combination of the strong El Nino and Tonga blasting the most measurable amounts of water vapor in the air led to the rise The question is why are the oceans warming and I like the hypothesis of geothermal input brought about by changes in the exosphere ( the core of the earth) reacting to the change in gravitational pull by the alignments of the planets and the sun, changing the center or the gravitational forcing. I will have an expert on my show, the Wise Guys of Weather on Am 970 the Answer, NYC 5 pm on Sundays, on this matter on Nov 24. It is mind-boggling but worth considering.

But the left in all its glory wants to scream at President-elect Trump for taking us out of the accords, which we should not be in anyway. Co’2, for whatever it may do, is dwarfed by large natural-scale forcing. And that should be clear as day given what we have just witnessed from the volcano and strong El Nino and the cumulative reaction. I have a hypothesis, that the left hates and a lot of people on my side don’t like on the geothermal spreading and the work of Dr. Arthuer Viterito jives with what this 50-year forecaster snow has observed. For whatever reason the oceans ARE WARMING but not because of what CO2 is doing. In fact, the warming oceans are likely a major contributor to the rise in CO2. If we reduced man’s CO2 input to zero on the chart above, the other drivers would simply take up whatever little effect it has.

Here is my forecast. Once President Trump stops this waste of money and pulls us out of the accords, the temperature will level off unless there is another Tongo or major El Nino. So if you try to link the warmth to man-made sources because the source of the spike has nothing to do with it, you have to be blind or brainwashed.

Or a liar.

Take your pick

In the meantime the sooner we are out of this worthless accord, the better.

AUTHOR

Joe Bastardi

Joe Bastardi is a pioneer in extreme weather and long-range forecasting. He is the author of “The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won’t Hear From Al Gore — and Others” which you can purchase at the CFACT bookstore. His new book The Weaponization of Weather in the Phony Climate war can be found here: phonyclimatewar.com

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

God comes knocking at the door of science

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Science at the Doorstep to God: Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life after Death   by Fr Robert Spitzer SJ | Ignatius Press | 2023, 299 pages

Are all scientists really atheists? What can science do and what can it not do? Can it at least help understand whether the universe needs an intelligent creator? Can it throw light on the human soul as trans-physical, capable of surviving bodily death?

Fr Robert Spitzer believes it can, by offering a combination of converging arguments, as St John Henry Newman does in The Grammar of Assent. Author of Evidence for God from Contemporary Physics and articles about astrophysics and cosmology, Fr Spitzer has navigated the connections and disconnections between faith and science in a balanced and wise way, rather in the spirit of Fr Georges Lemaȋtre, proposer of the Big Bang, of whom he has much to write in this book. He shows that eight recent studies confirm the existence of an intelligent creator of physical reality as well as a trans-physical soul which survives bodily death

Did the universe have a beginning?

Fr Spitzer begins by asking whether science points to a beginning of the universe. There have been many theories about the cause of our universe: infinite or finite multiverses, a bouncing universe that waxes and wanes, of which our universe is just an interlude, a string of universes, and an infinite steady state quantum cosmology, which also would predate “our” universe, initiated by the Big Bang.

All of these theories, however, either require a beginning anyway, or else are incompatible with the facts, according to the best scientists in the area, whose arguments Spitzer rehearses in detail, but readably for the layman.

So was the Big Bang really the beginning?

All the indications are that it was: you can’t have an expanding universe without a beginning; entropy would long ago have killed our universe if it were infinite, and so, if physical reality had a beginning, prior to which there was nothing, we are left with a “something” beyond physical reality which can cause it all, that is, create it out of nothing. Sounds familiar?  

Life, the impossible

How about the extraordinary and unlikely fine-tuning which was needed for life to emerge? Sir Fred Hoyle, an adamant atheist, after discovering the need for exceedingly precise fine-tuning in the resonance levels of oxygen, carbon, helium, and beryllium needed for carbon bonding and carbon abundance, concluded that “some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom”.

Spitzer’s most challenging chapter rehearses the background and subsequent development of this point. Spitzer looks long and hard at all of the other options, and comes to the conclusions that it is “virtually impossible” for life to have emerged: the creator (or whatever) would have had to aim at a tiny (1/1010/123 ) volume of the available space. This figure is so unimaginably small (the denominator has so many figures if it were written out the solar system could not contain it) that most physicists agree that it is impossible to hit it. Low entropy, the cosmological constant, the ratio of mass to energy straight after the Big Bang also point to an “impossible” achievement. But it has been achieved; so how did it happen?

Many hypotheses have been tried; string theory, cyclic or bouncing cosmologies, the multiverse… All of them cause the problems that they were trying to solve: they require a beginning, they are unobservable, and actually make it impossible in principle to observe what we actually are observing and to be what we actually are: carbon-based intelligent life forms. We really do need an “unrestricted transphysical/transmaterial conscious intelligence” to ground our universe.

Can we disprove God?

Impossible. Neither observable evidence nor intrinsic contradiction could ever manage that, since the God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is beyond observation, unlike the “god” which is denied by Richard Dawkins & Co. But, more positively, can God’s existence be proved? Spitzer offers a basic Aquinas-style demonstration: there must be a unique and unrestricted uncaused reality at the basis of the whole of reality, or else there would be nothing at all, since everything else depends on it here and now. Such a reality will be spiritual, completely intelligible and unrestrictedly intelligent, aware of the what, why and wherefore of all caused realities.

Is human intelligence all that special?

A central theme of the book is an analysis of near-death experience, as evidence for a trans-physical soul. Spitzer uses peer-reviewed studies which offer a well-judged and careful analysis of the facts. We have evidence of blind people being able to see perfectly and identify surroundings; terminal lucidity in Alzheimer and hydrocephalic patients with almost no cerebral activity, leading to the question: “is the brain really necessary?”

Could we have simply evolved materially to being intelligent animals? For Noam Chomsky, for instance, this will not work. We need to communicate knowledge, with declarative sentences. The once fashionable behaviourism is not at the races when it comes to this phenomenon, involving complex declarative sentences which associate subjects with predicate/object with multiple words between them, etc. Behaviourists just can’t cope with long sentences.

Another argument for the trans-physical soul: for Thomas Nagel, atheist author of What is it Like to Be a Bat?, there is a subjective “feel” about being an organism which goes beyond the actual organic make-up of the being. Facts about self-consciousness, therefore, are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts. There is something about consciousness that requires a trans-physical principle, since we can also reflect on ourselves, project ourselves into the future and have an awareness of our own inner world, distinct from the outer world we are inhabiting; even higher primates are unable to do this.

Transcendent experiences

Spitzer’s final chapter deals with religious experience, conscience, and the transcendental desire for perfect truth, love, goodness beauty and being/home are all matters which paint a picture of a truly material, carbon-based being, which still cannot be completely explained in a material way.

He concludes that when you take into account the beginning of the universe, the impossible fine-tuning for life, the fact that the world cannot explain itself, scientifically accepted near-death experiences, the irreducibility of self-consciousness and the transcendent religious, moral and aesthetic experiences it gives rise to, there is a converging series of indications of God and the soul which it is difficult to ignore. Science is at the doorstep to God, as Fr Spitzer claims, and the more we are able to reflect on its findings the more open we become to God’s existence and the reality of the spiritual soul.   

If there is a God, the next question is: does He matter? What do you think?

AUTHOR

Rev. Patrick Gorevan is a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature. He lectures in philosophy in St Patrick’s College Maynooth and is academic tutor at Maryvale Institute. He has written on the early phenomenological movement, virtue ethics and the role of emotion in moral action. 

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

Copyright © 2024 DrRichSwier.com LLC. A Florida Cooperation. All rights reserved. The DrRichSwier.com is a not-for-profit news forum for intelligent Conservative commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. Republishing of columns on this website requires the permission of both the author and editor. For more information contact: drswier@gmail.com.