Category: US Politics

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If it seems at times that President Donald Trump’s opponents are growing increasingly desperate in their accusations and criticisms, look no further than the latest attack launched on Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Following Trump’s Tuesday evening rally in Phoenix, at which Carson was a guest in support of the president, cries erupted from the left that Carson — and of course by extension Trump — had violated a federal law, as reported by The Washington Post.

The law in question? The Hatch Act.

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The announcer introduced Carson by his official title, stating, “The secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson,” to wild cheers from the audience as Carson delivered brief remarks ahead of Trump’s speech, as well as Carson’s use of the pronouns “we” and “us” within those remarks.

Critics suggest that the introduction of Carson using his official title and Carson’s use of the inclusive pronouns signified a breach of the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch officials — such as cabinet secretaries — from leveraging their positions for political gain, such as appearing in an official capacity for a partisan cause.

Those critics further suggested that both Carson and Trump’s team should have known better than to announce him with his official title, and that Carson should have gone out of his way to ensure that everybody was fully aware that he was at the rally in a personal capacity, not as an official representative of the administration.

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If this seems like a bit of stretch, and a crowd demanding punishment while still in search of a crime, that’s pretty much because it is — at least according to ABC News, which reported that Carson didn’t do anything wrong.

A law professor named Kathleen Clark of the Washington University School of Law explained that the Hatch Act doesn’t prevent executive branch officials from appearing at campaign events, but simply prohibits the use of their position for openly partisan political activity.

An ethics expert named Virginia Canter of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington stated that while the use of Carson’s official title in the introduction wasn’t entirely appropriate, it also likely wasn’t a violation of the law.

“To violate the Hatch Act, a person has to be engaged in political activity while acting in their official capacity,” Canter explained. Carson “would have had to [have] been participating in an event that made statements that expressly advocated for or against Trump’s re-election in 2020. None of his comments did that.”

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Furthermore, Carson’s expenses for the trip to Arizona weren’t paid for by HUD, but were instead covered by Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, further distancing him from a potential violation, as was revealed in a statement put out by the department.

“His travel and lodging were not paid for by the department. He was there in his personal capacity. He didn’t discuss HUD during the speech,” stated HUD spokesman Jerry Brown.

Even if Carson had violated the Hatch Act, as determined by the government watchdog Office of Special Counsel, punishment for such violations would be administered by the president, and it is highly unlikely that Trump would have sanctioned Carson over an introduction and his use of certain pronouns, according to The Daily Caller.

Indeed, under the prior administration of former President Barack Obama, a few of his officials were investigated for potential Hatch Act violations — most notably including former HUD Secretary and potential vice presidential pick Julian Castro, who endorsed failed Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton while in his official role — yet nothing ever came of it, nor did anything come of violations that occurred on the parts of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius or Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

As usual, this is much ado about nothing, as Trump’s critics frantically attempt to seize on virtually anything they think will smear or ultimately bring down their nemesis.

Please share this on Facebook and Twitter to let everyone know why the liberal media is freaking out about Dr. Ben Carson.

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No matter how you feel about President Trump, you don’t call for his assassination. Ever. And now that she’s been slammed with a spate of massive bad news, Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal is finding that out the hard way.

Chappelle-Nadal posted “I hope Trump is assassinated!” in a Facebook conversation last week. After initially refusing to apologize, she relented and gave a mea culpa at a Sunday news conference — although she refused to heed calls for her resignation.

“President Trump, I apologize to you and your family,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “I made a mistake, and I’m owning up to it. And I’m not ever going to make a mistake like that again.”

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That didn’t help smooth things over for Chappelle-Nadal, however. Now, 44,000 individuals have signed a petition demanding the lawmaker be removed and arrested, she’s been stripped of all of her committee assignments, the state’s most influential newspaper has openly called for her resignation and the Missouri state legislature may meet to expel the controversial Democrat.

The Change.org petition, which is addressed to Republican U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner from Missouri’s 2nd District, notes that threatening the president’s life isn’t just a faux pas.

“US Code Title 18, Section 871 clearly states that any threat to the President is considered a political offense,” the petition reads. “This is punishable up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 maximum fine. We cannot allow someone such as a State Senator who knowingly knew her position, took it for granted and used that to say whatever she wanted against our current President of the United States.”

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According to Fox News, Chappelle-Nadal’s nine committee assignments have also been taken away from her after the threat against the president.

“I support the decision of Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh to remove Sen. Chappelle-Nadal from all of her Senate committees,” Republican Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard said. “I am also removing her from all appointments under my authority.”

On Monday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — Missouri’s most influential newspaper, which is hardly known as a bastion of covert #MAGAism — unequivocally called for Chappelle-Nadal’s resignation in a scathing editorial.

“There are times when unequivocal contrition should be enough to clear the air and move on. This, sadly, is not one of those times,” the Post-Dispatch wrote. “Rarely has such a disparate political chorus sung in such complete harmony in Missouri. Yet, Chappelle-Nadal isn’t getting the message. No matter how angry she was at Trump for his lax condemnation of the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, no clear-thinking public figure would express hopes for his assassination.”

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The Post-Dispatch also noted that if she refused to resign, “(t)he likely alternative is expulsion.” And, indeed, Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson has asked the upper chamber of the state legislature to enter special session for just that purpose.

“I do not make this request of you lightly, but you and I know it is the right course of action to take for the people of Missouri,” Parson, a Republican, wrote to the Missouri Senate in a Tuesday letter.

It would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate to expel Chappelle-Nadal, but from the looks of things, that won’t be hard to achieve. And, after all, Chappelle-Nadal has no one to blame but herself. Even her weak-sauce apology (why are public officials forever “owning up to” or “taking full responsibility for” scandals and and mistakes where nobody was assigning ownership or responsibility to anyone else?) shows that she doesn’t understand the full gravity of threatening the nation’s chief executive with assassination.

Chappelle-Nadal has crossed the line — and if the authorities refuse to arrest her for it, the loss of her seat is literally the least that can happen. Whether it comes through resignation or expulsion is ultimately the senator’s choice, but she oughtn’t pretend she has any other options.

Please like and share on Facebook and Twitter if you agree.

Parents of kindergartners attending a California charter school are frightened after a teacher read her class a book about transgenderism without notifying them.

“My daughter came home crying and shaking so afraid she could turn into a boy,” one parent of a kindergartner at Rocklin Academy said.

“These parents feel betrayed by the school district that they were not notified,” Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute said at a school board meeting this week, the local CBS affiliate reports. “The kindergartners came home very confused, about whether or not you can pick your gender, whether or not they really were a boy or a girl.”

According to the news report, the book was given to the teacher by a gender-confused child. Parents asserted the same kindergartner “also changed clothes and was revealed as her true gender” during class.

Parents expressed betrayal that they were not notified ahead of time that the kindergarten teacher read two books about transgenderism to her students, including I Am Jazz, which were reportedly given to her by the kindergartner who is in the midst of gender transition. The book was co-authored by Jazz Jennings, a teen who was born a boy but was allowed to transition to a girl.

“It’s really about the parents being informed and involved and giving us the choice and rights of what’s being introduced to our kids, and at what age,” said parent Chelsea McQuistan.

“I’m so proud of my students, it was never my intent to harm any students but to help them through a difficult situation,” said the kindergarten teacher during the meeting, who, according to the report, received support from her colleagues about the need to teach students about diversity.

“When we head in the direction of banned books or book lists, or selective literature– that should only be read inside or outside the classroom, I think that’s a very dangerous direction to go,” said seventh-grade teacher Kelly Bryson.

In a statement during the board meeting, the district said, “As indicated by Superintendent Robin Stout in a communication last week, staff will be engaging parents and teachers in discussions about how materials outside our curriculum will be addressed in the future.”

The board plans to put the item on the agenda for the September meeting.

In May of 2015, a similar incident occurred in Kittery Point, Maine, when public school officials apologized to parents of students in kindergarten through third grade for failing to notify them before their children were exposed to I Am Jazz during a lesson on tolerance and acceptance.

The forced gender ideology that LGBT groups advocate claims that biological sex is subordinate to self-declared “gender” and attempts to undermine the science-based civic understanding that there are two biological sexes – male and female.

“Most people have a sense of their gender identity at age 3 or 4,” Jo Michael, legislative manager at Equality California and transgender individual, told FOX40. “It’s important to note that the other students really do need to have that opportunity to engage and hear from the transgender student.”

More medical and research professionals are drawing attention, however, to the serious problems inherent in a phenomenon in which media hype and political debate are overshadowing actual questions about the health and psychological well-being of children. Concerns about puberty-blocking drugs – which are often used to delay children’s development into adults – can sterilize them even before they can understand how the deep biological impact of puberty will change their feelings about their emerging adult male or female body.

Researchers Paul Hruz, Lawrence Mayer, and Paul McHugh address the problem in a new paper titled “Growing Pains,” published at the New Atlantis.

The authors wrote:

There is strikingly little scientific understanding of important questions underlying the debates over gender identity — for instance, there is very little scientific evidence explaining why some people identify as the opposite sex, or why childhood expressions of cross-gender identification persist for some individuals and not for others. Yet notwithstanding the limited data, physicians and mental health care providers have arrived at a number of methods for treating children, adolescents, and adults with gender dysphoria.

The researchers explore the use of puberty suppression or blocking, in which a child or young adolescent with gender dysphoria is treated with hormones that prevent the normal progression of puberty.

“For parents of children with gender dysphoria, puberty suppression can appear very attractive,” they observed. “It seems like it might offer a medical solution for the anticipated confusion, anxiety, and distress by holding back the development of the most conspicuous features of their children’s biological sex.”

Nevertheless, the authors conclude the scientific evidence for puberty suppression as treatment for gender dysphoria is “thin,” and “based more on the subjective judgments of clinicians than on rigorous empirical evidence.”

“It is, in this sense, still experimental — yet it is an experiment being conducted in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner,” they warn.

According to the Associated Press, Jennings’ mother, Jeanette, acknowledged the same, agreeing that hormone treatments were “experimental stuff.” She said, “I am messing with my kid’s body.”

Jazz began hormone blockers when she was 11 years old “to ward off male puberty” and began estrogen treatments the following year.

“I was a girl trapped in a boy’s body,” Jennings said two years ago after landing her own reality television show at TLC and scoring a deal with Johnson & Johnson to be the face of its #SeeTheRealMe campaign for Clean and Clear skincare products.