Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Unfair Trans Competition in Girls’ Sports

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Boys have clear athletic advantages over girls, both on average and among the best. The higher levels of testosterone and muscle mass in boys enable them to run faster and jump higher than girls can.

Martina Navratilova won 18 grand slam titles in women’s tennis, the fifth most ever. She has also been an outspoken supporter of gay rights, but the unfairness of men competing as transgendered women has sparked her ire.

Navratilova recently called it “cheating,” “insane,” and “it would not be fair” to allow transgender women to compete in women’s tennis. Yet the rules of the International Olympic Committee allow men who claim to be transgendered to compete in women’s sports, if their testosterone levels remain below a certain level.

A backlash from the transgender community then resulted despite how she merely stated the obvious. For that she was called “transphobic” and removed from the advisory board of Athlete Ally, which supports transgendered athletes.

Many other women and girls are also crying foul about the unfairness of transgendered athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. There was an outcry in New Haven, Connecticut, home to Yale University, when the top finishers in the indoor state championship for the 55-meter dash for high school girls were two transgendered girls, formerly boys.

The “winner” broke the girls’ record, finishing the race in 6.95 seconds. Connecticut is one of 17 states that has no restrictions on boys, who claim to be transgender, competing in girls’ sports.

The same transgendered former boys also finished first and second in the state championship for the 100-meter dash last year. Meanwhile, girls who would have won trophies – and perhaps college scholarships – were unfairly denied them.

The top six 55-yard dash finishers then qualified for the New England regional races. Selina Soule, who would have qualified for the regional races if the transgenders were not counted, lost that opportunity.

“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing,” Miss Soule said. “They should have the right to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had extra rules to keep the competition fair,” she added.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would require all 50 states to allow this unfair form of competition, if it ever became part of the Constitution. The Virginia House of Delegates defeated ERA last week, but by only one vote in a 50-50 tie.

Under ERA, no law or governmental entity can make any distinctions based on sex. That means it would become impossible for girls’ sports to keep boys out.

Led by Phyllis Schlafly, conservatives defeated ERA in the 1970s, and its deadline for ratification expired in 1979. Congress improperly attempted to extend the deadline until June 30, 1982, but no states ratified it during the extra three years.

The expiration of the deadline for ERA, however, has not stopped radical feminists from trying to ratify it now, four decades later. ERA would cause more unfairness in girls’ sports, as it has done in Massachusetts where they have a state version of ERA.

There, muscular young men routinely break girls’ records in girls’ sports. In one championship game in Massachusetts a young man caused a concussion to a girls’ field hockey goalie while scoring a goal to defeat her team.

Meanwhile, an example of the havoc that ERA would require emanated from a federal court in Houston on February 22. Senior District Judge Gray H. Miller, an appointee of President George W. Bush, declared that the Selective Service system was discriminatory in not requiring women to register for a possible draft.

“Combat roles no longer uniformly require sheer size or muscle,” the Court found. With similar strange arguments the Court declared that there is no justification for Congress to draft men unless women are also drafted.

If ERA were ever ratified, then courts would be required to rule against a men-only draft. As Phyllis Schlafly often argued in the 1970s, ERA would compel drafting women just like men, or forcing women to register for the Selective Service just like men.

Without ERA, the recent federal court decision can be successfully appealed, in this case to the Fifth Circuit. President Trump has placed five conservative judges on that court, which seems almost certain to overturn this decision invalidating our all-male Selective Service system.

Without ERA, the unfair intrusion of transgenders into girls’ sports can be solved by legislation forbidding it. Notice how transgendered former girls are not breaking records in boys’ sports.

Fortunately, ERA is not merely one state away from ratification, as some fake news headlines promote. For ERA to become part of the Constitution, Congress would need to pass it by two-thirds supermajorities, and then 38 states would need to ratify it anew, which should never happen.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Diversity of opinion on climate panel

The NY Times reports:
WASHINGTON — President Trump is preparing to establish a panel to examine how climate change affects national security, to include a White House adviser whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus that human-caused global warming poses a threat to the nation’s economy, health and security.

According to a White House memo dated Feb. 14, Mr. Trump’s staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member Presidential Committee on Climate Security that will advise Mr. Trump about “how a changing climate could affect the security of the United States.” The memo was first reported by The Washington Post.

The panel would include William Happer, a Princeton physicist who serves as Mr. Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies. Dr. Happer has gained notoriety in the scientific community for his statements that carbon dioxide — the greenhouse gas that scientists say is trapping heat and warming the planet — is beneficial to humanity.

The efforts to establish the panel come in the wake of multiple new comprehensive reports concluding that the warming planet poses clear and specific risks to national security. The inclusion of Dr. Happer suggests the efforts may be the latest step by the Trump administration to play down or distort the established scientific consensus on the impact of climate change.
Note that Happer is not accused of being wrong on any scientific issue. He is just accused of having some opinions that are out of step with 11 of the 12 panel members.

Why bother appointing 12 panel members if they all have to have the same opinions?

This article is a good example of how the Left requires uniformity of opinion. It is not enough that 11 out of 12 tow the party line. They want 12 out of 12.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The Wall Versus Judicial Supremacy

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

“We have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people, and it’s unacceptable,” President Trump said last Friday. “It’s very simple. We want to stop drugs from coming into our country. We want to stop criminals and gangs from coming into our country.”

It was from the White House Rose Garden that President Trump delivered those remarks, on the eve of the 3-day weekend for Washington’s Birthday. He campaigned for president on securing the southern border of the United States, and he plans to do precisely that for the American people.

Consider just one day’s traffic at a single section of the border that lacks a physical barrier. Among those caught crossing into Texas on February 7 were a Mexican previously convicted in Georgia for child molestation, a Honduran previously convicted in North Carolina for “indecent liberties with child,” and another Honduran who was previously identified in Florida as a member of MS-13.

The federal police agency known as ICE, which stands for “Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” reports that some 266,000 aliens with criminal records were arrested in the past two years. This agency also arrested 1,500 aliens for human trafficking and deported 10,000 known or suspected gang members in the last fiscal year, yet many Democrats want to abolish this protective agency.

At remote sectors of the border in Arizona and New Mexico, large numbers of Central Americans, mostly from Honduras and Guatemala, are being dropped off by the busload and who then cross on foot. The Border Patrol reports that 242 people were arrested on January 24, while 375 people crossed near Yuma and another 306 entered through New Mexico.

Many of the illegal arrivals were very sick with contagious diseases, and their health problems overwhelmed the facilities available in small towns near the border. The Border Patrol reports that 2,224 migrants, mostly from Central America, had to be driven three hours to the nearest hospital for treatment that could not be provided on site.

The ongoing invasion, as Trump correctly described it, is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue. The president is right to declare a national emergency on the border, which permits him to reallocate some additional funds from other parts of the federal budget after the $1.375 billion approved by the Nancy Pelosi Congress runs out.

“Look, I expect to be sued,” Trump said, and within minutes of his speech, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero announced he would be filing a lawsuit this week. The ACLU lawsuit would add to lawsuits already filed by California and something called the Center for Biological Diversity.

“They will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn’t be there,” Trump said prophetically, referring to the California-based court. “And we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling. And then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and we’ll win.”

The lawsuits ought to be laughed out of court, even in the Ninth Circuit. Presidents have declared 58 national emergencies since 1976, when Congress gave the president that power, and 31 of them are still in effect.

Never before has a judge tried to second-guess a president’s declaration that a national emergency exists, and no court should be allowed to enter those uncharted waters now. Congress gave that power to the president with no limit on the reasons for which an emergency can be declared.

But never before have we had a president willing to stand up to the globalists, the media, and the federal courts. The real showdown between President Trump and the federal judiciary has begun.

President Trump is right that he wants to be before the Supreme Court on this issue, and not be stuck in lower federal courts handpicked by his opponents who forum-shop by choosing where to file their lawsuit. The ordinary appeals process would not enable the Supreme Court to decide this issue until after the next presidential election.

In the meantime, Democrats would campaign against Trump by using lower court rulings that predictably take the liberal side. Trump’s legal strategy should anticipate this, and seek an expedited appeal that bypasses the liberal Second, Fourth, Ninth or D.C. Circuits, which are packed with anti-Trump judges.

To no one’s surprise, sixteen liberal states chose San Francisco as the location for their lawsuit to block Trump. Only one out of 14 active judges on that court was appointed by a Republican president, giving Democrats roughly a 93% chance of having a judge picked by Obama or Clinton decide their case.

But all litigants have the right to appeal a preliminary injunction immediately, and the Department of Justice should start preparing those papers now. The appeal should be straight to the Supreme Court to ensure a decision before the 2020 presidential election.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Living in Phyllis Schlafly’s nightmare

The NY Times reports:
Do American Women Still Need an Equal Rights Amendment?
We’re already living in Phyllis Schlafly’s nightmare.

When Phyllis Schlafly crusaded against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s as a threat to all-American motherhood, she handed out freshly baked bread and apple pie to state legislators. She warned of a dystopian post-E.R.A. future of women forced to enlist in the military, gay marriage, unisex toilets everywhere and homemakers driven into the workplace by husbands free to abandon them.

The E.R.A., which had been sailing to ratification, failed. ...
The article discusses a new push for the ERA, but admits that the benefits are dubious.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Green New Deal Is a Raw Deal for Democrats

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The far Left is taking over the Democratic Party, creating a potential repeat of their landslide defeat in the 1972 presidential election when a vulnerable Richard Nixon trounced the liberal George McGovern. The radical “Green New Deal” illustrates how the so-called progressives, which is a euphemism for socialists, are driving the agenda for Democrats today.

This fanciful scheme tries to convert nearly all of our energy to wind, water, and solar power within a decade. Currently only about 10% of our energy needs are met by the inefficient wind and solar resources.

President Trump is already mocking this fanciful plan. Speaking to a massive crowd of supporters in El Paso, Texas, Trump declared that “I really don’t like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane rights, of ‘let’s hop a train to California,’ of you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!”

With characteristic wit, Trump added that “it would shut down a little thing called air travel. How do you take a train to Europe?”

He could have added that the Green New Deal will take away many American jobs, too, by hindering economic growth. Wind and solar power are more expensive than energy based on traditional fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, and higher costs limit economic growth.

Full-scale socialism, with strict government control of the production and use of energy, would be necessary to implement the Green New Deal. So it is not surprising that a self-described democratic socialist, freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), is its chief sponsor.

She is making so many waves in Congress that she is known by her initials, “AOC.” Defeated Senator Claire McCaskill (MO) expressed dismay at the attention given to AOC, but she appears to be the future of the Democratic Party.

An entrenched Democrat was routed by AOC in his own primary, and many Democrats are fearful of the same fate if they oppose the new “progressive” agenda by AOC and other socialists. Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a socialist who supports the Green New Deal, nearly won the nomination for president in 2016 and could be the flag-bearer for the Party in 2020.

Already, more established Democrats are supporting this plan, including longtime former congressman and now-Senator Ed Markey (MA). Presidential candidates in the Democratic Party are also lining up in support of it, including prominent Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Meanwhile, Hawaii overwhelmingly supports the Democratic Party, but residents there are fighting a proposed wind farm to be built on West Oahu.

As small islands in the middle of the wind currents of the Pacific Ocean, scenic Hawaii has perhaps more to offer to wind energy than any other American location. Installation of additional clunky eyesores of windmills atop Hawaii would be a green energy dream come true.

But Hawaiian residents do not want them, and neither do many environmentalists. Wind farms blight the beautiful landscape, create a constant irritating noise, and injure wildlife.

Yet this is what the “democratic socialists” want to impose on the entire United States, in their fantasy that this might reduce much-ballyhooed climate change. It is difficult to see how some windmills atop Hawaii would reduce hurricanes in Florida, but that is what supporters of the Green New Deal effectively claim.

President Trump has seized upon the absurdity of his opponents, the presidential wannabes. No politician can mock the other side as effectively as Trump does, and the Green New Deal gives him much material to work with.

Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) disparaged the Green New Deal as the “Green dream, or whatever they call it.” Perennial potential presidential candidate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg (D) buys into the climate change theory of the Left, but cautioned against “things that are pie in the sky.”

Yet it seems doubtful that the Old Guard will be able to rein in the rising socialists who are not content with incremental changes. Senator Dianne Feinstein struggled to win reelection against a challenge by an underfunded Leftist in California, and surely many other Democrats have taken notice of the political winds that are blowing strongly towards socialism in their Party.

All this is good news for President Trump’s reelection campaign, just as it was for President Nixon in 1972. The Democrats got branded then as the Party of “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”

Then, as now, it was an established Democrat who voiced criticism of his own Party. McGovern’s own initial choice for his running mate, Senator Tom Eagleton, expressed that criticism in an off-the-record interview with conservative columnist Bob Novak, who then published it without disclosing its source until after Eagleton’s death.

History repeats itself as Democrats implode on the eve of a presidential election year.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Gov. Northam as Poster Boy for Abortion

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The scandal of Virginia’s Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has peeled back the curtain on a little-known corner of the abortion industry. What happens when the infant survives an abortion to be born alive?

You’ve heard about late-term abortion, which occurs when the infant is far enough along to survive outside the womb with proper medical care. You’ve heard about partial-birth abortion, where the infant is partially delivered feet first before being killed with a sharp jab to the base of his skull.

What Governor Northam approves, however, is infanticide. Speaking with the authority of a board-certified pediatrician, Northam said, “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen.”

Governor Northam is not just a politician, he’s a medical doctor with a specialty in pediatric neurology. Even after 12 years as an elected official, Northam remains a member of the medical staff at a children’s hospital in Norfolk.

The pro-abortion Dr. Northam continued: “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then, a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

That “discussion” would not be whether to wrap the baby in pink or blue. Not about whether to start a college fund. Not about teaching the new mother how to breastfeed her new baby.

No, the discussion would be whether to leave the baby on a table without care or sustenance until it stops breathing and turns cold. The practice of abandoning a newborn to die is known as infanticide, which the civilized world has prohibited since Christianity took over the Roman Empire in the fourth century A.D.

Northam pretended that “When we talk about third-trimester abortions, it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.”

In fact, severe fetal deformity explains only a small fraction of late-term abortions. This is confirmed by the Guttmacher Institute, which is a spinoff of Planned Parenthood.

The Washington Post let the cat out of the bag, reporting that the uproar over Northam’s comments “has disrupted carefully laid plans to bolster abortion rights across the nation after President Trump elevated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

In other words, the spate of pro-abortion legislation in Virginia, New York, and several other states didn’t just happen. It was part of a national campaign by the abortion industry “to push state laws that would maintain access to the procedure if the national protections are knocked down” by the Supreme Court.

“More concerning to abortion rights advocates,” the Post continued, “the abortion debate is now fixed on the least popular aspect of the measures in Virginia and elsewhere.” The “new attention” to late-term abortion is “not helpful” to their cause.

The mystery is why the abortion industry chose “to push measures that would loosen restrictions on late-term abortions,” which we’re told are very rare. Actually, they are not that rare: Guttmacher estimates over 10,000 a year, which is about the same as the number of people shot to death each year.

A late-term abortion, by definition, is performed after the point at which the unborn child can survive outside the womb, provided it receives appropriate care. Late-term abortions are typically done by injecting a poison intended to cause cardiac arrest, which results in “fetal demise” before it is delivered.

But sometimes the lethal injection fails, and the baby is delivered alive. That’s where Dr. Northam’s cruel position kicks in.

Some years ago Hadley Arkes, the retired professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College, asked a prophetic question. Does a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy necessarily entail the right to a dead baby?

“If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby,” candidate Donald Trump said in the third presidential debate in 2016. “Now you can say that that’s okay, and Hillary can say that that’s okay, but it’s not okay with me.”

“That is not what happens in these cases,” Clinton replied, seemingly flustered by Trump’s forthright declaration. “And using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate.”

A fact checker for the Washington Post predictably came to Hillary’s defense, claiming that “only” 1.3 percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks, when the infant can survive outside the womb. But that 1.3 percent is more than 10,000 people, which is still a shocking number.

As the new poster boy for late-term abortion, should Ralph Northam resign as governor of Virginia? No, he should remain in office until it’s time to fill the next vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work. These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.