Author: Penna Dexter

Penna Dexter
President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are speaking by phone lately. A major topic of the calls is the clearing out of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, a military necessity in order to dismantle Hamas. President Biden is making demands about hostages and civilian protections.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly criticized “recent talk about forcing a Palestinian state on Israel.” He says this “would be a huge prize for terror, the likes of which we have never seen.”
Hamas must be removed. The Heritage Foundation’s David Harsanyi points out that “no Israeli Prime Minister would act any differently in Gaza. Israeli voters rightly demand it.”
Our dealings with Israel should always occur in light of the existential threat Hamas represents. These threats were fulfilled in the carnage that began October 7th, an event which should not have surprised us.
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been meticulously cataloguing Hamas’s threats of ‘total war’ for years. The organization publicized Hamas’s articles and videos advertising its drills preparing for an invasion of Israel.
The threats are incessant. But we must pay attention. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, MEMRI’s president and co-founder Yigal Carmon said “If they publish it many times, it suggests they mean it and you cannot ignore it. You must take it seriously.”
MEMRI documents the terrorists’ competing messages. Hamas politbureau chief Ismail Haniyeh tells the West he wants to end the war and signals that Israel and Hamas can live side by side, But, in a January 9th speech aired on Al Jazeera, he said: “We should hold onto the victory that took place on Oct. 7 and build upon it.” He says “the time has come for the jihad of the swords.”
MEMRI’s Executive Director, Steve Stalinski told the Journal, “We’ve monitored it since the beginning of the jihadis going online, and there have never been so many open threats to the U.S.—explicit threats.”
We must pay attention.

Penna Dexter
Washington state has some of the nation’s most progressive laws regarding teen gender transitions.
This became a problem for Puget Sound therapist Tamara Pietzke. She was employed for six years by MultiCare, one of Washington’s largest hospital systems. In a piece for The Free Press, she expresses her growing concern at being required to “approve all teen gender transitions.”

“I was getting the message from my supervisors that when a young person I was seeing expressed discomfort with their gender—the diagnostic term is gender dysphoria—I should throw out all my training. No matter the patient’s history or other mental health conditions that could be complicating the situation, I was simply to affirm that the patient was transgender, and even approve the start of a medical transition.”

This, she writes, “challenges the very fundamentals of what therapy is supposed to provide.”
Ms. Pietzke goes on to describe three cases that heightened her alarm at this protocol and ultimately resulted in her resignation—a risky move for a single mom of three children under six. Each case involved prior mental health diagnoses, often autism, family dysfunction, and even abuse. One teenaged female patient began identifying as a “wounded male dog.”
In each case, Ms. Pietzke was told she must refer the patient to a gender health clinic to begin hormone treatment which normally continues for life.
When she questioned this, she was accused of “spreading disinformation. She was removed from cases and eventually left her job so she could speak freely. She writes, “Nothing will change unless people like me—who know the risks of medicalizing troubled young people—blow the whistle.”
Last week the American College of Pediatricians released a statement based on its review of over 60 studies of adolescents with gender dysphoria. The authors conclude that these so-called “affirming” interventions destroy healthy bodies but provide no long-term benefit to psychological well-being.
A timely vindication.

Penna Dexter
Members of the medical and psychological communities who advocate gender transition as a treatment for disturbed young people start them on puberty blockers as the first medical step. This sounds drastic — and permanent. But the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) publicly claims the effects of these drugs are “fully reversible.” Some of those folks know better.
In a recent Breakpoint commentary, John Stonestreet and Jared Hayden point out that puberty blocking drugs are often presented as a way “for gender-confused teens to ‘push pause’ on puberty and buy more time to find out who they are.”
It’s naive to believe that taking drugs that stop the development of a young person’s sexual organs is “fully reversible.” Stopping the drugs after a few months or years will not bring back the time that God ordained for that child to grow physically and emotionally.
Heading up the list of physical consequences of puberty blockers is osteoporosis. The Breakpoint hosts point to a recently-leaked video from a 2022 WPATH certification seminar. Dr. Daniel Metzger, a WPATH-certified pediatric endocrinologist told his audience: “Normally puberty is the time of putting the calcium into your piggy bank.” Those bones won’t catch up.
As is often the case when one searches Google about anything medical, the Mayo Clinic shows up near the top. This happened when I searched for “Harms from Puberty Blockers.” But “possible side effects” don’t show up until page 4 and 5 of Mayo’s 6-page document, where it states: the drugs “also might have long-term effects on growth spurts, bone growth, [and] bone density.”
The Mayo document advises: “Yearly bone density and bone-age tests may be advised.” It suggests “calcium and vitamin D supplements.”
The Mayo piece lists one more long-term effect: “Fertility, depending on when the medicine is started.”
A heartbroken grandmother at my church told me she’s praying her grandson will decide not to take this step. These are serious drugs. We must start saying so.

Penna Dexter
There are better ways to encourage literacy among children than exposing them to male transvestites at Drag Queen Story Hours.
Drag Queen Story Hours feature flamboyant drag queens reading stories to children mostly in libraries, schools, bookstores, and sometimes bars.
One parent says these performances expose kids to “beautiful people.” Gender queer academic Harris Kornstein said, “Drag queens can teach kids how to live queerly.” He said Drag Queen Story Hours foster “a queer rationality between adult and child.”
Christopher Rufo dug into what he describes as “the real story behind this bizarre modern ritual” and has produced a short film. Find it at christopherrufo.com.
The film takes us back to the 1969 Stonewall riots, when drag suddenly became political. Two drag queens who participated in the riots formed the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. They created a list of demands, including:

“the right to self-determination over the use of their bodies”
“the right to be gay any time, any place”
“the right to physiological change and modification of sex on demand”

Chris Rufo explains that, after the 60’s, cross-dressers were no longer just engaging in entertainment, but were “revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the system through sex.”  Drag became a political weapon underpinned by queer theory, a discipline created to deconstruct and disorder human sexuality, liberating the fetishes of transsexuals, sadomasochists, prostitutes, and even pedophiles.
The film introduces lesbian theorist Gayle Ruben who advocated normalizing “the eroticism of those who transgress generational boundaries — in her words ‘boy lovers’.”
Gender studies scholar Judith Butler posited the postmodern idea that man/woman sexuality is a social construct that could be reshaped via performance. Drag queens were the “perfect vehicle.”
 So, in 2015 the Drag Queen Story Hour was created. A Los Angeles-based queer activist organized the formation of chapters across the country.
Chris Rufo warns that these activists have been “remarkably successful.”
Governments and philanthropies who sponsor and promote this should stop: Now. 

Penna Dexter
Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei delivered a warning to business and political leaders gathered last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Through a translator, he told an audience of global elites: “the Western world is in danger,” and he didn’t mean from climate change. He explained that those whose responsibility it is “to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism, and thereby to poverty. “
He said free markets and entrepreneurs, not the state, are the “benefactors” of societies.
This was a courageous message delivered at an annual meeting where global planners favor top-down variants of socialism. But President Milei insists that socialism, wherever it’s tried, is impoverishing.
He pointed to the path his country has taken. Argentina’s economy fell from among the world’s largest at the beginning of the 20th century to one of the world’s worst, largely due to its embrace of socialism.  “We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world — rather they are the root cause.”
President Milei accepted his 11-point victory as a mandate to overhaul Argentina’s economy, including its 211-percent inflation that has devastated citizens’ purchasing power.
This was Javier Milei’s first trip overseas since taking office last month. He said he “came to invite the rest of the countries of the Western world to get back on the path of prosperity.”
He blasted radical feminism, which he says is “ridiculous and anti-natural” and stated that, once communism failed, climate alarmism became the tool global socialists use for control.  He decried their advocacy of “population control mechanisms and the bloody abortion agenda.” Though he lives a libertine lifestyle and calls himself a “radical libertarian,” he insists life begins at conception and abortion is murder.
President Milei must administer “shock therapy” in Argentina. It will hurt. Let’s watch it work.

Penna Dexter
There’s no satisfactory explanation for the recent actions of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in keeping his cancer surgery — and his subsequent, extended hospitalization — secret from his staff and the White House.  The Administration insists this was simply a lapse in judgment, but it’s an unforgivable breach of protocol.
Even more disturbing are the growing recruitment problems in the US military, the institution from which Secretary Austin retired as a 4-star general.
Political and military leaders are alarmed at severe declines in recruitment in all branches except the Marines.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Owen West, Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration, and Kevin Wallsten, Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach, offer an explanation backed by research. They sum up the  “essential problem,” by stating that, “Young white Democrats have lost faith in their country and are rejecting military service.” They lament that “American patriotism is dissolving.”
Their op-ed cites “one of the oldest and most reliable youth polls, Monitoring the Future,” which, “has for decades shown only small differences in the propensity to serve.”  In 2015, the percentage of white Democrats who wanted to serve stood at 19%, with blacks, Latinos, and white Republicans at 20%.
But, by 2021, the Monitoring the Future poll shows only 3% of young white male Democrats were interested in serving in the military, about one-fourth as many as among black and Latino men, and one-eighth the level of white Republicans. The poll revealed a drop of 45,000 men who wanted to serve.
Young white Republican men are more inclined to join the military, but lately more of their parents don’t want them to. Roughly 80 percent of recruits come from extended military families. With widespread implementation of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion policies which disfavor white, heterosexual males — especially conservative, religious ones — many families are actively discouraging their young people from joining up.
A woke military discourages patriotism and recruitment.

Penna Dexter
In an election year, the economy takes on heightened importance in voters’ thinking. A good question to ask is: are my elected officials wasting my money? Are they using taxpayer dollars responsibly?
David Ditch at The Daily Signal, tries to answer that question at least as it pertains to the current administration’s “4 worst wastes of 2023.”
Waste #1:How can we forget the $1.9-trillion-dollar spending package passed — without a Republican vote – in 2021? It was the third massive stimulus done as “COVID response.” David Ditch writes that $350 billion of it went to state and local governments who spent “much of it on golf courses, tourism, food stamps for the rich, bonuses for government workers, a pickleball complex,” — in other words they didn’t really need it. The unspent funds, tens of billions of dollars, were supposed to expire this year. But the administration quietly issued a rule to give states more time to figure out how to spend this “hoarded” money that was slated to go back into the federal treasury.
Waste #2In June, the administration lost its attempt at the US Supreme Court to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt, which, of course, means taxpayers would have funded it. Mr. Ditch reports that the administration still found ways to “force taxpayers to cover the cost of other people’s degrees” to the tune of $132 billion, “more than $1000 for every household in the country.”
Waste #3This past September, the US Centers for Disease Control ordered 20 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for kids. David Ditch emphasizes the waste: This is “several times larger than the number of pediatric COVID-19 vaccines administered to date.”
Waste #4After Congress nixed a plan for an environmental jobs program called Climate Corps, the administration unilaterally revived 20,000 of those positions.
Thanks to The Daily Signal for alerting us to this waste. Americans should tell their leaders they’re sick of it.

Penna Dexter
As we begin 2024, I want to offer a New Year’s prayer for our country. But frankly, it seems a little presumptuous to ask God’s blessing on this nation.
In boardrooms, in some states, and in the federal government, leaders are enacting rules and laws that force people to treat men as women and women as men.
Other states oppose this.
But, before 2023 even ended we received the disappointing news that prolife Ohio Governor Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would protect minors from being given gender transition hormones and surgeries. The law would also bar physicians from prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers for the purpose of gender transition. Advocates of this protocol refer to it as “gender affirming care”.
HB 68, the SAFE Act, would also prevent biological males from competing in women’s sports.
The Daily Signal published strong reactions from leaders in the pro-family movement, including Ryan Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of “When Harry Became Sally,” one of one of the early books warning of the harms of the burgeoning transgender movement. Dr. Anderson said, “DeWine just vetoed an outstanding bill that protected the integrity, fairness, and safety of sports, and protected children from unethical medical attempts at the impossible — ‘affirming’ a sexual ‘identity’ at odds with reality.”
Since, HB 68 passed both houses of Ohio’s General Assembly with supermajorities, lawmakers could override the governor’s veto. Let’s put that in our New Year’s prayer.
We can and should pray for America. I’m going with this:
“O God, the fountain of wisdom whose will is good and gracious and whose law is truth, so guide our Senators and Representatives assembled in the General Assembly of Ohio (or the Legislatures of the other States, or the United States Congress) that they may enact laws pleasing in your sight, to the glory of your name and the welfare of this people. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Penna Dexter
As 2023 ends, we see less evidence than ever of the Christian consensus that used to exist in the United States. Not that we were a “Christian nation.”  But norms existed — I guess you could call them family values — that, although not practiced by everyone, were at least considered good and true. All of that is waning.
Author and cultural commentator, Rod Dreher points back to another observer of American society, sociologist Philip Reiff. Dr. Reiff, an agnostic Jew, may not have called what he saw happening back in the 60’s a sexual revolution, but he read it as a sign of loss of the Christian influence on the culture. He lamented what Rod Dreher now describes as “the death knell of Christianity as the controlling narrative of the west.”
The sexual revolution, fueled by the availability of “The “Pill,” allowed the sexual act to be separated from childbearing and – to some extent – from marriage The “modern” woman, unconstrained by faith or old-fashioned morality, could still marry. Or not. But women could advance professionally without the burden of caring for children.
Now we’re seeing double-income, no-kids couples boasting online of their carefree life and their wealth. However, this choice can also turn out to be sad, or scary.
Journalist Melissa Persling insisted she didn’t want kids. Now she feels “unbelievably betrayed by feminism.” In a recent post, at Business Insider that went viral, she wrote, ”I’m 38, and I recently realized I want a child. I’m terrified I’ve missed my opportunity.”
Other young adults, including Christians, want marriage and children, but in a society that de-emphasizes marriage, many are missing out.
As faith fades so does human flourishing as people turn from God’s plan that man and woman would marry and produce children. The consequences of our below-replacement birthrate could be disastrous.
And now, the Pope has tied a bow around our arrogant rejection of God’s plan for the family.
Lord, help us. 

Penna Dexter
It’s December: time for another UN climate confab. Global socialists who see a climate emergency in every heat wave are meeting in Dubai for the 28th annual Conference of the Parties. Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot says, “COP 28 is shaping up to be a doubling down on the green agenda despite the massive failure on a grand global scale.”  
These conferences have no effect on climate. They have sparked little significant change in energy consumption. People who have to live with these agendas are starting to push back. Three thousand U.S. auto dealers are asking President Biden to let up on his aggressive electric vehicle push. EV’s are piling up on dealers’ lots. They’re losing money on every EV sold.
Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker observes God’s “wicked sense of humor” in that, on their way to the summit, “members of the planetary emergency rescue elite” ran into the early arrival of winter — a facet of the climate they could not control. They were stranded in Munich, where a snowstorm dumped 17 inches on the ground and forced cancellation of most outbound flights.
The private jets and snowbound adventures of attendees is just the beginning of their hypocrisy.
That so much time and money is spent on these conferences would be laughable if the climate mandates were not so damaging.
The Hill points out that U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has said, “There shouldn’t be any more coal power plants permitted anywhere in the world.” And yet he’s pushing what Gerard Baker describes as “some grand new partnership with China, which ”is becoming one giant coal-fired power station.”
A Bloomberg report predicts that “developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat.” A UN report for mayors recommended a limit of three new clothing items per person per year by 2030 to fight climate change.
Apparently, climate bureaucrats are not content with the destruction of the American auto industry. 

Penna Dexter
An article in the online publication — FLI Insider — sent me searching through several years of radio commentaries to find my stories covering the “Christmas Wars.”
I found quite a few.
Here’s one from 12 years ago:  Mayor Tony Court of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania received a threatening letter from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation about a nativity scene that had been displayed in his town for the previous fifty Christmas seasons. The letter insisted the nativity scene was illegal and had to be taken down. It could remain only if accompanied by an anti-Christmas banner containing a long message, ending with these words: “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
“No way,” said Mayor Court. But many city officials are not so bold.
Over the years, the Freedom From Religion and other complainers have launched hundreds of challenges against creches on public property. Often they insist that localities obey something called “The Three Reindeer Rule” which requires that a number of secular trappings of Christmas be placed around the nativity scene.
Jorge Gomez of First Liberty Institute, author of the article that sent me on my search, explains that “the law protects expressions of faith in the public square.” That’s always been true, but many city officials don’t realize it, or they simply don’t want the fight.
Now, thanks to two landmark US Supreme Court victories for religious freedom, the folks at First Liberty want Americans to know “it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”
The Supreme Court’s momentous decisions protecting Coach Joe Kennedy’s public prayer fand safeguarding the Bladensburg Peace Cross remove “major barriers and precedents against religious freedom.”
According to First Liberty, this “means you can go into your community and begin restoring Nativity scenes, Menorahs and other religious memorials, images, and displays.” First Liberty has launched Restoring Faith In America — RFIA.org — to help folks work with local leaders to seize this wonderful opportunity.  

Penna Dexter
Bioethicist and political thinker Leon Kass has often been called upon to weigh in on consequential moral debates. He lives both in the US and in Jerusalem where he serves as dean of faculty at Shalem University. His recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “Why the Jewish Way of Living Matters,” speaks to certain “Torah-based beliefs,” moral principles shared by the Jewish right and left. Some of these concern the centrality of family life. Dr. Kass states: “In this time of moral confusion and social fragmentation, Israel, by its example has something to teach us…..Alone in the developed world, it has a birthrate above replacement, with a low level of out-of-wedlock births.”
According to a Journal report, titled, “Why Americans Are Having Fewer Babies`,” the US relies on “a robust pool of young people. Without them, the US economy will be weighed down by a worsening shortage of workers.”
Demographers and economists are worried. In 2007, the number of babies born in the United States started to plummet. It hasn’t recovered. According to the Journal, the number of babies born last year was down about 15% from the number born in ‘07, “even though there are 9% more women in their prime childbearing years.”
We originally blamed the ‘08 financial crisis for the persistent drop. Now we look at other factors: The economy, feminism, and even concerns about the environment can influence childbearing decisions. But studies show, young women still want kids. The Journal article cites evidence which leads to the conclusion that “the gap between women’s intended number of children and their actual family size has widened considerably.”
In his documentary, “Birthgap,” data scientist Stephen Shaw points out that 80% of the childless women he studied wanted to have children. Many just thought they had more time.
This is heartbreaking for them and terrible for the country as we find ourselves in a childbearing trough. Hopefully, it’s not too late to turn this around.

Penna Dexter
The United States Supreme Court recently set out a “Code of Conduct” to “gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.” All nine justices signed it.
They have done this in response to pressure from groups on the Left who want Congress to put into place “ethics” requirements for Supreme Court Justices.
Enacting such legislation would intensify political accusations against justices and bring endless recusal fights in hot-button cases. And that’s the point. The Left seeks to weaken — really neuter — the Court because it’s not getting the rulings it wants.
Should Congress impose an ethics code on justices, it would violate the US Constitution’s separation of powers. The Founders created the judiciary, under Article III of the Constitution, as a separate and co-equal branch of government.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus criticized the justices’ document as inadequate, writing that it tells lawmakers, “You’re not the boss of me.”
That’s exactly what the Court should say.
Supreme Court justices police their own financial disclosures and make their own recusal decisions.
A Wall Street Journal editorial published last summer argues, “The nine justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure.” The Journal emphasizes, “While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court which sets its own rules.” Congress has no power to set rules for the Court or dictate how it is run.
The rules and principles laid out in the justice’s code are not new. The document is likely meant to deter any action by Congress. Justice Samuel Alito told The Journal, “No provision in the U.S. Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Last summer Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s draconian ethics bill passed the Judiciary Committee along party lines. If this legislation was ever enacted, it would destroy the independence of the Supreme Court. 

Penna Dexter
The recent off-year election was not a good one for the pro-life movement. One big disappointment was the vote on Ohio Issue 1 which creates a constitutional right to abortion in what has been a pro-life state.
The 57 to 43 percent vote, in favor of Issue 1, opens the door for legal late-term abortions and the negation of parental rights and health and safety protections, which Ohio pro-lifers have worked for decades to attain.
In 2019, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a heartbeat law which banned abortion after embryonic cardiac activity is detected — normally at about 6 weeks gestation. The law has been under a court challenge ever since.
The 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade returned responsibility for abortion policy to the states. That should have smoothed the path for enactment of Ohio’s heartbeat law. But instead, a coalition of abortion industry lobbyists and far-left organizations launched a ballot initiative, Issue 1. They spent $35 million branding the pro-life movement as “extreme.”
Direct-to-voters ballot initiatives allow out-of-state actors to bypass elected bodies. Carol Tobias, President of National Right to Life warns that the rise of such initiatives risks making state legislatures obsolete.
One shocking statistic regarding this vote is that 24 percent of self-described “white evangelical or born-again Christians” supported Issue 1.
One would have hoped churches all over Ohio would have prepared congregants for this vote. But Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm says, “Many churches don’t want to be divisive, so they choose to say nothing,” which leaves the impression that “it really doesn’t matter what Christians think about abortion.”
It does matter.
Author and cultural commentator Rod Dreher says we must not “fool ourselves into thinking that we can sustain a civilization without a religious foundation.“
It appears many Christians need help getting moral clarity on the sanctity of human life. Churches must step up.

Penna Dexter
Most politicians — even those with strong religious faith — don‘t necessarily make that the first thing they want you to know about them. They want to appeal both to voters who will trust them more because of their faith and also to those who will trust them less or who want faith and the Bible left out of politics.
Politicians often publicly explain how their faith informs their position on a social issue, like abortion, or gay marriage, or religious liberty. But few clearly articulate how their faith informs their politics the way Mike Johnson the new House Speaker does.
Within days of his election, he did just that in an in-depth interview with The Daily Signal. Speaker Johnson said he doesn’t find his openness all that remarkable. He said, “It’s who I am. It’s how I think.”
Some media took issue with remarks Mr. Johnson made to Congress minutes after his election as Speaker. Especially his words claiming, “God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.” He explained this to The Daily Signal: “It’s a central promise of the Bible that God invented civil government.”
People used to know this. Speaker Johnson warned that we must pay attention to the fact that we are “a more secularized society.” Our founders were clear that, to maintain a constitutional republic, “there has to be a consensus on virtue and morality.”
Mr. Johnson recognizes a growing sense among Americans that “we are adrift…in uncharted waters.” He explained, “We live in an age of moral relativism, which has become postmodernism, which is gradually becoming nihilism, the idea that if there is no truth, then you can believe anything or everything, or nothing.”
Speaker Johnson is not going to push his faith on the country. He will live it. He’s known for treating colleagues “with dignity and respect.” On that foundation, he will forge consensus to enact wise policy.

Penna Dexter
What is education even for? Not, it seems, for proficiency in core subjects. At least not in Oregon or in other states that have been ratcheting down their educational standards. Recently, the Oregon Board of Education, by unanimous vote, decided to drop state graduation requirements that students be proficient in math, reading and writing. The board’s statement announcing the move called the standards “burdensome to teachers and students.”
Oregon suspended its proficiency requirement for graduation in 2020, a “pause” instituted during the height of the pandemic. As with many misguided Covid-related education policies, this one resulted in worse outcomes.
Rather than implement remedial measures to bring students up to speed, education bureaucrats blamed the assessment tool for students’ subpar performance. According to the Oregonian, the decision to extend the “pause” means: “Students in the K-12 system will not be held to an academic graduation standard for another four years.” Board members argued that proficiency requirements for graduation would harm marginalized students because many of them would have to take extra classes their senior year in order to demonstrate mastery of required disciplines.
Requiring extra effort on students’ part is wise policy. Throwing out basic requirements is not.
Ohio also tried this in 2020, abandoning “competency” in math and English. The Daily Signal points to an Ohio State University report showing a substantial decline in math performance for middle-and-high-schoolers.
The Daily Signal also reports that Baltimore City Public Schools relaxed math standards several times since 2010. After the 2023 state assessments, the district “has 13 high schools in which zero students are proficient in math.”
In similar misguided attempts to achieve “racial equity,” school districts in California,Michigan, New York, and South Carolina have tried lowering standards and expectations. According to the Daily Signal, “No district that has sought to cut academic standards has seen an improvement in academic performance.”
Idiotic no-expectations/no-failure policies will not help minorities and will destroy many students’ futures.

Penna Dexter
Israel’s critics have denounced even it’s very first efforts to defend itself against Hamas’s horrific massacre. These voices warn that any civilian casualties will be seen as war crimes. And it’s true: the deliberate targeting of civilians is a violation of international law and the laws of war. But unlike Hamas, Israel does not target civilians.
Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich asks this question in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:“Does international law require a nation to choose between committing war crimes and having war crimes committed against it?” He says “The answer is no.”
Professor Kontorovich teaches at George Mason University Scalia School of Law and heads up the international law department at a Jerusalem think tank. Since civilians often become victims, “countries like Israel, “he writes, “resort to war only as self-defense, which, according to the United Nations Charter, is every nation’s inherent right.”
Hamas launches its rockets from civilian population centers. Its weapons infrastructure is located among civilians, by design, as shields and for propaganda. The professor points out that “Hamas has violated international law by hiding among civilians.” Hamas has even ordered Gazans not to flee to avoid Israel’s defensive campaign. He says the presence of civilians in and around military targets does not mean those targets are immune from attack.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2005 and has attacked Israel from there several times. In defending against those attacks, Israel targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure.  With this horrendous attack, Israel must operate with the knowledge that “Hamas’s goal is the annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.” Destroying Hamas is now, rightly, Israel’s existential goal.
Professor Kontorovich writes: “When military objectives and civilians are intermingled, siege aimed at the former will also affect the latter.”  Siege is a part of lawful war. He wonders whether those who deny Israel’s right to self-defense “are merely naïve or wish to leave Israel perpetually exposed to genocide.”
Israel cannot look away. 

Penna Dexter
Pediatric gender clinics once put patients seeking gender transitions through in-depth assessments and waited months before prescribing hormones. This was standard practice until caseloads at these facilities began ballooning. Last year an investigation by Reuters found that some pediatric gender clinics prescribe hormones on the first visit.
But these clinics at least provide more scrutiny of would-be transitioners than Planned Parenthood does.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that Planned Parenthood has become one of the largest and fastest-growing providers of cross sex hormones in the country. According to a Free Beacon article by Aaron Sibarium, “Hormones now appear to be in higher demand than abortion at some branches.”
Mr. Sibarium points to “Fred,” an 18-year-old high school student who is on the autism spectrum. At age 17, he announced to his parents he was a transgender woman. They found the only gender clinic in the country that specializes in autistic youth. Mr. Sibarium explains that they “wanted to be sure his dysphoria wasn’t transient or peer-driven.” But the Gender and Autism Program at Children’s National Hospital, known for lengthy assessments, told them the waiting list for an initial appointment was about a year.
Fred didn’t want to wait that long. Within a couple of months, he turned 18. While his parents were out of town, he went to a Planned Parenthood clinic. At Planned Parenthood,  any legal adult can receive cross sex hormones with no communication from a therapist, no formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and with only a consultation about side effects with a nurse practitioner
Phone-tracking data showed Fred’s parents that he “arrived at the Montclair, New Jersey clinic at 11 AM. “By 11:39, they received a text message from CVS, Fred’s estrogen prescription was on its way.”
Autism is a common undercurrent of gender dysphoria.  These cases deserve more than a 30-minute discussion when considering life-altering drugs and a young person’s permanent loss of fertility.
Planned Parenthood is a criminal enterprise.

Penna Dexter
There’s nothing like a looming re-election battle to derail, or at least delay, a politician’s campaign promises — especially radical ones like allowing men to compete in female sports.
In July 2022, the Biden Administration released a proposed revision to Title IX that effectively forces every school district to allow transgender athletes to compete in school sports. This means biological men on women’s teams and in their locker rooms.
The Washington Stand points to the latest Gallop poll on the issue, which shows that nearly “70% of Americans — including 55 percent of Democrats — don’t want their daughters on teams competing with biological boys.”
The new guidelines were scheduled to be released in May, and then pushed out to October and look likely to miss that deadline. The regulations have not even been sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review, a necessary step that can take up to 120 days.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was passed in recognition of the inherent distinction between men and women. It prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal assistance. A huge beneficiary has been women’s sports.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville says he coached girls’ basketball when Title IX kicked in and the numbers of girls playing high school sports exploded. The senator explained that Title IX “opened up facilities, funding, athletic scholarships — and almost immediately you saw the rise and dedication of women’s sports across our country.”
The Department of Education reports a “historic number of comments” on this issue. Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon, an education official in the Trump Administration, told The Washington Stand, “The fact that the rule isn’t final means that overwhelming public comments made a difference.” She expects the rule to be published closer to the election “to get the rule in place late in the game, and deal with the consequences after the election.”
They are stalling, but not dropping this. 

Penna Dexter
It was hard fought, but North Carolina recently became the 10th state to approve a universal school choice program. The effort began in 2013 with the creation of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarships. Now, the legislature has expanded the program to grant eligibility to all students in the state, though the amount of the scholarship declines for higher-income families. Families can use the assistance for the schooling of their choice, including private school tuition, instructional materials, and homeschooling expenses.
School closures during the pandemic forced education online and into homes across America. Some parents found a lot they didn’t like in what the public schools were teaching their kids. The Washington Stand reports that, since the pandemic, “1.2 million K-12 students have not returned to public school, with 26% choosing to homeschool.”
Legislatures in states across the nation are responding. Just since 2022, universal school choice has been enacted in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia. During the same period, 8 other states, have either expanded existing programs or created alternative school choice programs.
School choice has its opponents. When North Carolina’s legislature took up a choice bill, Governor Roy Cooper declared a “state of emergency,” warning “that the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education.” The issue led State Rep. Tricia Coddle to switch parties, from Democrat to Republican, and provide the majority needed to override the governor’s expected veto.
Governor Greg Abbott is calling the Texas legislature into special session this month with the express purpose of passing school choice for every child. During the regular session, the Texas Senate passed a bill, but the House did not. The governor promises consequences for Republicans who choose teachers’ unions over Texas parents. When Iowa governor Kim Reynolds faced a similar situation last year she got involved in nine House primary races. In January, Iowa passed universal school choice.
Texas lawmakers: choose the easier way.