CONGRESS – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

International Cisgender Day?

It may be time to rename International Women’s Day, which was organized in 1909 to commemorate the cultural, political and socioeconomic achievements of women.

Face it. The term “women” has fallen into disfavor. It’s discriminatory.

According to the ACLU, the term “women” isn’t gender neutral.

Women today must be called “cisgender” or “people with a gender that aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.”

Don’t dare to question the innate femaleness of a male who identifies as a woman. She also can compete on a collegiate woman’s swim team, even if her 6-foot, four-inch body towers over her biological female counterparts. And she can use the locker room if she has not undergone sex reassignment surgery. She is a woman.

Birthing Person?

Along with the term “women,” it appears the term “mother” also is going the way of fireman and actress.

Huge Step Forward For Sexual Harassment Victims

Sexual harassers in the past managed to slither undetected from workplace to workplace, thanks to the anonymity offered by forced arbitration.

But times are changing.

President Joe Biden this week signed into law the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, landmark legislation that prevents employers from requiring workers to sign arbitration agreements that preclude them from filing in a lawsuit in court involving sexual assault or sexual harassment.

Biden called it a “momentous day for justice and fairness in the workplace.”

His assessment was affirmed by a rare lack of partisanship in Congress. The U.S. Senate approved the measure on a voice vote, which meant there was no opposition. There was a split roll call vote in the House of Representatives but it was approved by 222 Democrats and 113 Republicans. Yet, 97 House Republicans opposed the bill, including a number of women.

Clueless Dupes?

Why would a female legislator oppose something that protects women from violence in the workplace? The bill merely brings sexual harassment into the light of day by giving victims the right to go to court. Workers can still voluntarily opt to proceed with arbitration if they choose.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons Jumps The Gun On Sending Males Who ‘Identify’ as Women To Women’s Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seems to have jumped the gun on an anticipated executive order by Pres. Joe Biden when it instituted a major change in U.S. prison policy.

The BOP, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, issued a notice on Jan. 13 stating it will henceforth assign “transgender or intersex” inmates to women’s prisons to “ensure the inmate’s health and safety.”

That very provision was included in a draft of an executive order on police reform crafted for Pres. Joe Biden that has not yet been signed because, according to the New York Times, it has precipitated a “near breakdown” between the White House and law enforcement authorities.

The NYT reported Thursday that a copy of the proposed order was obtained on Jan. 5 by a conservative web site, The Federalist.

The NYT fails to even mention that The Federalist article decried a provision in the draft order enabling the BOP to assign male prisoners who self-identify as women to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

Instead, the Times focuses on a provision of the draft order that allows police to use deadly force only “as a last resort when there is no reasonable alternative, in other words only when necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily injury or death.”

Designate

The draft order, dated December 2021, requires “the U.S. attorney general to ‘within 30 days of the date of this order, begin the process of identifying any necessary changes to the [Bureau of Prisons] Transgender Offender Manual … to enable BOP to designate individuals to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.’

The BOP didn’t wait for Biden to sign the executive order and on Jan. 13 issued a revised Transgender Offender Manual.

Mass School Shootings: Who Is Responsible?

A handyman recently told me that he was estranged from his teenage son because his ex wife agreed to pay half the cost of purchasing an M-15 semiautomatic rifle for the son as a graduation present if his father would pay the other half.

The handyman refused.

I thought of him Tuesday when a 15-year-old sophomore brought a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun to Oxford High School and in a matter of minutes had killed four fellow students and injured several more.

Good call on the part of the handyman, I thought.

Why Do Kids Want These Guns?

Then I wondered anew why teenagers want the type of gun used in 2017 in Las Vegas when Stephen Paddock, a 58-year-old gambler, killed more than 50 people and injured hundreds more who were attending a music festival.

Kyle Rittenhouse, then 17, had an AR-15 type semiautomatic rifle in 2020 when he went to Kenosha, Wisc. and ended up killing two people in self defense.

It seems obvious to me that much of the problem lies in America’s culture, which is polluted by violent video games (i.e., Mortal Kombat, Splatterhouse, Grand Theft Auto) and easy access to semiautomatic firearms.

The massive industries that churn out violent video games and semiautomatic firearms are shielded from responsibility for mass shootings by federal and state laws and our court system. But parents are not.

Is ‘Intellectual Cowardice’ Stopping Historians From Condemning The 1916 Project?

Memorial Day is intended to honor the sacrifices of soldiers who fought and died for American values like freedom and equality.

But the new race narrative being promulgated by the New York Times’ The 1619 Project effectively rejects this concept with respect to the Revolutionary War.

The Biden administration is promoting the teaching of The 1619 Project, which claims America’s real founding year was 1619, the year African slaves arrived in Virginia, instead of 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The central tenet of the project, which is being distributed in curriculum form by the Pulitzer Center at Columbia University to schools around the country, is that Americans fought the Revolutionary War to protect slavery and slavery has been at the heart of everything America has done since then.

False Narrative

It seems to matter not that Gordon Wood, the premier historian of the American Revolution; James McPherson, the dean of Civil War historians; and Sean Wilentz of Princeton University say there is absolutely no evidence that slavery was a factor in the Revolutionary War. “I don’t know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves,” said Wood.