While the American healthcare industry is happy to give confused children puberty blockers and lop off various offending body parts, the European medical community is having second thoughts.

According to the Wall Street Journal, five countries – the U.K., Sweden, Finland, Norway and France – are now cautioning doctors to exercise caution in their treatment of minors, citing a lack of evidence that the benefits of transgender therapy outweigh the risks.

Earlier this month, the UK’s National Health Services restricted the use of puberty blockers to clinical trials, effectively banning their use in children.

“These countries have done systematic reviews of evidence,” said transgender care researcher Leor Sapir at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute think tank. “They’ve found that the studies cited to support these medical interventions are too unreliable, and the risks are too serious.”

American politicians have taken notice

“It’s beneficial to see European countries coming to their senses,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) in an interview, referring to the UK’s systematic evidentiary reviews of puberty blockers. According to the report, Republicans plan to make transgender-care issues part of their 2024 election platform.

“This is the issue of our time. This is a hill we’re gonna die on,” said Crenshaw.

Democrat witness can’t name ONE study that shows how transgender procedures are beneficial for kids

pic.twitter.com/LwC3sdmdij

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 14, 2023

Democrats, meanwhile, say Republicans are simply scoring cheap political points.

“They are telling parents that Republican politicians know better than they do what is best for their child,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), echoing comments made by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R).

According to a poll taken late last year and published in May by the Washington Post and KFF, 68% of respondents oppose the use of puberty blockers in children aged 10-14. Since then, over a dozen GOP-run states have restricted medical interventions as part of transgender care – including Texas, which will yank a doctor’s license for providing puberty blockers, surgeries or hormone treatments to most transgender minors.

The U.S. medical community hasn’t wavered in its support for medical interventions and continues to recommend puberty blockers and hormones for minors as a clinical option. Unlike the concerns expressed by many authorities in Europe, U.S. medical associations often treat the science behind such medical interventions as settled.

Last week, delegates at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association endorsed a resolution—co-sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology and others—that reiterated support for access to medical interventions, saying that GOP claims about transgender care “do not reflect the research landscape.” -WSJ

On the other hand, blue states such as New York have issued guidance allowing teachers to keep a child’s gender transition a secret from their parents. According to the guidance, some students “have not talked to their families about their gender identity because of safety concerns or lack of acceptance and may begin their transition at school without parent/guardian knowledge.”

Of course, this is a big business we’re talking about, so we’ll see how this plays out.

THESE PRIVATE EQUITY PITCH DECKS ARE GETING OUT OF CONTROL. pic.twitter.com/mWGcDgFa7M

— INVESTMENT HULK (@INVESTMENTSHULK) June 19, 2023

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

The slump in exports of Germany’s auto industry to China in the first quarter of 2023 could be the beginning of a new long-term trend of “strong disruption” in German-Chinese trade as China’s electric vehicle boom accelerates, a German economic research institute said on Tuesday.

German exports of motor vehicles and engines to China plunged by 26% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023, researchers at the IW institute in Cologne wrote in a report published on Tuesday. Due to the high share of those goods in Germany’s exports to China – more than 20% in 2022 – the slump in car and engine exports accounted for nearly half of the total drop in German exports to China.

“There appear to be strong disruptions playing out in the automotive sector, especially regarding China’s increasing importance as an exporter of electric cars,” the report’s authors wrote.  

According to the economic research institute, the latest quarterly Germany-China trade data reflect “major upheavals” in vehicle exports.

“If this development in vehicle construction – an economic sector that was very important for German export successes in the past – continues, the prospects for German exports to China are likely to continue to deteriorate,” the economists said.

Thus, once a German strength, the carmaking industry’s exports risk becoming a weakness for Europe’s largest economy, they added. 

Germany has also increased its dependence on critical materials from China after the supply-chain issues caused by the pandemic. German imports from China are growing while exports – especially for Germany’s iconic automotive sector – are shrinking.

China, for its part, has numerous local and foreign EV makers competing in what is the world’s largest EV market.  

China, Europe, and the United States continue to dominate EV sales, with China the frontrunner once again, accounting for around 60% of global electric car sales, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report in April.

“More than half of the electric cars on roads worldwide are now in China and the country has already exceeded its 2025 target for new energy vehicle sales,” the IEA said. 

If the Ukraine conflict has taught us anything in the past year, it’s that drone technology is quickly becoming the force multiplier of choice for offensive and defensive operations.  Though, it’s also evident that drone tactics have yet to be refined, with a lot of trial and error left to be accomplished.  

So far, drones are mainly a joint mission tool used in support of operations rather than being at the center of operations.  Much fanfare has been spread in the corporate media about Ukraine’s use of drones to drop ordnance into otherwise well protected Russian trenches, but what about Russia’s use of drones?  Though reports are limited by the fog of war and propaganda, it would appear that Russia has found a way to remotely control armored vehicles such as tanks packed with heavy explosives.  

In the following video, a Russian drone tank is reportedly sent against a Ukrainian forward line.  The tank hits a landmine and stalls 100 yards from its objective and Ukrainian soldiers hit the vehicle with an anti-tank missile.  However, what the soldiers do not know is that the tank is laden with over 6 tons of explosives.  The resulting shockwave rips through the Ukraine line.

The strategy is rather brilliant in its simplicity.  Even if a drone tank does not reach its intended target, it can clear a path through enemy mines and the blast effect could still tear a hole in enemy lines.  Beyond that, Ukrainian soldiers will be second guessing any attempts to destroy Russian tanks at close range in the future.

It is tactics like this, combined with Russian air superiority, that seem to have stalled the very counter-offensive that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been promoting for many months.   

Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is more popular with voters than ever before, soaring to 20 percent of the vote in the latest Sunday poll, released every week by INSA on behalf of Bild newspaper. It has never reached this level in an INSA poll before, with the AfD’s steady weekly ascent in popularity shaking the German political establishment.

The poll shows that the AfD improved by half a percentage point compared to last week’s poll, leaving it tied with the Social Democrats (SPD) and only 6.5 points behind the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU).

In the poll, the CDU and FDP each lost half a percentage point, bringing both parties to 26.5 and 7.5 percent, respectively.

AfD politicians celebrated the polling results, with Martin Hess posting on Twitter: “Record! In the ‘Sunday Question’ survey by the Insa Institute, our AfD comes to 20 percent nationwide. That puts us on par with the ruling SPD and only 6.5 percentage points behind the Union.”

Rekord! In der vom Insa-Institut erhobenen „Sonntagsfrage“ kommt unsere AfD bundesweit auf 20 Prozent. Damit liegen wir gleichauf mit der regierenden SPD und nur noch 6,5 Prozentpunkte hinter der Union.https://t.co/G1qI05HdDu#Insa #AfD #Union #SPD #Ampel #Ampelkoalition #CDU pic.twitter.com/KRTqb6FY8n

— Martin Hess (@Martin_Hess_MdB) June 19, 2023

Perhaps just as important for the AfD as its recent polling high is the increase in voter potential, or in other words, the number of voters willing to vote for the party. This figure has increased substantially year-over-year, with 30 percent of Germans now saying they could imagine voting for the AfD.

The AfD is also enjoying a huge increase in voters who will “definitely” vote for the party, with 15 percent of voters now falling into this category. This represents a doubling of this figure year-over-year and shows the party has grown its base of support.

This growth has all occurred despite constant threats of the part being banned, a virtual blackout of AfD politicians on the country’s powerful state-funded political talk shows, police raids, and mass surveillance of members.

The rise of the AfD has led to sharp debates within the country’s political and journalist class. As Remix News reported last month, AfD’s surge has likely been driven by a broad range of factors. Germany is facing a significant inflation and economic crisis, as well as a migration crisis. The INSA poll shows that 34 percent of voters describe themselves as “angry citizens” and among AfD supporters, 70 percent describe themselves that way.

“The AfD is currently catching those sections of society for whom the Union does not distinguish itself clearly enough from the traffic light coalition,” said INSA’s chief, Hermann Binkert.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

I want you to imagine, for a moment, a future world in which everything we now know about functioning and surviving within the economy is completely upended. This world has gone fully digital, meaning people live within a cashless society where physical monetary interactions are abandoned or prohibited, replaced by CBDCs. All transactions are tracked and traced, nothing is private any longer unless you are operating as a criminal within a black market.

By extension, production is overtly suppressed and micromanaged. Small businesses are a thing of the past, and only a select group of major corporations working directly with government are allowed to operate. It’s not just that cash is outlawed and that everyone must rely on a digital ledger, the very data pathways and networks that we use to transfer funds are also controlled. Much like the SWIFT data network, the globalists have the ability to lock down internet payments, individual accounts and business accounts and deny people the ability to move funds from one place to another.

In the meantime, AI-based monitoring systems sift through millions of transactions every minute, searching for “anomalies.” The algorithm is designed to identify anyone who has found a way around the data tracking – People who want to remain anonymous.

The internet still exists, but it’s a shell of its former glory. The population uses it regularly to complete necessary tasks and to research information, but data providers are severely restricted. Cryptocurrencies are not an option as an alternative to the CBDCs because trading them online immediately sets off red flags for the AI-in-the-sky.

Only government approved websites are allowed to exist, with extensive rules limiting what they can do and what they can say. AI chatbots provide the public with most of their information, and the globalists control the parameters of the chatbots. People only ever hear the news that the elites want them to hear. All contrary data is eliminated. It’s not so much banned, rather, it is simply omitted from the record until the people who remember it are long gone.

It might sound like science fiction, but ALL of this technology already exists and is currently being tested by globalist institutions including the Bank for International Settlements and the IMF.

Not long ago during the covid pandemic scare, organizations like the World Economic Forum began widely promoting a concept called the “Great Reset.” It was an agenda sometimes whispered about in banker conferences as far back as 15 years ago, but now the Reset was being promoted openly in the media and at Davos.  It’s a new economic paradigm, a revolution in which AI runs everything, humanity is relegated to a limited number of vital jobs, and a new brand of technological socialism rules our lives. Private property would be cast aside and the populace would live day-to-day within a “shared economy” in which no one owns anything and everything is borrowed from the collective system.

The Reset, or the 4th Industrial Revolution as they sometimes call it, would be the start of a new terrifying age of feudalism. It’s a return to the oligarch and peasant model, a return to enslavement. The average person would only be allowed to work as a means to survive, never to accumulate wealth for the future. And each peasant’s survival would be utterly dependent on their access to the system, which could be taken away with the push of a button.

The primary stepping stone to this dystopian nightmare would be a global digital currency system. Without a cashless society, the globalists would have no power to enforce the other elements of their Reset. But when and how will they implement this monstrosity, and why would anyone embrace it?

Globalists tend to operate in stages of incrementalism, but sometimes they exploit dramatic crisis events in order to frighten the population into compliance with policies that would have taken decades to institute otherwise. We saw this clearly with the pandemic; most of the Reset concepts were revealed to the public during this time, perhaps because the globalists thought they had it in the bag and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. This even included consistent talk of cashless systems to “prevent the spread of covid on physical dollars.”

But, covid with its tiny Infection Fatality Rate failed to frighten people enough and the opportunity fell apart. Today, the question is when will they try again?

Most globalist organizations consistently mention the year 2030 as their timeline for finishing the numerous projects they have in place, including the “Great Reset” along with multiple climate and carbon taxation goals. The WEF calls it “a social contract to transform our world by 2030.” The UN simply calls it “Agenda 2030.”

This means the establishment wants to have their control grid in place within seven years or less. That would be impossible without a bone rattling crisis of epic proportions, but first they would have to introduce a number of future mechanisms as a trial run. That way, when disaster does occur the public will be acclimated to the solutions that the elites will ask them to adopt later.

In the case of digital currencies, crypto has already received wide exposure in popular media. Most people don’t own crypto and hardly anyone uses it, but they have all heard of it. CBDCs will likely ride the crypto wave and will be presented as a “safer and more stable” crypto option.

For now, Australia seems to be the primary guinea pig for fielding CBDCs to a large western population. Their pilot programs are set to finish this summer and international transactions have been accomplished using the eAUD unit. Though, they have not revealed when they might introduce the currency to Forex markets or the citizenry. The point is, the system exists, and can be copied and adopted by any other nations.

At bottom, globalists know that countries like America will not accept a fully cashless system without a complete collapse of their existing currency and economy. It’s just not going to happen otherwise, and I have doubts that many Americans will accept such a system even after a collapse. The majority of Americans, 59%, say they like to have cash with them for various purchases.

Though western consumers make payments more often with bank cards, they still enjoy having physical money when they want it. The implications of intricate digital surveillance of every single purchase and transfer of funds is not lost on a large portion of the population. People know that if they give the government a telescope into their wallets eventually that information will be used against them. Take away the option of anonymity and millions of people will resist, even if they have nothing in particular to hide.

Conversion to a cashless system would require calamity and force, a full spectrum crisis throughout the US and much of the western world in the next few years, along with another few years or more of reconstruction to bring in CBDC mechanisms.  Small businesses would have to be removed from the picture, leaving only major corporations which could then refuse to accept cash as a means of payment from consumers.  This would be one method of expediting the cashless system, along with outright government confiscation of physical paper.

That said, there is another rather blunt way to push Americans into CBDCs that the globalists seem to be expediting – The death of the dollar’s world reserve currency status.  Only five years ago skeptics argued that the dollar would be king for many decades to come.  Today, those same people are eerily quiet as the IMF announces their own global CBDC called the “UMU” and BRICs nations quickly move away from the Greenback in bilateral trade.  If the US dollar loses a majority of its buying power through inflation and the loss of reserve status, it may be easier to convince the populace to abandon it for a digital replacement.

If we take the globalist timeline of 2030 as an effective limiter, this would mean another crisis even more pervasive than the covid pandemic would have to take place soon in order for the elites to get what they want. The longer they wait, the more people become educated on their agenda and the less likely it will be to succeed.

*  *  *

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Authored by Ryan Costello via RealClear Wire,

Over the past several years more than two dozen cities and states across the United States have taken to the courts in a misguided attempt to address climate change. While it’s vital that state and local officials work towards effective solutions on this growing challenge, these lawsuits are not the right course of action. They not only lack merit but are harmful to the development of future innovative energy technologies and usurp the Congressional authority to create and implement environmental policy.

A thorough examination of the facts demonstrates that these cases, which seek to hold energy producers financially liable for purported damages from the effects of climate change, lack any legal basis. 

The allegations are baseless that the energy companies currently facing legal action deceived government officials and leaders on climate risks. Hundreds of thousands of scientific papers that studied the risk of climate change were published on the matter between 1980 and 2014 and no less than “246 Congressional hearings on climate change involving 1,595 congressional testimonies between 1976 and 2007 alone” were held according to one court filing. It’s hard to square that fact with the notion that the public was allegedly “deceived” about the risks of climate change. 

Meanwhile public nuisance claims – allegations that fossil fuel production has contributed to climate change events that have supposedly harmed communities – have failed time and time again in court.

In addition, greenhouse gas emissions are global and the fact that every single person uses products made with fossil fuels makes these allegations impossible to prove. That’s why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in dismissing New York City’s lawsuit in 2021, noted the city “wishes to impose New York nuisance standards on emissions emanating simultaneously from all 50 states and the nations of the world.” It’s reasons like this why New Hampshire legislature recently voted to jettison a proposal to pursue similar climate lawsuits. Lawmakers there reasoned the lawsuits penalize energy producers in the U.S. but absolve major polluting countries like China.

The attorneys bringing these actions are operating under the specious assumption that their efforts will have a significant impact on the climate and are simultaneously hoping for jackpot justice. But the reality is that by suing these energy companies, they are undermining the very partners the country will need to work with to usher in a greener energy future. 

Energy producers have led the way in the effort to advance clean energy technology, but such legal action disincentivizes that objective. Natural gas, for example, is among the leading contributors to lowering carbon emissions and my home state of Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer in the U.S. The EIA found the transition from coal to natural gas in the power sector led to a reduction of carbon emissions by 32 percent in America from 2005 to 2019. 

Meanwhile, investments by energy producers in carbon capture and storage (CCS) hubs have made the U.S. a leader in this space. With 80 facilities expected to be operational by 2030, International Energy Agency data shows the U.S. could see CO2 capture capacity increase five-times to more than 100 metric tons of CO2 annually. Restricting the financial resources of some of America’s leading innovators – an intended goal of the litigation – is a damaging approach that will prevent future technological advances such as these.

Instead of counterproductive lawsuits, public officials should be focusing on Congressional efforts to create public-private partnerships with energy producers to curb climate change. The great strides the natural gas revolution has made in curbing emissions, for example, demonstrates how the intersection of government funding and private innovation offers a much more promising pathway to a green energy future.

As federal Judge for the Northern District of California William Alsup put it when he dismissed two climate lawsuits in 2018, “the problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.” To put it another way, Congress is the only branch of government that can provide accurate direction when it comes to setting climate policy. Now that the U.S. could be facing the very real scenario of a confusing and contradictory patchwork of state court-driven climate policy decisions, it is more important than ever that legislators step up to create a federal climate policy.

Ryan Costello represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives from 2015-2019. During his time in Congress, he served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus. 

A federal judge has struck down a trailblazing Arkansas law barring gender transitions for children. The law was the first of 20 such measures enacted by conservative legislatures across the country.

“Tuesday’s ruling…is the first final judgment from a trial court in a challenge to such a ban,” writes Chris Geidner at Law Dork. 

While similar laws in Alabama, Florida and Indiana been hit with temporary injunctions, Judge James M. Moody Jr — who was nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama — issued a permanent injunction on the Arkansas version, handing a major victory to plaintiffs led by the state’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter.  

Moody’s 80-page ruling makes clear that he fully bought the argument that children are well-served by having their breasts removed, receiving puberty-blocking drugs and otherwise having their bodies irreversibly altered before reaching the age of majority, declaring: 

“The evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing.” 

Moody ruled that the outlawing of so-called “gender-affirming care” violated the due process and equal protection rights of children. He also declared that a prohibition on doctors referring children to other providers for gender transition procedures violated the doctors’ First Amendment rights. 

“Science, medicine, and law are clear: gender-affirming care is necessary to ensure these young Arkansans can thrive and be healthy,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas. 

Moody also found problems with the experts who testified for the state, saying some lacked necessary qualifications, and one “struggles with the conflict between his scientific understanding for the need for transgender care and his faith.”

The law was enacted in 2021, with the Arkansas legislature overriding the veto of then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is now a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

As he vetoed the law, Hutchinson said “denying best practice medical care to transgender youth can lead to significant harm to the young person.” He also said it troubled him that the law didn’t grandfather children were were already in the midst of hormone treatments. 

Current Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, “This is not ‘care’ – it’s activists pushing a political agenda at the expense of our kids and subjecting them to permanent and harmful procedure. Only in the far-Left’s woke vision of America is it not appropriate to protect children.”

Huckabee Sanders said the Arkansas attorney general will appeal the ruling.  However, “the case will be heading to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which already upheld the initial preliminary injunction against the law,” writes Geidner. He also notes that Moody’s finding of facts in the case — including that “transgender care is not experimental care” — will be highly significant, as findings of fact are generally accepted by appellate courts.  

The ruling comes a week after an 18-year-old California woman sued Kaiser Permanente and four doctors for rushing her into a mastectomy at age 13 — along with puberty blockers and testosterone treatment — in an effort to turn her into a man. Kayla Loydahl said doctors’ high-pressure tactics included the use of a line that’s widely employed by practitioners in the field — telling her parents “it’s better to have a live son than a dead daughter.”

“The hardest part was being sold something that I believed was going to help me and make me feel better, only to do it and come out on the other side not feeling any better,” said Loydahl. “I could always have waited, but I can’t undo it.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Authorities across the United States have issued notices about West Nile virus, a deadly disease that can be spread via mosquitoes, after more positive cases have been reported.

In a recent instance, Iowa’s Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the state’s first case of West Nile virus in an older adult, who was not identified, in Plymouth County.

“Warm summer weather means Iowans are spending more time outside, which increases the risk of mosquito bites. Bites from infected mosquitos are the primary method in which humans are infected with the virus,” the department said in a June 16 statement.

The statement added, “Anyone infected with [West Nile virus] may not experience any signs or symptoms of the virus, however, some experience mild symptoms that can develop into more serious ones.”

People who experience mild signs and symptoms of a West Nile virus infection generally recover on their own, but serious symptoms require immediate medical attention, the department added.

Widespread Cases

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services announced in June that the first human case of the virus was found in the Three Rivers Public Health District, near Lincoln. The person who tested positive was not hospitalized, said the agency, adding that residents of Dodge, Saunders, and Washington counties should limit their time outside at dusk and dawn when mosquitoes are most active.

Nevada health officials, too, issued a news release confirming West Nile virus-positive mosquitoes in the 89074 ZIP code, which includes parts of Henderson, a city within the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

“The positive mosquito results illustrate that West Nile Virus is active in Southern Nevada and that residents need to be vigilant about eliminating mosquito breeding sources while also protecting themselves from mosquito bites,” said District Health Officer Dr. Fermin Leguen.

In Texas, the Harris County Public Health Mosquito Vector Control Division confirmed a mosquito sample tested positive for West Nile virus in the county, which encompasses Houston. The sample was taken from a trapping site in the 77005 ZIP code, according to officials.

“Our comprehensive mosquito surveillance program is key to identifying the presence of the virus in our community and guides our control efforts to help us better protect our residents. West Nile virus has been in our area since 2002,” mosquito control Division Director Dr. Maximea Vigilant said in a news release. “During the summer months, we remind our residents to enjoy the outdoors but remember to protect themselves and their families from diseases transmitted by mosquitoes.”

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows 13 cases so far across the United States as of June 13, reported in Arizona, Oregon, Wyoming, Nebraska, Illinois, South Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Four of the 13 cases were reported in Arizona. There were 1,126 cases of the virus reported in all of 2022, CDC data shows.

Some Infections Dangerous

There are no vaccines or medicines to deal with the virus, which is a member of the flavivirus genus. About 1 in 5 people who are infected develop a fever and other symptoms, while about 1 in 150 people develop a serious illness that can be deadly.

Read more here…

Authored by John Haughey via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

It was a rough summer for drag queens, with uproars over public library story hours and bruising boycotts against Jack Daniel’s for promoting drag shows in its advertisements routinely making news.

Meanwhile, conservative across the country, as they prepared to vote in 2022 midterms, were expressing discomfort—and for some alarm—over what many saw as a seemingly-pugilistic promotion of transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, vowing to restore “normalcy,” if possible, with their ballots.

It was also a rough year for military recruiting. Of three of the U.S. military’s largest branches, only the Air Force met its 2022 recruiting goal. The Army missed by 15,000 and the Navy fell shy even after lowering its quota, increasing its enlistment age to 41, and relaxing other standards.

So when the Navy in October chose to promote a sailor who weekends as a drag queen as one of its social media “digital ambassadors” as part of its recruitment strategy, many questioned how the sea service—so reliant on signal intelligence—didn’t see all the blinking red lights, or hear all the bells, all the whistles, all warning this just might not be a good marketing idea.

As things turned out, the Navy did, in fact succeed in making Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley the face of a well-publicized campaign.

But instead of promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as a recruiting tool, as the Navy apparently intended, YN2 Kelley became Congressional Republicans’ favorite poster prop in arguing that his celebration is why many young Americans—especially those among conservative constituencies—are turning away.

Called Onto Congressional Carpet

During a March hearing before the House Armed Services Committee Military Personnel Subcommittee, Chair Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a Navy veteran, said when asked why a sailor who sidelines as a drag queen was used in a recruitment marketing program, the Navy’s response was that the “digital ambassador” program didn’t exist.

“We are facing a historic recruitment crisis and instead of focusing efforts on strengthening our force, the Biden administration is forcing ‘wokeness’ on our service members,” the congressman said. “Navy leadership knew this was a ridiculous and embarrassing stunt, and that is why they initially denied involvement with the program.”

In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Banks and Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) demanded to know why the Navy “incomprehensibly believed that this ‘woke’ campaign should become the defining face of the service” and warned that “perception is driving reality, and both current and former service members are alarmed at a culture putting ‘wokeness’ before training and combat effectiveness.”

Banks and Alford requested that DOD provide “instructions that govern performing in or authorizing drag shows” and “any rules and regulations for service members engaging in such activity while actively serving in the armed forces.”

In a May 3 letter to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) requested “more information regarding the Navy’s use of … a TikTok drag queen to help reach potential recruits on social media.”

Rubio and Budd also chastised the Navy for “the promotion of a banned app” in its digital ambassador TikTok videos than ran until April. The “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” was signed into law Dec. 29, 2022.

The senators expressed concern regarding “behavior that many deem inappropriate in a professional workplace” and could also potentially “push misinformation or narratives favoring the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

“Where does the Navy draw the line on promotion of the personal activities of its influencers?” Rubio and Budd ask. “Would the Navy enlist burlesque dancers or exotic dancers to reach possible recruits?”

The Navy’s only response has been a blanket statement: “Much like the country we serve, our Navy is stronger when we draw upon our diverse resources, skills, capabilities and talents. We remain committed to an inclusive environment.”

But the pressure could be forcing changes in the Department of Defense (DOD) and within the individual branches, the conservative Heritage Foundation Center for National Defense Director Thomas Spoehr told The Epoch Times.

“Just the other day, Lloyd Austin decreed there would be no more drag queen shows on military installations. That came as a surprise to me, I thought they were heading down the path that we’re going to have drag queen story hour at the installation library.”

‘In-Service Transitions’

During an October Heritage Foundation forum, a National Independent Panel on military service and readiness, chaired by Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and featuring former Trump administration National Security Adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, took aim “at the politicization and the progressive policies that civilian officials in the [Biden] administration are imposing on the military.”

Those policies were initiated by a series of Biden executive orders, most notably two that revoked former President Donald Trump’s September 2022 order restricting DEI-related training in the military and banning transgender people from enlisting.

The revised policies restored the DOD’s 2016 policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or an individual’s identification as transgender.

In April 2021, the DOD followed with the 22-page Instruction 1300.28 that outlined rules for “in-service transition for transgender service members.”

The instruction states the DOD and the branches “will institute policies to provide service members a process by which they may transition gender while serving. These policies are based on the conclusion that open service by transgender persons who are subject to the same high standards and procedures as other Service members with regard to medical fitness for duty, physical fitness, uniform and grooming standards, deployability, and retention is consistent with military service and readiness.”

To qualify for “transition,” an active-duty service member must be diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,” which is a mental health condition in which people believe their biological sex and gender identity do not match.

“Gender transition begins when a service member receives a diagnosis from a military medical provider indicating that gender transition is medically necessary, and then completes the medical care identified or approved by a military mental health or medical provider in a documented treatment plan as necessary to achieve stability in the self-identified gender,” the DOD instruction states.

Read more here…