Month: August 2024

A recent Biden-Harris administration Department of Energy high level hire is attracting controversy, as well as appropriate widespread mockery, for publishing formal articles calling for the “queering of nuclear weapons”. This is almost word-for-word an actual title of one of her papers.

Sneha Nair was named special assistant in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) less than a year ago, and since then several of her recent academic papers have been unearthed, focusing on “the relationship between queerness and nuclear policy” as a “substantive” issue. Bellow is one such paper co-authored by Nair, featured at the prominent publication Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists…

The article, which is one of several such examples authored by her, claims that “discrimination against queer people can undermine nuclear security and increase nuclear risk.”

“Equity and inclusion for queer people is not just a box-ticking exercise in ethics and social justice; it is also essential for creating effective nuclear policy,” Nair continues. 

And supposedly the US homeland faces greater nuclear risk if there is “exclusion” and “unfair” treatment under the aegis of the supposed white male patriarchy. Below are some actual segments taken from this top Biden official’s work, which includes interesting buzzwords like a “male-dominated” “nuclear priesthood” [emphasis ZH]: 

Exclusion and unfair treatment of queer individuals and other minorities by a homogenous, cis-heteronormative community of practitioners also creates vulnerabilities in nuclear decision making.

* * *

Including a wider range of perspectives in nuclear decision making creates a more comprehensive definition of who or what constitutes a “threat” to nuclear security. An example of this is the threat posed by some white supremacist groups with plans to acquire nuclear weapons or material, which can go undetected when a white-majority workforce does not perceive these groups and their ideological motivation as a relevant threat to their nuclear security mission.

* * *

Nuclear deterrence is associated with “rationality” and “security,” while disarmament and justice for nuclear weapon victims are coded as “emotion” and a lack of understanding of the “real” mechanics of security.

* * *

Queer theory is also about rejecting binary choices and zero-sum thinking, such as the tenet that nuclear deterrence creates security and disarmament creates vulnerability.

* * *

Diversity and inclusion are especially important for the policy community dealing with arsenal development and nuclear posture. Women familiar with this “nuclear priesthood” describe it as “male-dominated and unwelcoming.”

Meet Sneha Nair, who Biden appointed as special assistant at the Department of Energy.

Nair wrote that “queer theory” is essential for deterring threats to nuclear energy facilities in the U.S.

Can someone explain how “queer theory” has anything to do with managing our nuclear… pic.twitter.com/YtqXcJA0CU

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2024

And considering one more rather interesting quote, perhaps Russia’s Putin or China’s Xi is open to hearing about the “hidden stories” of “trauma” among those personnel overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal?…

“Finally, queer theory informs the struggle for nuclear justice and disarmament,” Nair wrote. “Queer theory helps to shift the perception of nuclear weapons as instruments for security by telling the hidden stories of displacement, illness, and trauma caused by their production and testing.” 

Nair appears to have risen to her position on a DEI wave of new hires. She has recently vowed to focus her efforts on implementing ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ values at the highest levels of US national security. “By understanding DEI as a set of values critical to security, and therefore as an element of an effective nuclear security culture, stakeholders can explore how DEI can contribute to stronger security at nuclear facilities,” she has written. 

Meanwhile, Fox News has also noted her pre-administration position and funding:

Before she joined the administration, she worked for the Stimson Institute, which has received hundreds of thousands from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and millions from “The Embassy of the State of Qatar” over the years, Fox News Digital’s review of their funding sources revealed. 

This is all coming to light quite dangerously at a moment the Ukraine war is escalating by the day, given especially that the ongoing Kursk incursion risks deeper NATO involvement, and amid the recent infusion of more Western weapons into the conflict, especially US-made F-16 fighter jets.

Additionally, just this week The NY Times revealed that President Biden last March made changes to US strategic doctrine. “In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea,” the Times wrote. Alongside, Putin and Xi, North Korea’s Kim is surely not going to be ‘scared’ or impressed by our new DEI nuke officials.

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times,

A new study has linked semaglutide, the active drug ingredient in weight-loss and diabetic drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, to suicidal ideation.

The finding “warrants urgent clarification,” the authors wrote.

Researchers analyzed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) database for adverse drug events. They compared the reporting rates of suicidal ideation and other suicidal behaviors from reports about semaglutide and another weight-loss drug of the same class, liraglutide (brand name Victoza and Saxenda). The reporting rates of suicidal ideation and other self-injurious behavior were then compared against all other drugs in the WHO database. The findings were also compared to other antidiabetic drugs like dapagliflozin, metformin, and orlistat.

The results, published on Wednesday in the JAMA Network Open, show that semaglutide was linked with a 45 percent greater likelihood of suicidal ideation when compared to other drugs. Liraglutide had no significant link to suicidality.

The authors noted a slight increase in adverse drug reports for both semaglutide and liraglutide up until August 2023. However, the rise was substantially more pronounced for semaglutide, climbing from 0 percent in 2017 to 0.8 percent in 2023, compared to liraglutide’s increase from 0.09 percent in 2014 to 0.4 percent in 2023.

Semaglutide was approved in 2017 while liraglutide was approved in 2011.

“What I take away from this is that there is increased reporting, we should be aware of this,” Dr. Roger McIntyre, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The reporting of an elevated signal in a pharmacovigilance database cannot establish causation, it is association only,” he said.

“Most of the drugs that have been studied for the management of obesity are central nervous system drugs. And so there’s long been a concern about any psychiatric adverse events associated with those drugs, be it anxiety, insomnia, depression, any of these things,” Patrick O’Neil, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina and was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.

Most Reports Linked to Off-Label Use

The authors evaluated over 36 million reports in the pharmacovigilance database. They identified 110 cases of suicidality among semaglutide users and 160 cases among liraglutide users.

Between the two drugs, around half of the suicidality cases occurred when people took the drug off label, the researchers said.

“The observed high proportion of cases due to possible off-label use and a recently published postmarketing signal of misuse or abuse call for urgent clarification of patient-related and drug-related risk factors,” the authors wrote.

Taking semaglutide with antidepressants or benzodiazepines, a drug often prescribed for anxiety, was associated with a 150 to 300 percent greater increase.

“People with anxiety and depressive disorders maybe at higher probability of reporting suicidal ideation when medicated with semaglutide,” the study authors wrote.

It is very difficult to study suicidality in obese patients given the bidirectional relationship between obesity and depression, O’Neil said. That is, people who are depressed are more likely to be obese, and people who are obese are more likely to develop depression.

Conflicting Findings

The study is one of many that have linked semaglutide drugs to suicidal ideation and other suicidal behaviors. There have also been studies that found semaglutide was linked to reduced suicidality, as well as studies that found no significant link between use of such drugs and suicidal behavior.

Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medical Agency have investigated the link between semaglutide and suicidality. Both investigations yielded inconclusive results, though the FDA’s investigation is still ongoing.

“Contradictory results in studies based on pharmacovigilance data are quite expected,” Drs. Francesco Salvo and Jean-Luc Faillie, who wrote an editorial accompanying the JAMA Network Open study, said. A disproportionate study, like the current study, tends to use a larger variety of methods and models than other studies, thus having a wider variety of results, they noted.

“[There are] probably more studies not seeing a relationship than there are that find it. Does that mean we can rule [suicidality] out? No,” O’Neil said.

No Established Mechanism

There is currently no mechanism that can explain the difference in drug adverse event reporting rates between the two drugs, according to McIntyre.

Unlike rimonabant, an obesity drug that was pulled off the market due to early reports of suicidality, there was a possible clear mechanism for rimonabant explaining why some people may become suicidal. Rimonabant targeted the endocannabinoid receptors to reduce people’s appetite and drive for more food, which are the same receptors cannabis targets to cause psychoactive effects.

McIntyre previously commented that semaglutide and liraglutide, which have been shown to reduce food cravings in both animals and humans, should be linked to a decrease in impulsivity and therefore suicidality.

The Republic of Panama on Tuesday initiated a new program by which illegal immigrants transiting the country are flown back to their native nations — with the cost borne by US taxpayers.

The repatriation flight program is one of multiple avenues by which new Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino is following through on his campaign pledge to end his country’s role as a major funnel of illegal immigrants bound for the United States. Last year saw a new record, with more than a half-million migrants crossing the infamous Darien Gap jungle wilderness that spans the Panama-Colombia border region. 

Tuesday’s first repatriation flight was loaded with 29 Colombians, all of whom have criminal records in their home country, with one alleged to be a member of the powerful Clan del Golfo gang, aka the Gaitanistas. Each was caught after they’d made it through the Darien Gap, and were in handcuffs and ankle-irons as they were guided onto an Air Panama plane. Panama’s senior migration-management officer, Roger Mojica, told reporters that flights to other destinations are in the works — including India and Ecuador — with the next flight happening as soon as Friday. 

Critically, the deportation of Venezuelans — who represent the largest subset of the illegal migrant flow — could be delayed, thanks to Panama’s suspension of diplomacy with Venezuela following July’s contested presidential election. Pre-election polls indicated many Venezuelans intended to leave their country if President Nicolas Maduro won. His declared victory is in dispute, and the Biden administration wants him to regime change himself. Supporting Washington’s agenda, Panama’s Mulino offered Maduro “safe passage” en route to a third country; Maduro warned Mulino not to “mess” with Venezuela. 

In accordance with a deal announced on the same July day on which Mulino was sworn into office, the United States government will cover Panama’s expenses for deporting people who enter Panama illegally, in addition to helping with “equipment, transportation and logistics.” The initial commitment has America on the hook for $6 million. 

The famed Pan-American Highway has a 66-mile gap that starts just inside Colombia — forcing migrants to make a treacherous journey on foot through a mountainous, marshy region called the Darien Gap. They not only have to survive dangerous natural conditions, but robberies, kidnappings, rapes and murders perpetrated by criminal gangs lurking in the hot jungle. 

Earlier this month, Panamanian border police arrested 15 people linked to an illicit “VIP” migrant-smuggling operation that caters to Chinese clients. Using boats, canoes, ATVs and horses, the top-tier service promised a faster, easier and safer passage into Panama — at a higher price. Migrants pay about $500 for a standard escort through the gap, but fees for the expedited trip range from $2,600 to $8,000. 

Referring to Tuesday’s flight taking Colombians back home, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Marlen Pineiro told reporters, “The message we’re sending is very clear: Darien is no longer a route.” Considering she was referring to a few dozen Colombians against an estimated 8,000 people who crossed the gap in just the first few weeks of August, that’s some pretty big talk. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

Projectionism

Projection is a Freudian psychological term.

It describes a particular defensive mechanism, when people, often unconsciously, attribute their own (usually undesirable) behaviors to others who do not have them.

These mental gymnastics are intended to alleviate one’s own guilt or sense of inadequacy at the expense of another.

Sound familiar?

But in the political sphere, projection involves more overt dissimulation. It is increasingly common for leftist candidates or political parties to falsely accuse their opponents of the very destructive behaviors and unpopular agendas that they themselves embrace, but out of political necessity must deny.

Rather than an unconscious Freudian defense mechanism, political projection is usually a conscious strategy of hiding one’s own negatives by fobbing them off on antagonists.

Projection often proves a quite successful ploy.

After all, the political projectionist knows best his own hazardous or off-putting conduct and policies. And so, he can most skillfully attribute just these liabilities to those who have had no experience with them.

Our Leftist Projectionists

The 2024 Harris-Walz campaign is turning out to be projectionist to the core. How?

First: Kamala Harris and her new running mate Governor Tim Walz have long advanced fringe leftist political agendas.

(Her “everyone needs to be woke” and his claim that riots happen because society doesn’t prioritize “equity and inclusion.”)

They have been loud in their fringe cultural commentaries, which are not just unpopular but roundly rejected by the majority of the electorate. And they know that if they become open and honest about what they have done, they will likely be defeated.

Second: On a more personal level, both are attacking the behavior and conduct of their rivals as a way of deflecting attention from their own weaknesses on that score.

Thus, this kind of projection, about both policy and personal behavior, is more common on the left because its ideology is fundamentally far more distant from the views of most voters.

A few examples reveal that 2024 is turning out to be the most projectionist campaign in memory—and logically so, because the Democratic Harris-Walz ticket is unappealingly left-wing and thus vulnerable.

Harris is now barnstorming the country, repeating many times per day a teleprompted narrative that she sought to close the border and stop illegal immigration.

Donald Trump, she claims, did just the opposite, and is thus weak on the border. This idea of an open-borders Trump pitted against a secure-borders Harris is a classic Big Lie—if not utterly unhinged and surreal.

As a senator in 2017-20, Harris repeatedly fought President Trump’s secure border efforts.

Trump battled for a secure border against the likes of Harris (whose record was the most left-wing in the Senate), the administrative state, “anonymous” moles within his own administration, DNC-spawned lawsuits, and liberal justices.

All of them battled to keep the border open and the inflow of illegal aliens as large as possible—given that they felt subsidizing a huge illegal alien population would create loyal voters in the new era of poorly audited early and mail-in balloting.

Innate to the new hard-left Democratic party is a globalist ideology that regards borders as anachronisms. Thus, anyone should be allowed to travel and reside in any country he pleases, while deserving state support to accomplish such migrations.

Those agendas were why the entire leftist consortium tried to halt Trump’s efforts to build a wall. They embraced catch-and-release and allowed illegal aliens to claim “refugee” status once inside the United States. They fought Trump tooth and nail when he tried to beef up ICE and other border security agencies.

Harris went to absurd lengths in her open-borders agenda. She bizarrely even blasted the public at Christmas time for daring to say “Merry Christmas” when, she alleged, young foreign nationals, here illegally, could not enjoy such holidays. When she called for reforming border security, she said of ICE—“And we need to probably think about starting from scratch.”

Harris accused the border patrol falsely of whipping Haitian illegal aliens and compared them to the enforcers of slavery.

As a California attorney general Harris championed sanctuary cities and the state’s neo-Confederate nullification of federal immigration laws.

She and Tim Walz both supported giving free health care to foreigners who arrived illegally in the United States. Harris claimed that illegal entry into the U.S. was not a criminal offense.

Most notoriously, Harris was part and parcel of the Biden-Harris-Alejandro Mayorkas administration that destroyed the border and allowed a record 10 million illegal aliens to enter the U.S. freely and without vetting.

So why is Harris projecting her own politics onto the border-hawk Trump, falsely claiming that he opposed bipartisan “comprehensive border reform”—a tired euphemism for the failed election-era gimmick of legitimizing the unimpeded entrance of millions more illegal aliens?

Because Harris knows that, of all the unpopular Biden-Harris initiatives, the wide-open border and accompanying unchecked influxes of unvetted illegal aliens have proved the most unpopular.

And Harris knows that she supported this nihilist policy and that she will again embrace it after the election in her remaining three months as vice president—and, if elected president, for another four years.

But for the next 80 days, Harris will lie, in utterly cynical fashion, that she is with the voters on enforced borders and regulated immigration and against Trump, the supposed open-border liberal. Note that Harris is still vice president and apparently remains “border czar” for the next five months. Thus, she could stop all illegal immigration right now. And, even if not elected president, she could ensure its end through November and until January 20, 2025.

In the personal domain, Tim Walz, and his supporters are now alleging that his opponent J. D. Vance is not a true veteran of the Iraq War, because he was mostly assigned to a non-combat unit.

Walz and company are projecting in this absurd fashion because Walz himself has lied that he served in a combat zone and implied he was deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan or both when he in fact left the National Guard before it was deployed to a combat theater. On yet another occasion, he claimed to have carried weapons “in war” when he had never been in combat theater his entire life. He also falsely claimed to have retired as a Command Sergeant Major, when he instead demonstrably held a lower rank.

As a way of hiding these untruths, Walz projects lies onto Vance.

But anyone knows who has been to Iraq during the war, and especially during the surge—whether as a journalist embedded with ground troops or on an official military-arranged helicopter and plane visits to outlying American bases and troop installations—Iraq was a combat zone everywhere.

There were no traditional fronts and no safe areas. Troops got killed inside the supposedly safe “green zone.” They were shot and killed or blown up in Humvees while traveling on allegedly secure roads and in purportedly secure bases. Journalists and bureaucrats alike were killed by IEDs, barrages, and sniper fire—anywhere and everywhere.

Vance was in such a 24/7 combat environment when he was deployed to Iraq. Classic projection is clear when the soldier who avoided combat deployments projects his guilt, embarrassment, or fear of criticism onto an antagonist who chose the very opposite conduct and behavior.

In the year of the projectionist, watch how Harris—who obsessively avoids any live, impromptu, or ex tempore talk or interview—blasts Trump—who cannot restrain himself from talking publicly to anyone—for supposedly seeking to escape debating her.

Watch how she rails against voter IDs with accusations that her opponents want to warp balloting—while she has encouraged massive, unaudited mail-in voting and third-party vote harvesting, along with 10 million new potential illegal voters conveniently entering the U.S.

Watch how Harris blasts “radical Republicans,” as she intends (together with a Democratic congress) to pack the court, go after the filibuster, and admit new states to get on the cheap four left-wing senators.

Watch Harris scream that the near-unprecedented Biden-Harris inflation—which saw staples including food, power, gas, rent, cars, and insurance soar by 20-30 percent during her tenure—was supposedly caused by ex-president Trump, who left office three years ago with a 1.2 percent inflation rate.

Watch the projectionist Walz claim that Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy who grew up in an impoverished Appalachia, is actually an elite because he went to law school at Yale, while Walz was a rural Nebraska boy who stayed rural in outlook.

In fact, Vance is the first poor white boy presidential or vice presidential candidate since Bill Clinton (who also went to Yale Law School) ran in 1992. Meanwhile, Walz once scoffed not to take the overwhelmingly conservative map of Minnesota too seriously since there were only “rocks and cows” out there.

Watch Walz scream about “weird” Republicans—as he let Minneapolis burn for days in the awful summer of 2020 before calling in the National Guard, as his wife opened their official residence’s windows to get an authentic whiff of the revolutionary arson, and as his daughter tweeted out assurances to rioters not to worry about being arrested or stopped by the National Guard given her inside knowledge, they would not be sent in.

Watch Biden claim that Trump will attack democracy if he loses. This comes from a president who has unleashed lawfare against his opponent, who was removed from his own reelection candidacy by a backroom cabal, and whose mental disabilities have been hidden from the public by the same dark forces who recently forced him out—but only when his polls dived, and he threatened other Democratic candidates. Note Harris is the first modern presidential candidate who has never won a single delegate in a single primary but was anointed by a fiat of unnamed donors and politicos.

The first cousin of projection is the more familiar vice of hypocrisy, marginally preferable to projection in that here the other side is at least doing what they’re accused of.

Harris’s hypocrisy is stunning and shameless. For example, she has blasted Trump’s demand for voter IDs as racist and voter suppression. Yet Harris demands the very same sort of photo IDs from all who would attend her rallies.

Her logic, apparently, is that verifying the citizenship of voters is not as important as proving you have obtained a ticket to her rally and are not unlawfully seeking to enter her own event. Her message to the public is that the security of American balloting is hardly as important as the security of her own rallies.

The second cousin of projection is simple lying about one’s real intentions, virtually inevitable for the side with the less popular ideology.

Once elected, Vice President Harris felt she could safely push unpopular restrictions on pipelines, existing oil and gas fields, and new federal energy leasing to please her leftist circle and in pursuit of her ‘green new deal’ agendas. Now facing a presidential election, and the need for cheaper gasoline and fracking jobs in swing states, she is pro-fracking and drilling for oil and gas.

As president, she would inevitably revert to her consistent earlier advocacies. And they range from federal gun confiscation and nullifying (“snatching”) private enterprise patents to controlling not only food prices but also wages that she deems not meeting her standards of “gender equity”.

At long last, can’t we take away the projection, the hypocrisy, and the concealment of one’s real positions, not to mention all the past collusion, disinformation, and lawfare, and just let the people decide whether they really want to return to the leftist vision of America as fundamentally flawed, inherently racist, and in desperate need of corrective illiberalism?

Can’t the left be honest that it wants massive government redistributive action in health, education, and welfare, fueled by enormous government spending increases, more taxes, and more administrative-state overseers?

And can’t the left be honest to Americans about their globalist view that America is only exceptional to the degree that any country believes it is exceptional—but demonstrably not exceptional enough to warrant secure borders, a free market economy, legal-only immigration, a strong deterrent military, and a content-of-our-character-not-color-of-our-skin approach to race?

Or to put it another way, if you don’t want what the people want, you have to project.

‘Bad news’ – a record downward revision in payrolls – combined with a strongly ‘dovish’ bias to the FOMC Minutes sent rate-cut expectations soaring today…

Source: Bloomberg

…dominated by 2024 dovishness – dramatically more than The Fed’s single-cut expectation…

Source: Bloomberg

…and that sparked a buying-panic in bonds, bitcoin, stocks, and gold (but the dollar and crude tumbled).

Stocks and bonds are (arguably) disagreeing…

Source: Bloomberg

Stocks initially surged on the BLS bad news and Dovish Fed, but some reality started to set in again that ‘growth scares’ are real enough to have prompted The Fed to consider a July cut and now a September cut seems locked in.

The market was completely confused at what to do with the payrolls revisions at first – which were delayed (but leaked to several banks).

Small Caps led on the day (big short squeeze) but the rest of the majors ended up giving gains back. The last ten minutes of the day saw the machines back in charge, lifting stocks off unchanged…

Small Caps gains were once again on the back of a major short squeeze…

Source: Bloomberg

Mag7 stocks went nowhere for the second day, stalled at the pre-payrolls highs…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX rose for the second day in a row, back above 16…

…and worse still, VVIX (the real fear gauge) extended its bounce back above the 100 Maginot Line…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields tumbled today with the short-end outperforming (2Y -6bps, 30Y -1bps). The entire curve is now below pre-CPI levels of yield…

Source: Bloomberg

…smashing the 2Y yield back below 4.00% (having stalled at pre-CPI high yields)…

Source: Bloomberg

That steepened the yield curve significantly, erasing the flattening post-CPI…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar continued to dump, hitting 5-month lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin surged back above $61,000 (helped by potential short squeeze)…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold rallied after the Fed Minutes, having been stomped back below $2500 (once again near The London Fix) earlier in the day…

Source: Bloomberg

Crude prices tracked bond yields lower, with WTI dropping to a $71 handle…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, is Harris’ honeymoon ending?

Source: Bloomberg

Source: Polymarket

Prediction markets are trending back towards Trump.

44 delegates at this week’s Democratic National Convention voted “present” during the roll call vote – a symbolic protest following Harris’ official nomination during a virtual roll call earlier this month.

Of note, during the 2020 election there were just 5 delegates who similarly abstained.

As the Daily Caller notes, among the 44 ‘present’ votes were likely 30 delegates from the “Uncommitted” protest movement – which says they “feel deeply hurt and betrayed by the President’s decisions to continue funding war crimes and the mass killing of Palestinians,” according to their website.

Some members of the Uncommitted movement represent officially uncommitted delegates, like Washington state’s Yaz Kader and Sabrene Odeh, according to The Seattle Times. Both voted present during the virtual roll call earlier in August in an effort to pressure Harris to support a ceasefire and an embargo on U.S. weapons to Israel, The Times reported.

“I entered my vote on behalf of a 10-year-old who was bombed and killed on her 10th birthday,” Odeh said, according to the outlet.

Kader and Odeh were two of 9 delegates from Washington voting present, while delegates from 12 other states joined in voting present – Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, and Tim Walz’ home state of Minnesota – with the latter leading the charge with 10 present votes, the most of any state.

Harris officially secured 4,567 out of the 4,695 available delegates.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge has ruled that a Virginia school district may not prevent a transgender student from playing on a girls’ middle school tennis team while the student’s lawsuit against the school board continues.

Judge M. Hannah Lauck of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down the ruling against Hanover County Public Schools on Aug. 16.

In issuing the preliminary injunction, the judge said she found the 11-year-old student—identified in court documents only as “Janie Doe”—would likely succeed in the claim that the Hanover County School Board violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it barred the student from playing on the sports team during the 2024–2025 school year.

“Janie has established that the Board excluded her, on the basis of sex, from participating in an education program when it denied her application to try out for (and if selected, to participate on) her school’s girls’ tennis team,” Judge Lauck wrote.

The judge concluded that the district may not bar the student from trying out and playing on the girls’ tennis team this year while the lawsuit filed against the Hanover County school board proceeds.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia in July on behalf of the student—who was born a male but identifies as female—and his parents.

According to the lawsuit, the student, who “has a gender dysphoria diagnosis” and has identified as a girl since he was 7 years old, tried out for and earned a place on the girls’ tennis team as a sixth grader in August 2023.

However, shortly afterward, Hanover County’s school board sought medical documentation “evidencing Janie’s ‘consistent expression as a female.’”

About a month later, the school board “voted unanimously against permitting [Janie] to participate on the middle school girls’ tennis team,” the lawsuit states.

School Board Defends Its Decision

The lawsuit alleges that the school board discriminated against the transgender student in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, a longstanding federal education policy designed to protect females from discrimination based on sex.

The school board has said its decision not to allow the student to play on the girls’ team was based on ensuring fairness in competition.

It further argued in court documents that the decision was in line with the 2022 Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) model policies, which state that schools may have sports teams based on biological sex.

The judge wrote that the board’s actions “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds, including on the basis of gender identity.”

“Because Janie Doe faces a litany of harms ranging from medical regression, social isolation and stigma, financial and logistical burdens, and the dignitary harms of either ‘outing’ her as transgender or communicating that transgender students are not welcomed or encouraged to participate in school athletics at all, Janie Doe has made more than a clear showing that the discrimination has harmed her,” the judge wrote.

ACLU of Virginia Senior Transgender Rights Attorney Wyatt Rolla welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement that the student “just wants to try out with her friends for the team she already made last year” and that “there is no evidence to support the fear that trans athletes have a categorical advantage over cisgender ones.”

Rolla accused the school board of “singling out” and bullying the transgender student.

“This ruling should make every school board—not just Hanover—think twice before using VDOE’s model policies to justify discrimination against its students,” Rolla said.

The Epoch Times contacted a Hanover County Public Schools spokesperson for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.

Authored by Joe Sullivan-Bissett via BondVigilantes.com,

The Sahm rule has triggered: markets, please prepare for landing

The economic cycle is at an interesting inflection point where the effects of higher interest rates are becoming evident in numerous ways, be it a slowdown in the labour market, falling inflation, or wavering consumer and business confidence. Whilst a lower rate of inflation is welcomed, the important question remains: have interest rates been too high for too long, and has this caused irreparable damage to the economy in its current cycle? In this blog, I discuss the breaching of the Sahm rule, and whether the Federal Reserve (Fed) can manage to coordinate a ‘soft landing’, where monetary policy tools are used to reduce inflation to target levels, without pushing the economy into a recession.

Before assessing whether the Fed might be able to achieve this goal, let’s take a step back and assess how the recent inflation predicament arose.

Inflation take-off caused by post-COVID money supply and the invasion of Ukraine

For the 10 years that followed the Global Financial Crisis and preceded the COVID-19 era, inflation in the US ran at an average of 1.8% per year – almost in line with the Fed’s long-term target of 2%. Then, the COVID-19-induced economic shutdowns reduced inflationary pressures as economic activity was halted. Directly after, a combination of monetary policy easing (central banks significantly reducing policy rates and implementing a quantitative easing programme) and fiscal policy easing (governments authorising various measures to help both consumers and businesses deal with the difficult economic environment) vastly increased the money available in the economy. The former is evident in the year-on-year change of Federal Reserve money supply (M2) in the below chart, which I’ve plotted against the change in US inflation (CPI, year-on-year) with an 18-month lag. This is by no means a perfect correlation, not least because the length of the lag hasn’t been chosen with particularly scientific methods, but a visible relationship exists nonetheless.

Source: Bloomberg, August 2024

Further to this, additional supply-side inflationary pressures were caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was predominantly observed in the cost of energy with the price of commodities, such as oil and natural gas, skyrocketing. However, it also manifested in other categories such as food, with the region producing 30% of the world’s supply of wheat and barley pre-invasion, amongst other staples. The chart below details the rate of inflation since the start of 2013, and a breakdown of the underlying constituents contributing to each inflation print. Whilst the headline inflation number has significantly decreased from the peak in June 2022, it’s noteworthy that services inflation, typically very stable, remains at relatively elevated levels. 

Source: Bloomberg, August 2024

Will the Fed successfully navigate the remainder of the inflation journey?

For now, it is too early to tell. Since the Fed embarked on its cycle of monetary tightening (i.e. moving interest rates higher), the market has been contemplating whether the Fed can achieve its goal of reducing inflation to its target level, without significantly disrupting economic growth – now colloquially known as a ‘soft landing’. On the other hand, a ‘hard landing’ would be a situation where the central bank has kept monetary policy too restrictive (whether in size or in length of time), and as a result, causes a significant impact on economic growth, and potentially a recession.

In early August, the release of weak economic data and the resulting market downturn, coupled with the subsequent recovery, was evidence that this debate continues. The market is currently pricing interest rates in the US to be 1% lower by the end of this year, which, given there are only three meetings left (ignoring extraordinary circumstances) where the Fed can reduce the policy rate, means the market is looking for a ‘double cut’ in at least one of the remaining meetings. With this being a reasonably rare move for the Fed, bond market pricing is somewhat signifying a ‘policy mistake’, suggesting that the Fed has kept policy rates too high for too long. Now that the Sahm rule has breached, it is perhaps a reasonable suggestion to make.

The Sahm rule recession indicator: we’ve reached cruising altitude

The Sahm rule, which was originally developed as an indicator to provide fiscal support to citizens as soon as a recessionary backdrop was evident, has grown in popularity as a key real-time economic indicator that the economy is in a recession. The indicator signals a recession when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate exceeds the lowest point over the previous 12-months by 0.5%. The accuracy of the rule is stark, as demonstrated in the following chart which shows that in the post-WWII era, each time the indicator has breached 0.5%, the US economy has been in (or was going into) a recession.

Source: Bloomberg, August 2024

As seen in the chart above, July’s unemployment report tipped the Sahm rule north of the all-important 0.5% mark, albeit only slightly, suggesting the US economy is in a recession.

Taking this one step further, Pascal Michaillat and Emmanuel Saez – both of the University of California – have developed a new recession indicator, somewhat an extension of the Sahm rule, which combines both job vacancy rates and unemployment data. This indicator on average detects a recession 1.4 months after it has started (versus 2.6 months for the Sahm rule) and has perfectly identified all recessions since 1930 (the Sahm rule is only fully reliable from 1960 onwards). You can read more in their paper here; however, in a nutshell, when their indicator reaches 0.3, a recession may have started, and when it reaches 0.8, a recession has started.

Post the July unemployment data, their indicator is at 0.5, suggesting a 40% probability that the US economy is now in a recession.

Further, Michaillat and Saez note that it may have been in a recession since March.

However, it’s not all necessarily doom and gloom for the US economy. Claudia Sahm recently joined the hosts of Bloomberg’s ‘Odd Lots’ podcast to discuss the recent unemployment data. Sahm assessed the reasons why the most recent breach of the rule might not be like previous instances, especially in light of the move higher in unemployment being driven by an influx of labour supply (rather than a significant decrease in job openings), and other economic data remaining resilient. Yet, Sahm highlights the notable decelerating trend in demand for labour and why it might be a suitable time for the Fed to start relaxing monetary policy.

The descent is upon us, all eyes on forthcoming labour data and the Fed’s response

To conclude, things were relatively straightforward post the Global Financial Crisis, in a world where inflation for the most part hovered around the Fed’s target level, but COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put a halt to that. Money was released into the economy in large volumes to limit the financial damage of lockdowns on consumers and businesses, and inflation rode the coattails of such expansive policies. Bringing inflation back to comfortable levels without the consequential impact on economic growth causing a recession isn’t an easy ask, and time will tell whether the Fed has managed to achieve this. Weighing up the historic accuracy of the Sahm rule, now triggered, with the mitigating factors as to why it may be different this time, is one for continued debate – until forthcoming labour market data further influence the discussion. Time will tell whether the Fed has kept policy too tight for too long, or whether they can still achieve a soft landing. Until then, please fasten your seatbelts, there may be a healthy amount of turbulence in the months to come.

Amid a flurry of speculation that he will endorse Donald Trump (following news reports – which he since denied – that he failed to clinch a cabinet job with Kamala Harris in exchange for his endorsement there), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he will make a speech in Phoenix on Friday, his campaign announced, as the independent presidential candidate considers whether to drop out of the race and endorse former President Donald Trump.

The campaign said Kennedy will “address the nation” Friday morning, without sharing details of what he will be speaking about.

Kennedy’s speech will come days after his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said in a podcast interview on Tuesday that the campaign is considering whether to “join forces” with Trump to prevent the “risk” of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the election.

Overnight, in an interview Trump said that he would certainly consider a cabinet position for RFK Jr in exchange for an endorsement.

“I would love that endorsement because I’ve always liked him” Trump said.

Then when asked if he would also consider adding him to the administration, Trump responded that “I like him a lot I respect him a lot uh I probably would if something like that would happen… He’s very different kind of a guy, very smart guy, and yeah I would be honored by that endorsement certainly.”

“He’s a brilliant guy he’s a very smart guy I’ve known him for a long time I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out but if he is thinking about getting out certainly I’d be open to it“

On Friday we will learn if RFK Jr is also open to it, with some speculating that RFK would make a great head of Trump’s CIA, which would be ironic considering what the CIA did to JFK…