A divided US Supreme Court has heard all oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, where the plaintiffs challenged a decision of the Sixth Circuit written by Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, which upheld a Tennessee statute banning medical and surgical interventions in transgender cases for minors. Sutton reached that conclusion only after making extensive findings about the improprieties of the practice and by stressing the risks associated with the procedure, including hormonal risks, removal of sex hormones, sterility, and adverse effects of other diseases, as well as long-term consequences that “are experimental in nature and not supported by high-quality, long-term medical studies.”

The Sutton opinion drew a sharp dissent from Senior Circuit Judge Helene White, who took a leaf from the work of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which she said “is the leading association of medical and mental health professionals with expertise in treating gender dysphoria,” and from the Endocrine Society, “an organization representing more than 18,000 endocrinologists.” According to these organizations, “Gender-affirming care”—the name given to these procedures by their supporters—“improves short- and long-term outcomes for adolescents with gender dysphoria by reducing rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidality, and brings their mental health into alignment with their peers.”

Last week’s Racket News (a modestly priced Substack subscription publication by Matt Taibbi) included a fantastic article, The Bell Finally Tolls For the FBI, cited this morning in the indispensable Powerlineblog.

This one article, a comprehensive indictment of the FBI and media figures complicit in the Russiagate conspiracy to undo the 2016 election, makes an annual subscription worth the price.

Source: Shutterstock, Sheila Fitzgerald. ID: 1441453388

As the Democrat party becomes ever more radically left-wing, I often wonder how they get half the population to vote for them.  I mean, not everybody is a lesbian sociology professor at Amherst.  How do anti-American radicals maintain the support of people who are neither stupid nor communists?

From the NY Post:

A Manhattan jury has cleared Daniel Penny of criminal wrongdoing in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a crowded subway — a caught-on-video killing that sparked fierce debate over the city’s mental health system and crime underground.

Seen just now on Twitter.  (You can call it X if you want to.)

If you’re flying in a plane do you want the pilot to have a truthful altimeter, or a loyal one that just keeps telling him how brilliant he is?

Today was a reminder that so much of value in life is difficult or impossible to quantify.  I put in my time today as a volunteer for an annual local food drive that is a logistical masterpiece. A sizable set of volunteers take up soliciting food donations (canned or dry packaged items) each from a designated neighborhood, leave notices, instructions and bags, and then collect it all on the given Saturday. They take the donations to a collection point where a small horde of other volunteers (mostly older kids and teenagers) unloads the bags and transfers them to cars, vans and trucks driven by a third set of volunteers for delivery to as many as 60 providers (churches, food banks, soup kitchens, etc.). On that one day each year, from my back-of-the-envelope figures based on reported rough counts, this drive collects and delivers enough food for 70,000 to 100,000 meals.

Efforts like this one take place on various scales all over this country, all the time.  My inner geek wonders (a) what is the net value of these kinds of efforts, and how would you ever go about measuring/calculating that? And (b) what would it cost to replace all such efforts with government or privately paid programs?

An era has passed. Assad has fallen (he might be dead in a plane crash). Russia and Iran — and Hezbollah — are humiliated and weakened as a result. The Turks are ascendant. The US-supported forces… who knows?

This is a Big Deal.

USS Oklahoma (BB-37), named for my home state, in flames after the dastardly surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Today is the 83rd anniversary of the date that will live in infamy. Among many other losses, 4 battleships were sunk, 188 airplanes destroyed, and 2403 lives were lost. But crucially, the carriers were at sea, and the Japs failed to attack the fuel tank farms or repair shops.

America’s friends of limited government have had a rough go lately. Government bureaucrats and spenders of all stripes have been living it up.

Since 2001, the last time the federal budget was balanced, federal revenues have shown a healthy growth of 3.9% annually, while inflation averaged only 2.5%. These figures would normally signify a sound, sustainable economy. But spending has grown at a rate of 5.5%, so instead we have a destabilizing gross federal debt of $36 trillion.