Trump and Congress Want to Audit the Fed. Let’s Do It Already!

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Back when Ron Paul was in Congress, you could always count on him to do one thing: introduce the same bill every year, heedless of futility or Sisyphean labor, to conduct a comprehensive audit of the United Stated Federal Reserve Bank.

It never went anywhere. But undaunted, the elder Paul continued the tradition right up until his retirement, at which point he passed the mantle to his son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%).

Rand continues to introduce the bill every year, with increasing probability of action, receiving a rare vote in the Senate in 2016. This year, the warriors of monetary policy may have their best shot yet at success, as a new version of the bill is being sponsored by Rand and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. (A, 94%) with vocal support from the incoming Trump administration.

The Federal Reserve is a nominally independent agency that regulates the nation’s money supply, controls interest rates, and occasionally intervenes in markets more directly, as when it purchased toxic mortgages during the 2008 housing crisis. The Fed generally operates behind the scenes in comparative secrecy, with the general public having only a vague conception of what the agency actually does.

What few people realize is that when the Fed alters the money supply and changes interest rates, it is sowing the seeds of future economic disaster by introducing distorted signals into money markets. Not only does dramatically expanding the money supply (as the agency has done for the last decade) create inflation that causes consumer prices to rise, but it also leads investors into making bad decisions that harm the economy as a whole.

The Fed is adamant that it is already subject to audits by the inspector general, and that it is already fully transparent. The agency is also adamant in its opposition to the Audit the Fed bill. Can you spot the inconsistency? If the agency is already transparent, then the bill would do nothing, so why oppose it?

The truth is that, while the Fed is subject to periodic audits, these are only partial reviews of the agency’s activities that leave out many of the most important aspects of what the Fed does: Transactions with foreign governments, internal communications, and the open market operations that constitute most of what the Fed does are currently exempt from scrutiny. If people knew exactly what goes on behind the agency’s closed doors, they would be shocked at how much power it has to screw things up for the rest of us.

We would also discover that the Fed is not nearly as independent as most people believe. The Fed chairman is appointed by the president, which imparts an inherently partisan slant to anything the agency does. I suspect an audit of internal communications would reveal far more consideration for political concerns than the Board of Governors lets on.

Make no mistake: Auditing the Fed will not be a panacea that will immediately change anything, but it is a necessary first step toward exposing the agency’s actions to the public and convincing ordinary citizens of the need to end the agency’s charter. (For more from the author of “Trump and Congress Want to Audit the Fed. Let’s Do It Already!” please click HERE)

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Babies Left to Die: UNM Abortion Doctors Not Trained to Deal With Babies Born Alive

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“Imagine an infant in an abortion clinic without food, without care, defenseless, confused, crying and grasping for life — being left alone to die on its own.”

That was the response of New Mexico Alliance for Life Executive Director Elisa Martinez, after she read the final report of the Select Panel on Infant Lives. Martinez continued, “It’s almost too difficult to imagine, but this is the reality taking place at UNM Hospital and Southwestern Women’s Options, confirmed by testimony from the abortionists themselves.”

Released Friday, Dec. 30, 2016, the report covers more than a year of investigative effort by the panel, which was established on Oct. 7, 2015, in light of the Center for Medical Progress videos.

One particularly disheartening account is that of abortion doctors at the University of New Mexico (UNM), where a faculty member, whose name is redacted from the report, admitted that doctors at the university were not trained on how to handle children who were born alive during an induced abortion.

This flies in the face of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act — which requires that children born alive in the case of an abortion or attempted abortion receive “immediate admission to a hospital,” “diligence to preserve the life” and the mandatory reporting of any failure to comply with the law.

When pressed for more information, such as if the doctors took resuscitation training, the faculty member, who is also a doctor, simply replied, “OB/GYN doctors do not resuscitate neonates.”

Upon being read the language of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, the faculty member claimed she had not discussed the law with her council, nor did she “understand the relevance” of the law to her practice — despite admitting that she was aware of instances “where a planned abortion … [was] born alive,”

“Coming from the official who is arguably most responsible for making UNM an abortion provider,” the report declares, ” this testimony is a startling reflection of the absence of attention given to any standard of care for infants that survive the abortion procedure.” (For more from the author of “Babies Left to Die: UNM Abortion Doctors Not Trained to Deal With Babies Born Alive” please click HERE)

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It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt

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History can be a fickle judge. Something considered revolutionary in the immediate past can seem quite insignificant later. The long-term reputation of many early twenty-first century American politicians will partly depend on whether they tackle our republic’s colossal public debt.

That includes the incoming President, Donald Trump. He clearly knows it’s a problem. In one campaign stop, he said, “So we have now $19 trillion in deficits. $19 trillion, you know if you look, we owe! … And we’re gonna knock it down and we’re gonna bring it down big league and quickly.”

Any new administration can only do so many things. Yet over the last 16 years, America’s public debt has grown so massive that reducing it must become a priority. And while public finance isn’t the sexiest of subjects, mishandling or simply ignoring the issue will have serious long-term consequences for the United States.

What’s at Stake?

On December 30, 2016, the United States’ official public debt was $19.97 trillion. It’s almost doubled since 2008. It also exceeds the size of America’s economy in nominal GDP in 2016 ($18.56 trillion).

Put another way, America’s public debt is approximately 107% of nominal GDP. To make matters worse, these numbers don’t include state and local government debt or the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Social Security.

The reasons for this rise in public debt aren’t hard to grasp. At its most basic level, it reflects a failure of Congress and the Executive Branch to match spending and revenue since 2000. The gap has narrowed over the past 5 years. Nonetheless, spending continues to exceed revenue. In terms of what’s driving federal expenditures, it is social programs such as healthcare, income security, education, and housing. Spending on activities such as national defense has remained static.

So why should we care? What’s another trillion here or there?

Americans should worry because there’s plenty of evidence that this level of public debt can have grave effects on economic growth.

Once a country’s debt/GDP ratio reaches a particular threshold, one consequence appears to be slower economic growth. Economists argue about the exact threshold at which debt starts to impact growth. Some cite the figure of 85% of GDP. Others say 90%. Economists also debate how fast high debt negatively impacts growth. Yet there’s considerable consensus that, at some point, high debt-to-GDP ratios do have this impact.

Again, some might say, so what? Why should we care about a couple of percentage points less of growth?

Slower economic growth has several negative consequences. Take, for instance, employment. Slow growth means that businesses hire fewer people.

Another effect is that rises in living standards become sluggish, partly because real wage growth slows down. Slow growth also makes it harder for governments to pay down public debt, not least because tax revenues can’t match spending.

Slow growth, however, isn’t the only negative effect of too much public debt. According to a 2010 Congressional Budget Office study, it also undermines “future national income and living standards,” raises the possibility of serious “losses for mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and other holders of federal debt,” and increases the “probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money.”

What Should We Do?

To address these and other problems associated with high public debt, governments have several options.

One is to raise personal and corporate taxes across the board. That, however, makes a country less competitive. That in turn has negative consequences for growth.

Another option is to cut expenditures in real terms. Here, however, we face a major problem.

A growing majority of federal government spending is now mandated and funded by what are called “permanent appropriations.” This is spending based on existing laws rather than the budget process. That includes “big league” programs like Social Security and Medicare. To get federal expenditures under control in these areas, Congress would have to change existing laws.

2005 was the last time Social Security reform was attempted. It failed, despite President George W. Bush’s willingness to spend political capital on this issue. The opposition was formidable, not least because retirees and about-to-be-retirees vote.

This may explain why Trump has stated he’ll protect Social Security and has ruled out tackling its problems by raising the retirement-age, increasing taxes, or reducing benefits. Trump has said that he’ll seek reform through improving efficiency and reducing waste. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough. Personally, I doubt it.

Why Growth Matters

This leaves us with one option for reducing public debt. And that is to increase the American economy’s rate of growth. A high-growth economy means more employment, a reduced call on the government to help those in need, more tax revenues to reduce debt more aggressively, and a lowering of the debt/GDP ratio.

Here we have some cause for optimism. The new administration is publicly committed to faster growth in the American economy. It wants, for example, to reduce taxes (including corporate taxes which are among the world’s highest) and engage in significant deregulation, especially with regard to the financial sector.

Such measures should incentivize entrepreneurship, help start new businesses, and make capital more available. If this boosts business confidence, there’s a chance that what John Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action” will further bolster growth.

On the other hand, every regulation has a group willing to defend it. Any deregulation will face political opposition, some of which will be substantial. Moreover, the Trump Administration seems ready to turn America away from a general commitment to free trade and towards more-or-less protectionist policies. This will harm productivity and thus growth. Tax-cuts and internal deregulation matter for growth, but so does the American economy’s exposure to the discipline of international competition.

Excessive public debt is one of those long-term problems that undermine a country’s well-being and which democratically-elected governments have few political incentives to address. It’s politically easier to punt the problem to future generations.

Any serious effort to make America great again, however, requires a willingness to sell hard choices to the American public. That’s the essence of leadership, which is what Donald Trump has promised. And when it comes to public debt, it’s just what we need. (For more from the author of “It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt” please click HERE)

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Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?

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Is it a sin for a Christian to be seriously overweight? When responding to this question, we should answer it for ourselves and not for others, since there are many potential reasons for people to be overweight and we don’t want to pass judgment on them based on outward appearance alone (see John 7:24).

We know that a small percentage of people have a medical condition that contributes to their obesity, such as a thyroid disorder, while others struggle with emotional traumas, like depression or abuse, and they eat out of pain and despair. And there are women who have had several children in a short period of time and find it very challenging to juggle the challenges of life — often on limited sleep — and lose weight at the same time.

It would be very wrong to pass judgment on any of these people, as if they were sinning by being heavy, and that’s why I said upfront that, however we answer the question about Christians and obesity, we need to do it for ourselves, looking in our own mirrors.

We also need to remember that most Christians (not to mention people in general) who are overweight — especially seriously overweight — hate being fat, and some even feel self-condemned. The last thing we want to do is heap more condemnation on them and make them feel worse. They need some hope and encouragement. My goal in addressing this sensitive issue is to lift you up, not beat you up.

And we live in a culture that prizes youthful, air-brushed, perfect-looking bodies, putting young people in particular (and even women in general) under tremendous pressure to look a certain way. That too is a destructive mentality that we must resist.

That being said, if our body is destroyed by unhealthy eating, that is a serious matter, and if my obesity is due to gluttony or lack of self-control or choosing fleshly indulgences to the detriment of my health, then yes, it is sinful for me to be obese.

It is true, of course, that the Bible never says that the glutton will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but it is also true that the Bible speaks about gluttony in very negative terms: “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” (Prov. 23:20–21). And, “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father” (Prov. 28:7).

Dictionary.com defines glutton as “a person who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously.” Does that describe me or you?

Jesus was falsely accused of being both a drunkard and a glutton. If He was guilty of either, He would not have been the sinless Son of God.

Consider what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Notice carefully what Paul is saying, since we often miss an important point in this passage. Paul is urging us to run with success the race of fulfilling God’s purposes for our lives, and he contrasts our reward, which is imperishable, with the reward of an athlete, which is perishable. But don’t miss what Paul said in the midst of his exhortation: Athletes who compete in the games (similar to the Olympics today) exercise self-control in all things. So do we! As translated in the NIV, “They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:25, my emphasis).

Can we say the same thing about ourselves? Are we disciplined in all things? Have we subdued our bodies (cf. 1 Cor. 9:27a in the NET) when it comes to food?

Proverbs gives us a strong warning about being out of control with our appetites when in the presence of rulers: “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what [or, who] is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite” (Prov. 23:1-2). As the Pulpit Commentary explains, “‘Stab thy gluttony,’ Wordsworth. Restrain thyself by the strongest measures, convince thyself that thou art in the utmost peril, if thou art a glutton or wine-bibber (Ecclus. 31:12, Ecclus. 34:12).” In the words of Matthew Henry, “The sin we are here warned against is luxury and sensuality, and the indulgence of the appetite in eating and drinking, a sin that most easily besets us.”

I wonder what Matthew Henry would have said if he lived today and saw the portions we are served in our restaurants!

We must ask ourselves if the way we are eating is in harmony with our biblical calling, a calling which includes discipline and self-control. In fact, according to Paul, one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:23), with the Greek word meaning, “restraint of one’s emotions, impulses, or desires, self-control” (Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon). As one commentator explains, “‘self-control’ … denotes control of more sensual passions than anger” (F. F. Bruce).

When it comes to your eating habits, do you have self-control? When it comes to the passions of the flesh for unhealthy food, are you disciplined? Are you controlling your appetite or is your appetite controlling you?

Some of us say that we’re willing to die for Jesus but we’re not willing to control our appetites for Him (or, at the least, we’re not willing to make a serious effort to control those appetites). This simply doesn’t line up. We sing, “I surrender all,” but we practice, “I surrender some.” Or maybe you want to surrender but find yourself helpless and bound?

Notice what Paul has to say about dangerous false teachers: “For many are walking in such a way that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. I have told you of them often and tell you again, even weeping. Their destination is destruction, their god is their appetite, their glory is in their shame, their minds are set on earthly things” (Phil 3:18-19, MEV). Or, as the relevant phrase is rendered in different versions “their god is their stomach” (HCSB); they “make their bellies their gods” (The Message); “whose God is the stomach” (LEB). How interesting that these heretics were also slaves to food!

Does that describe you? Is your stomach your god? Are you a slave to your appetite?

If so, I have good news for you: God is not condemning you! Instead, He is offering you a better way, a way of discipline, self-control, healthy eating and vibrant life. But, if He has convicted you through this article, I encourage you to confess your bad eating habits as sin, asking the Father for mercy and forgiveness, believing that Jesus paid for this sin as well, and trusting God for grace to overcome. With His help and with a good plan, you can do it! (For more from the author of “Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?” please click HERE)

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A General Joins the House’s Conservative Ranks as New Congress Convenes

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Six months shy of serving 30 years, Brig. Gen. Don Bacon decided to end his Air Force career so he could speak out on the concerning direction he saw the country taking.

A run for Congress, however, was not what Bacon had originally envisioned.

“I decided to retire a little early because I wanted to speak up, as you can’t do that wearing a uniform,” Bacon told The Daily Signal in a phone interview over the holidays. “And I just felt like our country was going in the wrong direction and I wanted to start writing articles and editorials, giving speeches, just getting involved.”

Bacon, R-Neb., is one of 30 Republican freshmen in the House who were set to be sworn in Tuesday as the new Congress convened, 17 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.

Democrats also welcomed 30 freshmen to the House, where Republicans hold a majority of 241-194 after a net loss of six seats in the Nov. 8 election.

Although a new member, Bacon, 53, has some Capitol Hill experience as an adviser on military issues to Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. As an assistant professor at Bellevue University, a medium-sized college in Nebraska, he has taught courses on leadership and American vision and values.

Bacon says his desire to become active in civic life was instilled in him long before his military career.

“My story is I was raised on a farm in Illinois,” Bacon said. “[We grew] corn, soybeans, hay, and I was raised with a family that really liked talking about public policy and so I have always had a burning desire to be involved.”

‘Maybe This Is Why We’re Here’

Bacon says he saw serving his country in the military as a good place to start. “I joined the Air Force at 21 as a newlywed,” he said.

It was 1985 and he had gotten his political science degree from Northern Illinois University the year before.

Bacon went on to serve in 16 assignments in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and “coast to coast in the United States and a lot of places in the middle,” he said. His duties included electronic warfare, intelligence, and reconnaissance.

Above all, however, Bacon says, his favorite part of his Air Force service was the opportunity to command at military bases, including at Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue, Nebraska.

During four deployments to the Middle East, he helped establish the Israeli missile defense system. He commanded an electronic warfare squadron during the invasion of Iraq and returned to Baghdad for a yearlong tour during the surge of 2007-2008.

Bacon says he retired from the Air Force in 2014 because he wanted to start getting politically involved and campaign for “down-ballot folks” who he believed to be principled leaders for Nebraska.

He will represent Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Douglas and Sarpy counties in the eastern part of the state.

He decided to run for Congress after Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., lost re-election in 2014 to a Democrat state senator, Brad Ashford.

“Our congressman got defeated … by a 30-year local Democrat politician,” Bacon said. “He [Ashford] had 30 years of history in the state. My wife and I looked at each other and said, maybe this is why we’re here and maybe we can make a difference.”

Bacon and his wife, Angie, who works in Omaha as a real estate agent, have three sons and a daughter ranging in age from 20 to 32, plus three granddaughters.

‘We Built a Small Team’

Bacon said Ashford attempted to portray himself as a moderate, but the incumbent Democrat’s record proved otherwise.

Ashford, he said, “voted for Nancy Pelosi twice for speaker and voted with her about 80 percent of the time.”

Considered one of the most liberal Democrats in Congress, Pelosi, D-Calif., is the former House speaker and current Democratic leader.

“You will not have that with Don Bacon in Congress,” he said.

The road to Congress, however, was by no means easy and Bacon says things came together slowly.

One challenge was building his name recognition, which stood at 9 percent in January 2015, he says.

“We started out very slow,” Bacon said. “No one knew who I was, and so we had a couple of the local mayors who knew me from being the base commander. So we just built a small team.”

The hard work paid off, however. In the May 10 primary, Bacon defeated lawyer and former state legislator Chip Maxwell, a tea party favorite, by a 2-to-1 margin, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

In the end, Bacon beat Ashford by a margin of fewer than 5,600 votes Nov. 8, and the incumbent Democrat called the next morning to concede.

He is one of only three Republicans who defeated an incumbent House Democrat, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Bacon told The Daily Signal:

I think, on paper, it looked like an uphill climb. My opponent [Ashford] had much more money and much more name ID. I think we had a better story to tell.

Inspiring Young Volunteers

Bacon described his campaign as centered around four pillars: addressing harmful regulations by federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor, reforming the tax code, addressing the national debt of nearly $20 trillion, and strengthening the military.

Bacon said the Obama administration “underestimated ISIS,” the terrorist army that calls itself the Islamic State, and the Trump administration must unite with other countries to defeat ISIS.

“I hope we can be able to work with more of our traditional allies to go after ISIS. I think that’s the one thing we’ve got to do better,” Bacon said.

Bacon said his campaign’s success largely is due to the young people who volunteered:

I had 150 young volunteers on our team from three different universities and 10 different high schools and we knocked on 130,000 doors … and that is probably the reason I won. I am excited that a conservative can pull on a lot of young people.

The conviction of young people in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District did not go unnoticed.

Hal Daub, a former mayor of Omaha who represented the district from 1981-1989, served as Bacon’s finance chairman. The youth who got involved helped make the campaign a success, he said.

“A core group of about 60 showed up for everything and did a lot of the walking and stuffing and sticking and licking and calling, all the things that you do to make a campaign really work,” Daub told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

‘Not the Politicians’ House’

Daub said Bacon made such a significant impact because of his personality and interest in young people:

He cared about them and reached out to them, and it was fun to watch the chemistry between this marching army, this brigade, of young people really, really working hard to elect Don. And I think he relates so very well to young people.

Brett Lindstrom, a Republican state senator from Nebraska’s 18th District, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview that Bacon brought certain qualities to bear.

“Don brings that energy and Don is very young at heart and able to lead that charge, and I think he is the type of guy that people want to follow,” Lindstrom said.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said she looks forward to seeing what Bacon’s leadership in Congress will bring.

“I know Don will be a positive, strong leader for the 2nd District,” Fischer said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “He will fight to uphold Nebraska values, and his extensive military leadership experience has prepared him to address the many threats our nation faces both abroad and here at home.”

Bacon said his desire is to serve his constituents and build a record based on addressing their concerns.

“We have lots of career politicians in Washington right now, and I don’t think it serves us well,” Bacon said. “Congress is supposed to be the people’s house, not the politicians’ house.” (For more from the author of “A General Joins the House’s Conservative Ranks as New Congress Convenes” please click HERE)

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California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump

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The California Legislature is hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to represent the state in expected fights with the new Trump administration over environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

But based on Holder’s track record, don’t expect to see California racking up legal victories.

Although nobody is questioning the skills of the attorneys at Holder’s firm Covington & Burling, hiring Holder as, essentially, California’s outside counsel seems like an odd choice given that the Justice Department under Holder (and continued under Loretta Lynch) has one of the worst records of any modern presidency before the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, losing far more cases than either of the Justice Departments of the prior Bush or Clinton presidencies.

Holder is also the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt by Congress for withholding documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, the most reckless law enforcement operation ever conducted by the Justice Department. That operation has resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, as well as many Mexican citizens.

That also reflects poorly on Holder’s legal judgment.

Some may say that California is just preparing to do what other states like Texas have done in successfully suing the federal government during the Obama administration. But those cases are very different than what California is apparently planning to do.

The states have been suing to stop unconstitutional conduct by the executive branch when President Barack Obama failed in his duty to “faithfully execute” the law or acted unilaterally in ways that improperly changed the law.

The president does not have the authority to change, rewrite, or ignore federal laws he does not like. And federal agencies do not have the power to issue regulations outside the bounds of the statutes authorizing their conduct.

Stopping that type of misbehavior is the opposite of states attempting to obstruct enforcement of federal law or force the federal government to act outside its limited power.

For example, 26 states were successful in obtaining an injunction against Obama’s immigration amnesty plan because no president has the power to alter federal immigration law to provide amnesty and government benefits that have not been authorized by Congress or to decide that he will wholesale not enforce the law.

But California is going to try to prevent the new administration from enforcing federal immigration law despite the fact that the Constitution clearly gives Congress plenary authority over immigration and imposes a duty on the president (and thus the executive branch) to enforce the law.

Similarly, one of the reasons for California’s economic decline and severe budget shortfall problems is that it has been rated as the worst state in the country to do business in for the past 12 years in an annual survey of CEOs by the Chief Executive Network because of its high taxes and burdensome regulations.

As one CEO said in the survey, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and in fact, their policies are getting worse.”

Yet the state is hiring Holder to start a crusade against any efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the severe federal regulatory burden that adds to the negative effects on businesses and consumers that California already imposes.

Furthermore, the news that the California Legislature is hiring Holder came only a day after Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, to be California’s new state attorney general.

Neither Brown nor Kevin de Leon, the Democratic leader of the state Senate who was quoted in a New York Times article praising Holder’s retention, seemed to realize the complete lack of confidence retaining Holder shows in Becerra’s legal ability to carry out his role as attorney general—which is defending the state of California and its interests in environmental, immigration, and criminal justice issues.

This is particularly humiliating for Becerra given that he had told the Los Angeles Times that he intends to protect California’s “progressive” policies on immigration, Obamacare, energy, and criminal justice.

Becerra has already challenged the federal government, saying that “If you want to take on a forward-leaning state that is prepared to defend its rights and interests, then come at us.”

Looks like he is not going to get that chance, however, even if he is confirmed as the attorney general. Those cases will instead be handled by Holder and an entire team of lawyers at Holder’s private law firm, Covington & Burling, a premier Washington, D.C., law firm not exactly known for its low billing rates.

There is little doubt that California taxpayers, who are already living in a state with high taxes and huge budget problems, are going to get soaked for a lot of legal costs in addition to the price they already pay for the Office of the State Attorney General, which has 4,500 lawyers, investigators, police officers, and other staff.

Apparently, however, the California Legislature doubts their ability to fulfill their duties of defending the state’s interests.

All of this illustrates that the California Legislature has made a poor—but no doubt a very expensive—choice that will hurt the state.

But it is hardly surprising, I suppose, that the state would hire a former attorney general whose Justice Department did everything it could to defend the mountain of new, out-of-control regulations issued by the Obama administration in order to try to keep those economically costly regulations in place.

Nor is it shocking that an attorney general who did everything he could to avoid enforcing federal immigration law during the Obama administration will now try to help California obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law during the Trump administration.

Holder’s goals seem to have stayed the same; it’s just the playing field that has changed. (For more from the author of “California’s Embarrassing Hire of a Failed Attorney General to Take on Trump” please click HERE)

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The Left’s Selective Outrage Over Alleged Voter Fraud

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The year 2016 will be remembered for many headlines: Donald Trump’s insurgent campaign and surprise election, the shocking and crushing collapse of the Clinton dynasty, and—because politics isn’t everything—the nail-biting end of the Cubs’ 108-year World Series drought.

And then, there was the political left’s apoplectic post-election meltdown and the spectacular failure of Green Party candidate Jill Stein to proffer any evidence for her claims of mass hacking of ballot boxes in the crucial states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

In fact, to date, there remains no evidence that Russian or any other hackers infiltrated voting machines or affected the actual casting or counting of ballots anywhere in the United States.

This is not to say that Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee should not be taken seriously and be fully investigated in an independent and bipartisan manner. But airing the dirty laundry of one political party is a far cry from the left’s preferred narrative: that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump because Russia rigged the election.

The left’s sudden awakening to the possibility that elections can in fact be rigged is welcome. But their epiphany seems limited only to pie-in-the-sky fantasies that would deprive conservatives of their electoral gains.

To our friends on the left, old-fashioned voter fraud—the kind that involves tampering with absentee ballots and buying votes—remains impossible, and efforts to secure against it are merely smoke screens for voter disenfranchisement.

But they are sorely mistaken, and The Heritage Foundation’s “Does Your Vote Count?” project has the data to prove it. This week, we have added 18 new cases of proven election fraud to our voter fraud database. For those keeping track, that’s 742 documented criminal convictions for all manner of election fraud—and this is likely the veritable tip of the iceberg.

Most states lack the tools to detect or prevent voter fraud, and many prosecutors do not prioritize these cases. The sad reality is that most voter fraud goes undetected and unpunished.

Here are a few of the newest entrants to the database.

Kentucky

Wilbur Graves, a former judge-executive for Monroe County, was convicted along with Wanda Moore, Gary Bartley, and Ronald Muse of a vote-buying scheme during the 2006 Monroe County general election.

Moore and Muse both reached plea agreements with prosecutors and testified against Graves. Moore testified that Graves provided her with $20,000 to $30,000, which Moore used to buy votes for Graves. She paid about 140 voters $40 to $60 per vote.

Following his conviction, Graves was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison followed by two years’ supervised release, and was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. Moore was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to pay a $400 fine. The judge sentenced Bartley to six months’ probation on home confinement and ordered him to pay a $2,000 fine. Muse was sentenced to time served.

Ohio

During a 2012 campaign for the Voters First Ohio amendment, Working America—a group associated with the AFL-CIO—hired Timothy Zureick to collect petition signatures.

Zureick forged the names of 22 prominent Democrats, including members of the Athens County Board of Elections. The Democrats on the board alerted officials when their signatures appeared on the petitions they were certifying.

Zureick pled guilty and was sentenced to serve a week in jail and to pay all court costs, as well as perform 100 hours of community service.

Michigan

Brandon Hall was convicted of 10 counts of ballot petition fraud stemming from a 2012 election. Chris Houghtaling, who sought to become a candidate for the Ottawa County District Court, hired Hall to acquire the necessary signatures for his candidacy.

Houghtaling reportedly did not care whether the signatures were collected legally or illegally, and even assisted in Hall’s crime by providing him old 2010 petitions to copy.

Hall, realizing he did not collect enough signatures, used a phone book to complete the rest. Hall’s friend, Zachary Savage, assisted with the fraud, but prosecutors granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony.

Hall was sentenced to serve 30 days in jail, 18 months of probation, and was ordered to pay $3,105 in fines and legal fees and to perform 60 hours of community service.

They say the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one, and when it comes to voter fraud, it’s long past time for America’s elected leaders—both on the right and the left—to admit the ugly truth: Voter fraud exists, and we need sensible policies to detect and prevent it. Heritage has proposed several such policies, including voter identification laws and routine checks of voter rolls.

Elections are fundamental to American democracy, and fraud undermines the will of the people and casts doubt over the democratic process. Even one case of voter fraud is too many. (For more from the author of “The Left’s Selective Outrage Over Alleged Voter Fraud” please click HERE)

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The Obamacare Executive Orders Trump Could Issue on Day One

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President-elect Donald Trump may be following President Barack Obama’s lead come Jan. 20, using executive orders to roll back parts of the outgoing president’s signature health care law.

During a meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said the president-elect plans to kick off his administration by signing executive orders to begin dismantling Obamacare.

“We’re working now on a series of executive orders that will enable that orderly transition to take place even as Congress appropriately debates alternatives to and replacements for Obamacare,” Pence told reporters after the meeting.

Pence did not elaborate on which parts of the law the president-elect would dismantle using his executive authority, and Trump’s transition team did not return The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

But health care experts believe there are several steps the president-elect can take on his first day in the White House that would deliver a blow to the health care law even before Congress acts legislatively.

“This is the problem with expansion of executive branch powers is that it cuts both ways,” Seth Chandler, a visiting scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told The Daily Signal. “I think a lot of liberals gave Obama a pass when he did it, and they’re now potentially going to have to face the consequences of permitting the executive to greatly expand its powers.”

Individual Mandate

Experts believe Trump could first decide not to enforce the individual mandate, which requires people to have health insurance and fines those who do not.

The provision was designed to balance out the population of consumers who enrolled in coverage under Obamacare and ensure healthier enrollees offset the higher costs associated with a sicker enrollment population.

But if the president-elect decided not to enforce the individual mandate, it “could make a real difference to the vitality of the exchanges going forward,” Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, told Kaiser Health News.

The president-elect also could announce his intention to seek hardship exemptions for all enrollees, effectively exempting everyone from the individual mandate, Chandler said.

“Obama expanded the hardship exemption for all sorts of reasons,” he said. “He has paved the way to a larger set of exemptions.”

The individual mandate is also likely to be the target of congressional Republicans in a reconciliation bill repealing parts of Obamacare.

Cost-Sharing Reductions

The president-elect can move to end the cost-sharing reductions or drop an appeal the Obama administration filed in response to the House’s lawsuit on the cost-sharing reductions in 2014.

Cost-sharing reductions are discounts offered to eligible consumers who purchase silver-level plans. The federal government then reimburses insurers for the reductions.

Last year, a federal judge ruled in favor of House Republicans, but the Obama administration filed an appeal to a higher court.

Dropping the appeal would allow U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer’s ruling to stand, and the payments to insurers would end.

If the payments ended, insurers would still be offering discounts to customers, but would no longer receive subsidies from the federal government to help with the cost.

As a result, insurance companies would likely begin to leave Obamacare’s exchanges, Chandler said.

“[Rep.] Tom Price voted to authorize a lawsuit to stop those payments because Congress never authorized them,” Chandler said of Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary. “It becomes a little difficult for having said the payments are illegal to continue to keep taking them.”

Reinsurance Payments

In addition to the cost-sharing reductions, insurance companies received money from another program, the reinsurance program, under the Affordable Care Act.

Under the program, payments are made to insurers who enroll higher-risk populations.

But $5 billion was supposed to be returned to the Treasury before it was distributed to insurers. The Obama administration, however, has prioritized at least $3.5 billion to insurers over the Treasury.

Now, Republicans in Congress are pushing the Department of Health and Human Services to return the money paid to insurers under the reinsurance program to the Treasury.

Chandler said Trump could issue an executive order instructing the government to repay the Treasury.

Basic Health Program

Under the Affordable Care Act, states had the option to create a Basic Health Program, which was designed to offer public health insurance to low-income residents who did not qualify for Medicaid but were below 200 percent of the federal poverty line—$48,600 for a family of four in 2016.

Just two states implemented Basic Health Programs: New York and Minnesota.

Like the cost-sharing reductions, Trump could decide to no longer allocate money the states receive for Basic Health Programs, which would “throw the market in those two states in disarray,” Chandler said. (For more from the author of “The Obamacare Executive Orders Trump Could Issue on Day One” please click HERE)

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6 Alarming Findings in House Panel’s Planned Parenthood Probe

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Planned Parenthood affiliates profited by transferring parts of aborted babies to outside organizations in violation of the law, a special House panel has concluded after a yearlong investigation.

In a 418-page report released Wednesday, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives also found that other organizations involved in the transfer of fetal tissue broke federal or state law.

In one case, a national Planned Parenthood executive interviewed by staff investigators for the House panel said “it doesn’t bother me” that one vendor, StemExpress, paid Planned Parenthood $55 for an aborted baby’s intact brain and then sold it to a customer for more than $3,000.

“It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me,” the Planned Parenthood executive said, according to the panel’s report.

Republican members of the House panel recommend that authorities pursue charges against Planned Parenthood affiliates, which receive taxpayer money, and other entities for violating the law and related regulations.

“It is my hope that our recommendations will result in some necessary changes within both the abortion and fetal tissue procurement industries,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a press release. “Our hope is that these changes will both protect women and their unborn children, as well as the integrity of scientific research.”

But the panel’s ranking member, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., denounced the report Tuesday as “illegitimate.” She said the panel’s eight Republican members drafted the report in secret without input from the panel’s six Democrats, who issued their own report last month.

“They have repeatedly made false claims,” Schakowsky said of Blackburn and Republicans, “including a series of ‘criminal referrals’ to federal, state, and local law enforcement officials based on unsourced, unverified documents and information.”

Specifically, the panel’s eight Republicans recommended a criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast based on evidence it violated Texas and U.S. law in fetal tissue transactions.

They also made nine criminal and regulatory referrals in the cases of abortion providers and tissue procurement companies in Arkansas, California, and Ohio.

Finally, they recommended that Congress take steps to improve practices in biomedical research, such as by establishing ethical guidelines for using tissue from aborted babies.

Well before the House panel concluded its investigation of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, conservative groups had been calling for Congress to end use of federal taxpayers’ money to fund the organization.

With a new Republican administration beginning when Donald Trump is inaugurated as president Jan. 20, pro-life activists now see that as more than a possibility.

The GOP-led investigation began after the pro-life Center for Medical Progress published a series of undercover videos exploring the market for fetal tissue from aborted babies. The videos featured employees of StemExpress and Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of fetal tissue, sparking allegations that both organizations were profiting from such transactions.

StemExpress is a for-profit tissue procurement company based in Folsom, California.

Both the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and StemExpress denied illegal activity, although Planned Parenthood said it has stopped taking reimbursements for the cost of donating fetal tissue to companies such as StemExpress.

The new report details evidence that suggests Planned Parenthood and other entities crossed legal and ethical lines while in the fetal tissue market.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the report.

Below, The Daily Signal compiles six of the strongest findings, some featuring interviews between Planned Parenthood officials and the House panel’s top investigators:

1. Several Planned Parenthood affiliates made a profit from the transfer of aborted body parts and other fetal tissue, in violation of federal law prohibiting that.

The report says:

Accounting documents from middleman tissue organizations showed that several PPFA [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] affiliates made a profit from the transfer of fetal tissue.

The middleman investigation, and in particular the investigation of StemExpress, produced information about several PPFA affiliate clinics. In particular, it became clear that StemExpress was doing all the work to obtain consent for donation from individual patients, that StemExpress was doing the work of harvesting the fetal tissue after an abortion was complete, and that StemExpress was doing the work and passing on its costs of shipping to customers.

This raised a profound issue for the [House select] panel: Both the middleman and the PPFA affiliate clinic were claiming the same expenses against their revenue to show a loss on fetal tissue sales.

2. It didn’t “bother” a Planned Parenthood executive that one vendor, StemExpress, appeared to make a 2,800 percent profit on a baby’s brain harvested from a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Investigators questioned a Los Angeles abortion provider who also is a national Planned Parenthood executive, identified as PP Witness No. 1. These questions are about StemExpress making a profit in its contractual collaboration with Planned Parenthood affiliates after StemExpress sold aborted body parts and organs to customers.

The report says:

The questions were focused on the markup of an intact fetal brain from $55 paid to the Planned Parenthood affiliate versus the $3,340 charged to the customer:

Q: Now, here’s the scenario, and we’ll be done. Tissue tech learns who’s available for contributing. She goes and gets the consent. She gets paid a bonus. The Planned Parenthood clinic, I believe, gets $55, but it’s in the range of [$]30 to [$]100, and StemExpress resells that brain for over $3,000.

And you’ll notice—you may notice on there [the invoice] that the shipping and maybe some other things are paid for by the customer.

Now, does that bother you?

A: No.

Q: Well, if they—if it was a profit would it bother you?

A: It’s really none of my business, no.

Q: Is that a concern to you? … And here’s a more granular example. It looks like StemExpress, who for several years only did abortion clinics, now they do lots of stuff, lots of other stuff. But for several years of their life they only got tissue from [Planned Parenthood] Mar Monte, Shasta Pacific, and resold it at prices like this.

And I just want to know what’s sort of the global management perspective of a Planned Parenthood senior leader like you if that’s a 2,800 percent profit.

Would that bother you?

A: So just so that I’m clear on the question[;] you’re asking me if it bothers me that StemExpress makes money reselling the tissue?

Q: Yeah.

A: It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me.

3. Planned Parenthood abortion doctors would huddle with a tissue procurement technician from Novogenix to learn what aborted body parts that outside person was searching for that day.

Investigators questioned a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood abortion provider (PP Witness No. 1) who also works for the Medical Directors’ Council. She answered questions about meetings she had with Novogenix, a tissue procurement company, prior to performing abortions to determine the type of tissue that its technicians wanted that day.

The report says:

Q: Now, do you think that doctors in your position should huddle in the morning? You say, ‘I like to do that.’ It’s sort of an ongoing tense. Do you think the doctors should huddle with a tissue tech to see what they’re procuring, [what] is on their list that day?

A: I don’t really have a feeling as to whether other doctors did. I like to be helpful.

Q: And so you found it helpful that at least on this one day to huddle with the tissue tech and learn what [the Novogenix employee] was searching for, what orders she had; is that right?

A: I would ask her what tissue she was looking for, yes.

Q: All right. Do you think that’s a good idea for the whole fetal tissue donation program, that doctors and the tissue techs huddle each morning to discuss what they’re going to try and procure that day?

A: I think it could be helpful.

4. Planned Parenthood doctors appear to have altered their techniques to increase the chances of success in harvesting tissue from abortions that day.

Investigators questioned the same Planned Parenthood abortion provider in Los Angeles about whether she changed procedures to increase the likelihood of a successful procurement of specific tissue.

From the report:

Q: ‘There are little things they can make in their technique to increase your success.’ What are those little things?

A: Again, as I mentioned, a change in instruments, a change in where they’re grasping the tissue. These are changes in technique that a provider can make for a variety of reasons. I—

Q: But it could be made to increase the success of fetal tissue donation.

A: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

Q: OK. Now, so those little techniques that you just described, if there was no fetal tissue donation to increase the likelihood of success, they wouldn’t—they wouldn’t make those little changes, would they?

A: Well, providers make changes in technique for a variety of reasons.

Q: Now, the question is: If there was no fetal tissue donation, those little things, changes that would be made to increase their likelihood of success, those wouldn’t be made, would they?

A: Well, I can’t say across the board they wouldn’t be made because there’s probably other reasons that a provider during a procedure—

Q: They wouldn’t be made for the purpose of getting fetal tissue, would they?

A: No, they wouldn’t.

Q: So they would be made for other reasons.

A: Yes.

Q: So one set of little changes is chosen for other medical reasons, and one set of little changes could be chosen to increase the likelihood of success.

A: Yes.

5. Planned Parenthood’s consent form is “inadequate compared to other entities’ consent forms.”

Investigators concluded that Planned Parenthood’s one-page consent form contains “widely inaccurate claims about past results from fetal tissue research.” They also said the consent form “fails to provide basic information about the purpose for which the [tissue] donation is being sought and the precise nature of the ‘pregnancy tissue’ being donated.”

According to the report:

Numerous witnesses, including senior [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] officials, testified that the consent form is misleading and unethical due to its contention that fetal tissue has been used to find a cure for diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.

The Los Angeles Planned Parenthood abortion provider, who is also in charge of the national organization’s Manual of Medical Standard and Guidelines, said:

If I’m evaluating the form now, you are correct. To my knowledge there is no cure for AIDS. So that is probably an inaccurate statement. … a consent form should not have an incorrect statement.

The report says another witness, a manager of research projects at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast identified as PP Witness No. 2, testified: “I would agree that that is insufficient for obtaining informed consent, correct.”

6. Planned Parenthood affiliate clinics “routinely” violated privacy regulations imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, seeking to ease the process of harvesting body parts and other fetal tissue.

From the House panel’s report:

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy rule (Privacy Rule) protects all individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate and calls this information protected health information (PHI). PHI identifies an individual, or can reasonably be believed to be useful in identifying an individual, and includes demographic data relating to an individual’s health condition, provision of health care, or payment for the provision of health care to the individual.

The panel’s investigation indicates that StemExpress and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific (PPSP), and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group (FPS) committed systematic violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule from about 2010 to 2015.

These violations occurred when the abortion clinics disclosed patients’ individually identifiable health information to StemExpress to facilitate the [tissue procurement business’] efforts to procure human fetal tissue for resale.

(For more from the author of “6 Alarming Findings in House Panel’s Planned Parenthood Probe” please click HERE)

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State of Alaska Uses Radical LGBTQ Group to Train Teachers to Encourage Kids to Choose Different Sex, Hide Information From Parents

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The State of Alaska sponsored a workshop, open to all state educators, instructing them how to assist students — elementary age and older — who wish to transition away from their biological sex and identify otherwise.

In an address to nearly 40 teachers, school nurses and other educators, a representative from Identity Inc., a gay, lesbian and transgender activist group, called on educators to alter the culture, language and policies of Alaska’s schools, while keeping sensitive information about children away from parents who may take issue with the school enabling their child’s gender experimentation.

“Are male and female the only option at birth?” asked Identity Inc. spokesman Billy Farrell. “We want to break out of the mindset of thinking of biological sex as two rigid boxes that you have to fit in, but more along a spectrum.”

Farrell was one of several presenters at the three-day Alaska School Health & Wellness Institute, sponsored by the state’s Department of Education and Early Development and Department of Health and Social Services. The Oct. 24-26 institute, which took place at the BP Energy Center in Anchorage, dealt with other issues such as sex education, nutrition, health, substance abuse and internet crimes.

SEPARATING GENDER FROM BIOLOGICAL SEX

Farrell’s talk was titled, “LGBTQ Cultural Competency Training.” The presentation encouraged Alaska’s educators to abandon the idea that people are made male and female and to embrace the deeply controversial notion that students as young as kindergarten can choose their own gender, and should be encouraged to do so.

Ferrell began by claiming that gender and sex “are not the same thing.”

“Gender is how we understand our own experience,” he said. “And again we want to break out of our rigid boxes and look at this on a spectrum.”

In some cases, that might mean a student doesn’t identify with being either male or female, a situation Farrell called “gender queer.” Gender, he added, should be understood as fluid and changeable even from day to day.

In some cases, he explained a person born male may wish to live their life as a female, changing their name, legal identification and even undergoing hormonal and surgical procedures. Others, he said, never make a full transition to either male or female.

Educators may find this challenging, but Farrell encouraged them to avoid automatically identifying students as either fully male or female.

“Just try to drop assumptions,” he said.

‘PREFERRED PRONOUNS’ & PARENTAL OPPOSITION

Gender expression, Farrell explained, refers to the way a person “expresses” their identity to society, and this can be “incredibly fluid” depending on the person. As an example, Farrell highlighted a “young man” he works with who attends Bartlett High School in Anchorage.

“He strongly identifies as a man but how he expresses his gender differs, day to day, week to week, experience to experience,” Farrell said, noting that sometimes the student wears makeup and jewelry to school, other times he appears more masculine.

In cases where educators are unsure about whether a person identifies as male, female or otherwise, they should ask students what their “preferred pronoun” is, Farrell said. “Options are he, him, his — she, her, hers — or something that is gender neutral: They, them, theirs.”

One educator attending the presentation from an alternative school in Juneau said teachers there already receive “a lot of training” on using pronouns when addressing kids.

Farrell praised this, but warned educators to make sure they ask students where they can use their “preferred pronouns,” so as not to inform parents or legal guardians of the child’s situation.

“We just want to make sure that we are not, um, potentially outing someone unintentionally,” he said.

Likewise, Farrell, advised educators to be careful about what they include in the students official records.

“If you are working with a young person who is not out to their family or legal guardians, you don’t necessarily want to include something in their legal file that a parent could access,” he said.

PUBERTY BLOCKERS FOR TRANSGENDER KIDS

Regarding transgender students, those who wish to be seen and treated as members of the opposite sex, Farrell claimed this happens at a very young age.

One teacher present said she works in a K-2nd grade school and deals with kindergarteners who wish to use bathrooms that do not conform to their biological sex.

“Some kids who are trans from a very early age will assert the fact that they are trans,” Farrell said. Examples of this are seen when children claim to be the opposite sex or wearing certain clothes and prefer colors which are not associated with their sex, he said.

Farrell admitted that it is best to wait on assisting very young children in transitioning, but said it is sometimes the correct course of action.

However, as children approach ages 11 or 12, “puberty blockers” are a “really good option for a young trans person” to delay the onset of puberty and give them time to talk about what they want to do, Farrell said.

HORMONE THERAPY ON 15-YEAR-OLDS

Puberty, Farrell said, is often a crisis moment for kids who wish to be identified as the opposite sex but then experience hormonal and physical changes that naturally come with puberty.

Farrell called on teachers to connect students with health professionals who will support them in their sexual identity experimentation. He also referred educators to his group, Identity, which encourages trans youth to explore their sexual identity.

“Support groups are often a really good place for people to try on the gender for the first time,” Farrell claimed. They can experiment with pronouns, names, how they dress, act and talk, he said.

For youth who wish to go all the way with hormonal and surgical procedures, Farrell walked educators through that process as well.

He noted that these steps can be challenging, especially in terms of cost since most insurance companies don’t cover sex change operations. For others, the medical technology does not exist for them to “get to where they want to be,” he said.

Nevertheless, Farrell said some young people desire to take these steps.

Farrell recommended that serious talk about hormone therapy begin around age 15. He lamented that he doesn’t know of any doctors who will do hormone therapy on children younger than that, which creates a “barrier” as Farrell sees it. Another potential problem is Alaskan parents.

“All of this care, under 18 in the state of Alaska, you need parental consent for, which is also a huge barrier for a lot of our young trans teens,” he said.

RE-WORKING SCHOOLS’ APPROACH TO GENDER

Farrell appealed to educators to change Alaska’s public schools regarding how they approach sexual identity and expression.

He praised the Anchorage School District, which already has policies catering to students who identify as gay, lesbian or transsexual. Across most of Alaska, however, such policies don’t exist, a situation Farrell called on his audience to change.

A good place to start, he said, is with bathroom policies that allow students to use whichever restrooms they identify with.

One participant asked Farrell about a girl who attends Dimond High School in Anchorage and wants to use the male locker rooms.

Based on Anchorage law and the Anchorage School District Policy Farrell said the student is already “legally entitled to go use that men’s locker room and be on any sports team. If they are actually being denied from that, Dimond High School is breaking the law,” he said.

He further urged educators to push for policies that will allow students to participate in team sports based on the gender they identify with. In terms of housing on overnight sports trips or other school functions, Farrell said districts should create policies that allow students to board and sleep with whichever gender they identify.

CATHOLIC RESPONSE TO GENDER THEORIES

The push for gender ideology is not unique to Alaska. Last summer the Obama administration issued a letter to all public schools saying they should allow members of one biological sex to use the showers, locker rooms and restrooms – and stay in the same hotel rooms during field trips – as members of the opposite sex or risk losing federal funding.

As these policies infiltrate schools, advocates of the long held understanding of human sexuality are speaking up.

The Cardinal Newman Society, for example, is a leading nonprofit group that promotes and defends faithful Catholic education. With schools around the country facing political pressure to embrace gender ideology, the Newman Society released a resource this past spring to help schools maintain their core identity and mission.

The Newman Society notes that the American College of Pediatricians recently warned against encouraging students to embrace a gender identity that contradicts their biological sex.

“Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to ‘gender clinics’ where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs,” the Newman Society stated. “This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will ‘choose’ a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.”

Pope Francis has warned against gender ideology and the separation of sex from gender as harmful to individuals and society.

In his exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia,” he said youth “need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created.” He explained that young people should be helped to “accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension ‘to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it.’” (For more from the author of “State of Alaska Uses Radical LGBTQ Group to Train Teachers to Encourage Kids to Choose Different Sex, Hide Information From Parents” please click HERE)

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