Why? Why? Why?

 President Trump signed an executive order protecting children from medical interventions that attempt to "transition" a child from one sex to the other shortly after taking office.

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-children-from-chemical-and-surgical-mutilation/

Section 1.  Policy and Purpose.  Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.  This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.

Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.  Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.

Predictably, transgender activists have initiated protests at hospitals that perform these procedures and the order has been challenged in federal court.

Actress Cynthia Nixon, who use to star in the tv series "Sex and the City", was one the headline speakers at a protest in New York City.

It seems that almost everyone she knows is trans or gay.

Yes, what are the odds?

Link: https://x.com/scarlett4kids/status/1886657000903180518

'Most importantly, I am here today as the mother of a proud trans man,' Nixon said as the packed crowd in St. Vartan park roared.

'I am here today as the aunt of a proud trans man,' she continued. 'My best friend's kid is trans and my kid's best friend is trans.'

'My wife and I - our lives are filled with the most amazing, beautiful, brave trans people - young and old, but especially young.'

 

This is Nixon and her "proud trans man" taken at "his" college graduation six years ago.

I have followed the transgender issue for a number of years and written about it in these pages before.

For the entirety of human history until the last 15 years or so it was accepted by almost everyone that there were only two genders. It was generally accepted that those who believed that they were transgender suffered from a mental defect not a biological one.

However, over the last 15 years much has changed. Science has been ignored because of politics. A number of gender clinics have opened across the country catering solely to children with transgender issues. Are we to believe that this has all resulted from genetic errors? Are we to believe all of these transgender issues just suddenly materialized out of thin air over the last decade?

This issue is not confined to the United States. Consider this data from the National Health Service in the UK.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14319709/British-children-suffer-gender-distress-study-reveals-trans-ideology.html

British children are 50 times more likely to suffer from 'gender distress' than ten years ago, a new NHS study has revealed.  

Analysis of NHS GP records showed that in 2011 just 200 people under the age of 18 identified as transgender or struggled with gender dysphoria, this is compared with more than 10,000 in 2021.

This is a massive jump from around from 1 in 60,000 under 18s in 2011 to 1 in 1200 in 2021. 

In 1979, Dr. Paul McHugh, the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins put a stop to all gender reassignment surgeries at that hospital based on his findings that almost all transgender issues involved mental illness. Many elite medical centers followed suit.

McHugh still believed transgenderism was a mental disorder 40 years later even though he was attacked regularly by the LGBT community. His own hospital reversed course due to the political environment and has been doing gender reassignment surgeries.

At age 93, I see no evidence that Dr. McHugh has changed his views today.

The science has not changed. However, the politics has.

We see it in the statistics that Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation cites in this commentary from 2018 titled "The Sex-Change Revolution Is Based On Ideology, Not Science".

80% to 95% of children with gender dysphoria will come to embrace and affirm their bodily sex.

41% who identify as transgender will attempt suicide at some point in their lives.

People who have sex transition surgery are 19 times more likely than average to die from suicide.

If you doubt that politics took over the science on this issue consider the following questions.

Would it be proper to encourage someone with anorexia to be on a low-calorie diet or to have their stomach stapled?

Would we allow someone with xenomelia (the feeling that one or more limbs do not belong) to be encouraged to have an amputation?

Of course not.

The biology of the body is immutable. The human mind can be altered and change. The human mind is also very powerful. It can make us believe many things that are not true. 

We don't allow a person to amputate their own arm or leg merely because in their mind they do not believe the reality of their own biology.

The same is true of those who suffer with anorexia. These individuals starve themselves as they believe in their mind that they are overweight. We don't ignore the biology, agree with them and take their nourishment away to cater to their delusion. 

In each case, we treat their mental illness with concern and compassion for their long-term wellbeing.

We do not affirm their delusion and let them do long-term harm to themselves. We certainly should  not allow that if they are minor children with a brain that is not fully developed with a lifetime ahead of them.

Trump's order does not in any way effect what a consenting adult over the age of 18 wants to do to their body.

It is limited to those 18 and under who have their entire life ahead of them and may not fully understand the irreversible effects that gender reassignment procedures will have on their future lives.

It escapes me as to why anyone believes that such life altering treatments for minors can be a good idea. If a fully consenting 25 or 35 year old wants to do it, an argument can be made that is their choice. However, it seems to me to be the height of malpractice to do this to a minor in which neurological science shows that those under age 19 do not have anything close to a fully developed brain.

Why is any of this controversial?

Why do transgender activists see it as so important to be doing gender reassignment to children?

Why can't these irreversible procedures be delayed a few years to insure that it really conforms to who they are?

Why is this just not plain old common sense?

Why is it that those who believe this are the ones who are called crazy, cruel and callous?

Lost In Space

The breadth and pace of the Trump agenda since he took office is something to behold.

It is unlike anything I have witnessed in my lifetime.

Trump is involved in so many issues and is involved at such high levels of change it is hard to keep up.

I had to chuckle when I saw Elon Musk's comment on a list of actions/accomplishments that Trump has been working on in his two short weeks in office.

What is more astounding is the popular support the Trump agenda is seeing in public polling.

Yes, Trump won the popular vote.

However, he did not win by these margins.

The Trump effect is also benefiting the Republican party at large.

Approval ratings of political parties are rarely positive. Most people do not look at them kindly.

A recent Quinnipiac poll was absolutely brutal for the Democrat party compared to the Republicans.

Republican Party: 43% favorable, 45% unfavorable (-2)

Democratic Party: 31% favorable, 57% unfavorable (-26)

Credit: https://x.com/AaronBlake/status/1884679073953178046

A recent McLaughlin poll that asked how people were inclined to vote in the 2026 mid-term elections was just as bad for Democrats.

Republicans are +8 in that polling.

Trump has revived the Republican brand in a big way.

Most importantly, he has converted his political victory into momentum for his policy agenda

The popular approval that Trump is receiving for his policy agenda seems to also be giving him additional support in the Senate for his cabinet nominations.

At one time it was believed that Trump would have a difficult time getting some of his more controversial nominees confirmed.

He already has gotten Pete Hegseth confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Pam Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General last night. 

Trump's other cabinet nominees who were considered to possibly have trouble being confirmed all now have betting odds favoring their confirmation at 96% or higher.

Tulsi Gabbard advanced through the Intelligence Committee and RFK. Jr. got a majority vote from the Finance Committee yesterday.

Source: https://polymarket.com/event/which-trump-picks-will-be-confirmed?tid=1738717193996

Any Republican who wants to cross Trump right now may be cutting their political career short.

In addition, do not discount the effect that the findings of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency "DOGE") is having on all of this. 

The waste and corruption that seems to have been going on at USAID is especially damaging to the Democrats who promoted this agency so strongly over the years. However, it also says a lot about the Republicans who stood by and let it happen. 

At the same time, Democrats seem to not know what to do or how to respond to the Trump agenda.

Right now they have no coherent message that is resonating with the majority of voters.

Some might say they seem to be "Lost in the Wilderness".

Considering the involvement of Elon Musk in the Trump agenda it is probably more on point to say they are "Lost in Space".

"Lost in Space" was a 1960's tv series about the Robinsons who were a pioneering family of space colonists who were struggling to survive in the depths of space. 

Their space colony mission had been sabotaged by Dr. Zachary Smith, a flight surgeon for the U.S. space agency, who was also working as an undercover agent for an unnamed hostile nation. 

Dr, Smith ended up being trapped on the spacecraft before it launched joining the Robinsons and one U.S. Space Corps major who accompanied the family on the space odyssey for three seasons on the CBS television network.

I cannot help thinking about how the "Lost in Space" tv series is in some respects a metaphor for the predicament the Democrat party finds itself in right now.

The Democrats are lost and don't seem to know where they are going or how they are going to get there.

In many respects, Joe Biden, with the assistance of many, many Democrats over the last decade or so, sabotaged their mission completely.

How did a party that for so many years represented the working man, who fought against special interests and privilege, and shared the traditional values of most Americans, get so far off track?

Why did Democrats think that a winning agenda could be built around open borders, ignoring our vast energy resources, supporting every WOKE idea you could imagine, blaming America for every ill in the world and arguing that American was never great to begin with?

Last week the Democrat National Committee met to elect new leadership.

However, the election was stopped after the first four positions were filled (two males and two females) to state that the DNC rules required that there had to be a non-binary person on the leadership team to meet the rules of gender balance.

Does that not speak volumes itself?

Link: https://x.com/justin_hart/status/1885854554182357121

It should be added that the DNC Chairman vote began with an introduction that contained an acknowledgement that the United States was built on indigenous stolen lands that had been stewarded for many centuries by tribal nations.

This acknowledgment was stated as part of the core values of the DNC.

Link: https://x.com/AlanJacobyJr/status/1885866414042497127

Was there any acknowledgment at the DNC meeting that the 2024 election losses might have been due to fact that they were wrong about any issues of importance to Americans?

Could it have been the election was lost due to the open border, inflation, crime, the coverup of Biden's condition or the demand that biological men should be able to play women's sports?

That does not seem to have crossed any minds at the DNC.

Why Democrats believe they lost?

It was solely due to racism and misogyny.

Link: https://x.com/CollinsforTX/status/1885482752234885399

What does new DNC Chairman Ken Martin believe is the more important thing to focus on in the wake of their losses?

There is nothing wrong with the policies of the Democrat party.

He wants a post-election review to largely focus on "tactics and messaging".

From The New York Times.

Credit: https://x.com/SonofHas/status/1886465446163185685

The thing I remember most about the "Lost in Space" tv series is when the precocious 9 or 10 year Will Robinson would be exploring a new planet accompanied by the family's helpful robot.

Invariably Will would wander somewhere or do something he should not be doing and the robot would kick into action with this warning...

"DANGER! Will Robinson. DANGER!

Is there anyone in the Democrat party who is willing to speak up about the danger they face?

It is hard to not see that if they continue on the same trajectory without a course correction they may be "Lost in Space" forever.

This and That---February 3, 2025 Edition

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

O Canada!!!

Canada looks to be facing some tough decisions about its future.

The United States has just implemented a 25% tariff on most goods coming from Canada.

President Trump has stated that this tariff will be in place until Canada tightens border security into the United States concerning illegal aliens and illicit drugs (primarily fentanyl) coming into the United States.

This has the potential to be disastrous for the Canadian economy.

22% of Canada's GDP comes from exports to the United States.

U.S. exports to Canada represent only 1.5% of its GDP.

Those numbers do not provide Canada much leverage in implementing retaliatory tariffs in response.

Keep an eye on the CDN-US dollar exchange rate. The only way out for Canada may be to devalue their currency. It is already down over 8% in the last year.

Source: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=1Y

The tariff issue is just the beginning of Canada's problems.

Under Justin Trudeau's open border policy, almost one-third of the population of Canada is now foreign born. This is more than double what the U.S. share of foreign born is now (15.6%) which is still the highest in the history of the United States.

Source: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1885487809600913529/photo/1

If the children of two foreign born parents are added to the total (Canada also has birthright citizenship),  HALF of the Canadian population has strong foreign roots and little attachment to the country.

Even worse, the immigration that has occurred recently in Canada has been predominantly male.

Males now outnumber females in the age 20-29 age demographic by 10%.

Source: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1883763800157139133

Does common sense suggest that this is good for Canadian society in the long-term?

Does it also not make sense as to why Trump is as concerned about the Canadian border as he is the Mexican border when you see what has happened in Canada the last few years?

How many are looking at Canada as a way station into the United States?

Canada has the opportunity to make some changes in its direction this year. 

The Liberal Party first needs to replace Justin Trudeau as its leader now that he has announced his resignation. A new party leader is expected to be elected by the end of March.

That new party leader will then presumably represent the Liberal Party in the national election that is scheduled for October, 2025.

As of right now the Conservatives have an overwhelming lead in the popular vote polling.

Credit: https://x.com/surveilz/status/1886029780820038021

This would translate to an overwhelming number of Parliamentary seats for the CPC.

Credit: https://x.com/surveilz/status/1886029780820038021

It promises to be a very interesting year in Canada.

A Coming Population Surge in Central and South America?

When you look at the following graph you have to ask if the Democrats had been able to continue their open borders policy whether anyone would have been left in Central and South America in another four years.

An incredible 6.5% of the entire population of Nicaragua came to the U.S. in the last four years.

It was 6.1% for Cuba and 5.9% for Honduras.

Haitian immigrants received a lot of attention during the 2024 election but only 4% of that nation's population made it to the U.S. during the Biden years.

Source: https://x.com/fentasyl/status/1885512801084420511

I am sure that most of these people believed that they were getting a one way trip to the United States.

Donald Trump seems determined to make sure it is a round trip.

The most recent poll on this issue conducted by the Democracy Institute after deportations began shows that Americans support mass deportations by a 62%-35% margin.

Source: https://www.the-express.com/news/politics/162039/donald-trump-immigration-plans-poll-democracy-institute

That is about as strong a consensus we have seen in this country on any controversial issue in a long time.

Those Central and South American countries may be seeing a surge in population the next four years.

Why Are Women Not Paying Their Student Loan Debt?

Men are paying back their student loan debt but women are not.

Why is this?

It is an interesting question.

Is it because many more young women are Democrats than young men and they believed it when they were told that Joe Biden or AOC was going to cancel their debt?

Is it because women are more likely to major in college studies that tend to lead to lower paid jobs? Many more gender studies, communications, psychology and other fluffy majors that are a dime a dozen leading to lower pay jobs. Men are more likely to major in STEM courses that are in higher demand with higher pay.

Is it because more women take out loans for cosmetology, medical assistant and other associate degrees from for-profit schools that often turn out be bad education investments?

Whatever it is, this is not a good look.

Most Popular Attractions in the United States

This is an interesting graphic showing the most popular attraction in every state.

Credit: https://x.com/fasc1nate/status/1885765079624192259

What I found most interesting is that according to this the most popular attraction in the United States is the Mall of America in Minnesota with 40,000,000 annual visitors.

That is more than...

Times Square in New York   37,600,000

Las Vegas Strip in Nevada   30,000,000

National Mall and Memorial Park in D.C.  25,000,000

Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Massachusetts  20,000,000

Disney World in Florida   17,063,000

Disneyland in California   14,721,000

Who knew?

Is It Really That Rainy in London?

London, England has a reputation as being gray and wet a lot of the time.

It is undeserved.

The entire eastern half of the United States gets more annual rainfall than London does.

Source: https://x.com/_fat_ugly_rat_/status/1885144704192246125

In the United States, Seattle is viewed similarly to London.

However, both Dallas and Tulsa get more rain in an average than Seattle does.

Source: https://x.com/_fat_ugly_rat_/status/1885144704192246125

Again, who knew?

Now you do.

How About A Tariff On Talent?

There is no issue in the United States that is in greater need for resolution and reform than our immigration policy.

U.S immigration policy has been broken for decades.

Combine that with the nonexistent enforcement of the laws that we have and it adds up to the disaster at the border we have seen over the last four years.

This has resulted in an enormous shift in popular opinion on the immigration issue that is evident in looking at recent polling.

First, look at the shift in who voters trust more on the immigration issue between April, 2017 (early in Trump's first term) and January, 2025 in a recent CNN poll.

Democrats were +11 in 2017.

The GOP is now +23 on the immigration issue amounting to a staggering 33 point shift in popular opinion.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

Moreover, look at the polling between December, 2024 (under Biden) and just one month later (under Trump) on whether the nation is on the right or wrong track on immigration.

Under Biden, only 14% of voters thought we were on the right track with immigration. 

That view has increased by 23 points in one month under Trump.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

It all adds up that Trump' has a 46%-39% approval rating advantage on what he is doing on immigration (deportations and all) at the present time.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

All of this tells me that the political environment to overhaul U.S. immigration policy is more favorable today than it has been in over 30 years.

More importantly, President Trump has the political capital and influence to finally get it done.

However, what could President Trump do to make our immigration policy more equitable and less likely to be the product of more bureaucracy and red tape while also generating revenues for the federal government?

Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, has suggested that the federal government use a market-based auction system to determine who gets a green card, H-1B or guest worker visa.

The federal government would set annual quotas for all visa categories and there would be monthly auctions for employer or citizen sponsors to bid for the right to sponsor an immigrant to come into the country.

As such, it would act as a 'tariff on talent" in much the same way that Trump's favored tariffs operate on importing goods and services into the country.

Since the United States is allowing the immigrant talent to enter the country why should the country at large not be compensated in some way?

The pure form of McNealy's idea is that the visa market auction would be used for all visa categories. However, my view is that green cards for immediate family members should continue as they are today. I would focus the market auction most particularly on all employment, investor or guest worker visa programs.

Quota limits would be set based on an analysis of domestic labor supply and demand in job sectors and the allowed visas would be purchased in a market auction to the highest bidder.

If Google needs to hire IT talent they would need to bid for the visa spot against other employer sponsors.

The greater the need the higher the bid should be.

If a MLS team wants to bring in a Brazilian soccer player for their team they would have to bid for the spot.

The "talent tariff" auction could also be used for the "Red Card" guest worker proposal. that I have outlined in these pages before.

If a meat packer in Iowa or a strawberry farm in California needs labor they would have to get the visa for their sponsored worker in the talent tariff auction.

Beyond paying the talent tariff, the employer sponsor would also have to be a guarantor of the conduct of the immigrant in the United States. Should the sponsored immigrant commit a crime or cause damage or harm to someone, the employer sponsor would be responsible for paying restitution.

This common sense idea would help insure a more level playing field and also limit the potential for abuse. Most importantly, it would help protect American worker opportunities and wages so as to not be undercut by immigrant labor.

Trump believes strongly in tariffs on foreign made goods. One of the reasons for that is to level the playing field for US manufacturers. 

Countries with lower labor costs, fewer environmental regulations, lower social costs and taxes should not be able to undersell U.S. manufacturers indiscriminately.

Trump wants to incentivize the purchase of U.S. sourced goods through the tariff system while also raising necessary government revenue.

The same can be said for U.S. workers.  A talent tariff would incentivize the hiring of U.S. workers but still provide employers the ability to source foreign talent if there is a true economic justification based on market principles.

If an employer believes that they cannot find the talent they need in the United States they should be willing to pay a tariff for the talent.

This helps insure that the employer is not merely going overseas for the talent to take advantage of lower wages which then, in turn, depresses opportunity and wages for American workers.

In effect, it is a market-based approach to limit abuse in the system that seems to be occurring with the H-1B program today and creates a more even playing field with labor.

However, this approach carries with it a substantial additional benefit in that it would raise badly needed federal government revenues and take pressure off of reliance on the income tax. This would seem to be especially attractive to President Trump who has stated his longer-term goal is to actually replace the income tax completely with a tariff-based approach.

The bottom line is that Trump and the Republicans have never been in a better position to enact sensible immigration reform.

The Democrats have never been put in a weaker negotiating position.

What is still needed are some transformative ideas to modernize and make our immigration laws more in tune with market realities.

Donald Trump has single handedly given the Republicans a lot of leverage on immigration reform.

Of course, Joe Biden has to be given an assist for his abysmal performance on the issue.

Could a tariff on talent be the missing link to pull all of it together?

I like the idea.

Donald Trump should like it even more.

Wayback Wednesday---January 29, 2025

I have been writing BeeLine for almost 15 years.

I have covered a lot of territory in that time.

Times have changed but some topics are timeless.

What was I writing about 10 years ago?

I have a lot more readers and subscribers today than then.

Here is a blog post from January, 2015 on a topic that is as relevant today as it was at that time.

"Predictions Are Perilous".

How many times were we told that Donald Trump could never be elected President in 2016?

How often did we hear he had no chance to win again in 2024?

How many poor predictions did we hear during Covid?

Or how how inflation was going to be transitory.

What happened to the weather forecast that this winter would be mild with little snow?

Predictions are indeed perilous.

The topic works in 2025 as well as it did in 2015.

New information for newbies. Nostalgia for the long-time readers in today's blog post.

Enjoy.

Predictions Are Perilous (originally published January 15, 2015)

One of my favorites movies of all-time is Back to the Future. The 1985 film starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in which Marty McFly (played by Fox) accidentally is sent back in time to 1955 and must get back to 1985 before damaging his own future while he is in the past.

A sequel, Back to the Future II, was released in 1989 and picks up where the original film left off with the main plot involving Marty McFly travelling forward in time to the distant year 2015.

That distant year is now upon us and I thought this article comparing 2015 as Director Robert Zemeckis envisioned it to how things have turned out was interesting.

Did the film get it right? Not exactly. 

While it predicted Skype calls and virtual-reality headsets, the film got plenty wrong — including hoverboards.

Other misses were self-lacing sneakers, robotic gas stations and hologram ads.

However, it came close to a number of items we see today.

This scene shows something pretty close to a big flat screen display with multiple channels.

Pretty close on Skype or iChat as well.

And Google Glass.

However, nowhere to be seen in the movie is the internet, emails or mobile phones.

Of course, predicting the future is hazardous duty.

Even Zemeckis was not comfortable having to depict the future in the movie as he explained in this Business Insider article.

"I never really ever wanted to go to the future in the 'Back to the Future' movie because I don't like seeing the future in any movie," said Zemeckis. "The only kind of future that the audience ever actually accepts is a Orwellian dark future."

"The problem with doing movies in the future is that you always are wrong," he continued. "You underestimate it. You can't be right. Even Stanley Kubrick has always mispredicted the future in his movies."

Zemeckis said they found a workaround for the movie by making light of what they thought the future would be like.

He knew his limitations a little better than these folks that Robert J. Szczerba recently profiled in Forbes magazine as being responsible for what he considers the "15 Worst Tech Predictions Of All Time".


1876: “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — William Preece, British Post Office.

1876: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” — William Orton, President of Western Union.

1889: “Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison

1903: “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” — President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.

1921: "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio.

1946: “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox.

1955: “Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.” — Alex Lewyt, President of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company.

1959: “Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” — Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General.

1961: “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States.” — T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner.

1966: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop.” — Time Magazine.

1981: “Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.” — Marty Cooper, inventor.

1995: “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” — Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com.

2005: “There’s just not that many videos I want to watch.” — Steve Chen, CTO and co-founder of YouTube expressing concerns about his company’s long term viability.

2006: “Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.’” — David Pogue, The New York Times.

2007: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

Predictions are perilous. Something to remember as we begin the new year and the "experts" are making their 2015 prognostications of what to expect in the future.

Can We End Birthright Citizenship?

President Trump signed an executive order last week changing the policy of providing birthright citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil to illegal alien parents and those whose parents are here on temporary visas. These babies are popularly referred to as "anchor babies".

It does not apply to babies born to immigrants who are lawful permanent residents.

Is is also important to note that the Trump order only applies to future anchor babies. It does not attempt to strip citizenship from past anchor babies.

This is an issue I wrote about in these pages ten years ago entitled, "An Anchor Around Our Necks" detailing the compounding costs of birthright citizenship.

This was before Donald Trump even started making headlines about the issue when he first ran for President in 2016.

President Trump's executive order has already been challenged in federal court by 22 Democrat-led states and several civil rights organizations. This undoubtedly is no surprise to Trump. However, this now sets the stage for this important issue to be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court which has never been directly confronted on the issue.

Let's take a deeper look at the issue of birthright citizenship. 

The United States is decidedly in a distinct minority in providing citizenship this way. Among developed countries, Canada is the only other country in the world to provide birthright citizenship.

In fact, the trend in recent years has been to eliminate birthright citizenship. Ireland was the last European Union country to eliminate it in 2005. France did away with it in 1993. The UK in 1983.

Australia (1986) and New Zealand (2006) are other countries that eliminated birthright citizenship in recent years.

The common narrative repeated by many is that birthright citizen is a fundamental right for anyone born in the United States provided by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and therefore can only be eliminated by constitutional amendment. However, as stated above, this question has never been directly decided by the Supreme Court.

What does the 14th Amendment actually say which was enacted originally to insure that slaves would be recognized as citizens?

Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 1:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." (emphasis added)

That seems fairly clear except for the words I underlined above..."and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Is a child born in the United States to parents who are illegal immigrants "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" when those parents are unlawfully present in our country?

This is the foundational argument behind Trump's executive order that the 14th Amendment does not automatically confer birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. These individuals are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States as they are citizens of other countries.

Even if one believes that Trump cannot do this through executive order many believe that Congress has the right to define what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means. It has already been accepted that this means that children born to foreign diplomats do not gain U.S. birthright citizenship nor do members of certain Indian tribes.

I would further argue that the very actions of the federal government in not enforcing the immigration laws means that illegal immigrants that are here have effectively not been "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" by the consistent failure of our government to enforce the country's jurisdictional borders. 

How can an illegal immigrant be considered to be subject to the jurisdiction of our country if they are here illegally but our government is doing nothing about it?

The Center for Immigration Studies did a study in 2018 that estimated 300,000 children were born in the United States that year to mothers who are illegal immigrants. To put that in perspective, that is about 1 out of every 12 births in this country!

It is hard to believe that the numbers are not higher today especially considering the surge of illegals into the country over the last four years.

Aa result of the prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution each of these children are considered to be United States citizens.

500,000 additional children were born to legal immigrants. It should be noted that children born to legal immigrants would still be considered U.S. citizens under the Trump order in that they "are subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

Taken together, births to immigrants made up about 20% of all U.S. births in 2018 according to that study.

This overall estimate seems still accurate today in that the foreign-born population is now 15.6% of the U.S population (a higher percentage that it has ever been). In that this immigrant population is younger and has generally higher fertility rates than the native population it follows that about 20% of all births in any year are to immigrants.

Source: https://cis.org/Report/ForeignBorn-Population-Grew-51-Million-Last-Two-Years

U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are also eligible to sponsor the immigration of family members once they come of age. At 18, an “anchor baby” can sponsor an overseas spouse and unmarried children of his own. At full majority age at 21, he or she can sponsor parents and siblings under our "chain migration" laws.

Can you imagine anyone who voted for the 14th Amendment in 1866 at the federal or state level thinking that we would be conferring citizenship to this many as a result of this provision?

Or to even consider the fact that people could transport themselves within a day from any point in the world to the United States?

Michael Anton of the Claremont Institute wrote what I have found to be the best overall argument for why citizenship birthright should be ended. He has extensively researched the legislative history behind the 14th Amendment deliberations in 1866.

It seems that those who wrote and voted on the 14th Amendment had no intention that they would be conferring birthright citizenship on anyone whose parents were unlawfully in the United States.

It is also not debatable that the American people were never brought into the conversation as Anton observes.

The American people did not willingly, knowingly, or politically adopt birthright citizenship. They were maneuvered into it by the Left and by the Left-allied judiciary. They’ve never debated it or voted on it. They’ve simply been told that it’s required by the Constitution.

What is in the legislative history to support the view that birthright citizenship was never intended by the 14th Amendment?

Senator Jacob Howard was one of the authors of the 14th Amendment and specifically offered the amendment language that added the words, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". This is his explanation of the reasons for that language and its import.

This suggests that to acquire birthright citizenship a person has to be born within the limits of the United States and be fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

This was made even clearer by the clarifying comment of Senator Johnson of Maryland during the debate about the 14th Amendment.

Now, all this amendment provides is, that all persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power—for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us—shall be considered as citizens of the United States. That would seem to be not only a wise but a necessary provision. If there are to be citizens of the United States entitled everywhere to the character of citizens of the United States there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself and the United States, and the amendment says that citizenship may depend upon birth, and I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born of parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States. (emphasis added)

Of course, the slaves that were the primary focus of the 14th Amendment met both of these requirements. They had been born in the United States and they were not subject to the sovereign authority of any other country. 

In my mind the most persuasive argument that the 14th Amendment does not confer birthright citizenship is understanding the reasons that the citizenship clause was included therein to begin with.

Earlier in 1866 Congress had passed into law "The Civil Rights Act of 1866"  in order to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected under the law. Of course, this was primarily intended to make clear that slaves were citizens and had all the rights of any other citizens.

However, Congress became concerned that the law could be overturned sometime in the future or that it could be declared unconstitutional on the basis that there was no authority for Congress to confer particular rights to all citizens rather just outlawing discrimination.

Therefore, the leading proponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 proposed the 14th Amendment with the intention of eliminating all doubts about the law's constitutionality.

As a result, the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment parallels the citizenship language in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Equal Protection Clause parallels nondiscrimination language in the 1866 Act.

Of note, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, who is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the 14th Amendment", stated that the Citizenship Clause in the 1866 Civil Rights Act was meant to require that someone not only be born in the United States but also not owe allegiance to any foreign sovereign.

I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen..

I also doubt that Senators Howard, Johnson and Representative Bingham or others at that time could have envisioned a time in which Chinese, Russian, Mexican or Honduran women would come to the United States and have a child that would be a U.S. citizen.

That child could then as a U.S. citizen at age 21 sponsor their parents and siblings to become U.S. citizens under our "chain migration" policies.

It sets in motion a compounding effect that increases exponentially over time.

What is "chain migration"?

Under the United States’ current immigration system, most migrants receive a green card simply because they are the relative of an earlier migrant, not because of what they can contribute to American society. 

This creates a “chain” of immigrants who can then sponsor other immigrants in the same manner. These, in turn, may sponsor more immigrants, and so on.

As more and more immigrants are admitted to the United States, the population eligible to sponsor their relatives for green cards increases exponentially. This means that every time one immigrant is admitted, the door is opened to many more.

As long as birthright citizenship is continued it will be a magnet for illegal immigration. It incentivizes people from all over the world to break our laws to come here. The longer the practice continues the more illegal immigration we are likely to get.

If we are ever to get meaningful immigration reform it is necessary to cease providing birthright citizenship or it will undermine almost anything else we do.

Trump deserves credit for having the courage and personal constitution to be willing to elevate this issue to public debate. It is an issue that deserves public scrutiny and discussion. Whether it goes anywhere in the near term will likely be determined by the United State Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court is unwilling to end the policy, it may require a constitutional amendment which will be next to impossible to achieve in the short term considering the current political divide in the country.

However, the fact remains that until birthright citizenship is terminated, a wall is built to staunch the flow of illegals, and strict enforcement policies are adhered to, it will continue to be difficult to reach the goal of the sensible and sustainable immigration reform the United States desperately needs.

A Two-Sided Coin

Joe Biden said and did a lot of crazy stuff in his four years in the White House.

I don't think any of it was crazier than this statement.

Source:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/biden-says-climate-change-poses-greater-threat-than-nuclear-war?embedded-checkout=true

President Joe Biden said the sole threat to humanity’s existence is climate change, and that not even nuclear conflict poses a similar danger.

“The only existential threat humanity faces, even things more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming,” Biden said Sunday during a news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The only existential threat humanity faces is global warming?

Greater than a nuclear holocaust?

How about a few other risks that seem to be much greater threats to humanity than a few degrees of warming that the most pessimistic of climate alarmists predict will occur over the next 75 years.

A pandemic that is 1,000x worse than Covid?

A bioweapon being unleashed on the world (the most likely scenario for a pandemic)?

Birth rates around the world similar to what we are now seeing in South Korea (.72 per woman) that would slowly and inextricably result in the demise of humanity.?

Artificial intelligence running amok?

An asteroid or comet striking the earth?

A super volcanic eruption that would blast enough dust and debris into the atmosphere to block the sun and lead to worldwide crop failures and famine?

Over the years, I have listened to the claims about human created global warming.  Without even spending a lot of time on the science, these claims never seemed to make sense to me.  The planet is known to have warmed and cooled over the years.  

Even if the data shows it is warming, how do we know it is caused by man when you look at past history?  We know there was an ice age.  We also know the ice melted.  How did it ice up? How did the ice melt?

I can't help but be a little skeptical when I also see the changing explanations about the climate.  In fact, it does not even seem to be global warming we are worried about any more, it is climate change.  

We also heard a few years ago that we would see far less snow because of global warming.  When we got more snow, we were then told this was caused by the warming. It is all very confusing for something that is supposed to be so settled in science.

I also remember in the 1970's all of the talk from scientists was concern that the planet was cooling. What happened?  That was only a generation or two ago- a speck of time in the history of the earth.

Source: https://gary-bernstein.medium.com/global-cooling-in-the-1970s-to-global-warming-the-1-5-trillion-climate-industry-b73118b1af8d

When you consider past history you also quickly realize that God dwarfs anything that man can do.  For example, the year 1816 was considered "The Year Without a Summer" after Mount Tambora erupted and the ash seemed to veil the sky across large swaths of earth.  

Crops failed around the world and famine followed.  Riots and political unrest were not far behind. People tend to get really angry when they are hungry.  How much did the average global temperature fall that year? - only about 1 degree!

It is also instructive to look back at what was going on in the world in the 17th century.

I know of two books that were written about this chaotic period of human history.

Global Crisis by Geoffrey Parker.

Nature's Mutiny by Philipp Blom.

Both books suggest that the wars, catastrophes and transformative developments in the 17th century (Pilgrims coming to America, Thirty Years War in Europe, the growth of the British East India Company etc) were shaped in many respects by climate change.

However, the climate change involved was not global warming, it was global cooling that caused longer and harsher winters and cooler and wetter summers. This resulted in disrupted growing seasons that caused famine, malnutrition, death, disease and fewer births.

This period in the 17th Century is now referred to as a Mini Ice Age that saw temperatures fall by just a few degrees compared to historical norms.

The stories about Mount Tambora and 17th Century Europe have always made me much more concerned about global cooling than warming.  A rise in temperatures is actually beneficial for food production.  It can extend the growing season further north. Cooler temperatures do the exact opposite. Given a choice there is little doubt where I come down.

It has been proven time and time again that you are much more likely to see unrest and unruliness in human beings when they are cold and hungry than when they are hot and well fed.

What was the cause of the climate change in the 17th Century?

There is no clear consensus but one theory is that the sun was going through a period with an unusually low number of sun spots leading to a decrease in solar radiation that lowered temperatures.

This period was called the "Maunder Minimum" that persisted through almost all of the 17th Century.

The long term trend today is that sun spot activity has been declining compared to what we saw in most of the 20th Century which is referred to as the "Modern Maximum" period.

Source: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1849929751852466545

NOAA is predicting that sun spot activity will likely decline over the next 25 years.

Source: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

In addition to this, the Atlantic ocean has been in a warming cycle the last 40 years but it is predicted that it will move into a cooling cycle beginning in 2025 that will last for 40 years.

The combination of low sun spot activity and a cool cycle for the Atlantic ocean has not been seen since the early 1600's.

Biden, AOC and others who want you to believe global warming is an existential threat to humanity may not be paying attention to these developments but there are those who are deeply involved in the financial and commodity markets that are.

Link: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1878502375729643916

Some see this combination of factors leading to shorter growing seasons, drought, lower crop yields, food shortages and higher costs for food around the world.

I don't know whether all of this is in our future.

However, it is difficult to not have some questions after witnessing the weather events of January, 2025 to this point.

Consider that temperatures at the North Pole this month are -20C below historical averages..

The arctic cold pushed down through North America with temperatures reaching -25F (-50F wind chill) in Duluth, Minnesota this week. A good part of the Midwest saw sub-zero temperatures.

Pensacola, Florida received 8.9 inches of snow in the storm this week.

That is more than has fallen in that city in the last 124 years COMBINED.

Link: https://x.com/accuweather/status/1882112355557089318

An hour east in Miramar Beach, Florida you could find a snowman on the beach as the sun rose yesterday morning. Six inches of snow fell there during the storm.

Snowfall records were shattered across much of the South.

In fact, this year has seen very few counties in the United States that have not seen any snowfall this winter.

However, it was only a little over a month ago that the NOAA forecast that the southern United States would be warmer than normal as well as have below average precipitation.

Credit: https://x.com/TonyClimate/status/1882083192175485048

This is what actual temperatures have been in January compared to the norms.

Credit: https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1882270963393511895

If weather and climate forecasters can be this far off on a 30 day forecasts how much confidence should we have in predictions of the climate five, ten or twenty years in the future?

This is even more true when it also being suggested we need to spend trillions of dollars to prevent "climate change" based on those forecasts and projections based on "models".

History does show that climate change can have profound effects on human beings and society.

That is not debatable.

However, the real risk is not understanding that there are two sides to that coin.

There is also a profound arrogance is believing that human beings can overcome the forces of nature.

The entire narrative and all of the money is being spent on the assumption that the earth's temperature is rising and we somehow can control the outcome.

All of the chips have been placed on the table based on a single assumption.

What if it proves to be the opposite where the risks to humanity might be many times higher?

We may discover we need all of the fossil fuels we can find just to keep humanity warm and well fed.

The weather over the last two weeks should hopefully cause a few to think a little deeper about this subject.

What might also be true is that the greatest existential threat to humanity are those who believe they know it all.