Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 150
July 1, 2016
Military will now accept the transgendered
The Pentagon announced that it will now allow transgendered individuals to serve in the military under their preferred sex. The military health care system will also provide hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery to current servicemen and women who wish to transition to another sex. From Pentagon ends transgender military ban – CNNPolitics.com: The Pentagon said Thursday [Read More...]
June 30, 2016
The Weimar problem
From George Will: “Every republic,” writes Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, “eventually faces what might be called the Weimar problem.” It arrives when a nation’s civic culture has become so debased that the nation no longer has “the virtues necessary to sustain republican government.” Read my comments and questions after the [Read More...]
“A third sex”
So far “transgender” has involved men identifying themselves as women, and vice versa. But now another option has been legally recognized, changing your sex to “non-binary.” This is being described as neither one nor the other, “a third sex.” Perhaps this is the utopian ideal that all of the other sex and gender controversies have been [Read More...]
Ben Sasse, the anti-Trump
As other Republicans keep equivocating, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is the only Republican in the Senate to consistently oppose Donald Trump. And he is paying a price for it. But Sasse, a Lutheran, is standing firm. An interesting profile after the jump. From Ben Terris, As the GOP’s anti-Trump, Ben Sasse picked a big fight. What [Read More...]
June 29, 2016
California churches to be forced to pay for abortions?
The state of California has classified abortion as a “basic health service,” which means that under Obamacare, all insurance policies, including those of churches, must pay for abortions. Churches have applied to the Obama administration for relief, but they were denied. The issue is now before the courts. From Obama Administration Forces California Churches to Pay for Abortions [Read More...]
Could a President Trump be checked and balanced?
Paul Ryan says that if a President Trump were to do something illegal, such as ban immigrants on the basis of their religion, he, as Speaker of the House, would sue him. Ryan seems to be floating the possibility that a President Trump might not be so bad because he could be controlled by the [Read More...]
How Britain’s exit from EU can help its economy
Global stock markets and currency exchanges are in turmoil after Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, making it look like the decision is an economic disaster. But Stephen Meyer argues quite the contrary, that Brexit will bring substantial economic advantages. For example, the UK will now be able to negotiate a trade deal [Read More...]
June 28, 2016
“O, Death”: Ralph Stanley dies
From Geoffrey Himes, Ralph Stanley was one of our last links to an old America – The Washington Post: When Ralph Stanley died on Thursday at age 89, we lost more than the last surviving founding father of bluegrass. We lost one of our last links to a pre-television America. He was a short, [Read More...]
Supreme Court’s new pro-abortion decision
Some states have imposed regulations on abortion clinics–such as requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals and making the clinics meet the standards for outpatient surgery–that have been shutting them down, grisly hell-holes that they are. But now the Supreme Court has overturned those health and safety regulations, ruling, 5-3, that they amount to [Read More...]
Armed bureaucrats
The Obama administration does not like it that individuals can own firearms. And yet, federal bureaucracies are arming themselves at an unprecedented rate. Agencies that have nothing to do with national defense or crime-fighting–such as the IRS, the EPA, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service–are spending millions of dollars on weapons. To the point that [Read More...]
