Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts

Friday, March 1, 2024

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 4. Oedant Arma Toga.

 


February 26, 2024

The start of week three.

February 27, 2024

Given the huge differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget, a special session is being discussed.

The legislature just passed the halfway mark last Friday.

The much talked about tax restructuring House Bill 203 was heavily amended yesterday so that the $1,000,0000 home value exemption was dropped to  $200,000 and the sales tax from 2% to 1%, effectively eliminating the real structure of the bill.

I earlier predicted it would die, and this is, unfortunately, a new bill.  It'll still die, but for the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites, all this would do is create a new tax.  Changing the $1,000,000 to, perhaps, $500,000 would have made sense, but probably most Wyoming homes now have a $200,000 value.

The Senate passed SF 105 which bans credit card tracking of firearms purchased, a totally non-existent problem that even an interview from a local sporting goods store was baffled about.

February 27, cont:

Not really legislative, but:

Governor Gordon Issues Line-Item Vetoes to Secretary of State’s ESG Investing Rules

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – After careful review of a rules package proposed by Secretary of State Chuck Gray on Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) investment disclosure and consent, Governor Mark Gordon has determined that parts of the rules go beyond the Secretary’s legal authority. As a result the Governor issued line item-vetoes of portions of the rules. 

The Governor has long-opposed any artificial implementation of ESG factors in investment strategies. 

“While I agree that ESG investment guidance is improper and misleading, the answer to too much government interference in our lives is not more government,” Governor Gordon said. “No government should have the right to direct people’s personal investment strategies.”

In a letter sent to Secretary Gray, Governor Gordon notes that by law he can only approve rules within the bounds set by statute. In the case of the proposed rules addressing ESG investing, the statute does not allow the government to tell individuals how they must invest their dollars. The consumer protection required by Wyoming and federal law speaks to transparency and disclosure only. Informed consumers should have the freedom to make their own investment choices. 

“To be clear, I agree with your efforts to better illuminate investment practice and strategy through disclosure. Properly informed investors are always better able to make good decisions for themselves,” Governor Gordon wrote.

“Our appetite to oppose radical and misguided ESG initiatives in Wyoming does not justify implementing rules beyond the scope of statutory authority or interfering in the personal investment choices of Wyoming citizens. Personal responsibility and liberty are sacred principles that are all too often usurped by government mandate,” he added.

In the letter, the Governor also noted that federal securities laws expressly prohibit state conflicts “in the regulation of (1) federally covered securities, (2) broker dealers, (3) federally covered investment advisors, (4) investment advisor representatives, and (5) securities agents.”

The Governor’s letter to the Secretary of State may be viewed here. A copy of the Governor’s line-item vetoes can be found here.

 And:

Secretary Gray Expresses Disappointment in Governor's Line-Item Veto of Rules to Protect Investors from ESG Investments through Increased Disclosure; Secretary Gray Reiterates Need to Protect Investors from Radical ESG Investments

     CHEYENNE, WY – On February 27, 2024, Governor Mark Gordon line-item vetoed amendments to Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 10 of the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Securities Rules, which required disclosure and consent to Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) investment strategies by requiring investment advisers, broker-dealers, and securities agents to disclose to their customers or clients whether they are incorporating a social objective, i.e. whether they are considering social criteria, in the investment or commitment of customer or client funds, and obtain their consent. Following the Governor’s line-item veto, the rules limit the definition of a social objective, and will require written disclosure for some ESG-related investments, but will not require customer or client consent.

     “I am disappointed in and disagree with Governor Gordon’s decision to line-item veto key portions of our proposed Securities Rules,” Secretary of State Chuck Gray said in a statement. “From the beginning of this rulemaking, we addressed concerns raised by Governor Gordon. We underwent a thorough public comment period, and fully considered all feedback received. As I wrote previously in my letter dated July 19, 2024, and again in my letter dated January 16, 2024, the Wyoming Uniform Securities Act clearly allows Wyoming to protect customers and clients from the harmful effects of ESG investments. I am disappointed to see the Governor’s rationale has adopted the recycled talking points of the radical left and Wall Street elites, rather than sound legal arguments. We must take concrete, proactive action to protect our state and consumers from the dangers presented by ESG investments maliciously targeting our core industries.”

     “Although the Governor’s line-item veto weakened the amount of protections we attempted to provide to customers and clients to protect them from the dangers of ESG investment strategies, I believe the final rules offer a necessary starting point to protect Wyomingites from social ideologues imposing their radical, clown-show agenda on our state.”  

Cont:

Passed Senate, on to House:

SENATE FILE NO. SF0094

An act regarding compelled speech and state employers.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Hutchings, French and Ide and Representative(s) Styvar and Ward

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to the administration of government; prohibiting the state and its political subdivisions from compelling speech as specified; authorizing a civil remedy; providing an exception to the Wyoming governmental claims act; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 9‑14‑301 is created to read:

ARTICLE 3

COMPELLED OR PROHIBITED SPEECH

9‑14‑301.  Compelled speech; civil action.

(a)  The state and its political subdivisions shall not compel or require an employee to refer to another employee using that employee's preferred pronouns:

(i)  As a condition of continuing or commencing employment or contracting with the state or a political subdivision;

(ii)  As a condition to receive a grant, contract, license or other benefit afforded by the state or a political subdivision; or

(iii)  Under threat of adverse action by the state or a political subdivision, including but not limited to an adverse employment action, exclusion, sanction or punishment.

(b)  Any person aggrieved by a violation of subsection (a) of this section may file a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction against the state or any political subdivision, and its employees acting in their official capacities, responsible for the violation to recover appropriate relief, including injunctive or declaratory relief, compensatory damages, reasonable attorney fees and court costs.

Section 2.  W.S. 1‑39‑104(a) is amended to read:

1‑39‑104.  Granting immunity from tort liability; liability on contracts; exceptions.

(a)  A governmental entity and its public employees while acting within the scope of duties are granted immunity from liability for any tort except as provided by W.S. 1‑39‑105 through 1‑39‑112 and 9‑14‑301. Any immunity in actions based on a contract entered into by a governmental entity is waived except to the extent provided by the contract if the contract was within the powers granted to the entity and was properly executed and except as provided in W.S. 1‑39‑120(b). The claims procedures of W.S. 1‑39‑113 apply to contractual claims against governmental entities.

Section 3.  This act applies to civil causes of action that are initiated on or after the effective date of this act.

Section 4.  This act is effective July 1, 2024.

Passed House, on to Senate, and totally ineffectual due to the Supremacy Clause:

HOUSE BILL NO. HB0036

Natural Resource Protection Act.

Sponsored by: Select Federal Natural Resource Management Committee

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to protection of constitutional rights; providing a declaration of authority and policy; prohibiting the enforcement of federal rules or regulations regarding federal land management as specified; providing an exception; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 9‑14‑301 through 9‑14‑303 are created to read:

ARTICLE 3

NATURAL RESOURCE PROTECTION ACT

9‑14‑301.  Short title.

This article shall be known and may be cited as the "Natural Resource Protection Act."

9‑14‑302.  Declaration of authority and policy.

(a)  The Natural Resource Protection Act is enacted under the authority of the tenth amendment to the United States constitution and Wyoming's agreement with the United States that the state adopted when it joined the union under the United States constitution's system of dual sovereignty.

(b)  The legislature finds and declares:

(i)  The federal government shall comply with federal law when administering federal lands;

(ii)  The federal government arbitrarily restricting significant amounts of federal lands from public use is contrary to managing federal land under principles of multiple use and sustained yield;

(iii)  Any failure by the federal government to abide by the law undermines the rule of law that is vital to our system of government. 

9‑14‑303.  Prohibiting the enforcement of federal regulation regarding federal land management; penalty.

(a)  Upon a determination by the governor, with advice from the attorney general, that an executive order, final rule or regulation of the federal government does not comply with federal laws regarding federal land management and upon providing notice, this state and all political subdivisions of this state shall not use any personnel, funds appropriated by the legislature or any other source of funds that originate within the state of Wyoming to enforce or administer that federal executive order, final rule or regulation. The governor shall not revoke a valid primacy agreement with a federal agency over the regulation and enforcement of a federal law or program until a court of competent jurisdiction determines the federal executive order, final rule or regulation is unlawful.

(b)  Nothing in this act shall limit or restrict a public officer, as defined by W.S. 6‑5‑101(a)(v), from providing assistance to federal authorities for purposes not specifically identified in subsection (a) of this section. Nothing in this act shall be construed to prohibit any governmental entity from accepting federal funds for law enforcement purposes.

Section 2.  This act is effective July 1, 2024.

February 28, 2024

The Joint Conference Committee was picked to work out the $1B difference between the House and the Senate budgets.  The members are Sens. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, Sens. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, Dan Laursen, R-Powell, and Troy McKeown, R-Gillette. Three of the members are extremely conservative.

This signals there's going to be a lot of cutting in the Senate version of the budget.

Chloe's law passed the Senate. The bill bans sexual mutilation of children, something that should simply be overall outright banned.

SENATE FILE NO. SF0099

Chloe's law-children gender change prohibition.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Bouchard, Biteman, Boner, Brennan, Dockstader, French, Hicks, Hutchings, Ide, Kinskey, Kolb, Laursen, D, McKeown, Salazar and Steinmetz and Representative(s) Andrew, Davis, Heiner, Hornok, Jennings, Knapp, Locke, Neiman, Niemiec, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Slagle, Strock, Styvar, Trujillo and Winter

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to public health and safety; prohibiting physicians from performing procedures for children related to gender transitioning and gender reassignment; providing an exception; providing that gender transitioning and reassignment procedures are grounds for suspension or revocation of a physician's or health care provider's license; providing definitions; specifying applicability; requiring rulemaking; and providing for effective dates.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 35‑4‑1001 is created to read:

ARTICLE 10

GENDER‑RELATED PROCEDURES

35‑4‑1001.  Gender transitioning and reassignment procedures for children prohibited.

(a)  As used in this section:

(i)  "Child" means a person who is younger than eighteen (18) years of age;

(ii)  "Health care provider" means a person other than a physician who is licensed, certified or otherwise authorized by Wyoming law to provide or render health care or to dispense or prescribe a prescription drug in the ordinary course of business or practice of a profession;

(iii)  "Physician" means any person licensed to practice medicine in this state by the state board of medicine under the Medical Practice Act.

(b)  Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section and for purposes of transitioning a child's biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes and endogenous profiles of the child or affirming the child's perception of the child's sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child's biological sex, no physician or health care provider shall:

(i)  Perform a surgery that sterilizes the child, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty;

(ii)  Perform a mastectomy;

(iii)  Provide, administer, prescribe or dispense any of the following prescription drugs that induce transient or permanent infertility:

(A)  Puberty suppression or blocking prescription drugs to stop or delay normal puberty;

(B)  Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone to females;

(C)  Supraphysiologic doses of estrogen to males.

(iv)  Remove any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue.

(c)  This section shall not apply to:

(i)  Procedures or treatments that are performed with the consent of the child's parent or guardian and are for a child who is born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, including 46, XX chromosomes with virilization, 46, XY with undervirilization or both ovarian and testicular tissue;

(ii)  Any procedure or treatment that is performed with the consent of the child's parent or guardian and is for a child with medically verifiable central precocious puberty.

Section 2.  W.S. 33‑21‑146(a)(xi), (xii) and by creating a new paragraph (xiii), 33‑24‑122(a)(intro), (ix) and by creating a new paragraph (xi) and 33‑26‑402(a) by creating a new paragraph (xxxvi) are amended to read:

33‑21‑146.  Disciplining licensees and certificate holders; grounds.

(a)  The board of nursing may refuse to issue or renew, or may suspend or revoke the license, certificate or temporary permit of any person, or to otherwise discipline a licensee or certificate holder, upon proof that the person:

(xi)  Has failed to submit to a mental, physical or medical competency examination following a proper request by the board made pursuant to board rules and regulations and the Wyoming Administrative Procedure Act; or

(xii)  Has violated a previously entered board order;. or

(xiii)  Has violated W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

33‑24‑122.  Revocation or suspension of license and registration; letter of admonition; summary suspension; administrative penalties; probation; grounds.

(a)  The license and registration of any pharmacist may be revoked or suspended by the board of pharmacy or the board may issue a letter of admonition, refuse to issue or renew any license or require successful completion of a rehabilitation program or issue a summary suspension for any one (1) or more of the following causes:

(ix)  For senility or mental impairment which impedes the pharmacist's professional abilities or for habitual personal use of morphine, cocaine or other habit forming drugs or alcohol; or

(xi)  For violating W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

33‑26‑402.  Grounds for suspension; revocation; restriction; imposition of conditions; refusal to renew or other disciplinary action.

(a)  The board may refuse to renew, and may revoke, suspend or restrict a license or take other disciplinary action, including the imposition of conditions or restrictions upon a license on one (1) or more of the following grounds:

(xxxvi)  Violating W.S. 35‑4‑1001.

Section 3.  W.S. 35‑4‑1001, as created by section 1 of this act, shall apply only to conduct or procedures occurring on and after the effective date of this act.

Section 4.  The department of health, state board of medicine and state board of pharmacy shall promulgate all rules necessary to implement this act.

Section 5.  

(a)  Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, this act is effective July 1, 2024.

(b)  Sections 4 and 5 of this act are effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

The bill restructuring Wyoming's tax system died, as we predicted.

A bill eliminating gun free zones in Wyoming passed the House.  My prediction is that it shall die in the Senate.

February 28, cont:

The Senate has voted to defund gender studies and the diversity office at the University of Wyoming.  This is not a surprise,

Right wing populist Senator Bob Ide, on the action, stated:

I think we have a real opportunity to set University of Wyoming apart as a grassroots, traditional-value university.

This was done by way of a footnote in the budget, and it's far from certain that the footnote will survive budget resolution. 

February 29, 2024

A bill to require abortion clinics to be licensed pass the House and is through a Senate committee.  It provides:

HOUSE BILL NO. HB0148

Regulation of surgical abortions

Sponsored by: Representative(s) Lawley, Bear and Washut and Senator(s) Biteman, Boner, Brennan, Hutchings, Salazar and Steinmetz

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to public health and safety; requiring the licensure of surgical abortion facilities as specified; requiring licensed physicians to perform abortions after an ultrasound; providing criminal penalties for violations; specifying civil liability for damages resulting from abortions; providing definitions; making conforming amendments; specifying applicability; requiring rulemaking; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 35‑6‑201 through 35‑6‑205 are created to read:

ARTICLE 2

REGULATION OF SURGICAL ABORTIONS

35‑6‑201.  Definitions.

(a)  As used in this article:

(i)  "Abortion" means the act of using or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug or any other substance, device or means with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman, including the elimination of one (1) or more unborn babies in a multifetal pregnancy, with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn baby. "Abortion" shall not include any use, prescription or means specified in this paragraph if  the use, prescription or means are done with the intent to:

(A)  Save the life or preserve the health of the unborn baby;

(B)  Remove a dead unborn baby caused by spontaneous abortion or intrauterine fetal demise;

(C)  Treat a woman for an ectopic pregnancy; or

(D)  Provide treatment for a pregnant woman when a medical procedure or treatment is necessary, based on reasonable medical judgment, to save or preserve the life of the pregnant woman.

(ii)  "Hospital" means those institutions licensed by the Wyoming department of health as hospitals;

(iii)  "Physician" means any person licensed to practice medicine in this state;

(iv)  "Pregnancy" or "pregnant" means the human female reproductive condition of having a living unborn baby or human being within a human female's body throughout the entire embryonic and fetal stages of the unborn human being from fertilization to full gestation and childbirth;

(v)  "Reasonable medical judgment" means a medical judgment that would be made or a medical action that would be undertaken by a reasonably prudent, qualified physician who is knowledgeable about the case and the treatment possibilities with respect to the medical conditions involved;

(vi)  "Surgical abortion" means an induced abortion performed or attempted through use of a machine, medical device, surgical instrument or surgical tool, or any combination thereof, to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman with knowledge and the intent that the termination by those means will cause, with reasonable likelihood, the death of the unborn child;

(vii)  "Surgical abortion facility" means any facility, other than a hospital, that provides a surgical abortion to a woman and performs not less than three (3) first‑trimester surgical abortions in any one (1) month or not less than one (1) second‑trimester or third‑trimester surgical abortion in any one (1) year.

35‑6‑202.  Surgical abortion facilities; licensure requirement; prohibitions; penalties.

(a)  Each surgical abortion facility in Wyoming shall be licensed as an ambulatory surgical center in accordance with W.S. 35‑2‑901 through 35‑2‑914 and the rules of the department of health. Each surgical abortion facility performing surgical abortions shall have a separate license.

(b)  No surgical abortion facility shall provide surgical abortions to any pregnant woman without first being licensed as an ambulatory surgical center.

(c)  Each surgical abortion facility shall comply with all rules of the department of health concerning the operation and regulation of ambulatory surgical centers. No license issued to a surgical abortion facility shall be transferable or assignable to any other person or facility.

(d)  Each licensed physician performing at least one (1) surgical abortion at a surgical abortion facility shall:

(i)  Report each surgical abortion to the department of health and shall attest in the report that the physician is licensed and in good standing with the state board of medicine;

(ii)  Submit documentation in a form and frequency required by the department of health that demonstrates that the licensed physician has admitting privileges at a hospital located not more than ten (10) miles from the abortion facility where the licensed physician is performing or will perform surgical abortions.

(e)  Any person who violates this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000.00). Each calendar day in which a violation of this section occurs or continues is a separate offense.

35‑6‑203.  Abortion facilities; surgical abortions; requirements; rulemaking.

(a)  Any surgical abortion performed at a surgical abortion facility in the state shall only be performed by a physician licensed in the state of Wyoming.

(b)  Any person who performs in the state any surgical abortion at a surgical abortion facility in violation of subsection (a) of this section is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not less than one (1) year nor more than fourteen (14) years.

(c)  No person shall perform a surgical abortion at a surgical abortion facility in Wyoming who is not a licensed physician with admitting privileges at a hospital located not more than ten (10) miles from the abortion facility where the surgical abortion is performed.

(d)  Any person who violates subsection (c) of this section or if a pharmacist or physician violates W.S. 35‑6‑205 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000,00). For purposes of this subsection, each surgical abortion at a surgical abortion facility shall constitute a separate offense of subsection (c) of this section.

(e)  The department of health shall promulgate rules necessary to regulate surgical abortion facilities as ambulatory surgical centers under W.S. 35‑2‑901 through 35‑2‑914, provided that the rules:

(i)  Applicable to surgical abortion facilities are not less stringent than those rules applicable to ambulatory surgical centers;

(ii)  Provide for the physical inspection of surgical abortion facilities by the department of health every three (3) years.

35‑6‑204.  Applicability; effect.

If any provision of this article conflicts with the Life is a Human Right Act or W.S. 35‑6‑139, the provisions of the Life is a Human Right Act and W.S. 35‑6‑139 shall control over this article to the extent that the Life is a Human Right Act and W.S. 35‑6‑139 are enforceable.

35‑6‑205.  Abortion facilities; licensure requirements verification; prohibitions; penalties.

Not less than forty‑eight (48) hours before a pregnant woman procures the drugs or substances for a chemical abortion, before a physician or pharmacist dispenses the drugs or substances necessary for a chemical abortion or before a pregnant woman undergoes a surgical abortion, the physician or pharmacist shall ensure that the pregnant woman receives an ultrasound in order to determine the gestational age of the unborn child, to determine the location of the pregnancy, to verify a viable intrauterine pregnancy and to provide the pregnant woman the opportunity to view the active ultrasound of the unborn child and hear the heartbeat of the unborn child if the heartbeat is audible. The provider of the ultrasound shall provide the pregnant woman with a document that specifies the date, time and place of the ultrasound.

Section 2.  W.S. 35‑2‑901(a)(ii) is amended to read:

35‑2‑901.  Definitions; applicability of provisions.

(a)  As used in this act:

(ii)  "Ambulatory surgical center" means a facility which provides surgical treatment to patients not requiring hospitalization and is not part of a hospital or offices of private physicians, dentists or podiatrists. "Ambulatory surgical center" shall include any surgical abortion facility as defined by W.S. 35‑6‑201(a)(vii);

Section 3.

(a)  Nothing in this act shall be construed as creating an individual right to abortion.

(b)  It is the intent of the legislature that this act shall not be construed as holding abortion as lawful in the state pending a decision from a court of competent jurisdiction on the current state of the law.

(c)  It is the intent of the legislature that this act shall not recognize or define abortion as a health care decision under Article 1, section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution.

Section 4.  The department of health shall promulgate all rules necessary to implement this act.

Section 5.  This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

This may seem like an odd bill in that the legislature has outlawed abortion already, although the disposition of that law is in peril due to a poorly thought out paranoid Wyoming Constitutional amendment that was aimed at the fictional threat of Obamacare "death panels", a good example of paranoia in operation combined with the Law of Unintended Consequences.  Those who backed that law should be ashamed of themselves.  Anyhow, this bill seeks to regulate infanticide abattoirs if they're allowed to exist, and during the period in which the issue is pending in what seems like a glacially slow Teton County proceeding.

It might be questioned why no effort has been made to repeal the silly Obamacare Paranoia Amendment, but none has.  Probably "They're Going To Make Me Vaccinate" paranoia has something to do with that.

March 1, 2024

A bill to relocate bighorn sheep from Sweetwater Rocks has gotten through a House Committee after passing the Senate.  The measure is designed to protect domestic sheep.

SENATE FILE NO. SF0118

Bighorn and domestic sheep relocation-federal action.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Hicks and Representative(s) Western

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to wildlife and livestock; providing legislative findings; requiring the game and fish department to relocate or remove bighorn sheep from the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area in response to specified federal action; providing for the reimbursement of costs for relocation or removal of bighorn sheep; requiring and authorizing attorney general action as specified; amending the duties of the wildlife/livestock research partnership board; providing appropriations; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 11‑19‑605 is created to read:

11‑19‑605.  Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep relocation and removal; legislative findings; reimbursement; attorney general action.

(a)  The legislature finds and declares that it is the state's policy to vigorously defend its interests in maintaining and enhancing viable livestock grazing operations on public lands in conjunction with the conservation and maintenance of healthy bighorn sheep populations in the state of Wyoming. These two (2) policies are mutually compatible as demonstrated since the adoption of the collaboratively developed Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan in 2004, which was codified into law under W.S. 11‑19‑604 in 2015. The legislature further finds and declares that:

(i)  Reintroduction of bighorn sheep and management action to protect existing populations of bighorn sheep on federal public lands has been effectively accomplished in conformance with the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan;

(ii)  All wildlife in the state of Wyoming is the property of the state, and it is the policy of the state to provide an adequate and flexible system for control, propagation, management, protection and regulation of all Wyoming wildlife;

(iii)  Any removal of bighorn sheep from the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area under this act shall not be attributable to domestic livestock grazing on federal bureau of land management administered lands. Rather, the removal of bighorn sheep shall be directly attributable to:

(A)  Onerous federal regulation that unduly impedes the state of Wyoming's ability to manage wildlife and domestic livestock grazing in conformance with the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan;

(B)  Third‑party litigation designed to use bighorn sheep as a means of eliminating domestic livestock grazing on bureau of land management administered lands in and adjacent to the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area.

(iv)  The provisions of this section shall be enforced by the state.

(b)  In conformance with the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan in W.S. 11‑19‑604 and pursuant to W.S. 23‑1‑103, the game and fish department shall relocate or remove bighorn sheep from the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area if any federal judicial action or federal agency action requires or could require the following:

(i)  The elimination or suspension of domestic sheep grazing or trailing; or

(ii)  Any changes to a United States bureau of land management resource management plan, grazing allotments or livestock grazing agreements due to the presence of bighorn sheep in the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area or any adjacent grazing allotment that is not in a designated bighorn sheep herd unit after July 1, 2024 without the consent of the grazing permittee.

(c)  Any relocation or removal of bighorn sheep from the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area required by subsection (b) of this section shall commence as soon as practicable but not later than six (6) months after the Wyoming department of agriculture certifies to the governor that a condition specified in subsection (b) of this section is met. The governor shall notify the game and fish department that the removal of bighorn sheep from the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area shall commence in accordance with this section.

(d)  The game and fish department shall be responsible for the expedient removal of bighorn sheep that stray outside the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area if that straying or foray is not into another designated herd unit.

(e)  The state and its agencies shall coordinate and assist the Wyoming congressional delegation in pursuing changes to federal law, rules and policies in order to bring them into conformance with the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan created under W.S. 11‑19‑604.

(f)  The Wyoming game and fish department shall not seek to change, alter or otherwise affect changes to domestic livestock grazing authorization on public and state lands due to the presence of bighorn sheep in the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area or adjacent grazing allotments that are not within an existing bighorn sheep herd unit.

(g)  The game and fish department shall be reimbursed for the costs of relocation or removal of bighorn sheep pursuant to subsection (b) of this section from any available funds in the wildlife/livestock disease research partnership account created by W.S. 11‑19‑603.

(h)  With the approval of the governor, the attorney general shall seek to intervene in any lawsuit if a federal action is contrary to the state's policy regarding Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep set forth in subsection (a) of this section or that is inconsistent with the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan.

(j)  With the approval of the governor, the attorney general shall file an action against any federal agency to stop the enforcement, administration or implementation of any federal agency rule, instructional memo, handbook or other action taken by a federal agency if the rule, instructional memo, handbook or other action is contrary to the Wyoming bighorn/domestic sheep plan or is otherwise contrary to law.

Section 2.  W.S. 11‑19‑602(b) by creating a new paragraph (vii) and 11‑19‑603 are amended to read:

11‑19‑602.  Wyoming wildlife/livestock disease research partnership board created; membership; duties; purposes.

(b)  The board shall:

(vii)  Allocate funds for monitoring, tracking and conducting disease surveillance before and following the introduction of bighorn sheep in the Sweetwater Rocks cooperative review area.

11‑19‑603.  Account created.

There is created a wildlife/livestock disease research partnership account. Funds from this account shall be used only for purposes specified in W.S. 11‑19‑601 through 11‑19‑604 11‑19‑605. Any interest earned on the account shall remain within the account.

Section 3.

(a)  There is appropriated one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00) from the general fund to the wildlife/livestock disease research partnership account for purposes of reimbursing the game and fish department for the costs of relocation or removal of bighorn sheep under this act. This appropriation shall be for the period beginning with the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2030. This appropriation shall not be transferred or expended for any other purpose. Notwithstanding W.S. 9‑2‑1008, 9‑2‑1012(e) and 9‑4‑207, this appropriation shall not revert until June 30, 2030.

(b)  There is appropriated fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00) from the general fund to the department of agriculture for the rangeland health assessment program to conduct rangeland monitoring of the United States bureau of land management grazing allotments in or adjacent to the Sweetwater Rocks bighorn sheep cooperative review area. This appropriation shall be for the period beginning with the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2030. This appropriation shall not be transferred or expended for any other purpose. Notwithstanding W.S. 9‑2‑1008, 9‑2‑1012(e) and 9‑4‑207, this appropriation shall not revert until June 30, 2030.

Section 4.  This act is effective July 1, 2024.

The area is near Agate Flats in Fremont County.

March 1, cont:

Governor Gordon Signs First Bills of 2024 Legislative Session 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon signed the first bills of the 2024 Legislative session at the Capitol today.

The first bill to be signed by the Governor was Senate File 0004 Rehiring retired firefighters-continued retirement benefits. Sponsored by the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services committee, the bill allows retired firefighters to be rehired while continuing to receive retirement benefits, including a pension.

The Governor signed the following bills into law today:

Enrolled Act # Bill No. Bill Title

SEA0001 SF0017 Plane coordinates system-amendments.

SEA0002 SF0015 Acceptance of retrocession-federal military installations.

SEA0003 SF0004 Rehiring retired firefighters-continued retirement benefits.

Last Prior Edition:

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 3. The start of the budget session.


Appendix:

Thursday, December 14, 2023

A decline in U.S. Life Expectancy.

Which, we would note, the government, which addressed this oddly enough on Twitter, terms catastrophic.

Dr. Robert M. Califf @DrCaliff_FDA

We are facing extraordinary headwinds in our public health with a major decline in life expectancy. The major decline in the U.S. is not just a trend. I’d describe it as catastrophic.

JAMA Internal Medicine published earlier this month that our overall life expectancy has dropped to 76 years, and remarkably, that male life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped to 73 years.

Since then, CDC released a report showing a slight rebound from lower life expectancy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with this encouraging report, we still have a lot of work to do before we see pre-pandemic life expectancy again. https://cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr031.pdf

As we all know, life expectancy is far from uniformly distributed. Disparities as a function of race, ethnicity, wealth, education and geospatial location are profound and widening.

A college degree is associated with an 8.5 year longer life and differences of more than a decade in life expectancy are common when we go from urban areas and university towns to rural areas.

We expect to lose over 450K Americans due to tobacco related illness this year – we need to change that. We have a very important and ambitious agenda to tackle in our work on tobacco. We’ve made some important advances in that area recently, but there is still much to be done.

Each year, more than a million Americans die from diet-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancers.

While we’ve seen enormous progress in terms of controlling or developing treatments for many of these diseases, alarmingly, we’re in the midst of a significant backsliding relating to many of these and other chronic illnesses.

Our work in this area also supports the food industry in their efforts to reformulate in healthier ways and provide additional knowledge/choices for American consumers. Working with industry is an important part of the equation, since govt most assuredly can’t do this alone.

An important aspect of this life expectancy dynamic is the challenge of drug shortages, particularly low-cost generics. With over 90% of our prescriptions now generic, these low cost, effective medications are an essential part of an effective public health strategy.

But these medications are not effective if they are not available! Shortages are very frustrating, consume an enormous share of talented pharmacist and clinician time to find alternatives and explanations to patients.

Shortages also undermine the underlying goal of increased accessibility of these often life-saving products. Simply put, shortages put patients at risk.

I believe that we need to seriously examine our level of accountability and changes that we can make to help what needs to be an “all hands on deck” effort to continue and amplify the improvement in life expectancy discussed in CDCs latest report.

Earlier this month, I spoke to a group of professors of medicine about declining life expectancy, and in that speech, I talked about my short list of changes that they might lead to help reverse the negative trend.

🔗⬇️

Every other sector in the health care ecosystem could develop its own list of improvements, and together, we could accelerate last year’s progress.

The government, industry, and the public all have a role to play in improving life expectancy. Let’s get to it.

Monday, December 4, 2023

Tuesday, December 4, 1923. House Session Breaks Up In Vote Deadlock. Vaccination Ruling To Be Put To Test.


Somewhere I've seen a t-shirt advertised that says "Study history, realize people have been this dumb for thousands of years."

Yup.

Big events at the movies.   The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille. . . .the first one, was released.  It was silent, of course.  Some of it, however, was filmed in technicolor.

At least one of the movie posters for what would become the most popular film of 1924 depicted moderns in the throes of agony for, presumably, violating one of the Commandments.  This is because the two-hour-long movie is divided into two parts, one a prologue depicting Exodus, the second a modern melodrama.


Colorado Aggie students voted to emblaze a local hill with a large "A".  Colorado State University had its origins as an agricultural college, and while the Rams are known for many things today, at that time, they were focused on agriculture.

The Arctic Exploration Board posed for a photograph.



Saturday, December 2, 2023

Thursday, December 2, 1943. The Mustard Gas release at Bari.

The Luftwaffe attacked the Italian port of Bari in a surprise raid, hitting the SS John Harvey which had a cargo that included 2,000 M-47A1 mustard gas aerial bombs being brought into Italy secretly in case the Germans started using chemical weapons.   The contents of the ship were known only to those on the ship, who were killed when it exploded.

83 people were killed due to the mustard gas release, and a further 545 injured.  The cause of the deaths and injury could not be determined until a British diver discovered a shell casing.

The treatment of the victims lead to a medical advance which, ironically, lead to the introduction of Mustine, the first drug developed that could fight cancer with minimal harm to healthy cells.  It was the effective birth of chemotherapy.

The incident was covered up at the time for obvious reasons.

The British announced the conscription of 10% of men from ages 18 to 25 for work in British coal mines.


Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1923.

The Fresno Bee, California, November 29, 1923.

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1923, Calvin Coolidge having fixed the very late date for this year on November 5.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

The American people, from their earliest days, have observed the wise custom of acknowledging each year the bounty with which divine Providence has favored them. In the beginnings, this acknowledgment was a voluntary return of thanks by the community for the fruitfulness of the harvest. Though our mode of life has greatly changed, this custom has always survived. It has made thanksgiving day not only one of the oldest but one of the most characteristic observances of our country. On that day, in home and church, in family and in public gatherings, the whole nation has for generations paid the tribute due from grateful hearts for blessings bestowed.

To center our thought in this way upon the favor which we have been shown has been altogether wise and desirable. It has given opportunity justly to balance the good and the evil which we have experienced. In that we have never failed to find reasons for being grateful to God for a generous preponderance of the good. Even in the least propitious times, a broad contemplation of our whole position has never failed to disclose overwhelming reasons for thankfulness. Thus viewing our situation, we have found warrant for a more hopeful and confident attitude toward the future.

In this current year, we now approach the time which has been accepted by custom as most fitting for the calm survey of our estate and the return of thanks. We shall the more keenly realize our good fortune, if we will, in deep sincerity, give to it due thought, and more especially, if we will compare it with that of any other community in the world.

The year has brought to our people two tragic experiences which have deeply affected them. One was the death of our beloved President Harding, which has been mourned wherever there is a realization of the worth of high ideals, noble purpose and unselfish service carried even to the end of supreme sacrifice. His loss recalled the nation to a less captious and more charitable attitude. It sobered the whole thought of the country. A little later came the unparalleled disaster to the friendly people of Japan. This called forth from the people of the United States a demonstration of deep and humane feeling. It was wrought into the substance of good works. It created new evidences of our international friendship, which is a guarantee of world peace. It replenished the charitable impulse of the country.

By experiences such as these, men and nations are tested and refined. We have been blessed with much of material prosperity. We shall be better able to appreciate it if we remember the privations others have suffered, and we shall be the more worthy of it if we use it for their relief. We will do well then to render thanks for the good that has come to us, and show by our actions that we have become stronger, wiser, and truer by the chastenings which have been imposed upon us. We will thus prepare ourselves for the part we must take in a world which forever needs the full measure of service. We have been a most favored people. We ought to be a most generous people. We have been a most blessed people. We ought to be a most thankful people.

Wherefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby fix and designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November, as Thanksgiving Day, and recommend its general observance throughout the land. It is urged that the people, gathering in their homes and their usual places of worship, give expression to their gratitude for the benefits and blessings that a gracious Providence has bestowed upon them, and seek the guidance of Almighty God, that they may deserve a continuance of His favor.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this 5th day of November, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States, the One Hundred and Forty-eighth.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

By the President:

CHARLES E. HUGHES, Secretary of State.


The Casper paper apparently gave its staff the day off, but the Saratoga one did not, and also informed its readers that childhood vaccinations for smallpox were now mandatory.

Wilhelm Marx was chosen as the new Chancellor of Germany.  He's serve twice in the 1920s.

He was charged with criminal activity in the early 30s by the Nazi regime for his leadership of the People's Association for Catholic Germany (Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland) but the charge against him was dropped in 1935.  He died in 1946.  The Catholic association he headed, which had dated back to the 1890s, was recreated as the Volksverein Mönchengladbach after World War Two.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Thursday, October 25, 1923. Carlsbad Caverns.



President Coolidge proclaimed Carlsbad Caverns a National Monument.  It is now a National Park.  The proclamation stated:

WHEREAS, there is located in section thirty-one, township twenty-four south, range twenty-five east, and section thirty-six, township twenty-four south, range twenty-four east of the New Mexico Principal Meridian, in southeastern New Mexico, near the town of Carlsbad, a limestone cavern known as the Carlsbad Cave, of extraordinary proportions and of unusual beauty and variety of natural decoration; and

WHEREAS, beyond the spacious chambers that have been explored, other vast chambers of unknown character and dimensions exist; and

WHEREAS, the several chambers contain stalactites, stalagmites, and other formations in such unusual number, size, beauty of form, and variety of figure as to make this a cavern equal, if not superior, in both scientific and popular interest to the better known caves; and

WHEREAS, it appears that the public interest would be promoted by reserving this natural wonder as a National Monument, together with as much land as may be needed for the protection, not only of the known entrance, but such other entrances as may be found.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, by authority of the power in me vested by section two of the act of Congress entitled, “An Act for the preservation of American antiquities,” approved June eighth, nineteen hundred and six (34 Stat., 225) do proclaim that there is hereby reserved from all forms of appropriation under the public land laws, subject to all valid existing claims, and set apart as a National Monument to be known as the Carlsbad Cave National Monument all that piece or parcel of land in the County of Eddy, State of New Mexico, shown upon the diagram hereto annexed and made a part hereof, and more particularly described as follows: lots one and two, section thirty-one, township twenty-four south, range twenty-five east, and section thirty-six, township twenty-four south, range twenty-four east of the New Mexico Principal Meridian.

Warning is hereby expressly given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy or remove any feature of this Monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

The Director of the National Park Service, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, shall have the supervision, management, and control of this Monument as provided in the act of Congress entitled, “An Act to establish a National Park Service and for other purposes,” approved August twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and sixteen (39 Stat., 535) and Acts additional thereto or amendatory thereof.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the City of Washington this 25th day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-eighth.

The Bulgarian air force's only aircraft, the limit of the size of that force under the Treaty of Neuilly, crashed.

In the US, aviation was going better.

25 October 1923: First Lieutenant Lowell Herbert Smith and First Lieutenant John P. Richter, Air Service, United States Army, flew a DH-4B from Sumas, Washington, to Tijuana, Mexico, non-stop.

This Day In Aviation.

A major medical advance was recognized:

October 25, 1923: Banting and Best Win the Nobel Prize For the Discovery of Insulin

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Sunday, October 19, 1943. Prisoner Exchange.

For the first time in the war, the United Kingdom and Germany engaged in a prisoner exchange.  4,340 Allied POWs, all sick or injured, were exchanged for 835 German POWs.  The Swedish Red Cross supervised the exchange, which took place in Sweden.  Seventeen Americans were included in the group.

On the same day, Allied aircraft sank the German-controlled cargo ship MS Sinfra in the Mediterranean.  Ironically, the 2,000 casualties were mostly Italian internees.

The Red Army broke out of the Kremenchug bridgehead.

Paul Robeson.

Paul Robeson made his Broadway debut, portraying Othello.  Robeson was a great singer, and a great, if tortured and misguided, intellect.  He obtained a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1923 while playing for hte NFL, which was integrated far earlier than baseball was.

Streptomycin was first isolated in a laboratory.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Friday, September 21, 1923. Oklahoma standoff, Lee's Ferry, Coolidge Press Conference, Dr. Fidel Pagés.

The Colorado River was photographed at Lee's Ferry.


Things were getting worse in the standoff between the Governor and the Legislature in Oklahoma.


.President Coolidge delivered an address to the Press.

I am reminded that when I came here I did a good deal of wondering whether I would be able to be helpful to the members of the press in these conferences that we have, and especially as to whether I wouldn’t find it more or less of a bore on my part and, perhaps, not particularly pleasant. I haven’t found it that way at all. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that I rather look forward with pleasure to having you come in twice a week, in order that I may talk to you, give you a little of the idea I may have of what the Government is trying to do, and satisfy you, insofar as I can, on the questions that you ask.

I am reminded too that my boys have returned back to school. They are just such boys as some of you have, I have no doubt. I hope that they can remain there at school without much of anything in the way of publicity. When they are here anything that they can do to be helpful, or that we can do, we are glad to do but I sent them up to Mercersburg, which is a very excellent school. They have always been in the public schools at Northampton and would have been there now, had we remained in Massachusetts, but there is no one in Northampton now, but my housekeeper. I wanted them to be under more supervision than that, so I sent them up there in order that they might be out of Washington and have that opinion, which I think boys are entitled to have, of privacy in their school affairs. Dr. Irving has been very helpful to them up there, and I presume that if you make any application to him, or any of your associates, to get any story about the boys up there, he will have to tell you that we very much prefer that they be not subjected to publicity while they are there.

Now I have several inquiries here – more than I do sometimes.

The veteran inquiry about the Governors’ Conference. I have practically determined that I shall adopt the time when the Governors are meeting in their annual conference, which is in the middle of October. I have adopted that as a result of some communications that I have had from Governors, indicating that that would meet their convenience, and that it would be of very much greater assistance to them, than should we call it at any other time.

Q. Where do they meet?

A. They meet in Indianapolis. I think it is the 16th or 15th of Oct.

Q. The meeting will be after that?

A. I am not sure yet whether it will be right after or right before. I am under the impression now that it will be more convenient if we have it immediately following.

Q. Do we understand that they will come here or you go there?

A. Oh, no. I shall not go there. The conference will be here.

I have several inquiries about an extra session of Congress, Nothing new has developed on that. I have already expressed to you quite a good many times that I couldn’t see any reason at the time I was speaking, nor do I now, for calling an extra session. There are many questions to come before Congress but I think, so far as they have been presented to me, they will be able to wait. Now as I said before, I don’t want to foreclose a session, and should it be disclosed to me that on account of some condition Congress might render a great public service by coming into session earlier than about eight weeks from now, I will take that instance up and decide it when it comes. At present, I don’t see any reason for an extra session.

An inquiry about the Oklahoma situation. So far as I know, there have been no representations made to Washington in relation to that situation, and an inquiry as to whether there is any Federal observation being made on it – not any that I know of. It wouldn’t be necessary to do it from Washington, of course, because the Executive is represented there by the Marshal and the United States District Attorney, as he is in every other jurisdiction, and should there be any violation of the laws of the U. S., why, of course, that would be the tribunal before which said violations should be brought.

Regarding the shipping board policy. I have no new policy about that. It really isn’t the business of the executive, as I understand it, under the law to try to formulate a policy for the Shipping Board. I am glad at all times to confer with, different departments, give them the benefit of any judgment that I may have or any information that may come to me, and assist them in every possible way. The Shipping Board has certain directions under the law for carrying on the shipping business of the U. S. to – generally speaking to try and get into private hands as soon as possible and to liquidate it. The plan that they had appealed to me, especially because they represented it to me, and it was my judgment that it was, perhaps, a first step and the best step that we could take towards private ownership and private operation. It has appeared that it isn’t possible to put it int o effect under the present statute. I haven’t conferred with the Board yet. I got that opinion from the Attorney General yesterday, I think – today has been Cabinet day. I am going to confer with Chairman Parley or any other members of the Board very soon, and see if I can help in any way. I don’t know whether they will desire legislation about it. Of course, one of the main elements of their plan was that it could be put int o operation without the mediation of Congressional action, that it could be put into operation immediately. That was the essential of it. Whether they think they want to pursue some other plan, if it is necessary to secure legislation, I do not know. Of course the Board had the plan that was explained in the Shipping Bill last year and which was debated in the Senate, but never came to a final vote. I suppose that represents the idea that the Shipping Board has of the kind of legislation they would like to have, rather than forming another, but whether they think it advisable to do anything about that legislation in the coming session is something I Couldn’t give you any definite opinion about now.

An inquiry also about Mr. Ahister and his conference with me. That leads me to say a general word about matters of this kind. Of course, the people that come here to see the President come because they have something that they want to lay before him. Something they want to tell him. Not because they expect to get information from me. That being so, I give them the opportunity, insofar as I can, to tell me what it is that they have in mind. Very much as you come in and get information from me, not by all talking to me, but by permitting me to talk to you, and it is the reverse of that operation that goes on here when any one comes to see me. When they go out they are, of course, at liberty to make such representations as they want to. They are not supposed to quote the conferences with me, but sometimes they undertake to do that and sometimes they don’t. Now, I shall have to adopt the rule, of course, of not being responsible for what people may say when they go out. They are good about it, I know, and mean to represent everything just exactly as they understood it, but if I should undertake to follow up all those things and correct them all, I don’t suppose I would have an opportunity to do very much else. So I am not going to do that.

This inquiry is in relation to railroad consolidations. I haven’t been into the particulars of that. Senator Cummings has it under consideration. He is a veteran in the study of railroad problems, was one of the authors of the present law, and I should want to confer with him and with others, of course; with the Interstate Commerce Commission, also, before I could have any mature opinion about railroad matters.

There wasn’t anything that came up today at the Cabinet Meeting that is of any particular interest. We discussed a lot of small details as to when we might be able to meet and take up some questions, but there were no decisions made, and while I had expected to take up the agricultural problem especially at this meeting of the Cabinet, I was not able to do so because Secretary Wallace hasn’t completed his survey of the wheat situation.

Another inquiry about the Merchant Marine problem. I have already spoken about that, and I can’t give you any more information as to what the next step will be.

I have already spoken about the Oklahoma situation. As I said, no representation, as far as I know, has been made in Washington at all about that, and it would be very unlikely that any representation would come from anyone except the Governor.

Further inquiry as to what may be done about profiteering in coal. The Federal Trade Commission, as I have already said, has all the facts that were gathered by the Fuel Commission. They are studying those, and undertaking to see if they can make any representations that would be helpful. On the 24th, which is next Monday, the Interstate Commerce Commission meets, I think, at Pittsburgh, in order to consider rates, especially of coal. I think that has firtually covered the things that you had in mind.

I am reminded that the Conference of Governors is at West Baden instead of Indianapolis. I assume that Mr. Welliver is right. He almost always is.

The pressman's strike in New York City ended.

Spanish military physician, Dr. Fidel Pagés, only 37 years of age and the developer of the technique of epidural anesthesia, was killed in a traffic accident in the town of Quintanapalla.  He was returning from a vacation with his family.

Thursday, August 31, 2023

A Sorority (Fraternity) lawsuit, and a subject who could be helped.

Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence. To say that I must not deny my opponent's faith is to say that I must not discuss it.

G. K. Chesterton.

The Gibson Girl, the iconic female figure of the early 1900s created by Charles Dana Gibson. The thing is, you see, she isn't, and wasn't, real.

There's been a story much in the news here, and indeed elsewhere, about a figure who is a guy but who claims he identifies as a girl, or more accurately, a figure who is a man who claims he identified as a woman.

What impresses me about this story isn't that aspect of it, so much as nobody, up until very recently, and after I started this post, has really bothered to dive very deep into the story, particularly from a psychological level.

It seems that they should.

Not that we should be too surprised about this. People rarely do.  During World War Two, for example, in one rural area of Germany a figure held forth as a local open anti-Nazi member of the German nobility. . . except he wasn't a member of the nobility at all.  He was lucky to get away with it, and his anti-Nazi stance was genuine.  But a Junker he was not.  Why did he do that?

Backstories to the public positions people take are very rarely looked at, but really should be.  Some backers of causes that are strongly for them in a virulent way have a personal connection that undermines their position in one fashion or another.  Others just make you wonder.  Why, for instance, would a well-to-do young man with no employment history relocate to a Western state and run for office as a political firebrand on the populist libertarian front?  You'd think voters would ask, but they largely don't.  Why would an ostensible billionaire who has gone down in defeat in an election and who faces a pile of criminal charges be running so aggressively for office again?

We tend to take things at face value.

So too here.

There's some new data out that shows that for the majority of people who claim transgenderism, if left to develop that claim on their own, the claim itself is transitory and youthful.  Most girls, for example, who in their very early teens feel they want to be boys, don't a decade latter.  That's a good reason in and of itself not to allow "transitions" that can't be reversed, and any substantial one can't be reversed.  Indeed, it's criminal to allow it in an existential sense, and ought to be in a legal sense.  But what causes it?

Indeed, as a commentor on the story in Wyo File, which finally did look at some of the backstory, noted:

The strong correlation between trans identity and autism spectrum disorder has been recognized over the last three years by such professional organizations as the National Autism Society, The Institutes of Health, Autism Research Institute, and studies published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Noted was the observation that autistic youths were up to 6 times more likely to identify as trans than a similar non-autistic demographic. The medical field recognizes and treats autism as a disorder, not a normal expression of the spectrum of the human condition. Since it appears that trans gender identity is resultant from ASD, it should also be treated as a disorder rather than celebrated.

That's an interesting observation, to say the least.

Well, we've looked at it before, but in regard to the individual who has been so much in the news, why hasn't anyone looked up until now?

The data is there, or at least was, when this story first developed.  It doesn't appear to be a happy story.

When this news first broke, there was a blog up, and maybe there still is, by the father.  It wasn't on his sons, but his son appeared in the photos.  He already looked different from the rest, having gained a lot of weight even as a child.  But what the blog made clear is that the father was bitterly disillusioned.

Not with the son, but with his former wife.

His wife, he claimed, had left and divorced him, and her Mormon faith was the reason why.

Now, that was never explained.  Mormon's can and do marry outside of their faiths, so there are a lot of roads that could be gone down there. Whatever the story was, from his prospective, the wife had left him and their children for her Mormonism.

Now, that doesn't really make sense.  One of the things most noted about Mormon's is their deep devotion to the children.  It's hard to imagine what the conflict was, but it was at least perceived that way by the former father.

Maybe the topic of the young man had already come up, and now based on the Wyo File story, it seems it definitely had.  Perhaps that was the division.  Or not.  Maybe that had nothing to do with the split.  Again, we don't really know.

I don't really know the definitive Mormon position on transgenderism.  I do know the Catholic one which is that disorders are not sinful, but acting upon them if it's outside of the moral framework, is.  This has typically come up in regard to homosexuality. Being a homosexual isn't sinful, but sex outside of marriage is, and marriage is just between a man and a woman.  I believe the Mormon position is similar, but I can't say that definitively.  If the boy's declared sexual dysmorphia became an issue in the household, with one parent taking the boy's side, and one not (and I don't know if that was the case), I can see where it may ultimately have been fatal to the marriage.

What we do know, and from long, long experience, is that its difficult in the extreme to raise a child in a one parent household and that this is so much the case that when one parent is present but really absent, such as one works all the time, or one is a drug or alcohol addict, it statistically impacts the outlook of the children and often for life.

Daughters, it's been shown, of a checked out woman are much more likely to turn out to be lesbians than daughters where the mother is present. That doesn't mean their relationship is necessarily rosy. But the daughters of what now is so charmingly called "the day drinking moms" who sit there in front of the television at 1:30 in the afternoon getting blotto tend to have no real female role model.*  In contrast, a mother may be a Tiger Mom, or whatever, but if she's there, it makes a huge difference.

In contrast, the son's of men who are not there tend to be more likely to have same sex attraction as well.  The two impulses, one in male and one in females, are not otherwise similar and other aspects go into it. Women who perceive, while young, that men are a threat are more likely to take refuge with other women.  What about men?

Well, I don't know, but one thing that has been pretty clearly demonstrated is that young men who are exclusively around other young men, to the exclusion of females, are more likely to become homosexuals.  English Boy Schools provide a well known example.  

What about transgenderism?

One thing we do know, in spite of recent left wing attempts to scientifically legitimize it, much like was formerly done with eugenics, it has no biological origin.  No set of hormones or the like is going to send you off into a different gender. That means it's purely psychological in origin.

But what's going on with it?

We don't know for sure, but we do know that with females it mostly hits in the very early teens and is gone by the early 20s.  And we also know that young women are getting exposed to piles of gross pornography right now, and that those who are ADHD are more likely to take this direction.  Often it occurs in groups.

Which may mean that its origin is much like lesbianism, except its much more destructive, but also much more transitory.  Girls are seeking refuge outside of their sex as they fear the roles that their sex seems to have.  Once it starts to clear up that the life of adult women isn't something featured on Pornhub, it wanes.

And men?

Well, it would appear autism is an element of it, as the subject is apparently on the spectrum.  That's telling.

It would also appear that early on, he received "support" from elements after he started to reveal his claimed orientation.  For one thing, his school had a "SPEAK" club, standing for Genders and Sexualities Alliance, of which he was a member.**

That's telling not because he was a member, but because it's well known that recruitment of people to anything, particularly anything destructive, tends to take root if done very young. There's a reason that the Nazi Party in Germany eliminated youth organizations and replaced them with the Hitler Youth, or why the Soviet Communist Party had the Young Pioneers.  There's also a reason, although people now turn a blind eye to it, that homosexual men used to fairly notably recruit teenage men.  If you start to dive into debasement, it's really hard to get back out.

Young pioneers... for the struggle in the name of Lenin and Stalin... be prepared! (1951)

So what else is over all going on here?

I don't know, but I suspect that a certain element of refuge, or indeed a large role of refuge, from the male role is at work here as well, in the overall story of transgenderism.  In spite of a protracted effort to undermine it, male roles basically remain unchanged.

We tend, mentally, to still think of the Four things greater than all things are.

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,

Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.

Lean are the camels but fat the frails,

Light are the purses but heavy the bales,

As the snowbound trade of the North comes down

To the market-square of Peshawur town.

 

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,

A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.

Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,

And tent-peg answered to  hammer-nose;

And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,

Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;

And the bubbling camels beside the load

Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;

And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,

Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;

And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;

And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;

And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk

A savour of camels and carpets and musk,

A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,

To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.

 

The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,

The knives were whetted and -- then came I

To Mahbub Ali, the muleteer,

Patching his bridles and counting his gear,

Crammed with the gossip of half a year.

But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,

"Better is speech when the belly is fed."

So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep

In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,

And he who never hath tasted the food,

By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

 

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,

We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,

With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.

Four things greater than all things are, --

Women and Horses and Power and War.

We spake of them all, but the last the most,

For I sought a word of a Russian post,

Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

And a grey-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.

Quoth he:  "Of the Russians who can say?

When the night is gathering all is grey.

But we look that the gloom of the night shall die

In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.

Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

To warn a King of his enemies?

We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

That unsought counsel is cursed of God

Attesteth the story of Wali Dad.

 

"His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,

His dam was a clucking Khattack hen;

And the colt bred close to the vice of each,

For he carried the curse of an unstaunched speech.

Therewith madness -- so that he sought

The favour of kings at the Kabul court;

And travelled, in hope of honour, far

To the line where the grey-coat squadrons are.

There have I journeyed too -- but I

Saw naught, said naught, and -- did not die!

He hearked to rumour, and snatched at a breath

Of `this one knoweth', and 'that one saith', --

Legends that ran from mouth to mouth

Of a grey-coat coming, and sack of the South.

These have I also heard -- they pass

With each new spring and the winter grass.

 

"Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,

Back to the city ran Wali Dad,

Even to Kabul -- in full durbar

The King held talk with his Chief in War.

Into the press of the crowd he broke,

And what he had heard of the coming spoke.

 

"Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,

As a mother might on a babbling child;

But those who would laugh restrained their breath,

When the face of the King showed dark as death.

Evil it is in full durbar

To cry to a ruler of gathering war!

Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,

That grew by a cleft of the city wall.

And he said to the boy:  `They shall praise thy zeal

So long as the red spurt follows the steel.

And the Russ is upon us even now?

Great is thy prudence -- await them, thou.

Watch from the tree.  Thou art young and strong.

Surely the vigil is not for long.

The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?

Surely an hour shall bring their van.

Wait and watch.  When the host is near,

Shout aloud that my men may hear.'

 

"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

To warn a King of his enemies?

A guard was set that he might not flee --

A score of bayonets ringed the tree.

The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,

When he shook at his death as he looked below.

By the power of God, Who alone is great,

Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.

Then madness took him, and men declare

He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,

And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,

And he hung like a bat in the forks, and wailed,

And sleep the cord of his hands untied,

And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.

 

"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise

To warn a King of his enemies?

We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

Of the grey-coat coming who can say?

When the night is gathering all is grey.

Two things greater than all things are,

The first is Love, and the second War.

And since we know not how War may prove,

Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!"

Kipling, The Ballad of the King's Jest. 

But those four things are tough things too, resulting in physical and psychological injury and sometimes death, but also, in a proper view that Theophilus might hold, to quite another direction as well.

There's always been men who feared not measuring up to the male ideal or the male role.  This has expressed itself differently in different eras. World War Two saw a surprising number of suicides undertaken by men who were rejected by draft boards.  They couldn't stand the thought of what that meant, in their own minds, and took their own lives.  I've already noted, in other threads, that the Apostolic clergy provided refuge for a certain number of men in former ears for same sex attraction.  

It's been well documented that in prisons certain men who have never demonstrated a transgender inclination before, but who are physical weak and in need of protection, will take on female attributes and become the "female" object of a same-sex relationship.  

In the extremely rough and violent world of Plaints Indians, there were, as is sometimes famously pointed out, men who would declare, at an early age, that they were really drawn to femininity and then would drop out of the male role for the female role.  While moderns like to pretend there's no division of labor by nature in human beings, there very clearly is, and that tellingly reduced those men to cooking, cleaning hides, and the like.  It meant they were exempt from killing other human beings and fighting, a normal part of cultures which exalted warriors.

Lakota warriors.  No doubt, every one of these men had killed other men.

Put another way, Crow Heart Butte in Wyoming, and near where this boy is from, is named that because Washakie killed a Crow chieftain and ate his heart.  Not because they met for tea.

And this raises an interesting point.

The waif like Audrey Hepburn in 1956, who was pretty clearly the model of female beauty for a man who recently promoted Bud Light as a woman.  She's a model, however, of safe female beauty that wouldn't really attract unwanted male attention. By 1956, the other type of female beauty, one more admired by males, was very much in circulation, as Playboy was expanding and the screens were full of Marilyn Monroe.

Men who try to affect a female appearance tend to take on an exaggerated one.  In modern society, if you go out on a city sidewalk on any particular day, you'll find at least a few young women wearing blue jeans and t-shirts and who are healthy muscular, in a female sense.  In offices and in office culture, you'll find most women wearing suitable office attire. You'll never find, however, a woman walking around with a feather boa, or trying to look like Audrey Hepburn, or wearing something like a polka dress.

But in the transgender community, you'll find all of that fairly commonly, although in this particular case that's not being demonstrated.

Indeed, here, in spite of what we're supposed to say, what we really see is a guy who looks like a very large, soft looking guy. 

Actor Robert Conrad, right, in The Killers. Conrad was always a big guy, but definately a guy.

Now, in the male world, you can be overweight, but being soft is pretty difficult.  It no doubt goes back to our earliest origins.  Most likely, our Cro Magnon ancestors didn't get fat, they were too resource poor to pull that off, but softness probably simply couldn't be tolerated.  There wasn't any room for "I don't want to fight that new tribe that just showed up" allowed.  And to a large degree, there still really isn't.

Going back to when I was really young, I can think of some instances of pretty soft teenage boys, but the way that they and everyone else handled it was different.  They were soft, but not so soft that they were unreliable in a pinch. Basically, like a lot of people with different personality traits, they'd learned how to rise to the occasion, and in their cases often frequently, to overcome them.

We don't do that anymore.  We face our failings by "accepting" them, which is not to face them at all.

Now, there's more to this than that, but perhaps not as much as we might think, for no sane man would ever want to be a woman.

Women like to be women, as their DNA provides for it.***  But very few men, if any, would be comfortable with bleeding a great deal on a routine and scheduled basis, being subjected to hormonal storms, or being subject to the numerous medical and physical problems just being a woman entails.  Women's worlds change at least monthly, and in reality more frequently than that.  Over the course of a lifetime, women's reality changed massively, once at puberty, later at childbirth, if they have children, and then again at menopause.  Women live longer, to be sure, but the existential nature of their existence practically means they undergo a deep physical and psychological chrysalis at least twice if not three or more times.  Women mature more quickly than men, but some of them endure such hard physical changes that the impacts are nearly shattering when they occur, and that doesn't even take into account the monthly cyclonic storms they endure.

To be male means having a predictable physical reality that only changes over decades and to some extent never does.  And indeed, transgendered men in fact avoid that.  They aren't going to endure the agony of menstruation for one thing, and they likely don't want to.  Most just keep their dicks and balls and call it good.

Old Man : Hey are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertiliser and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertiliser. As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83. I am staying here.

Line from The Magnificent Seven.



Two imagines, once expected, and one exaggerated, of 20th Century manhood.  In the top image, a British Tommy holds the line. . . alone.  He's probably going to die.  In the second, the super macho and brooding Sgt. Rock, entertainer of thousands of juvenile males in the second half of the century, leads Easy Company into a charge.

To be a transgender male, in some ways, means dropping out of the expectations without picking up the pain and agony of being a woman.  Male strength remains, and repeated naturally programmed female physical distress does not arrive.  No matter what they may say, for the most part, transgendered men are dropping out of male society.  Men don't want them as lovers, and most of them have physical attributes, even with their pants buttoned up, that make them unattractive even if an unsuspecting male eye was cast on them.

Beyond that, however, they're omitted from the male warband when young.  Nobody is going to ever ask them what they'd do if they're drafted.  And nobody is going to conscript them into a bar fight, which almost every living Western male has had happened or nearly happen.  You aren't going to be asked to defend some woman's  honor.  You aren't going to intervene if somebody threatens your sister, girlfriend or wife.  You aren't, moreover, ever going to hear "go over and ask her to dance", and all that means and what follows.

U.S. teenage pregnancy rates from the mid 1970s to mid 2010s.  Contrary to what might be expected, if this chart went back to the 1950s, the rate would have started off even higher, as the 50s really saw the peak in recent U.S. teen pregnancy rates.  Exactly 0% of these pregnancies were to the transgendered expressing as female.  Some probably originated from the same group acting contrary to their declared expression.

You also, however, are going to usually be safe to women, except as alleged here where the allegations, which are denied, is that you are leering at boobs and getting erections.  This isn't true at all of other men, no matter how friendly they may be.  Some males, including some highly intellectual ones, hold that no real platonic friendship can ever exist between a man and a woman, as the man (not the woman) will always regard a female contemporary as at least a suppressed potential object of affection.****  While it may be misperceived, transgenendered men and homosexual men are usually received well by women, as that threat is generally absent, or at least conceived of being absent.

Highly romanticized illustration of a teenage mother from Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes, The Pathetic and Humorous Side of Young Vagabond Life in the Great Cities, With Records of Work for Their Reclamation 1884.

But none of that is natural, and all of it, in some fashion, is a cry for help.  Even the cry for acceptance is just that.

Over the years, sometimes personally, and sometimes professionally, I've known people who ended up needing help, some well after they'd received it.  I know one lawyer who is a convicted felon, but overcame that for a successful career.  I've met people who were addicted to drugs or alcohol, and overcame that.  Usually if you got down to it, you could see that they didn't take up their afflictions as they really enjoyed them, but because they were attempting to bury something else.  One lawyer I somewhat knew disappeared for about a month before his family found him, in another state, in a hotel room, having crawled into a bottle.  He wasn't there as he enjoyed drinking himself stupid in hotel rooms.

Some people, with more conventional afflictions, are like crashing trains right as you watch them.  And interestingly, if is a more conventional and traditional affliction, like addition to alcohol and sex, or the two combined, its commented about backdoor, but nobody ever says that being in that condition is just a life choice.  Everyone knows its not, and that is a disaster.

And so is this.

As the comment above notes, we help people on the autism spectrum, and we know that they may need help.  It's not regarded as a life choice.  But in 2023, everything sexual, except for pedophilism, is just an expression of individualism.  The ban on sex with children only remains as its so disgusting, as otherwise all the logic that applies to "accepting" every other sexual behavior applies equally to it, save for that its destructive to children.  But it's also destructive to adults, and its been shown that it tends to come on with people who have had multiple sex partners.

Transgenderism is like that.  There's no reason to believe that it is not a mental illness, one associated with other conditions, that can be arrested and addressed.

But in our political purity of the age, we're not doing that.  And that's destructive for the people making the declaration, who could have been helped.

We might, before concluding, stop to ask two questions. Does it really matter, would be the first.

After all, if somebody wants to drink themselves into oblivion, does it matter, if that's their choice?  Or more particularly, if somebody wants to present as a woman, who is a man, what does it really matter to me or anyone else?

Well, it does matter if your view of humanity is that we are our brother's keeper.  Oddly enough, in our contemporary world, it's the political left that claims that we are, while the political right, as exhibited by Jeanette Ward in a common in the last legislative session, feels we are not.  But most decent societies, and all Christian societies, feel that we are.

So there's a duty to the individual to help them live an ordered life. We know that living a disordered one leads to unhappiness.

There's a wider duty, however, to society.  Assaults on individual natures are assaults on nature in general, are destructive to us all.

And, additionally, telling a lie to yourself is one thing. But demanding, even with the force of law, that everyone else adopt the lie is quite another. That's completely destructive to the social structure, as enshrining lies as part of them inevitably leads to decay.

And finally, and more particularly, it's damaging to women in the extreme. Real women, that is.  Women know that they aren't men.  We all know that the biological life of a woman is radically different from a man's in nearly every sense.  Psychologically, it isn't the same either.  Reducing womanhood to appearing to have boobs is the most Hefnereque position of all, and an insult to women in every fashion.

Footnotes:

*I don't know how or why "day drinking", which is very often attributed to women, became cute. But it isn't.

**The existence of such non-academic clubs in schools is ample evidence of the intrusion of really left wing "progressive" values into schools. By and large I"m skeptical when such claims are made, but the recent library controversies over homosexual pornography in public schools shows there's definitely something to it, as do the existence of clubs that exist to effectively demand that inclinations that are poorly understood and fairly recently regarded as mental illnesses be accepted as normal.

***Having said that, there's plenty of evidence that well into the mid 20th Century, at least, plenty of women regretted having been born women, which isn't quite the same thing.

****Whatever hte truth of htat may be, it's pretty clear that it's not true of close relatives.  The "taboo" on incest is clearly ingrained enough into us to translate over to close relationship, such as cousins.