Penna Dexter
We are about to have our first openly transgender member of Congress. Democrat Sarah McBride won Delaware’s lone House seat and will be sworn in this January. Since Rep.-elect McBride is a trans woman (a biological male) there’s a bit of uncertainty regarding restrooms and other women’s spaces.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has introduced a couple of measures aimed at protecting women and the spaces designated specifically for their use — i.e. restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms. One measure would prevent transgender women from using women’s facilities on the House side of the U.S. Capitol.  The other would extend that ban to all federal property.
Rep. Mace says, as a victim of abuse, “I’m absolutely, 100 percent going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has not committed to a vote on either measure but stated that single-sex facilities “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” Rep. McBride pledged to abide by those rules, “even if I disagree.”
Still, over time, compliance will suffer. Chris Enloe, writer for The Blaze, says Nancy Mace “should be commended for fighting back against the encroachment of transgenderism.” But, on social media she touts her support for same sex marriage, stating, “I voted for gay marriage twice in fact and would do it again.”
The Blaze’s Chris Enloe points to the “dissonance between these two positions.” He says, “to support the destruction of traditional marriage — in which functional and biological differences are its most important property — is a wholesale rejection of the framework that distinguishes a man from a woman.”
It’s right there in Matt. 19:4. God’s design for marriage is based upon the way He created us: “male and female.” But, society has elevated personal feelings and discarded sex differences as a requirement for marriage.
We’re here, says Chris Enloe, because of those who tried to “erase biological realities when it was convenient.” 

Kerby Anderson
Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institute of Health (NIH). If you are not familiar with him, he is a Stanford University professor of medicine and health research policy.
Allysia Finley calls this the “revenge of the Covid lockdown skeptics.” During the pandemic and lockdowns, Dr. Bhattacharya attempted to inject some common sense into the government’s policies. The head of the NIH during that period was Dr. Francis Collins, who referred to the professor as a “fringe scientist.”
Dr. Bhattacharya, along with scientists from Harvard and Oxford, put together what came to be known as “The Great Barrington Declaration.” The tens of thousands of scientists expressed their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”
Once it was published, Francis Collins urged a “quick and devastating take down of its premises” in an email to Anthony Fauci. In a Washington Post interview, Dr. Collins denounced the declaration as a “fringe component of epidemiology” and further said it was “not mainstream science.”
Of course, we now know who was wrong. The lockdowns devastated the economy and stunted school children’s learning for a generation. And social media was all too willing to censor any medical view that contradicted the government’s mantra. Twitter blacklisted the professor.
Why didn’t others speak up? Unfortunately, there was a financial incentive to agree with rather than contradict Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci. It is all to fitting that Donald Trump wants to put Dr. Bhattacharya in charge of the NIH.

Kerby Anderson
Before the election, I would often do a feature on “problems the next administration will face no matter who is elected.” Now we know that it will be a Trump administration that will face these issues. One of the most difficult to resolve will be federal deficits.
Lyn Alden (author of Broken Money) has written about this and appeared on the Fox News program “Making Money with Charles Payne.” Federal deficits are hard to fix for many reasons.
First is the issue of Social Security. Put simply the math breaks down when population growth slows down. The ratio between those who pay into it and those who receive has steadily declined for decades. And the Social Security fund that was built up for decades is shrinking.
A second issue is healthcare spending. The US not only spends more per person on health care, but it also has the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions. The obesity rate is twice that of other developed countries.
The accumulated debt interest is a third major issue. For the past four decades, the US has had a rising debt/GDP ratio, while also having falling interest rates. Politicians aren’t likely to choose austerity, even if the government efficiency department recommends significant cuts. Therefore, increasing the money supply by printing more money becomes the only option.
This leads to a fourth issue: the financialization of tax receipts. Let’s assume the next administration could shrink the deficit through tax increases and spending cuts. It won’t have as much impact because asset prices in this country are more correlated to the performance of the stock market.
These are just a few reasons why the next administration will face significant obstacles in trying to reduce the size of federal deficits.