from The Jimmy Dore Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens‚ Wall St On Parade: Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of the largest federally-insured‚ taxpayer-backstopped bank in the United States‚ JPMorgan Chase. Through much of Dimon’s tenure‚ JPMorgan Chase has also been designated as the riskiest bank in the United States by its regulators. And despite its unprecedented criminal history‚ […]

by Shane Trejo‚ Big League Politics: A YouGov poll has shown the right-wing anti-globalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party rapidly rising in support‚ putting the nation’s entrenched political establishment into a bind. The new poll shows the AfD party getting 24 percent of support from the German people‚ making them the second most popular party […]

from The Salty Cracker:  TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

from ZeroHedge: Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals – The economy‚ politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now‚ and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake‚ eventually the ice is going to break.  The question is‚ how do we […]

from Infowars:  TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

The countdown has begun—only six months until the 2024 Olympic Games. And already we can anticipate the serious challenges that female athletes will face in their quest for success—most critically‚ including male athletes who identify as women in women’s competitions. Women competed for the first time in the Olympics at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. Now‚ 124 years later‚ with the Summer Games being held in Paris again‚ it would be a disastrous backslide if male athletes who identify as women are allowed to compete in female-only categories. Yet recent international pushes for so-called inclusion make this an all too real scenario for the upcoming Olympics. Among those standing in the gap is Reem Alsalem‚ U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women and girls‚ who on Dec. 27‚  issued an official communication to the U.S. government warning that rule changes in women’s and girls sports at the national level would breach “human rights obligations.” The special rapporteur’s letter makes clear that the Biden administration’s proposed changes to federal Title IX law requiring schools to permit males to compete in female-only sports would not only disadvantage female athletes but also seriously undermine the safety of women and girls. As the special rapporteur states‚ changes to Title IX “would lead to the loss of privacy‚ an increased risk of physical injury‚ heightened exposure to sexual harassment and voyeurism‚ as well as a more frequent and accumulated psychological distress due to the loss of privacy and fair and equal sporting and academic opportunities.” The result would be to “contravene the United States’ international human rights obligations and commitments concerning the prevention of all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls on the basis of sex.” This commonsense approach to protecting women runs contrary to that favored by the International Olympic Committee. In November 2021‚ the IOC introduced a new framework for the participation of transgender individuals in sports. It established that eligibility criteria should not exclude athletes from competition based on their gender identity and should not be based on an “unverified‚ alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage” resulting from transgender status. Under the false presumption that there exists no de facto performance advantage for biological males who self-identify as females‚ the Olympic framework further holds that any restrictions to eligibility criteria should have to prove a disproportionate competitive advantage. This is the grim reality confronting the women who train‚ work‚ and sacrifice so much to compete in sports at the highest levels. Mirroring this approach‚ a group of former and current experts belonging to the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council released an October 2023 policy paper with the claim that attempts to “use” the male-female categorization in sports is exclusionary to men identifying as transgender women. The policy position holds that “categoric exclusions of trans[gender] and intersex women from women’s sports is a prima facie violation of human rights obligations.” Never mind the obvious human rights violations that ensue when women are displaced or systemically disadvantaged on their own playing field by the participation of biological men. As recognized by the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group‚ a group of former athletes and sports administrators‚ “If sports were not segregated by sex‚ female athletes would rarely be seen in finals or on victory podiums.” Biological differences between men and women matter‚ most evidently in athletics. And contrary to what the U.N. experts suggest‚ “gender identity” is not a protected category under international human rights law. Rather‚ sex is. Let there be no doubt: this is not about preventing transgender individuals from partaking in sports; it is about ensuring fair play and safety for all‚ especially women. Female athletes have the right to compete in a protected category‚ with a fair chance to win and with full consideration for their safety both on and off the field. The toll of “inclusion” at the cost of fairness and safety for women in sports is mounting worldwide. This approach fails to adequately consider the clear scientific evidence that the two sexes are not equivalently situated in sports because of males’ physiological advantages over women. Thankfully‚ science has well-documented men’s performance advantages over women in almost all athletic competitions. We need only look to the studies conducted by eminent gender experts such as Gregory Brown‚ Emma Hilton‚ David Handelsman‚ and Taryn Knox‚ among others‚ to understand the objective nature of these differences. Men and women are equal‚ but not interchangeable. Only by shutting one’s eyes and ignoring the insurmountable scientific evidence can one claim that excluding male athletes from female categories is discriminatory. On the contrary‚ if biological men are allowed to invade female-only spaces‚ it will be women and girls who will pay the price of exclusion. The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.  Have an opinion about this article? To sound off‚ please email letters@DailySignal.com‚ and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. The post 2024 Olympics: Science Supports Excluding Male Athletes From Female Categories appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A group of international religious freedom experts are calling for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to testify before a congressional hearing about the State Department’s decision to exclude Nigeria and India from a list of nations with severe violations of religious freedom. In a letter sent Wednesday‚ first obtained by The Daily Signal‚ more than 40 religious freedom experts and organizations pointed out that since 2009‚ more than 50‚000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria‚ and 18‚000 churches and 2‚500 Christian schools attacked. They also cited India‚ where they say that between 200 and 400 churches and 3‚500 Christian homes have been attacked just since last May. “As human rights and international religious freedom leaders‚ we stand in support of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in their call for a congressional hearing into the State Department’s exclusion of Nigeria and India from the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list‚” the letter states. “Nigeria and India have been rocked by alarming instances of religious violence and persecution‚” the religious freedom advocates insisted. “Pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act‚ both countries meet the statutory definition of ‘engaging in or tolerating particularly severe violations of religious freedom’ to be designated as CPC. They should be designated as such.” A “Country of Particular Concern” can be so designated by the secretary of state if a nation is engaged in such severe violations of religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. Under then-President Donald Trump’s administration‚ Nigeria was designated as a CPC. President Joe Biden’s administration removed that designation‚ and it’s not clear why. Letter-in-Support-of-USCIRFs-Call-for-Congressional-Hearing-FinalDownload The religious freedom experts emphasized that “it is imperative for the United States to actively address these issues and ensure that the principles of religious freedom are upheld globally.” “Accountability and transparency are essential to understanding the State Department’s rationale for declining to designate Nigeria and India as CPCs‚” the letter continued. “We urge the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to convene hearings to thoroughly examine the reasons behind the exclusion of Nigeria and India from the CPC list. Secretary of State Antony Blinken must answer to Congress and the American people.” Signers of the letter include International Christian Concern’s McKenna Wendt; former Reps. Frank Wolf‚ R-Va.‚ and Dan Burton‚ R-Ind.; International Religious Freedom Secretariat President Nadine Maenza; the Family Research Council’s Lela Gilbert; William Murray‚ chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition‚ and others. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal. Have an opinion about this article? To sound off‚ please email letters@DailySignal.com‚ and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.  The post EXCLUSIVE: Religious Freedom Advocates Demand Answers on State Department’s Exclusion of Nigeria‚ India From Persecution List appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Will the Supreme Court uphold the Chevron doctrine‚ under which courts defer to contested interpretations of law by agencies in the executive branch? Or will the high court instruct lower courts to determine the best reading of the law‚ as they do in virtually every non-agency case?  Those are the questions the Supreme Court must answer after hours of arguments Wednesday in Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright v. Raimondo‚ two cases that challenge the Chevron doctrine. Most of the justices sounded skeptical of the doctrine. But whether Chevron or any deference to agencies’ legal interpretations endures will depend on how the justices answer a host of subsidiary questions. Both the Relentless and Loper Bright cases were brought by commercial fishermen challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s interpretation of a federal law called the Magnuson-Stevens Act. When congressional funding for the Fisheries Service ran dry‚ the agency determined that the law allowed it to keep its at-sea monitoring program afloat by requiring fishermen to pay the salaries of the federal monitors aboard their boats. The fishermen argued that nowhere in the Magnuson-Stevens Act does it say that the agency could force them to bear the costs of monitoring. Nonetheless‚ a split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit invoked the Chevron doctrine to hold that the agency’s interpretation of a supposed silence in the law had been reasonable.  The commercial fishermen went to the Supreme Court to ask the justices to overturn one specific agency interpretation. But the oral arguments focused less on the plight of the fishermen and more on the theoretical and historical problems besetting the Chevron doctrine.  The doctrine‚ adapted from the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council‚ consists of a two-part test: (1) if the language of the statute in question is clear‚ then courts apply that clear reading to the case before them; but (2) if the statutory language is ambiguous on the disputed question‚ then courts must defer to any reasonable interpretation the agency gives to the ambiguity. The problems with this approach? Well‚ they are legion‚ and the fishermen made sure that the court heard about all of them. The determinative question of what counts as ambiguous in statutory terms turns out to be‚ in a word‚ ambiguous. Judges often disagree about whether a law is clear. There is no uniform way to determine whether statutory language‚ always somewhat limited and imprecise‚ is unclear enough to conclude that Congress intended to give agencies interpretive power.  Then there is the Chevron doctrine’s strange assumption that an implied delegation of power from Congress to the agency should be inferred not just from ambiguous language in statutes‚ but from supposed gaps or silences in statutes. There is no requirement that Congress intended these gaps‚ of course. Often‚ they are mere accidents. After all‚ as advocates for the fishermen noted‚ Congress knows how to write laws that expressly give discretionary authority to agencies. Nevertheless‚ the Chevron doctrine requires courts to make the grand but dubious assumption that‚ where statutes and agencies are concerned‚ gaps and silences are enough to create ambiguity and thus something indeed can come from nothing.  Constitutional concerns‚ distinct but related‚ also abound. Mandatory deference to agencies’ legal interpretations seems to aggrandize the executive branch‚ where most agencies are housed‚ at the expense of other branches. The courts are the obvious losers.  Article III of the Constitution vests courts with the whole of the judicial power‚ and they are expected to exercise independent judgment to determine the meaning of law. Yet under Chevron‚ the agency’s reading can trump a court’s view of the best interpretation.  Article II gives Congress the whole of the legislative power. Yet agencies’ Chevron-enabled activities look suspiciously legislative when they interpret their way to previously unknown powers that become binding on the liberty and property of private parties‚ as the Fisheries Service’s interpretation did here. The concerns‚ however‚ don’t end with the separation of powers. Individual rights‚ specifically the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process‚ is implicated insofar as the Chevron doctrine requires courts to favor one party to a dispute‚ namely the agency‚ over another.    History only adds to the kaleidoscope of issues. The Chevron decision‚ written by then-Justice John Paul Stevens‚ never articulated the two-part test. Nor is it clear that Stevens or his fellow justices thought at the time that they were changing the status quo in administrative law‚ which governs the activities of agencies. Stevens never cited the key statute on point‚ the Administrative Procedure Act‚ and never referenced that law’s instruction that courts‚ not agencies‚ “decide all relevant questions of law.” The Chevron doctrine complicates‚ if not outright contradicts‚ that command; yet the Supreme Court never acknowledged the tension‚ suggesting that it never meant to affect a change.    But change is what Chevron wrought. For nearly 40 years‚ agencies have assumed the power to make disputed policy judgments under the guise of interpreting ambiguities in the law. The more audacious agency actors have gone further still by reading gaps into laws that agencies then could fill with novel and invented powers that Congress never explicitly conferred.  All this is a far cry from agencies’ traditional responsibility to fill in certain details‚ such as application deadlines‚ that Congress neglected to write into law. So‚ why should the Chevron doctrine survive the welter of criticism? According to Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar‚ who argued for the government Wednesday‚ it is because the doctrine is a bedrock principle of administrative law upon which courts and Congress long have relied. Prelogar argued that the doctrine prevents courts from becoming entangled in policy questions that they are ill-equipped to address. The justices spent much of their time probing the advocates on how to draw a consistent line between legal questions (in which courts are expert) and policy questions (in which agencies are). The court’s Democrat-appointed justices—Sonia Sotomayor‚ Elena Kagan‚ and Ketanji Brown Jackson—indicated that most of the tough interpretive questions were fundamentally policy decisions that courts should not attempt to answer. Sotomayor‚ Kagan‚ and Jackson maintained that in many cases “the law runs out‚” meaning that Congress has provided no specific guidance on a matter and would prefer that the relevant agency come up with an answer. As much as the three justices seemed to hold agency expertise in high regard‚ they hold low opinions of judges‚ whom‚ they assumed‚ couldn’t possibly know or learn enough to resolve technical disputes.    Attorney Roman Martinez and former Solicitor General Paul Clement‚ representing the fishermen‚ pushed back on all fronts. The Supreme Court’s increasingly rigorous approach to statutory interpretation‚ Martinez and Clement argued‚ would keep lower courts from straying into raw policy determinations. Congress could not have any usable expectation about what interpretive gaps would receive judicial deference because the case law was wildly inconsistent. And keeping the Chevron doctrine‚ far from promoting stability‚ only would perpetuate the regulatory whiplash created when presidential administrations change and new agency heads promptly reverse their predecessors’ decisions. The high court’s Republican-appointed majority of justices seemed generally skeptical of Prelogar’s arguments. Still‚ there may not be a consensus among those six justices as to the extent of the problem posed by the Chevron doctrine. Does the doctrine violate one or more provisions of the Constitution‚ or does it only run afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act? Is all deference legally problematic or only the deference formulated by the doctrine? If express delegations to agencies by Congress are constitutional‚ why should the implied delegations undergirding the Chevron doctrine be inherently problematic? And even if they are‚ will overruling Chevron disturb too much existing law? The magnitude of the eventual ruling in these cases hinges less on whether the Supreme Court overrules Chevron‚ an outcome that seems plausible‚ and more on what the court chooses to replace that regime with. Nothing the court says in this case will stop Congress from expressly giving vast swathes of discretion to executive agencies. That is a separate problem. Still‚ the court might‚ among other things‚ clarify the extent to which expertise—a value not mentioned in the Constitution—may act as a freestanding support to claims of authority‚ particularly those made with increasing frequency and stridency by the executive branch.  A ruling is expected by the end of June. Have an opinion about this article? To sound off‚ please email letters@DailySignal.com‚ and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. The post Supreme Court Must Answer Whether Judges or Bureaucrats Have Final Word on Federal Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Royal Family Fave Went Under the Knife‚ Spurs King Charles to Make His Own Announcement