By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2025-01-30 04:37:55 | Updated at 2025-01-30 17:46:04
17 hours ago
Gender watch: Trump Moves To Protect Minors
“Many of us who’ve studied this issue, Trump’s directives seem reasonable,” cheers Lisa Selin Davis at UnHerd of the prez’s order to the Executive Branch to “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”
She notes that actually “ending these practices may involve getting rid of section 1557 of the ObamaCare law.”
Other parts of the order focus on getting accurate information on the long-term effects of trans procedures and best practices for treating gender dysphoria.
Fact is, “we’ve long needed evidence-based guidelines instead of activist-based guidelines.”
But “as documents unsealed in lawsuits revealed,” the World Professional Association for Transgender Health “suppressed systematic evidence reviews because they didn’t support” trans-ing adolescents.
Conservative: Sensible Strings on Cali Relief
“Democrats are apoplectic” at President Trump’s suggestion that that federal wildfire relief for California “should come with conditions attached,” including the state changing its water, timber management and building standards, notes Mick Mulvaney at The Hill.
But the feds have had stipulations “like that for decades with hurricane and other flood-prone areas,” and “the Biden administration enforced” them.
“As a taxpayer (and someone who at the same time owns property in Florida), I say good for the Biden team. But how is what they did all that different from what some Republicans are talking about now?”
“If you start to ask your fellow taxpayers for free money to rebuild your home, maybe it’s not so unreasonable to impose conditions.”
Media beat: Why They Get No Respect
USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques spotlights “two recent revelations” that prove a double standard in the media’s approach to covering presidents.
In one, two former Politico reporters exposed “how decisions were made by editors to quash negative stories” about Hunter Biden’s laptop “which contained evidence of his shady business dealings and influence peddling.”
Instead, Politico ran an article calling The Post’s coverage of the scandal “disinformation.”
“The media also worked in lockstep to tamp down the possibility that COVID-19 could have originated in a lab,” a theory Trump postulated early on that is now accepted by America’s intelligence agencies.
“While the media’s instinct under Biden was to take him at his word, the opposite is true with Trump.”
With “such a clear double standard in coverage,” it’s hard to take journalists “seriously.”
Mideast desk: The IDF Tries To Save Abbas
Why is the IDF “carrying out antiterror missions in the West Bank despite the cease-fire in Gaza” asks Commentary’s Seth Mandel?
“To save Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority from irrelevance and give it a fighting chance to once again govern both Palestinian territories.”
Will Abbas “ever be in a place where he is strong enough to hold up his end of a security bargain with Israel?”
Yes, during the Hamas war Israel drove home that “the ‘costs’ part of ‘resistance at all costs’ turned out to be quite high” for Palestinian terrorists. But the PA is “not great” at actually enforcing security, viz. its recent failures in Jenin, so the odds of it overseeing Gaza too “are looking a bit longer every day.”
From the right: Yes! to Missile Defense
“One benefit of President Trump’s return to power is that fresh thinking is sweeping through” government — most notably, his call for an Iron Dome-like missile-defense shield to make the nation “safer from missile and nuclear attacks,” cheers The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.
Trump wants plans, within 60 days, for “new sensors for tracking missiles, including in space,” plus “the ‘development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors,’ and more.”
It’s could be a “great leap forward” for US defense. After all, global missile development has advanced and proliferated; it’s certainly “far more worrisome than climate change.”
Stronger missile defense enhances deterrence, since “an adversary contemplating a first strike can’t be confident its attack” gets through. “Kudos for Mr. Trump” for addressing this vulnerability.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
