The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
A Response to Montel Williams on Bathroom
and Locker Room Privacy
by Michael Brown
by Michael Brown
~~~
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liar-Clinton's Weaknesses Manifest in West Virginia With Donald liar-Trump now the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, liar-Hilly Clinton would like nothing better than to pivot from the primary race and face her fellow New York bigwig. But Bernie Sanders continues to nip hard at her heals. In the West Virginia primary on Tuesday, Sanders amassed 51.4% of the vote to liar-Clinton's 36%. She might have the plurality of delegates and the nomination mathematically in the bag, but for the frontrunner to lose state after state just as she's supposed to unite the party doesn't fit into the narrative she wants to portray.
liar-Clinton lost West Virginia because of her stance on coal. She admitted in March her policies would seriously hurt coal country, saying, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." When those coal families went to the polls, they overwhelmingly supported Sanders, hoping to put Clinton out of business.
The bigger picture is that, despite not having a chance at winning the nomination, Sanders hangs on in the race because of his seemingly authentic persona, and his endless critique of big banks and the One Percent. That contrasts starkly with liar-Clinton. Everything liar-Clinton is, she says she's against. Shadowy One-Percenters squirreling money in offshore accounts? One of liar-Clinton's top donors makes his living working in offshore banking. The ability for the well connected to slip away from the consequences of breaking the law? Employees of the Justice Department — the department that will determine if she's indicted for mishandling state secrets on an unsecure email server — donated $73,000 to her campaign.
Sanders' candidacy was meant to show that liar-Hilly had to vanquish an opponent. But it was rigged from the get-go. For proof, just look at the vast majority of superdelegates — Democrat insiders — who support liar-Clinton over Sanders. Yet the socialist candidate has his own strategy. He'll still lose, but not before moving the once-noble Democrat Party to openly and unequivocally embrace socialism.
-The Patriot Post
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No Charges for Cadets Who Raised Fists in Photo The United States Military Academy at West Point concluded that the 16 black women who posed on the steps of the school's ethics center with fists raised were recreating "old corps" photos, or the black-and-white photos of graduates past. The group was weeks away from graduating at West Point's May 21 ceremony when the seemingly politically charged photo emerged. It looked as if the group was giving a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, or recreating the symbol of the Black Panthers.
David French, constitutional lawyer and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, writes, "As a person who's given multiple briefings on the do's and don'ts of personal expression in uniform, I immediately knew two things — first, unless there is a highly implausible innocent explanation, these young women violated DoD directives, and — second – sympathetic leftists would be falling all over themselves to excuse their behavior. Senior leaders drill into recruits and cadets the notion that you simply don't make partisan or nonpartisan political statements in uniform. It's a bright-line rule."
Regardless of what these cadets say about pop star Beyoncé — who raised her fist at the recent Super Bowl Halftime Show — or whether they thought it was a prank, making such a highly charged political statement while in uniform is a clear violation of the United States Code of Military Justice, and they should have been brought up on charges.
-The Patriot Post
.
Students Kicked Out of College for Racial Hoax Two fewer students are enrolled at the University at Albany following an investigation of an attack earlier this year in which three young black women claimed they were racially targeted. Last week, the institution kicked out two of the girls and gave another a two-year suspension because, as it turns out, they are actually the ones at fault.
As Fox News recounts, "The women, all 20 years old, claimed they were attacked early on the morning of Jan. 30 while riding a bus. They claimed they were called racial slurs and were physically attacked while bystanders looked on. Investigators say a review of multiple videos of the incident showed no evidence the women were victims of a crime or subjected to racial slurs. In fact, police said the women were the aggressors, assaulting a 19-year-old white woman." Moreover, "The white men [they] claimed assaulted them were actually trying to break up the fight."
But that's not the least of their worries. The women who were expelled "were charged with misdemeanor assault and falsely reporting an incident," while the other "was charged with misdemeanor assault," according to Fox.
This isn't just an embarrassment for these young women, but also for liar-Hilly Clinton and Barack nObama. In February, referring specifically to the University at Albany incident, liar-Clinton tweeted, "There is no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus." There is also no excuse for conjuring up lies. Is this what nObama means when he says blacks' success in life is based on luck? -The Patriot Post
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US, NATO Activate Missile Defense Site in Romania
by voanews.com
.
.
{voanews.com} ~ The U.S. has switched on an $800 million (700 million euro) missile defense site in southern Romania Thursday, a move that has infuriated Moscow... "Both the U.S. and NATO have made it clear the system is not designed for or capable of undermining Russia's strategic deterrence capability," U.S. assistant secretary of state Frank Rose told a news conference in Bucharest Wednesday. "Russia has repeatedly raised concerns that the U.S. and NATO defense are directed against Russia and represent a threat to its strategic nuclear deterrent. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said... http://www.voanews.com/content/us-nato-to-activate-missile-defense-site-in-romania/3326964.html?ltflags=mailer
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Court Says Administration Violated Constitution
in Funding nObamacare Subsidies
by Terence P. Jeffrey
.
.
{cnsnews.com} ~ Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an opinion today declaring that the nObama administration violated the Constitution by funding nObamacare subsidies for which Congress did not appropriate funds... “Congress passes all federal laws in this country,” the judge wrote in her opinion in the case of U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell. “The Court will enter judgment in favor of the House of Representatives and enjoin the use of unappropriated monies to fund reimbursements due to insurers under Section 1402,” the judge said... http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/court-says-administration-violated-constitution-funding-Obamacare
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liar-Clinton decline: liar-Hilly, hapless, hopeless
by Washington Examiner
.
.
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ Bernie Sanders' victory over liar-Hilly Clinton in West Virginia was impressive not just for the lack of effort it required — he spent less than 20 cents for each vote — but also for voters' eagerness to give it to him at this late stage of the Democratic presidential primary... Isn't it supposed to be over? Yet Sanders has now defeated liar-Clinton twice in two weeks, and no one will be greatly surprised if he beats her again in Oregon next Tuesday. It is nearly impossible for Sanders to catch liar-Clinton, even if he were to win all of the remaining contests. But he's campaigning as though he doesn't know it or, more importantly, as though it isn't really true. When Sanders makes his pitch to the party's superdelegates in the contested convention he promises, he will be able to say, "Come on, who do you really think has the better chance to beat Donald liar-Trump in the general election?"... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-decline-hillary-hapless-hopeless/article/2591110?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI%20-%2005/12/16&utm_medium=email
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liar-Hilly’s Latest Scandal: She And Bill
Siphoned $100 Mil From Mideast Leaders
.
.
{investors.com} ~ Scandal: A new investigation reveals that liar-Bill and liar- Hilly Clinton took in at least $100 million from Middle East leaders. Can such a financially and ethically compromised candidate truly function as our nation’s leader?... The investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation has uncovered a disturbing pattern of the Clintons’ raising money for the Clinton Foundation from regimes that have checkered records on human rights and that aren’t always operating in the best interests of the U.S. By the way, the $100 million we mentioned above doesn’t appear to include another $30 million given to the liar-Clintons by two Mideast-based foundations and four billionaire Saudis. All told, it’s a lot of money. “These regimes are buying access,” Patrick Poole, a national security analyst who regularly writes for PJ Media, told the DCNF. “You’ve got the Saudis. You’ve got the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension.”... http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/hillarys-latest-scandal-she-and-bill-siphoned-100-mil-from-persian-gulf-leaders/.
Russia threatens to make Romania 'smoking ruins'
by wnd.com
.
.
{wnd.com} ~ Russian officials in a report on Thursday speculated that a nuclear war could leave Romania a “smoking ruins” just as Britain said it intercepted several Russian transports that refused to identify themselves as they approached the Baltic States... The amped up talk of death and destruction could, analysts warn, return the world to the hair-trigger tensions that shadowed America and the Soviet Union both in the years before President Ronald Reagan demands of Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” It was the New York Times that said American officials were celebrating the opening of a missile defense system in Europe this week while the discussion in Moscow turned dark. http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/russia-romania-could-be-smoking-ruins/
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State Dept Caught Censoring Video
to Cover Lie, Calls it a 'Glitch'
by Trey Sanchez
.
.
{truthrevolt.org} ~ Archived State Department video from a 2013 press conference over the Iran deal was missing about eight minutes of questioning to cover up deception within the nObama administration and the only news outlet talking about it was Fox News... Fox's chief Washington correspondent James Rosen was at that press conference and it was his questioning that was missing, denoted by a white flash on screen on the official video. The State Department blamed the missing chunk as a "glitch." And how lucky it was for them that this specific eight minutes was what "mysteriously" disappeared: Jen Psaki, the spokesperson at that time, explaining that sometimes the administration needs to deceive the public in order to achieve national security goals transcript via Newsbusters... http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/state-dept-caught-censoring-video-cover-lie-calls-it-glitch
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DREAMers Getting Millions in Taxpayer-Funded
Loans to Attend Univ of California
by Trey Sanchez
.
.
{truthrevolt.org} ~ On Wednesday, University of California President Janet Napolitano announced new support for "undocumented" students that will fund their education over the next three years - and "documented" taxpayers, naturally, will be footing the bill... “We are committed to continuing a path forward for undocumented students at the University of California,” the former secretary of Homeland Security said. “This funding will further strengthen the university’s undocumented student initiative, and help ensure that these students receive the support and resources they need to succeed.” According to a press release, over $8 million will be earmarked through the 2018-19 academic year for "undocumented" students across UC's 10 campuses. Five million dollars will be available per year for the next year under UC's DREAM Loan Program, which offers student loans for those DREAMers who are not eligible for federal aid. Under this program, students "repay their loans back into the DREAM Loan fund."... http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/dreamers-getting-millions-taxpayer-funded-loans-attend-univ-california
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Probe catches agency in corrupt deals
to help Syrian refugees
by Leo Hohmann
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David Miliband, left, presents IRC Freedom Award to George Soros
.
{wnd.com} ~ An NGO that gets tens of millions in U.S. taxpayer money to resettle foreign refugees into dozens of U.S. cities is being investigated for corruption involving contracts with Turkish companies... The International Rescue Committee is one of the nine volunteer aid agencies, also called VOLAGs, that contract with the federal government to resettle refugees into the United States from Syria, Somalia, Burma, Iraq, Bhutan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. New York-based IRC, headed by former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General within the U.S. Agency for International Development for bid rigging and bribery that allegedly took place among its staff members lining up supplies and services for displaced Syrians in Turkey, according to government documents turned over to WND from the Inspector General’s Office...
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Donald liar-Trump Made The GOP Pledge Worthless;
Others Should Break It
by Jay Caruso
by Jay Caruso
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{redstate.com} ~ Many people certainly had a visceral reaction to the post I wrote yesterday about Senator Marco Rubio. Some agreed with my sentiment, others claimed I was wrong and Rubio never said he’d vote for liar-Trump... They’d reference the pledge each candidate signed saying they’d endorse whoever the nominee is and not run an independent or third party campaign in lieu of not winning the nomination. First of all, keep in mind what that stupid pledge was all about. Reince Priebus, scared that Donald liar-Trump would deem the GOP was being “unfair” to him would bolt the part and run a third party or independent campaign for President, likely siphoning votes away from GOP nominee.... http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2016/05/12/donald-trump-made-gop-pledge-worthless-others-break/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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"Build a Wall" to Block ISIS
by RAYMOND IBRAHIM
by RAYMOND IBRAHIM
.
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ Islamic terrorists, including ISIS operatives, are trying to use the porous border as a way to smuggle WMDs into the U.S. and launch terror attacks that would make 9/11 seem like child's play... Recently, "One of the American men accused in Minnesota of trying to join the Islamic State group wanted to open up routes from Syria to the U.S. through Mexico... Guled Ali Omar told the ISIS members about the route so that it could be used to send members to America to carry out terrorist attacks, prosecutors alleged in a document." But ISIS didn't need to be "told" by Ali "about the route." Nearly a year earlier, the Islamic State explored options on how it could smuggle a WMD "into the U.S. through Mexico by using existing trafficking networks in Latin America." Consider the following currently hypothetical scenario outlined in an article published by the Islamic State's magazine Dabiq last May... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/build-a-wall-to-block-isis?f=must_reads
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A Response to Montel Williams on Bathroom
and Locker Room Privacy
by Michael Brown
by Michael Brown
.
.
{townhall.com} ~ I appreciate Montel Williams taking the time to respond to my “Open Letter to Megyn Kelly,” in which I referenced his appearance on The Kelly File last week, discussing North Carolina’s Bathroom Privacy Act (H.B.2). I also appreciate him notifying me via Twitter of his article and then immediately accepting my invitation to join me on the air for further debate on the relevant issues (our teams are currently working out a time he can do this).
In his response, he claimed that my letter “lacks substance, deliberately misstates the facts, and makes entirely false assumptions,” also claiming that I’m guilty of “spouting one wildly dramatized half-truth after another” while stating that my letter “conveniently ignores parts II-III of H.B.”
He further claims that my letter is a “desperate attempt to move the goalposts” and that I’m “stirring up fear of a vast ‘left wing conspiracy’—and hoping that conservatives don’t dig into the issue” and that, “unable to argue the facts raised in my segment, he resorted to emotion and wrote his grand and conspiratorial rebuttal to distract conservatives from a substantive and important argument.”
He is mistaken on each and every point, while his rhetoric distracts from the very real concerns raised of multiplied millions of Americans, as echoed by the majority of the population of North Carolina.
To respond, then, to Mr. Williams, my letter focused primarily on Megyn Kelly’s responses to Mr. Williams rather than to his statements, but I did note that last year he “compared conservatives who oppose gay ‘marriage’ to ISIS and the Taliban.”
Can I assume that Mr. Williams still defends these statements? If so, we must read the rest of his comments in that light, while also pointing out that it’s a shame that he did not take the opportunity to denounce this ugly and dangerous misrepresentation of tens of millions of caring, loving Americans who simply believe that marriage requires a man and a woman.
In his response, Mr. Williams asks why I would “attack Fox News” for having him on to present an opposing view on the bill, even claiming that I’m engaging in left-wing tactics in doing so.
Actually, I always urge networks to present both sides of issues, which is why I wrote, “I encourage you Megyn Kelly to regain some lost credibility by doing some more study on the issue and having on some guests who can refute the Montel Williams talking points.”
As a viewer, this is what I saw on TV: Kelly had North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory on to discuss H.B.2, as a major participant in the story, after which Mr. Williams joined Kelly as the only in-studio guest to rebut him. Had Gov. McCrory remained on the air with the opportunity to rebut Mr. Williams, that would have been fair. Instead, the governor functioned as part of the news story, Mr. Williams came on to rebut him, with Kelly’s support, and there was no rebuttal to Mr. Williams.
That is one-sided, not two-sided, and I simply called on Fox, which is allegedly conservative, to balance the issue. How is that an attack?
More importantly, Mr. Williams wrongly claimed that, “Brown argues that I demeaned ‘the idea that we are born with a biological sex.’ I did no such thing.”
Actually, I did not say this. I said that Megyn Kelly, not Montel Williams,demeaned this idea, and I quoted her words to that effect, including a relevant video link.
As to the substantive differences between us, Mr. Williams notes that, “The proponents of H.B. 2 argue this bill will allow for much-needed privacy and for restroom-goers to feel ‘comfortable.’ They ignore the fact, however, that many if not most transgender individuals look like their affirmed gender,” and he illustrated this by showing pictures of two individuals that back his claim.
Actually, H.B.2 did not simply pertain to bathrooms but to school locker rooms which include changing areas and shower stalls, and there is certainly the rightful expectation that a 15-year-old girl in a public school will not have to change and shower in the presence of a biological male peer with male plumbing! and that a 50-year-old woman at the YMCA will not have to change and shower next to a clearly biological male wearing a dress and wig.
Let’s not forget that the federal government is threatening to withhold $4.5 billion in educational funding from North Carolina schools unless they make these bathrooms and locker rooms gender neutral. Does Mr. Williams really support this? And does he support the complete misreading of Title VII and Title IX in Loretta Lynch’s statement in which “sex” was conflated with “gender identity”?
Does he also think it’s fair that 7-year-old girls who last year knew a classmate named Johnny will now have to welcome Johnny into their bathrooms as Jane? Does he deny the documented instances where these girls have voiced concern over this to their parents – surely this cannot be attributed to them being bigoted transphobes; they’re just recognizing that Johnny isn’t really Jane – only for the school to tell the families there’s nothing they can do about it?
Does he mock the concerns of 63 girls ages 14 to 17 in one Illinois school district who have been forced to share locker rooms and bathrooms in their schools? According to a lawsuit filed by the ADF, the girls “experience embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, fear, apprehension, stress, degradation, and loss of dignity because they will have to use the locker room and restroom with a biological male.” The ADF has also filed a lawsuit on behalf of North Carolina students upset with the Department of Justice’s intrusion into their state.
As an activist who is concerned with the rights of all people, why does Mr. Williams deride, dismiss, and even deny the reality of concerns like this? Why are the very valid issues raised by these young women ignored and even mocked so as to show solidarity with a gender-confused teenager?
And what does Mr. Williams tell the mother who wrote to me on Facebook, stating, “This is VERY real. This new policy that was recently adopted by our local YMCA in WA allows for people to use whatever locker room they self-identify with. Just two weeks ago a boy around the age of 13 walked right into the girls side of the women's locker room. All he did was sit down and scroll through his phone. Little girls where surprised when they came in from showering with their towels wrapped around them to see him sitting there. My daughter was one of those girls. This policy opens the door to those who have malicious intent.”
Along with many LGBT activists and allies, Mr. Williams effectively trashes the needs and concerns of the vast majority of the population in order to accommodate the less than 0.5 percent of the population who struggle with gender identity. I don’t for a moment demean the reality of those struggles, to be clear.
In my experience, most of the transgender individuals I have met are clearly transgender, but let’s say that Mr. Williams is correct and many or even most do not appear to be transgender. Obviously, then, we would have no idea that “Sally,” a biological male who had sex-change surgery at 20 and who has been on hormones for 10 years, was a woman, was not a woman, and so, when Sally uses the ladies’ bathroom, not a single woman would notice her. Presumably, that would be the case with the two individuals whose pictures Mr. Williams presented.
But here, again, is where he missed the point. I could just as easily show pictures of very masculine-looking transgender male-to-females, whose presence in women’s locker rooms, changing rooms, and bathrooms would make the vast majority of women and girls I know terribly uncomfortable, to say the least. What about those cases? Surely Mr. Williams must also know that at least 20 percent of women claim to have been raped or sexually abused, yet here too, he seems unconcerned about how the transgender bathroom access laws affect them.
Mr. Williams is correct to state that, in a certain sense, H.B.2 is unenforceable in that the government cannot and would not have “bathroom monitors” checking everyone’s birth certificates. Once more, however, he has missed the reality on the ground.
In short: 1) North Carolina was not having any type of crisis concerning transgender bathroom access, meaning that, if, to all outward appearances, the male-to-female individual looked female, that person used the ladies’ bathroom without incident. At the same time, a clearly biological male would not be welcomed in the ladies’ locker room at the YMCA. 2) The city of Charlotte passed a radical bill that would have effectively rendered all public locker rooms and bathrooms gender neutral, opening the door to all kinds of abuses, not to mention opening the door to heterosexual male predators who would pose as transgender women. There are numerous examples of such abuses in recent years nationwide. 3) The state of North Carolina overturned Charlotte’s radical bill, introducing additional language to preserve privacy and safety.
Practically speaking, then, since no one is checking birth certificates at bathroom and locker room doors, if you look like a woman and have female plumbing, you use the appropriate facilities, and no one will bat an eyelash. If you look like a man and have male plumbing, you use the men’s facilities.
Is this so objectionable to Mr. Williams? Is this really fear-mongering or moving the goal posts, or appealing to emotion or stirring up false concerns about a vast leftwing conspiracy? Isn’t this simply a matter of common sense?
Mr. Williams then claims that I conveniently ignored the parts of H.B.2 that deal with larger discrimination issues. Actually, I did not ignore them at all. I was addressing specific comments made by Megyn Kelly about bathroom privacy, not the larger presentation made by Mr. Williams, which I’d be delighted to discuss in more depth on the air, as he is surely an eloquent spokesman for his cause.
Interestingly, like Mr. Williams, I am a registered Independent, and these are not political issues to me but rather righteousness, safety, and common sense issues.
And so, when he argues that, “Because H.B. 2’s proponents have no honest argument in favor of the measure, they’ve resorted to mud-slinging” and that, “Brown’s rebuttal comes from a position of weakness,” he is demonstrating a lack of awareness of the perceptions and concerns of a sizable majority of Americans who still believe that a teenage girl should not be forced to share a locker room and shower stall with a teenage boy, no matter how he self-identifies.
I look forward to having Mr. Williams as a guest on my show where we can discuss our perspectives in greater depth, and I do hope that he will reconsider his position.
In his response, he claimed that my letter “lacks substance, deliberately misstates the facts, and makes entirely false assumptions,” also claiming that I’m guilty of “spouting one wildly dramatized half-truth after another” while stating that my letter “conveniently ignores parts II-III of H.B.”
He further claims that my letter is a “desperate attempt to move the goalposts” and that I’m “stirring up fear of a vast ‘left wing conspiracy’—and hoping that conservatives don’t dig into the issue” and that, “unable to argue the facts raised in my segment, he resorted to emotion and wrote his grand and conspiratorial rebuttal to distract conservatives from a substantive and important argument.”
He is mistaken on each and every point, while his rhetoric distracts from the very real concerns raised of multiplied millions of Americans, as echoed by the majority of the population of North Carolina.
To respond, then, to Mr. Williams, my letter focused primarily on Megyn Kelly’s responses to Mr. Williams rather than to his statements, but I did note that last year he “compared conservatives who oppose gay ‘marriage’ to ISIS and the Taliban.”
Can I assume that Mr. Williams still defends these statements? If so, we must read the rest of his comments in that light, while also pointing out that it’s a shame that he did not take the opportunity to denounce this ugly and dangerous misrepresentation of tens of millions of caring, loving Americans who simply believe that marriage requires a man and a woman.
In his response, Mr. Williams asks why I would “attack Fox News” for having him on to present an opposing view on the bill, even claiming that I’m engaging in left-wing tactics in doing so.
Actually, I always urge networks to present both sides of issues, which is why I wrote, “I encourage you Megyn Kelly to regain some lost credibility by doing some more study on the issue and having on some guests who can refute the Montel Williams talking points.”
As a viewer, this is what I saw on TV: Kelly had North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory on to discuss H.B.2, as a major participant in the story, after which Mr. Williams joined Kelly as the only in-studio guest to rebut him. Had Gov. McCrory remained on the air with the opportunity to rebut Mr. Williams, that would have been fair. Instead, the governor functioned as part of the news story, Mr. Williams came on to rebut him, with Kelly’s support, and there was no rebuttal to Mr. Williams.
That is one-sided, not two-sided, and I simply called on Fox, which is allegedly conservative, to balance the issue. How is that an attack?
More importantly, Mr. Williams wrongly claimed that, “Brown argues that I demeaned ‘the idea that we are born with a biological sex.’ I did no such thing.”
Actually, I did not say this. I said that Megyn Kelly, not Montel Williams,demeaned this idea, and I quoted her words to that effect, including a relevant video link.
As to the substantive differences between us, Mr. Williams notes that, “The proponents of H.B. 2 argue this bill will allow for much-needed privacy and for restroom-goers to feel ‘comfortable.’ They ignore the fact, however, that many if not most transgender individuals look like their affirmed gender,” and he illustrated this by showing pictures of two individuals that back his claim.
Actually, H.B.2 did not simply pertain to bathrooms but to school locker rooms which include changing areas and shower stalls, and there is certainly the rightful expectation that a 15-year-old girl in a public school will not have to change and shower in the presence of a biological male peer with male plumbing! and that a 50-year-old woman at the YMCA will not have to change and shower next to a clearly biological male wearing a dress and wig.
Let’s not forget that the federal government is threatening to withhold $4.5 billion in educational funding from North Carolina schools unless they make these bathrooms and locker rooms gender neutral. Does Mr. Williams really support this? And does he support the complete misreading of Title VII and Title IX in Loretta Lynch’s statement in which “sex” was conflated with “gender identity”?
Does he also think it’s fair that 7-year-old girls who last year knew a classmate named Johnny will now have to welcome Johnny into their bathrooms as Jane? Does he deny the documented instances where these girls have voiced concern over this to their parents – surely this cannot be attributed to them being bigoted transphobes; they’re just recognizing that Johnny isn’t really Jane – only for the school to tell the families there’s nothing they can do about it?
Does he mock the concerns of 63 girls ages 14 to 17 in one Illinois school district who have been forced to share locker rooms and bathrooms in their schools? According to a lawsuit filed by the ADF, the girls “experience embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, fear, apprehension, stress, degradation, and loss of dignity because they will have to use the locker room and restroom with a biological male.” The ADF has also filed a lawsuit on behalf of North Carolina students upset with the Department of Justice’s intrusion into their state.
As an activist who is concerned with the rights of all people, why does Mr. Williams deride, dismiss, and even deny the reality of concerns like this? Why are the very valid issues raised by these young women ignored and even mocked so as to show solidarity with a gender-confused teenager?
And what does Mr. Williams tell the mother who wrote to me on Facebook, stating, “This is VERY real. This new policy that was recently adopted by our local YMCA in WA allows for people to use whatever locker room they self-identify with. Just two weeks ago a boy around the age of 13 walked right into the girls side of the women's locker room. All he did was sit down and scroll through his phone. Little girls where surprised when they came in from showering with their towels wrapped around them to see him sitting there. My daughter was one of those girls. This policy opens the door to those who have malicious intent.”
Along with many LGBT activists and allies, Mr. Williams effectively trashes the needs and concerns of the vast majority of the population in order to accommodate the less than 0.5 percent of the population who struggle with gender identity. I don’t for a moment demean the reality of those struggles, to be clear.
In my experience, most of the transgender individuals I have met are clearly transgender, but let’s say that Mr. Williams is correct and many or even most do not appear to be transgender. Obviously, then, we would have no idea that “Sally,” a biological male who had sex-change surgery at 20 and who has been on hormones for 10 years, was a woman, was not a woman, and so, when Sally uses the ladies’ bathroom, not a single woman would notice her. Presumably, that would be the case with the two individuals whose pictures Mr. Williams presented.
But here, again, is where he missed the point. I could just as easily show pictures of very masculine-looking transgender male-to-females, whose presence in women’s locker rooms, changing rooms, and bathrooms would make the vast majority of women and girls I know terribly uncomfortable, to say the least. What about those cases? Surely Mr. Williams must also know that at least 20 percent of women claim to have been raped or sexually abused, yet here too, he seems unconcerned about how the transgender bathroom access laws affect them.
Mr. Williams is correct to state that, in a certain sense, H.B.2 is unenforceable in that the government cannot and would not have “bathroom monitors” checking everyone’s birth certificates. Once more, however, he has missed the reality on the ground.
In short: 1) North Carolina was not having any type of crisis concerning transgender bathroom access, meaning that, if, to all outward appearances, the male-to-female individual looked female, that person used the ladies’ bathroom without incident. At the same time, a clearly biological male would not be welcomed in the ladies’ locker room at the YMCA. 2) The city of Charlotte passed a radical bill that would have effectively rendered all public locker rooms and bathrooms gender neutral, opening the door to all kinds of abuses, not to mention opening the door to heterosexual male predators who would pose as transgender women. There are numerous examples of such abuses in recent years nationwide. 3) The state of North Carolina overturned Charlotte’s radical bill, introducing additional language to preserve privacy and safety.
Practically speaking, then, since no one is checking birth certificates at bathroom and locker room doors, if you look like a woman and have female plumbing, you use the appropriate facilities, and no one will bat an eyelash. If you look like a man and have male plumbing, you use the men’s facilities.
Is this so objectionable to Mr. Williams? Is this really fear-mongering or moving the goal posts, or appealing to emotion or stirring up false concerns about a vast leftwing conspiracy? Isn’t this simply a matter of common sense?
Mr. Williams then claims that I conveniently ignored the parts of H.B.2 that deal with larger discrimination issues. Actually, I did not ignore them at all. I was addressing specific comments made by Megyn Kelly about bathroom privacy, not the larger presentation made by Mr. Williams, which I’d be delighted to discuss in more depth on the air, as he is surely an eloquent spokesman for his cause.
Interestingly, like Mr. Williams, I am a registered Independent, and these are not political issues to me but rather righteousness, safety, and common sense issues.
And so, when he argues that, “Because H.B. 2’s proponents have no honest argument in favor of the measure, they’ve resorted to mud-slinging” and that, “Brown’s rebuttal comes from a position of weakness,” he is demonstrating a lack of awareness of the perceptions and concerns of a sizable majority of Americans who still believe that a teenage girl should not be forced to share a locker room and shower stall with a teenage boy, no matter how he self-identifies.
I look forward to having Mr. Williams as a guest on my show where we can discuss our perspectives in greater depth, and I do hope that he will reconsider his position.
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