Joe, Lia, Rockford, and Cowell

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 3, 2024

President Joe Biden lags in the polls, suffering all manner of negativity from his opponents. While it’s true enough he hasn’t been a very good self-salesman, the country’s numbers are nearly all heading in the right direction.

We’ve already established that crime is not just down, according to the FBI, but significantly down in nearly every category and especially crimes of violence. But it’s not crime that will determine the 2024 election; to steal from the first Bill Clinton presidential campaign, it’s the economy, stupid. We’re told we’re on the verge of some kind of cataclysmic recession. What do the numbers say?

Both the Commerce Department and Federal Reserve Board are suggesting not that we are heading for recession disaster but the opposite: a soft landing from the last recession.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Department of Labor, inflation is now just over 3 percent, down from nearly 7 percent just a year ago. Unemployment is stable at 3.7 percent, and real wages have increased nearly 1 percent in the last year and more than 3 percent in the last three years. That might not sound like much, but those numbers mean income increased beyond inflation, giving consumers increased spending power.

In fact, economists believe consumer spending, not the Federal Reserve’s constant fiddling with the prime rate, is what has brought us out of the last recession and will likely keep us out of the next.

So crime and the economy could be strong Biden issues, but his Achilles’ heel is likely immigration, which neither he nor Congress nor anyone else seems able to resolve. If Biden and the Democrats have a solid policy, now would be a good time to unleash it whether or not Republicans want to participate.

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World Aquatics, which governs eligibility and other regulations for international swimming competitions, has ruled that transgender athletes who transitioned from male to female post-puberty will be ineligible to participate in sanctioned meets. Lia Thomas, who went from being ranked #432 as a male collegiate swimmer to being ranked #1 and winning an NCAA championship as a woman, has sued World Aquatics for the right to compete as a woman.

It should be noted here there is ample evidence Ms. Thomas is not attempting to game the system and is sincere about her transition. She has crossed every T and dotted every I, taken every test and followed every NCAA rule and guideline. She is not the villain, but her appearance as a woman at swim meets does raise questions we seem unwilling to hear, much less discuss.

Thomas was not just post-puberty when she transitioned but fully mature at a height of 6’2” and with a male skeletal structure, cardiac system capable of pumping more blood, and with larger lung capacity. Merely mentioning this often results in cries of “transphobia” from our progressive friends, whose knees are likely already reflexively jerking.

In truth, we have not yet figured out how to deal with all the ramifications of this issue as it applies to competitive athletics. Body dysmorphia is real, and those suffering from it deserve our respect and acceptance. But some of the same individuals, athletic associations, and countries who blatantly doped to gain an advantage could do the same with this issue, especially if a man can transition, compete, and then transition back.

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Closer to home, it has been reported that a school in the Rockford School District has been using a student’s preferred pronouns and name—perhaps assisting or encouraging the student’s desire to transition—without parental permission or even parental knowledge.

We don’t allow students to do much of anything without parental permission; kids can’t even go on a field trip without a parent signing a permission slip, so secretly assisting a student in making a truly life-altering decision seems absurd on the surface and well outside the purview of permissible school activity. Yes, the parents might have questions or even object, but they surely deserve to know.

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I recently had the opportunity to conduct some first-hand research at the Cowell Family Cancer Center at Munson Medical Center. The doctors, physician assistants, nurses, technologists, and support staff are top of the line caring, capable, and conscientious practitioners. The facility has all the bells and whistles and fancy healing machines and drugs, and they can diagnose and treat nearly all cancer patients with success.

We need not head to Rochester, Minnesota, or Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids or anyplace else because we have a top-notch provider right here and the support groups so important to recovery. We are extremely lucky to have them.