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Does Bureaucracy Breed Confusion? (Hint: YES!)
Long long ago, as the fires burned, I said that government ineptitude was at the root of all of it regarding the Los Angeles fires of last January. But that it would never be exposed because the bureaucratic stew was too thick to pick through. That it would end up with a bunch of agencies pointing fingers at each other with the responsibility ending up so diverse there would be no one person or agency to hold accountable. As investigations and reporting continue, that is in fact exactly what is happening.
The post Does Bureaucracy Breed Confusion? (Hint: YES!) appeared first on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Democrat support for jailing Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro could blow back on Clintons
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued deposition subpoenas in August to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton requiring their testimony “related to horrific crimes perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein.”
Comer made clear on Tuesday that the Clintons risk criminal exposure should they continue not to comply with the subpoenas — and that he is willing to make use of the precedent set in recent years by Democrats.
‘They’re the one group in this investigation that’s never had to answer questions … from attorneys or members of Congress.’
The chairman noted in his Aug. 5 letter to Bill Clinton that owing to the former president’s past relationships with Epstein and child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the committee believed him to have information regarding their activities relevant to the investigation.
“By your own admission, you flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane four separate times in 2002 and 2003. During one of these trips, you were even pictured receiving a ‘massage’ from one of Mr. Epstein’s victims,” wrote Comer.
“It has also been claimed that you pressured Vanity Fair not to publish sex-trafficking allegations against your ‘good friend’ Mr. Epstein, and there are conflicting reports about whether you ever visited Mr. Epstein’s island,” continued the chairman. “You were also allegedly close to Ms. Ghislane Maxwell, an Epstein co-conspirator, and attended an intimate dinner with her in 2014, three years after public reports about her involvement in Mr. Epstein’s abuse of minors.”
Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Comer noted in his letter to Hillary Clinton that her testimony was of interest to the panel not only because of her husband’s relationship with the dead sex offender but because of her links to Maxwell, whose nephew worked for Hillary Clinton’s first failed presidential campaign, then later for the State Department while Clinton was secretary of state.
The Oversight Committee compelled Hillary Clinton to testify on Oct. 9, but she didn’t show up.
When Bill Clinton’s Oct. 14 deposition date came around, a committee spokesperson announced that it would be delayed as the panel was “having conversations with the Clintons’ attorney to accommodate their schedules.”
Republicans on the committee are apparently still trying to settle on a date with the Clintons’ attorneys, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
“We expect to hear from Bill and Hillary Clinton,” Comer told “Just the News, No Noise” on Tuesday. “Donald Trump answered questions for years about Jeffrey Epstein. Every day he gets asked questions about Epstein, and he answers them in front of the American people. We’ve subpoenaed Republicans and Democrats.”
“Other Democrats have sent letters saying they knew nothing about Epstein, which would hold in court if something ever comes out that they did know something, then they’ve committed perjury there,” continued the chairman.
“But the Clintons have never responded. They’re the one group in this investigation that’s never had to answer questions in front of a credible reporter, and they’ve never certainly answered questions from attorneys or members of Congress,” added Comer.
Comer, evidently tired of the Clintons’ avoidance, added, “So we expect the Clintons to come in, or I expect the Clintons to be met with the same fate that Bannon and [Peter] Navarro were met with when the Democrats were in control.”
Democrats would likely condemn the Clintons’ visitation by legal consequence over their refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas — but such criticism would amount to rocks thrown from a glass house.
Eric Holder, Obama’s attorney general, was held in contempt of Congress in a decisive 255-67 vote in 2012 for refusing to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.
The Obama Justice Department rewarded Holder for keeping the Democratic president’s documents from the American people’s elected representatives by refusing to prosecute.
House Republicans voted last year to hold former Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas for audio recordings of former President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
The Biden Department of Justice revealed on June 14, 2024, that it would not bother prosecuting Garland.
Although keen to shield their own from consequence, Democrats held Republicans to a different standard.
The Democrat-controlled House voted 229-202 in 2021 to hold former Trump adviser and “War Room” host Stephen Bannon in contempt for defying a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 committee.
Whereas the Biden DOJ would later let Garland off the hook for the same charge, the same outfit energetically prosecuted Bannon, securing a conviction and recommending that he serve at least six months in prison and pay a $200,000 fine. Bannon ended up languishing in prison for four months.
The president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, received similar treatment for not complying with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. Navarro, who figured he was bound by executive privilege when he defied the subpoena, served a four-month prison sentence.
Navarro noted in a speech last year at the Republican National Convention, “I got a very simple message for you: If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful. They will come for you.”
Comer’s apparent threat came a week after President Donald Trump directed the Justice Department and the FBI on Friday to “investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton” and others, and “determine what was going on with them, and him.”
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Suspect walks free amid serious charges due to jaw-dropping technicality — and is accused of murder just weeks later
A 29-year-old male accused in a fatal stabbing in Boston over the weekend was facing weapons and drug charges less than a month ago but walked free.
Court records indicate that Javonte Robinson’s previous weapons and drug charges were dismissed when an attorney could not be found after 45 days, WCVB-TV reported.
‘Under Governor Healey, the state failed to pay public defenders adequately, failed to ensure the courts had the staffing they needed, and failed to protect the public.’
Robinson’s case was dropped amid a work stoppage involving private attorneys who normally defend suspects who can’t afford lawyers, the station said, adding that the attorneys in question stopped accepting new cases in May in an attempt to force the state to pay them more.
WCVB said Robinson was among 145 individuals whose charges were dismissed in one day of court proceedings.
Robinson then allegedly stabbed a man Saturday night in the city’s Mattapan neighborhood, and the victim was taken to a hospital, where he died, Boston police said, according to the station. Robinson was arrested just after 3 p.m. Sunday, WCVB noted.
Robinson was arraigned Monday in Dorchester District Court and pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, Boston.com reported, citing court records. He was then taken to Suffolk County Jail, the outlet added.
More from Boston.com:
In late August, Robinson was arraigned on charges of possession of a dangerous weapon and possession of a Class A drug. He was released on personal recognizance, according to the records, but was transported to Attleboro District Court, where he was wanted on other outstanding warrants.
Last month, Robinson’s charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning that the case could be reopened in the future. This was the result of the “Lavallee protocol,” which was activated in Massachusetts earlier this year due to the work stoppage.
Boston.com noted that the “Lavallee protocol” mandates that defendants without attorneys are ordered released after being held for more than seven days — and those who go 45 days without a lawyer have their cases dismissed without prejudice.
This is what happened in Robinson’s dangerous weapon case, Boston.com said, citing court records.
Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve blasted Democrat Gov. Maura Healey for her handling of the lawyer shortage in the wake of the Robinson case, the Boston Herald reported.
Shortsleeve, according to the paper, said that “this should never happen in a functioning state government. Under Governor Healey, the state failed to pay public defenders adequately, failed to ensure the courts had the staffing they needed, and failed to protect the public. That is unacceptable, and it is dangerous.”
Fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue also blamed Healey, the Herald said: “The fundamental role of the governor is to uphold the law and keep our communities safe. This is another example of our governor failing to solve problems and [running] an organization that has a horrible impact on the victim and their families.”
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‘Not medicine — it’s malpractice’: Trump HHS buries child sex-change regime with damning report
The Department of Health and Human Services delivered what could prove to be a lethal blow this week to the profitable and predatory child sex-change industry that has been on the defensive since President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order directing all federal agencies to ensure that medical institutions receiving federal funding “end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”
HHS published an exhaustive peer-reviewed report on Wednesday that should make abundantly clear to those still clinging to LGBT activists’ preferred narrative about so-called “gender-affirming care” that “the harms from sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked.”
“This is a new day in the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a new day in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, a new day for the country,” Admiral Brian Christine, assistant secretary for HHS, told Blaze News. “It is because of President Trump and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that this information has come out.”
‘The HHS report should put an end to the scourge of child mutilation masquerading as health care.’
The 410-page report, titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” reads as the weightier American counterpart to Britain’s damning Cass Review, detailing:
- the often glossed-over risks and medical uncertainties involved with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change genital mutilations;
- the unscientific nature and strategic omissions of fact in the World Professional Association of Transgender Health guidelines;
- the manipulation of medical definitions undertaken in service of gender ideologues’ medical agendas;
- ethical concerns regarding consent for sex-change procedures as well as the regret often experienced by victims of such procedures; and
- the “international retreat” from the “gender-affirming” model of care.
The report — which National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya indicated “marks a turning point for American medicine” — notes that the overall quality of evidence concerning the effects of sex-change medical interventions on long-term health, psychological outcomes, quality of life, and regret was found to be “very low.”
Accordingly, the beneficial effects alleged in the literature and often cited by gender ideologues are likely to differ substantially from the actual effects of the sex-change procedures.
‘It’s literally a billion-dollar industry. It creates lifelong customers.’
What’s more, the report noted that while the risks of child sex changes are many and unmistakable — including infertility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, surgical complications, and heart, metabolic, and psychiatric disorders — publication bias, a failure of existing studies to adequately track and report harms, and other factors may have obfuscated the true fallout of so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The report minces no words in its conclusion, stating:
Many U.S. medical professionals and associations have fallen short of their duty to prioritize the health interests of young patients. First, there was a rapid expansion and implementation of a clinical protocol that lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification. Second, when confronted with compelling evidence that this protocol did not deliver the health benefits it promised, and that other countries were changing their policies appropriately, U.S. medical professionals and associations failed to reconsider the “gender-affirming” approach. Third, conflicting evidence — evidence that challenged the foundational assumptions of the protocol and the professional standing of its advocates — was mischaracterized or insufficiently acknowledged. Finally, dissenting perspectives were marginalized, and those who voiced them were disparaged.
“The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children,” HHS Secretary Kennedy said in a statement.
“They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” continued Kennedy. “That is not medicine — it’s malpractice.”
RELATED: Sacrificing body parts and informed consent to the sex-change regime
Photo by Bob Riha Jr./Getty Images
When other Western nations, Britain in particular, began to re-evaluate their barbaric medical approaches to gender dysphoria, the Biden administration and the U.S. medical establishment dug in their heels and pushed the child sex-change regime to new extremes.
For instance, Biden’s transvestic Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, formerly Richard Levine, successfully pressured WPATH to drop its recommended minimum age requirements for sex-change mutilations. His reasoning for lowering the recommended age minimums — 17 for genital mutilations, 15 for healthy breast removals, 16 for breast implants, and 14 for hormone treatments — was apparently not based on scientific evidence but on politics.
Levine’s successor, Trump HHS Assistant Secretary Brian Christine, told Blaze News, “There was absolutely an effort by the prior administration and, very specifically, an absolute effort by the individual who was the prior assistant secretary for health, Rachel Levine,” to continue politicizing children’s health.
He added that both ideology and profit prompted medical professionals and associations to similarly dig in their heels.
“It’s literally a billion-dollar industry. It creates lifelong customers,” said Christine. “You bring a little boy or a little girl in and you have them either get hormones or they get a mutilating surgery — you’ve created a lifelong customer. You’ve created someone who’s going to come back again and again and again because of surgical complications or other things going on.”
Gender dysphoria is an “emotional and mental condition,” he explained. “There’s no question about that. These individuals who truly have gender dysphoria, they suffer terribly. They deserve compassion. They deserve mental health care. What they don’t need are sex-rejecting surgeries.”
Christine said that treating gender dysphoria as a mental health condition is especially important with kids. “You should treat them with mental health care because we know that if you do, the majority of these kids, by the time they’re in their late teens, are very comfortable in their own skin,” he said.
Neeraja Deshpande, policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum, said that the report, “in addition to creating a more transparent system, confirms once and for all what never should have been up for debate to begin with: that so-called surgical and chemical body alteration in the name of ‘gender transition’ is a medical danger to children.”
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, said in a statement to Blaze News, “The HHS report should put an end to the scourge of child mutilation masquerading as health care.”
Luis Soto/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
“The peer-reviewed study only confirms what the American Principles Project and anyone with common sense has known all along: The gender industrial complex relies on bad faith, bad science, and a radical ideology that places the financial interest of drug companies over those of children,” said Schilling.
Schilling suggested to Blaze News that elements within the child sex-change regime are now more likely to reap the whirlwind in court.
“This is, at a minimum, some type of consumer fraud. I do think that because of how horrific the harm that they did was that it does cross into serious criminal areas.”
While Schilling noted that the industry presently enjoys robust protection from trial attorneys and left-wing institutions, once major legal actions break through, prompting big payouts, “then you’ll have blood in the water, and the sharks will start circling.”
Schilling alluded to Chloe Cole‘s lawsuit as one such potential breakthrough action.
Cole, a detransitioner who has raised awareness across the country about the horrors and fallout of sex-change medical interventions, has sued Kaiser Permanente for alleged medical negligence in connection with the sex-rejecting procedures the health system performed on her as a minor.
Schilling commended the numerous experts who put their names to the report — including doctors and scientists from the Baylor College of Medicine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Duke University — stating, “They’re very courageous for doing this. This is a very powerful and embedded industry that’s been doing really big and terrible things in the country … and for these guys to put their names behind it is a very big deal.”
When asked whether this report ultimately amounts to a lethal blow against the sex-change regime, HHS Assistant Secretary Christine told Blaze News, “Yeah, we certainly hope so. We certainly believe it will be. Listen, our job in the administration is to protect our children, protect our citizens. Our job is to produce gold-standard science. That’s exactly what we have done. It’s exactly what we’re doing.”
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