'Trans' teens need someone to care, not 'health care'



Montpelier, Vermont, population 8,000: This is the smallest state capital in the country. If you have seen a postcard of a downtown in Vermont, it’s almost certainly Montpelier.

When I rolled into town in a U-Haul 23 years ago and came through a mountain pass and saw the town, I thought Disney rolled out a series of false fronts of Victorian Americana, because it looked like a movie set.

She was genuinely sweet, polite, and helpful. And she was so obviously a girl on the cusp of a womanhood I fear she will never have.

But when you get out of the car and look closely, you see the cancer. Like most Vermont towns and cities, “woke” has infected the shared public brain. Montpelier is bedecked with trans/queer flags, BLM signs, graffiti exhorting people to “fight the man.”

The city clerk posts on local online forums about how oppressed the “undocumented neighbors” are and how important it is to let them vote in city elections. Until recently there was an upscale, overpriced Marxist (heh) coffee and dessert shop named “Delicious Dissent.” Clenched-fist graphics sat alongside messages like “for the workers” in flowing, girly script painted on the windows.

Meeting 'Johnny'

But the people are even sadder, and “Johnny” is the saddest. She was the teen girl who checked out my order at one of the local markets. “Johnny” is not the name on her tag, but it’s a close approximation. She wore the name tag next to a series of buttons telling onlookers that her pronouns were “he/him” and that “nonbinary identities are valid.”

Readers, I had to leave quickly after my order, because I was tearing up, wishing this poor girl had better influences in her life.

We’re used to young wokesters being snide and socially aggressive; they’re often loud and insufferable. Not Johnny. I didn’t even notice her strange name badge and buttons at first because I was thinking about how unusually polite she was for a store clerk in 2026. Where I live, you are lucky to get eye contact from a clerk. More often, they ignore you, leave you to bag your own order, and stare at their phones while fiddling with the metal bull rings hanging from the middle of their noses.

Johnny was different. “Hi, how are you this evening?” she asked me. I perked up, eager to have that rare pleasant business transaction. We chitchatted about the coming snowstorm as she went through my items. But as I looked at her, my heart got soft and the sadness came.

She was morbidly obese, as are so many people in this town. Not just chubby, but dangerously fat. Heart-attack-by-30 fat. Her breasts were smashed down in a binder (a strap confused women wear when they’re trying to look like a “man”). Her hair had four inches of natural color and bright blue ends that had grown out. It wasn’t washed. Her face was covered with cystic acne, and her uniform hadn’t been cleaned.

Girl, interrupted

“Johnny.” “He/him.” A blind man could not have mistaken this girl for a man. Her voice was a girl’s voice. Her demeanor was feminine. She was genuinely sweet, polite, and helpful. And she was so obviously a girl on the cusp of a womanhood I fear she will never have. How long will it be before she gets “top surgery” — a cosmetic mastectomy — funded by Medicaid through the state? How long until she starts taking testosterone and permanently turns her voice into that frog-kazoo croak that “trans men” develop?

I don’t know anything about Johnny’s home life, but I can make some educated guesses. At absolute best, whatever parents she has neglected her. More likely, they have been actively abusive. No sane, moral parents allow or encourage their teen girl to strap down her breasts, eat to the point of dangerous obesity, never shower, and try to tell the world that she’s a male.

It’s not unlikely that her parent(s), however, actively encourage these morbid choices. Too many people in Vermont are in a state of actual psychosis. They are literally disconnected from reality. They actually believe girls can become men. They genuinely believe that most of us are white supremacists just waiting to lynch one of the approximately seven black people in town.

Bad education

And anyway, once the kids are in the public school system, their glazed-eyed “Karen” teachers encourage their self-destruction.

In 2021, the Burlington School District surveyed the sexual orientation and gender identity views of high school students. Yes. Teachers and adults are asking children who they want to sleep with and whether they believe they’re the opposite sex. Yes, this is child sexual abuse. Yes, they get away with it. Yes, everyone acts as though this is normal and not predatory.

The results, proudly published on the state health department’s website, are shocking. Fully 30% of these kids told survey-takers that they were “LGBTQ+.” Really? Nearly one-third of the students are either homosexual, bisexual, “transgender,” “nonbinary,” or “queer” (whatever the hell that means)?

Between parents who ought to be in prison and teachers, administrators, and health officials, kids like “Johnny” don’t have a chance.

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Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Someone cared

Had I been born three decades later than I was, I would have ended up the male version of Johnny. I grew up fatherless, with only a temporary stepfather who beat me senseless and tried to murder my mother after molesting my sister. My mother was deranged with borderline personality disorder and tore through the house like a trailer-park version of Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest.”

Unsurprisingly, I turned out to be a homosexual beset with intractable PTSD. By the time I was 13, I had been placed in an institution for being “incorrigible.” That was no day in the park, but it was better than remaining at home with a gorgon wearing a mother mask.

In sixth grade, I remember walking to school one day in an almost catatonic state. I felt nothing. I thought nothing. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but I think “dissociation” is closest. For no reason I can remember, I pulled a red crayon out of my backpack and colored in my lips as if I were a stripper getting ready to perform.

Then I sat down in class and stared at the blackboard. I could hear Ms. Haag’s voice as she gave the lesson, but I heard the mush-mouth of the teacher’s voice in the old Charlie Brown cartoons. When class was over, Ms. Haag pulled a chair up in front of my desk and sat down, looking me in the eye. She held onto my hand and asked, “Josh, why did you put that on your mouth? Is something wrong that you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know” was all I said. And I didn’t know. I still don’t know. But someone cared. My teacher cared. Someone noticed, and someone said something.

A blind eye

There will be no Ms. Haag for today’s Johnnys. When society has been turned upside down, nothing is normal. Beauty is called ugly. Violence is called love. Men are called women. Abuse is called care.

Some grown-up somewhere in Johnny’s life has looked at her and felt what I felt. She wanted to ask Johnny what was wrong, because she could see that something — many things, probably — was terribly wrong. But she can’t. Because if you notice the horror, you are targeted. You’re called a child abuser for objecting to child abuse. You’re called a predator for wanting to shield the innocent. Any genuinely caring teacher who tried to intervene would be fired and then held up for public scorn as a bigoted tormentor of children.

I know how insane this reads, but it’s true. I live here, and I’ve been targeted for speaking out. This is the end-state of a society that runs on boundless narcissism and pathological lying. It’s satanic.

When I left the store with the bag that Johnny packed my order in, I put on my seatbelt and waited for a few minutes because I needed to cry. I wanted to be Johnny’s dad and save her. My God, won’t somebody help her?

All I can do for Johnny is pray, and I have been, even though I confess I’m not sure anyone is listening. Would you pray for her, too?

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Blaze News original: 10 times 'defund the police' backfired



Less than two weeks after George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police in May 2020, prominent city council members gathered in front of activists and pledged to start dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department.

"Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed and will never be accountable for its actions," the council members stated, according to the Star Tribune. "We are here today to begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating a new, transformative model for cultivating safety in Minneapolis."

In addition to cutting police budgets and doing away with many officers, numerous police departments also were decimated after frustrated, abused, and unsupported cops simply turned in their badges.

The "defund the police" movement was born.

And in the same way rioting commenced in Minneapolis in the wake of Floyd's death and spread across America, so did the notion of defunding and dismantling police departments. Other cities such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, and Chicago got into the act.

It was a bad idea.

So much so that voters in Minneapolis a year and half later rejected the idea of removing the city's police department and replacing it with "a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach ..."

In addition to cutting police budgets and doing away with many officers, numerous police departments also were decimated after frustrated, abused, and unsupported cops simply turned in their badges.

Law enforcement officials in 2022 called it a "crisis." A perfect storm of spiking crime and violence in the streets — along with police getting defunded or quitting — led not only to staffing shortages, but also new cops weren't signing up.

"What they're doing now is vilifying the job, and they're connecting with our state's attorney and our chief judge, letting all these prisoners out and all these offenders out immediately," former Chicago police officer Anthony Napolitano said. "And it makes cops throw their hands up in the air and say, 'I'm not going to do this job any more.'"

Here are 10 times when "defund the police" backfired spectacularly.

Boy, 13, forced to watch his dad die after delayed response by Seattle cops; family sues, blames 'defund the police' movement


The family of a man who died after a delayed police response to his medical emergency filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Seattle in December 2022. A year prior, 46-year-old William Yurek's son, 13, called 911 while his father was having chest pains and difficulty breathing. Yurek soon after died of cardiac arrest in front of his son. The lawsuit stated that the Seattle police department "was severely understaffed at the time of this incident due to fallout from the abandonment of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, a.k.a. 'CHOP,' a perceived lack of support from the city, vaccine mandates, and other factors, including city mismanagement." Seattle last year settled the lawsuit for $1.86 million.

Progressive Vermont city regrets its 'defund the police' effort; Democrat mayor says 'a lot of damage' has been done


Burlington's "defund the police" movement failed so dramatically that even the progressive council member who pushed it admitted the city messed up, NBC News reported in December 2021. About 18 months prior, a resolution passed that slashed the police force by 30%, removed resource officers from schools, and shifted police funding to social justice initiatives. Instead cops felt attacked, and they left the department in droves. The city, with its 44,000 residents, went from a police force of 95 to 64 — resulting in only about five officers available to patrol at night. The city's Democratic mayor, Miro Weinberger, didn’t support cutting the force and wasn't happy with the defunding efforts: “There’s a lot of damage that has been done in the last 16 months."

Soon after its 'defund the police' efforts, Minneapolis tells crime victims to cooperate with criminals, turn over their property


The city circulated a letter in late July 2020 telling residents in the third police precinct that due to the overwhelming violent crime wave, they should "be prepared to give up your cell phone and purse/wallet" — and if confronted by a violent robber "do as they say." The letter added that "robberies and Carjacking's have increased in our precinct. Cell phones, purses, and vehicles are being targeted. Some victims have been maced, dragged, assaulted, and threatened with a gun." In addition, "100 robberies and 20 carjackings have been reported to the 3rd Precinct Police in July alone." Just days after George Floyd's death, violent protesters breached the police department's 3rd precinct building and set a fire inside the station. In November, carjackings were up 537% compared to the previous year.

Minneapolis city council's 'defund the police' initiative inspires residents of left-wing neighborhood to stop calling cops. Boy, are they sorry.


After the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, the city council dreamed of a "transformative new model" of public safety in which community social workers — not armed police officers — enforced the law. So a neighborhood the New York Times described as "a haven to leftist activists and bohemian artists" vowed — as a way to protest racial injustice — not to call police. But within a month, their tree-lined neighborhood became a haven for crime and hundreds of homeless people. Resident Shari Albers organized "her mostly white neighbors" to "help tackle long-standing issues with crime," but instead she was kept awake at night by the "Powderhorn Park Sanctuary." The Times reported that the homeless community "has drawn heavy car traffic into the neighborhood, some from drug dealers." Albers admitted to the paper, "I am afraid. I know my neighbors are around, but I'm not feeling grounded in my city at all. Anything could happen."

Days after Oakland cuts police budget, armed robbers run up on city's woke 'violence prevention chief' and reporters amid discussion on rising crime


A KNTV-TV news crew was interviewing Oakland's violence prevention director on the steps of City Hall in June 2021 when two armed robbers approached the group with guns and tried to steal camera equipment. An armed security officer drove away the would-be burglars, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, but news of the scuffle broke out on social media — and it was called the perfect example of what inevitably happens when a local government cuts its police budget. A few days earlier, Oakland's City Council voted to reallocate $18 million of police funding to community violence prevention programs. Later in 2021, amazingly Oakland's liberal Mayor Libby Schaaf blamed "defund rhetoric" for a lack of police recruits amid a surge in violent crime.

LA school district cuts police force by 33% — then middle school girl is brutally beaten by 2 females while male teacher watches, not knowing how to handle it


A KCAL-TV report last summer linked defunding police with the brutal, two-against-one beating at Sun Valley Middle School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. A teacher tried to stop it but soon gave up and watched the attackers punch the victim as many as 35 times. The victim's mother told KCAL that the teacher admitted to her that he didn't know what to do when the girls became violent: "He said, 'I tried to do what I could, I cannot touch the students, and I would like more training on how to restrain a child, or what can I do in this situation?'" The report documented how the district defunded and reduced its police force beginning in 2020. In 2021, then-L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva blamed "defund the police" and progressive policies for a violent crime wave.

Minneapolis' 'defund the police' zeal leads to increased crime — and city actually moves to pay for temporary cops at a hefty price


The outsourced police work was to cost Minneapolis $500,000 over six weeks at the end of 2020. The desperate move came after the city and anti-cop activists went after officers, about 100 of whom simply left the force. As crime was spiking, members of the city council In September 2020 — all of whom backed defunding the police force — actually demanded to know, "Where are the police?" What's more, in October 2020, several residents sued the city over insufficient policing, claiming there were fewer officers than what the city charter requires. A year later, a judge ordered the city to hire more police officers, and Mayor Jacob Frey admitted that calls to "defund the police" led to a spike in crime.

In the wake of Portland's 'defund the police' failure — and soaring crime that resulted — city restores gun violence prevention unit


Portland — not surprisingly falling in line with other woke cities — cut its police budget in the summer of George Floyd by $15 million. But by early 2021, Portland moved to reintroduce a gun violence task force within the city's police department after tons of violence. Many community members blamed budget cuts, and specifically the dissolution of the Gun Violence Reduction Team, for the spike in crime. Many within the police department warned that cutting the police budget would only lead to more crime. "I'd say they're more emboldened, maybe, to be out with guns," Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said. "They know there's not someone watching. There's no real deterrent there." Later in 2021, Portland was having a tough time finding officers to fill the revamped gun violence task force.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is a 'defund the police' champion after George Floyd's death — a year later, she completely reverses herself amid violent crime wave


In October 2020, the mayor announced cuts to the police department's budget in response to Black Lives Matter activists' demands. More than 600 police jobs would be eliminated. Lightfoot said police have played a "complicit role" in "brutally enforcing racist, Jim Crow laws, depriving Black and Brown people" of their "full rights as citizens." That Christmas holiday, at least eight people were killed and 30 more were wounded in citywide shootings. Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara called the "historic levels" of violence amid police cuts "ridiculous." A year later, according to the Chicago Tribune, "Lightfoot unveiled a $16.7 billion spending plan ... that boosts funding for police ..."

Far-left San Francisco mayor pushed for $120 million in police funding cuts after George Floyd's death; just a year later she wants cops to fight 'bulls**t' crime 'that's destroyed our city'


Mayor London Breed — who jumped on the "defund the police" bandwagon in 2020 — just a year later launched an emergency police intervention in the city's high-crime Tenderloin neighborhood over rampant drug use and related gun violence, KPIX-TV reported. "It’s time, the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it come to an end," Breed said with an angry tone at a press conference, the station said. "And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement. More aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerant of all the bulls**t that has destroyed our city."


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'Islamophobia' claims regarding shooting of Palestinian trio in doubt after suspect revealed to be Hamas apologist



Three Palestinian students were shot on Nov. 25 in Burlington, Vermont. Democrats and other leftists took a brief pause from their criticism of Israel's fight against terrorism to suggest so-called Islamophobia was a factor in the non-fatal shootings.

It appears, however, that the suspect in the shootings — an incident that has fallen off the liberal media's radar in the weeks since — is a mentally-compromised individual who defended Palestinians and Hamas in recent months.

The incident

20-year-old students Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ali Ahmad went out for a stroll during Thanksgiving break while visiting friends in Burlington. VTDigger indicated two of the victims were wearing Palestinian scarves at the time of the shooting.

Jason James Eaton, 48, stepped off a porch on North Prospect Street around 6:30 p.m. and confronted the trio, according to police. Eaton then allegedly opened fire without uttering a word.

All three victims, two of whom are U.S. citizens, were wounded but ultimately survived.

Eaton was arrested and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder and may yet face a hate crime enhancement. His next hearing is set for March 8.

— (@)

The response

"In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime," said Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad.

"Although we do not yet have evidence to support a hate crime enhancement, there is no question this was a hateful act," said Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George.

The victims' families released a statement urging law enforcement to treat the shooting as a "hate crime."

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee rushed out a statement suggesting it had "reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab."

ADC national executive director Abed Ayoub said, "The surge in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is another example of that hate turning violent."

President Joe Biden said in response to the shootings that "there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America."

Vice President Kamala Harris wrote in a statement, "We know that far too many people live with the fear that they could be targeted and attacked based on their beliefs or who they are."

Democratic Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) stressed, "We do not tolerate hate or Islamophobia in Vermont."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said, "It is shocking and deeply upsetting that three young Palestinians were shot here in Burlington, Vermont. Hate has no place here, or anywhere."

Vermont Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman said at a subsequent rally held by various anti-Israel groups, "I think it's hard not to see the attempted murder of three young Palestinians wearing the Palestinian keffiyehs, the scarf, at a time when we're seeing increased attacks throughout the U.S.," reported Vermont Public.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) pushed the phobia narrative in Washington and wrote on X, "Dehumanizing, Islamophobic, anti-Arab rhetoric has violent consequences. For Hisham, Kinnan, Tahseen, and for all Palestinian Americans, we need to make it crystal clear that we stand against this kind of hate and bigotry."

Dehumanizing, Islamophobic, anti-Arab rhetoric has violent consequences.\n\nFor Hisham, Kinnan, Tahseen, and for all Palestinian Americans, we need to make it crystal clear that we stand against this kind of hate and bigotry.
— (@)

Not so fast

Contrary to ceasefire leftists' initial suspicions, the suspected shooter is actually a fellow traveler.

Although Eaton's X account has been set to private, Seven Days, an independent Vermont paper, obtained a trove of the suspect's posts from a follower on the platform who asked to remain anonymous.

Eaton, reportedly fired from his job with a financial services company just weeks before the shooting, wrote in response to Rep. Balint's call for a ceasefire, "What if someone occupied your country? Wouldn't you fight them?"

"Brittan [sic] wouldn't let ships with food sent by other countries into Ireland during the famine. My people starved," added Eaton.

Just weeks after the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, Eaton wrote, "the notion that Hamas is 'evil' for defending their state from occupation is absurd. They are owed a state. Pay up."

An archival snapshot of Eaton's X account from 2022 shows him engaging with posts by Sen. Welch and the Libertarian Party.

The bio for Eaton's X account reads, "Radical citizen pa-trolling demockracy and crapitalism for oathcreepers." The banner is captioned, "Libertarians want trans furrys to be able to protect their cannabis farms with unregistered machine guns."

Seven Days highlighted how Eaton was named in 37 reports made to police agencies in Onondaga County between April 2007 and November 2021. However, Lt. Matthew Malinowski, a Syracuse police spokesman indicated there did not appear to be a "big history or anything that's racially motivated."

Mary Reed, his mother, told the Daily Beast, "Jason has had a lot of struggles in his life but he is such a kind and loving person."

Reed indicated her son suffered from depression and other mental health issues but had been "in such a good mood" hours before the shooting.

A police report concerning a grievance from one of Eaton's former romantic partners similarly suggested Eaton had a "history of mental illness," reported Seven Days. Eaton's estranged partner corroborated Reed's sense that he was neither racist nor hateful.

Dick deGraffe, a New York farmer, told Insider that the "progressive" Eaton he had known for 25 years had never evidenced any signs of extremism, racism, or Islamophobia.

H/T Townhall

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Grocery store clerk fired after stopping purse thief

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