I’m still monitoring Ron DeSantis to see what sorts of actions he is taking as governor of Florida. This week, there was one related to teachers. I once wanted to be a teacher, but I refused to do it because of the mandatory dues I would have to give to teacher unions. Teacher unions are very supportive of secular leftism. But now, in Florida, teachers can work without paying union dues.

This is from The Florida Standard:

Governor Ron DeSantis continued his battle against the progressive influence of teachers’ unions by previewing a bill on Monday that would potentially mitigate their power. Speaking to supporters of his educational agenda at a school board retreat, DeSantis intimated that he expects the legislature to pass a “paycheck protection” bill in the upcoming session.

After suggesting that teachers can expect “probably the biggest [pay] increase for teachers that we’ve ever done in Florida in this coming legislative session,” DeSantis said the new legislation, if passed, would help ensure that state funding for teacher pay will not be siphoned off by the unions.

“That fact that you’re also doing stuff like this paycheck protection, it’s more of a guarantee that that money is going to actually go to those teachers,” he said. “It’s not going to be frittered away by interest groups who get involved in the school system.”

Like taxes and insurance, union dues are automatically deducted from paychecks for members. Some teachers may not pay close enough attention to realize the money they could keep if they opted out of the union. By requiring the teachers to actually write the checks for union membership themselves, the presumption is that teachers would give more consideration to the commitment of their money and perhaps be less willing to surrender it to the union.

Previous DeSantis actions:

• flying illegal immigrants to Massachusetts
• elect conservatives to school boards
• teach students about the historical record of communism
• ban grooming of young children
• protect wildlife
• banning biological males from women’s sports

• punishing Big Tech social media companies for censoring conservatives

I heard that the Democrats are trying to pass a huge “omnibus” spending bill, and I thought it would be useful for us to take a look at it. Who does this “omnibus” bill help? And will it cause inflation to continue to rise?

This is from Daily Wire:

And according to The Heritage Foundation, the omnibus bill they may not have time to read is packed with woke pet projects. Among them are a number of LGBTQ projects — from pride centers to museums — and “anti-racism” initiatives, according to a thread shared on Twitter on Tuesday.

What followed was a list of the “woke agenda” projects — along with their respective price tags and which areas of the country stood to benefit from omnibus money.

“$1.2 million for ‘LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers’; $1.2 million for ‘services for DACA recipients’ (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College; $477k for the Equity Institute in RI to indoctrinate teachers with ‘antiracism virtual labs,’” the thread continued.

More projects were listed in the following tweets, including “$1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a ‘coworking and community space’ for ‘women and gender-expansive people of color’; $3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City; $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia.”

New York’s state capital is set to receive three-quarters of a million dollars for “LGBT and Gender Non-Conforming housing”; Baltimore will rake in a cool $2 million for a wax museum dedicated to African Americans, tentatively named “Great Blacks in Wax”; and New York will get over $800,000 for an “LGBT center.”

An additional $750,000 is earmarked for the “TransLatin@ Coalition” in Los Angeles, which is supposed to create “workforce development programs and supportive services for Transgender and Gender nonconforming and Intersex immigrant women.”

On Twitter, North Carolina Republican congressman Dan Bishop had another list of wasteful spending items in the “omnibus” spending bill:

• an additional $47 billion in Ukraine funding, and the bill also authorizes a “Ukrainian Independence Park” in Washington DC.
• $11.33 billion for the FBI. $1.75 billion for the ATF. & $2.63 billion for US Attorneys, with an emphasis on J6 prosecutions and domestic terrorism cases. All with significant increases from the previous year.
• $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which indirectly funds NPR via grants.
• it expressly prohibits CBP funding from being used to improve border security.
• it allocates $1,438,000,000 for membership in global multilateral organizations, including the UN.
• it allocates at least $575 million for “family planning” in areas where population growth “threatens biodiversity.”
• $524.4 million for a DEI and “structural racism” focused NIH subdivision
• it allocates $410 million towards border security for Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman.
• $335 million to prepare for an influenza pandemic! Including the use of surveillance tools.
• $286 million in Title X funding, which funds Planned Parenthood.
• Gender programs in Pakistan and a $200 million for a Gender Equity Fund.
• $70 million for minority business development – an increase of $15 million from Fy22.
• nearly $26 million for the House of Representatives Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
• $7.5 million to better understand the “domestic radicalization phenomenon,” plus $1 million for gun violence research. These research programs are often a smokescreen for violating civil liberties down the road.

What will be the end result of spending $1.7 trillion for Americans? I think it will cause inflation to go up, and people will pay even higher prices for gas, groceries and everything else. The higher inflation goes, the more interest rates will rise.

One of my favorite places to go to find out what is going on in the economy is the Wall Street Journal. There, I found a recent article entitled “Inflation Isn’t Vanquished Yet”.

It says:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation rose only 0.1% in November, and shelter made up half of the monthly increase. The 12-month inflation rate fell to 7.1% in November, which is down from 7.7% in October and is the fifth annual rate drop in a row since inflation peaked at 9.1% in June. The Fed’s monetary tightening is making a difference.

Yet a 7.1% increase in prices is still a long way from victory, and inflation continues to be sticky across much of the economy. Food rose 0.5%. Much of the decrease came in energy prices, which are volatile, and fell by 1.6%. But service prices excluding energy services rose 0.4% and are up 6.8% in the past year. The core CPI less energy and food rose 0.2% in the month and is still high at an annual rate of 6%.

What does this mean? It means that inflation is not under control, and interest rates will have to continue to rise. That’s bad news for economic growth. If Biden gets his omnibus bill passed, then we will be looking at rising inflation again, and an even longer recession that is currently being considered. I hope Democrat voters understand that they can’t spend their way out of inflation. It’s the spending that’s causing it.

My podcast co-host Rose and I both want Christians to argue for the Christian worldview using studies and evidence. We want the other side to reply on feelings and intuitions, while we present hard data. With that said, I have a report on a new study for you that will help you discuss the issue of medical transitioning of autistic adolescents with gender dysphoria.

Consider this report on the new study from Daily Wire:

The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, found that guided, peer support group therapy showed positive mental health outcomes for autistic adolescents struggling with gender dysphoria. The study, conducted in the Netherlands, emphasized the importance of mental health treatments, while deprioritizing medical interventions like puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgery.

“These findings add to a quickly growing stack of evidence suggesting that it’s the psychotherapy and support that is improving these kids’ well-being, not medicalized transition,” said Dr. James Cantor, Director of the Toronto Sexuality Centre, and associate professor of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine.

By the way, you may have heard that most gender dysphoria resolves itself without any need for medical intervention. The article says:

Dr. Cantor’s website, Sexology Today, is often cited as a resource that documents eleven studies finding that roughly 60–90% of children who identify as transgender, but do not socially or medically transition, will no longer identify as transgender in adulthood. These studies were referenced by the group of researchers, who acknowledged that gender dysphoria may resolve on its own.

“In a large proportion of children who express their desire for medical gender-affirming care, this seems to disappear during puberty,” the study read.

In a previous post, I blogged about the “social contagion” cause of transgenderism. The technical term is Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). Same-age peers and social media play a huge role in children having gender confusion.

But the Daily Wire article had even more interesting information – a link between autism and susceptibility to gender confusion:

Children and adolescents on the autism spectrum are disproportionately represented among the large, newly emerging cohort of children claiming to be transgender. Over the past 10 years, there have been at least nine studies connecting Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and transgender identities. Rates of autistic traits in these studies range from five percent to 54% among those with gender dysphoria, significantly higher than among the general population.

Data from the now-shuttered Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the U.K.’s Tavistock Centre found that autistic adolescents were significantly overrepresented in the population of referrals to the clinic. Pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass was commissioned to conduct a review of the services provided by the National Health Service and investigate why there has been such a huge rise in the number of adolescent biological girls seeking referrals to gender clinics.

Dr. Cass found that approximately one third of youth referred to GIDS had autism or autistic traits. By comparison, the prevalence rates of autism spectrum disorder during childhood in the UK have been estimated at 1%.

Previously, I blogged about how many countries that are more advanced in treating gender dysphoria are leaning towards psychotherapy instead of medical treatment. Something to think about if people in your life and jumping straight to medical treatment instead of psychotherapy,