A day of historic impeachment, a Capitol as armed encampment
WASHINGTON — The scene in the U.S. Capitol seemed jarringly disconnected. Inside the House chamber, the nation’s lawmakers spoke with solemnity about democracy, the rule of law and the words of Abraham Lincoln as they undertook a vote to remove the president from office.
They wore masks, a rule imposed by Democrats, as a measure of the pandemic that continues to ravage the country.
But only steps away, outside the chamber doors, there was the look of an armed encampment.
The House impeachment of President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection on the home of the branch of government created in Article I of the Constitution contained arresting reminders of the violence and death wrought just a week ago and the fears that the Capitol needed enhanced protection to prevent it from happening again.
Where visitors once walked, hundreds of National Guard members camped out, protecting lawmakers still reeling from last week’s violence and preparing for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
The Capitol grounds were wrapped in seven-foot fences, and scores of other law enforcement officers and troops kept a watchful eye.
A replica of the dome that stands atop the Capitol, the Statue of Freedom, resides in the Capitol’s visitor centre. Beneath it, soldiers slept on marble floors while others huddled to discuss their marching orders for the day.
They massed together from one end of the giant hall to the other and their numbers made it impossible to follow the signs calling for social distancing. To protect from COVID, they wore masks, and to protect from potential violence, they stockpiled riot shields and gas masks.
Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, a military veteran who lost both legs in the war in Afghanistan, was shocked at the sight and that so many soldiers were deemed necessary to keep the Capitol safe.
“It’s as sad as anything can make me in this world,” Mast said as he gave some of them a tour.
The Capitol always sees stepped-up security precautions leading up to an inauguration, but it rarely looks like the nation is on a war footing.
But along with the signs of fear, there were also signs of gratefulness for those protecting the Capitol. A tunnel leading to House office buildings has become a makeshift tribute to members of law enforcement who protected the Capitol when a violent mob overran the building in an attempt to derail the certification of Electoral College votes in the presidential election. More than 50 police officers were injured in the attack, including 15 who were hospitalized. One was killed.
“Thank you for keeping my mommy safe,” said a poster with smiley faces and stars and signed by “Clair Age 8.”
The thank you signs poured in from all ranks and political parties, including a letter from the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We would not be here without you,” said another poster signed “thank you from AOC,” the initials for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.-N.Y.
Outside of the Capitol, members of the National Guard — many carrying semi-automatic assault rifles — are supplementing the work of the U.S. Capitol Police, forming perimeters around each of the office buildings that lawmakers and their staffs use when not in the Capitol for votes. The number of entrances into the buildings has been dramatically diminished and those approaching must present a credential to get in.
The tensions were also apparent inside the House chamber. Beginning Tuesday, lawmakers had to walk through a metal detector before being allowed to enter the chamber. Members of Congress have previously enjoyed nearly free range at the Capitol, able to bypass security screening stations at most entrances to the building. In the House chamber, there have been Capitol Police officers and civilian door monitors but no screening stations. Reporters had to do the same to enter the galleries above the chamber.
As the debate over whether to impeach Trump ensued in the afternoon on the House floor, one side called for unity, the other accountability. It’s very much unclear whether either will happen.
“This is a moment of truth my friends,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. “Are you on the side of chaos and the mob, or on the side of constitutional democracy and our freedom?”
“If we impeached every politician who gave a fiery speech to a crowd of partisans, this Capitol would be deserted. That’s what the president did, that is all he did,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.
No. 3 House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who created a tempest inside the party by declaring she would support impeachment, quickly left after casting her “aye” vote. But another GOP impeachment backer, John Katko of New York, lingered for a bit near a desk with a terminal that keeps a tally.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gaveled the vote and announced the tally — but only after waiting for California Democratic ally Maxine Waters, a strong opponent of Trump, to cast the 232nd and final vote to impeach him.
As Pelosi announced the vote count, there was hardly a sound, a single clap from one or two in the audience that was quickly replaced by silence as most members headed for the exits.
By Kevin Freking And Andrew Taylor, The Associated Press
Aristotle Foundation
The Canadian Medical Association’s inexplicable stance on pediatric gender medicine
By Dr. J. Edward Les
The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide from its shelves — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs
Physicians have a duty to put forward the best possible evidence, not ideology, based treatments
Late last month, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) announced that it, along with three Alberta doctors, had filed a constitutional challenge to Alberta’s Bill 26 “to protect the relationship between patients, their families and doctors when it comes to making treatment decisions.”
Bill 26, which became law last December, prohibits doctors in the province from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapies for those under 16; it also bans doctors from performing gender-reassignment surgeries on minors (those under 18).
The unprecedented CMA action follows its strongly worded response in February 2024 to Alberta’s (at the time) proposed legislation:
“The CMA is deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care, including the Alberta government’s proposed restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for pediatric transgender patients.”
But here’s the problem with that statement, and with the CMA’s position: the evidence supporting the “gender affirmation” model of care — which propels minors onto puberty blockers, cross-gender hormones, and in some cases, surgery — is essentially non-existent. That’s why the United Kingdom’s Conservative government, in the aftermath of the exhaustive four-year-long Cass Review, which laid bare the lack of evidence for that model, and which shone a light on the deeply troubling potential for the model’s irreversible harm to youth, initiated a temporary ban on puberty blockers — a ban made permanent last December by the subsequent Labour government. And that’s why other European jurisdictions like Finland and Sweden, after reviews of gender affirming care practices in their countries, have similarly slammed the brakes on the administration of puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to minors.
It’s not only the Europeans who have raised concerns. The alarm bells are ringing loudly within our own borders: earlier this year, a group at McMaster University, headed by none other than Dr. Gordon Guyatt, one of the founding gurus of the “evidence-based care” construct that rightfully underpins modern medical practice, issued a pair of exhaustive systematic reviews and meta analyses that cast grave doubts on the wisdom of prescribing these drugs to youth.
And yet, the CMA purports to be “deeply concerned about any government proposal that restricts access to evidence-based medical care,” which begs the obvious question: Where, exactly, is the evidence for the benefits of the “gender affirming” model of care? The answer is that it’s scant at best. Worse, the evidence that does exist, points, on balance, to infliction of harm, rather than provision of benefit.
CMA President Joss Reimer, in the group’s announcement of the organization’s legal action, said:
“Medicine is a calling. Doctors pursue it because they are compelled to care for and promote the well-being of patients. When a government bans specific treatments, it interferes with a doctor’s ability to empower patients to choose the best care possible.”
Indeed, we physicians have a sacred duty to pursue the well-being of our patients. But that means that we should be putting forward the best possible treatments based on actual evidence.
When Dr. Reimer states that a government that bans specific treatments is interfering with medical care, she displays a woeful ignorance of medical history. Because doctors don’t always get things right: look to the sad narratives of frontal lobotomies, the oxycontin crisis, thalidomide, to name a few.
The thalidomide saga is particularly instructive: it illustrates what happens when a government drags its heels on necessary action. Canada was the last developed country to pull thalidomide, given to pregnant women for morning sickness, from its shelves, three months after it had been banned everywhere else — three months during which babies continued to be born in this country with absent or deformed limbs, along with other severe anomalies. It’s a shameful chapter in our medical past, but it pales in comparison to the astonishing intransigence our medical leaders have displayed — and continue to display — on the youth gender care file.
A final note (prompted by thalidomide’s history), to speak to a significant quibble I have with Alberta’s Bill 26 legislation: as much as I admire Premier Danielle Smith’s courage in bringing it forward, the law contains a loophole allowing minors already on puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones to continue to take them. Imagine if, after it was removed from the shelves in 1962, government had allowed pregnant women already on the drug to continue to take thalidomide. Would that have made any sense? Of course not. And the same applies to puberty blockers and cross-gender hormones: they should be banned outright for all youth.
That argument is the kind our medical associations should be making — and would be making, if they weren’t so firmly in the grasp, seemingly, of ideologues who have abandoned evidence-based medical care for our youth.
J. Edward Les is a Calgary pediatrician, a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, and co-author of “Teenagers, Children, and Gender Transition Policy: A Comparison of Transgender Medical Policy for Minors in Canada, the United States, and Europe.”
The wonderful people who brought you Elbows Up and Don’t Shop At Home Depot! are now on to Edmonton Oilers Bring Home The Cup. In response to no Canadian-based team winning the Stanley Cup since 1993 the corporate nostalgia folks are linking arms with Connor McDavid & Co in their struggle with the dastardly Florida Panthers. The Oil are now Canada’s team!
In one bit they were taking ice shavings from McDavid’s home rink in southern Ontario to mix with the frozen Zamboni water of Edmonton’s Rogers Place arena. Okay, they have eight players on the Oilers roster who aren’t Canadian (hello Leon Draisaitl), and the stars now killing it for the Panthers, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, are from Ontario. But never mind. Like playing Mr. Dressup trivia with Mike Meyers it’s just too good an idea to waste.
The outcome of all this patriotic wind therapy will be determined Tuesday— or Thursday at the latest. But it will have achieved the desired goal of warming the cockles of all those Canadians who turtled in the election, flipping back to Mark Carney’s Liberals when the going got a little rough with Donald Trump. Resulting in a maximum four more years of Carney’s faculty lounge of dunces and Kamala Harris clones.
While the marketers were playing the Maple Syrup March over the Stanley Cup Final they missed an even better opportunity to marry Canadian patriotism with sport. We speak, of course, of the inevitable crowning of Canadian stars as champions of the NBA. In fact the entire progress of the postseason in the sneaker league has witnessed great Canadian results.
Not least of which: Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous Alexander winning the NBA MVP while leading his Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink of the NBA crown. For those distracted by Stu Skinner and Corey Perry, SGA is a revelation, If you missed him leading Canada back to the Olympics last year the wiry 26-year-old is a lithe, unstoppable chinook who routinely scores 30 points a game.
He has help from another Canadian, Montreal’s Lu Dort, a finalist for NBA defensive player of the year, who also led Canada to the Olympics. As unstoppable as SGA is, Dort is immovable. But that’s not all the Canadian content. In the Finals they are up against two more Canadian teammates from last year. Aurora Ont.’s Andrew Nembhard is the back-court catalyst for Tyrese Haliburton’s Indian Pacers, taking them to the Eastern title and within two wins of the NBA title. He’s assisted by another Canadian, Montreal’s Benedict Mathurin, the hero of the Game 3 win for the Pacers. They’re now household names.
The Canadian content didn’t end there, either. In the semifinals, the Thunder beat the Minnesota Timberwolves featuring SGA’s cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker , another alumnus of the CDN national team. At one point the two close friends were anything but friendly, shoving each other under the basket.
They had Canadian company in the postseason. In earlier rounds R.J. Barrett and the New York Knicks made it to the second round in the East, Jamal Murray’s Denver Nuggets fell to the Thunder in Round Two, while the Houston Rockets and Mississauga’s Dillon Brooks, a tenacious physical presence, lost to Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors . Meanwhile, Corey Joseph’s Orlando Magic lost in the first round to Boston.
But the Canadian content didn’t end there. The Toronto Raptors, NBA champs of 2019, are now spread throughout the league, affording nostalgic Canadian fans a rooting playoff interest in players such as Pascal Siakim, who’s pairing with Nembhard and Mathurin to push the upset-minded Pacers, shooting guard OG Anunoby teamed with small forward R.J. Barrett on the Knicks and point guard Fred Van Vliet of the Rockets. All harkened back to the Raptors’ greatest days.
But in the heat of Elbows Up marketing these great performances don’t seem to get a sniff from marketers looking to promote Canadian unity in these fractious days. While the sports networks give airtime to the stories in the Association. the general public and advertisers have little time or inclination to draw patriotic strength from these young men.
Before we completely condemn Canadian marketers it should be noted that the interest in the NBA in general is waning. The NBA has lost 75 percent of its TV audience since the Michael Jordan peak while many other sports — NFL, men’s & women’s college basketball, college football — have set record TV ratings. Yes, TV ratings in many fields have dropped since the 1990s. Still, it seems significant.
The problem for the NBA in a Time of Trump is its embrace of hard-left politics. Whether it’s LeBron James defending Chinese shoe manufacturers, the slavish devotion to #BLM even as its corruption is revealed and a maniacal obsession with Donald Trump (and embrace of Kamala Harris) the NBA has made its bed with radical political and cultural elements. It’s as if the Trump election and cultural shift never happened.
In this wilful blindness they are supported by their media partners whose own credibility is at an all-time low after carrying water for the Biden farce and Kamala’s erasure. Ironically, this is the same political crash car running Canadian politics at the moment. You’d think that would make the NBA— and its sister Women’s NBA—like catnip to the Canada Not For Sale crew.
So far the hockey quest is foremost in their minds. But perhaps when SGA holds the Larry O’Brien Trophy they might just achieve the symbiosis that the sport has always coveted.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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