DML News Morning Briefing, May 2nd

Today is May 2. Below are some of the stories grabbing headlines this morning. I hope you share this briefing as doing so will make you the smartest person in the room.

1. Oklahoma governor makes performing ‘irreversible gender transition surgeries’ on children a felony:

Fox News – Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has banned all sex reassignment procedures for minors in the state, including irreversible gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies, joining at least 15 other states with similar laws.

“Last year, I called for a statewide ban on all irreversible gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies on minors so I am thrilled to sign this into law today and protect our kids,” Stitt said. “We cannot turn a blind eye to what’s happening across our nation, and as governor, I am proud to stand up for what’s right and ban life-altering transition surgeries on children in the state of Oklahoma.”

Denny’s Insight: Fifteen too little. The word is right there — irreversible; that’s the kind of damage being done to children across the country. Thousands of stories of kids de-transitioning year after year, and yet we allow quick-make-a-buck doctors to perform these mutilating surgeries on minors who have no firm grasp on how the real world works. They’re fed lies, manipulated, and then they decide to cut off their God given genitals without real rational thought behind it. Just fleeting “feelings” that make them think that they should, and these “feelings” are usually preyed upon by radical gender ideologues. Overall, this is a major win for the parents and kids of Oklahoma.

The Hill – Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has accepted President Biden’s invitation to meet next week about the debt limit, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday, marking the first time since February that the two leaders will discuss the matter at length.

The meeting is scheduled to take place on May 9. Biden also invited Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

“McCarthy spoke to Biden and agreed to meet on the 9th,” the source familiar told The Hill. CNN was the first to report McCarthy had accepted Biden’s invitation. McConnell has not yet said if he will attend the meeting.

Biden invited the four congressional leaders to meet at the White House hours after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed the top lawmakers that the U.S. could reach its borrowing limit as soon as June 1. The date is a shift from when Yellen initially told lawmakers that it was unlikely the federal government would exhaust its extraordinary measures before early June.

Denny’s Insight: Why do we ever listen to Janet Yellen? This woman is downright awful at her job and always has been. I don’t think McCarthy should give Biden the time of day, but June 1 is fast approaching and our government’s borrowing habits have placed our country in a bad, bad spot…

3. Late-Night Shows To Shut Down Immediately After Writers Guild Strike Called:

Yahoo – Nightly talk shows including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, are set to go dark starting on Tuesday after writers agreed to strike.

Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Daily Show, which had correspondent Dulcé Sloan host this week, also will be hit, while such weekly shows as Saturday Night Live, Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will be similarly impacted, though final decisions on those shows are expected to come later in the week.

The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show, Late Night and The Daily Show are all expected to pivot to re-runs.

Denny’s Insight: Other than the re-runs, that means no new content from the unfunny Jimmies and that hack Colbert, or any of the other leftist hosts spewing worthless political opinion and peddling propaganda for the Biden administration and its ilk… Hallelujah! Strike on!

4. Texas Attorney General Launches Investigation Into Gain-Of-Function Research, Claims Made By Vaccine Manufacturers:

The Daily Wire – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced this week that his office has launched an investigation into the three pharmaceutical companies to determine if they conducted gain-of-function research and if they misled the public on the matter.

Paxton said on Monday that three companies that he is focused on are Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson and that he’s also investigating claims that the companies made about “the efficacy of their Covid-19 vaccines and the likelihood of transmitting Covid-19 after taking the vaccines in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.”

“The development of the Covid-19 vaccine, and the representations made by and knowledge of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, are of profound interest to the public’s health and welfare,” Paxton said in a statement. “If any company illegally took advantage of consumers during this period or compromised people’s safety to increase their profits, they will be held responsible. If public health policy was developed on the basis of flawed or misleading research, the public must know. The catastrophic effects of the pandemic and subsequent interventions forced on our country and citizens deserve intense scrutiny, and we are pursuing any hint of wrongdoing to the fullest.”

Denny’s Insight: I applaud Paxton, but I doubt he’ll yield much success in chasing the tails of the three big pharmaceutical companies in the US, let alone get the honest truth out of them about how successful their trials actually were for the COVID vaccine. Still, it’s worth name dropping them in the name of accountability. Reports continue everyday revealing the devastating impact of the COVID-19 vaccine on people’s lives.

5. China ‘barring thousands of citizens and foreigners from leaving country’:

The Guardian – China is increasingly barring people, including foreign executives, from leaving the country, according to a report and research. Scores of Chinese nationals and foreigners have been ensnared by exit bans, according to the report from the rights group Safeguard Defenders, while a Reuters analysis has found an apparent surge in court cases involving such bans in recent years.

Foreign business lobby groups are voicing concern about the trend, calling it a jarring message as the authorities say the country is open for business after three years of tight Covid-19 restrictions.

“Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China has expanded the legal landscape for exit bans and increasingly used them, sometimes outside legal justification,” the Safeguard Defenders report says.

The group estimates “tens of thousands” of Chinese citizens are banned from leaving at any one time. It also cites a 2022 academic paper that found 128 cases of foreigners being exit-banned between 1995 and 2019, including 29 Americans and 44 Canadians.

Denny’s Insight: As a kid, before learning how the modern world worked, I wanted to visit China because I had seen the Great Wall on a Discovery Channel show and I was fascinated by it. Now, I have no interest, knowing I could go see it and then never be allowed to leave the country if they decided for the heck of it to place an exit ban on me. Stories like this make me appreciate the U.S., even with all our mounting flaws and issues