There’s not a whole lot of information on the topic, and even the small amount available is difficult to evaluate in terms of its reliability.
But I offer this:
SCOTUS rules 8-1 against anti-conversion therapy laws as First Amendment violations
It’s a mark of how vile these laws are that the only dissent was Justice Jackson. From the Gorsuch-written opinion:
Ms. Chiles [a therapist] does not question that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy has some constitutionally sound applications. See Brief for Petitioner 53. She does not take issue with the State’s effort to prohibit what she herself calls “long-abandoned, aversive” physical interventions. Instead, Ms. Chiles stresses that she provides only talk therapy, employing no physical techniques or medications. Yet, she argues, Colorado’s law still applies to her, prescribing what she may say in “voluntary counseling conversations” with her clients. And because that application of the law strikes at the heart of the First Amendment’s protections for free speech, she contends, it warrants considerably more searching scrutiny than the rational-basis review the Tenth Circuit applied in this case or the intermediate-scrutiny review some other lower courts have employed in cases like hers.
I have written two fairly lengthy posts on the subject of these laws, so I’m not sure there’s much more to add except that I strongly believe this was the right decision and long overdue. My first post on the subject was in 2013, when New Jersey passed such a law (and Governor Christie signed it). An excerpt:
It is no use pretending that therapy—and the licensing of therapists by the state—is not at least partly a political endeavor subject to political fashion rather than a science. Nor should therapists be completely unrestricted. For example, therapists are already prohibited from sexual contact with patients—even willing patients, even adult patients—because it is considered inherently exploitative. But the most harmful practices that could be used by conversion therapists (for example, electric shock) could be banned without banning the entire enterprise. And as the articles point out, mainstream therapy organizations have already condemned conversion therapy and do not advocate it.
But apparently none of that would be enough for the advocates of this bill; the therapy itself must be defined by the government as inherently and unfailingly abusive (what’s next, taking children away from parents who don’t applaud and celebrate their gayness?) As the nanny state grows, so will these essentially political moves by the government. This bill opens the door for a host of governmental abuses in which the state dictates the enforcement of politically correct thought through the mechanism of so-called therapy, and therapists become the instruments by which the public is indoctrinated in what is currently politically acceptable and what is verboten.
The present ruling arrests that trend at least somewhat. It is encouraging that even two of the liberal justices voted with the majority.
My other previous post on the subject can be found here. It is about the Colorado law. An excerpt:
I have some retired therapist friends who are Democrats, and a few years ago when I told them that anything other than “gender-affirming” therapy was discouraged or even sometimes banned they were aghast. That’s how quickly the policies have changed, and how radically.
What is banned under the Colorado law is described this way: “efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” That’s pretty darn broad.
Ukraine says it will be helping to open the Strait of Hormuz
Some interesting news from Ukraine:
Ukraine will supply weapons and defense technology, including systems that can help unblock the Strait of Hormuz, to Gulf countries under new agreements, President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on March 30.
“All agreements that will be legally formalized are extremely important for our country,” Zelensky said. “Ukraine has never had such agreements with this region before.” …
“The experience of unblocking sea trade routes with the help of among other things, sea drones – could this experience help unblock the Strait of Hormuz?” Zelensky said. “They know that they can count on our expertise in this area, and we spoke in detail about sharing our experience of the Black Sea corridor and how it functions.”
If this works out as stated, it would be some rare positive fallout from the Ukraine War. It would also be another way for Ukraine to stick it to Russia, because the latter favors Iran.
I have noticed that on the American left there is widespread support for Ukraine and a widespread lack of support for Israel and the US in the Iran operation. Will this action of Zelensky’s cause some cognitive dissonance on the left?
On the other hand, on the “woke right” (if you have a better name for that group, please let me know because I’m not so keen on that one) and/or the isolationist right, both Ukraine and Israel (and Trump, at this point) are excoriated and our support for them derided. So at least there’s consistency there and they can continue to hate Zelensky.
The conspiracy theorists regarding the Charlie Kirk murder are quite happy about this
This article appeared in the Daily Mail concerning the trial of Tyler Robinson. Its headline reads “Bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did NOT match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims.”
As you might imagine, many of the pundits who think Tyler Robinson is being framed (whether or not they are of the ISRAEL DID IT variety) are writing about this (see, for example, Candace Owens’ reaction).
But his defense attorneys now argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ‘was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr Robinson.’
The defense team may now offer the ATF firearm analyst’s testimony as exculpatory evidence, they said in a motion filed on Friday to push the preliminary hearing back at least six months, Fox News reports.
The Fox article has nothing about the allegations regarding the bullet evidence. And the Daily Mail article has nothing more about it than the quote I posted, despite the incendiary headline.
Note that it doesn’t say the gun was ruled out; it says the Bureau was unable to identify it to the rifle, which sounds as though the evidence about the bullet was probably ruled “inconclusive.”
The article didn’t add that this is not all that unusual in forensics cases. But see this article from a forensics periodical:
A forensic firearms examiner, when comparing two bullets or two cartridge cases, for example one an “unknown” or “questioned” (from crime scene) and the other a “known” (from a suspect weapon), will in the U.S. ordinarily follow The Association of Firearms and Toolmarks Examiners (AFTE) or the Uniform Language for Testimony and Reports (ULTR) guidelines issued by the Department of Justice, and arrive at one of three major conclusions: “identification”—the bullets came from the same gun, “elimination”—the bullets came from different guns, or “inconclusive”—the bullets might have come from the same gun, might have come from different guns. … The AFTE criteria further divide the Inconclusives into three sub-categories labeled A, B and C, where A leans to without reaching an Identification, C leans to without reaching an Elimination, and B is neutral.
We have no idea which, if any, of these designations were given the bullets in this case. Nor do we know if any other forensic scientists also examined the bullet and gun evidence. The media isn’t saying.
More here about the science of bullet matching:
We always knew it was never a perfect science. We knew that not every bullet could be traced to a specific firearm. Microscopic tool marks left behind on a fired bullet as it travels down the barrel were never really seen as “a firearm’s DNA,” as some have termed it. Bullets fired into non-homogenous substances such as the human body can impact muscle, bone, clothing, and internal objects, all of which can deform the bullet, making identification difficult.
We knew that—our trust in television aside—not every bullet can be traced to a specific firearm. For example, some rifles, such as a particular Canadian law enforcement agency’s patrol carbine, are manufactured with hammer-forged barrels that do not machine the rifling grooves in a barrel in the traditional way. Instead, they use a hardened die inserted into a barrel blank that is pounded by tens of thousands of powerful hydraulic hammer blows to form and shape the barrel to exact dimensions. This process may make it difficult to come to a conclusive decision about the precise firearm a bullet was fired from
Other firearms manufacturers that use non-traditional rifling may not leave enough marks on the bullet that can be matched to a specific barrel even if recovered fully intact. …
A 2009 report by the National Academies of Science first called into question how ‘exact’ the science was and how there were few—if any—scientific, double-blind research studies to back up the claims made by examiners in court. The report pointed out that, unlike fingerprints, bullet examination protocols don’t specify how many points of similarity are needed to form a conclusive opinion.
A 2016 report to the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) concluded that firearms analysis did not meet the criteria for scientific validity, which requires repeatability and reproducibility.
There is no question that further research is needed.
In another widely quoted research paper from 2022, the Ames II Study, 173 firearms examiners compared thousands of fired cartridge cases and bullets. The overall rate of errors and false positives in the study was considered to be under one per cent.
Critics of the Ames II Study point out that the three categories the examiners used, “Identified,” “Eliminated” or “Inconsistent,” skewed the result numbers substantially. Being able to answer “inconclusive” and still be scored as perfect meant error rates of under one per cent were, in fact, closer to 30 to 40 per cent. Critics also pointed out that examiners disagreed on a number of matches made by their own colleagues, and even the same examiner reached different conclusions when given the same test batch twice. Critics considered that the large number of “inconclusive” results was like answering every multiple-choice question on a test with “I don’t know” and still scoring perfectly.
I am not a ballistics expert, to say the least. But just twenty minutes or so of research revealed all of that.
The Daily Mail article does detail some of the other evidence against Tyler Robinson, which is simply overwhelming.
I wrote all of the above prior to listening to this video, which answers some of the questions – apparently based on information that was released two weeks ago and which the Daily Mail article’s author didn’t see fit to mention (nor did any of the conspiracy theorists that I read on X). The gist of the video is that the autopsy results revealed a fragmented bullet that would be very difficult to match to a weapon. The fragmentation also accounted for the lack of an exit wound (no exit wound is something the conspiracy theorists often cite as suspicious). Here’s the video:
The woman in the video is lawyer Andrea Burkhart.
Open thread 3/31/2026
Minnesota fraudster gets light sentence
A ridiculous sentence, actually:
Abdul Abubakar Ali pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October 2022. Per the terms of the plea agreement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of wire fraud were dismissed at sentencing. …
He claimed to serve roughly 1.5 million meals total and that the meals were provided by S & S Catering. But no meals were ever served, prosecutors say.
Remarkably, both the government and the defense advocated for a probationary sentence, noting that Ali has taken responsibility for his actions, given valuable information to investigators and paid $92,500 in restitution so far.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Brasel determined that Ali’s role in the fraud scheme was too great for a probationary sentence. She noted that Ali recruited a friend to participate in the scheme and completely made up meal counts, rather than just exaggerating them.
She also said in court that “public trust in government programs has been undermined” by the fraud scheme. …
The sentencing guidelines were expected to range from 30 to 37 months, so Ali’s sentence is still a downward departure.
Reading between the lines, I assume he became an informer and was rewarded for it.
What’s Trump up to now with the talks with Iran?
Beats me. So you can skip the rest of this post.
Just kidding. Not knowing doesn’t seem to stop anyone else. So I’ll opine, too.
Trump has apparently fingered Iranian Speaker Mohammed Ghalibaf as the one we’re talking to or are about to talk to:
Iran escalated its attack on infrastructure by striking a water and electrical plant in Kuwait, and an oil refinery was set ablaze in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after the Iranian missile attack. Asked for his response on the strike, he told The Post: “You’ll see shortly.”
As Trump brings more military might to the region that could inflict catastrophic damage on Iran, he encouraged what’s left of Iran’s regime to make a deal before it’s too late. …
He exclusively told The Post that the US will find out whether the speaker is willing to work with Americans –soon.
“We’re gonna find out,” Trump told The Post when asked about Iran’s Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. “I’ll let you know that in about a week.” …
“There has been total regime change because the regimes of the past are gone and we’re dealing with a whole new set of people,” Trump said. “And thus far, they’ve been much more reasonable.”
I read that as not saying we’re talking to Ghalibaf yet, but that we expect him to reply. As I see it, Trump is purposely vague in his public statements.
Ghalibaf – whom I doubt wants a target on his back at which other people in the regime might want to take aim – has been denying talks with the US, as have
others in the government. That doesn’t tell us much either, because they would have reason to lie about it if they were talking.
As far as I can tell, none of these leaders is anything but a hardliner. I think Trump knows that, but I don’t know what he’s willing to concede. It may be that he’s aiming for something like the current Venezuela situation, with a cooperative leader in place who was formerly on the regime’s side. I don’t think this is possible in Iran because of the fanaticism and willingness to lie – but I assume (and certainly hope) that Trump, and the Mossad, know a lot more than I do.
A few weeks ago there was this curious set of statements by Trump, made only a few days after the war began (my emphasis):
Trump said he’s confident of the near-term success of his joint war with ally Israel — though he remains concerned about ensuring there’s a less bellicose leader in the long haul to turn Tehran around. …
“These are bad people. These are people that killed, I guess, it’s 35,000 [protesters in January]. The leader of the pack is gone. And as you know, 49 [officials] were taken out in the first hit. And I guess there was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial also.”
Trump insisted — without naming any names — that “a lot of the people you would least suspect want to quit. They want to have immunity. They’re asking for immunity, and probably at some point they’ll be dropping — as you would say, laying down their guns.”
But Trump said that he believes the “worst case” scenario could manifest years from now after he leaves office if someone “as bad as” Khamenei takes power.
“I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” Trump told reporters.
“That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” the president said.
“That would probably be the worst: You go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in that was no better. So we’d like to see somebody in there that’s going to bring it back for the people.”
He certainly seemed aware of the problem even back then – including the problem of knowing whom to trust to turn power over. Maybe no one.
An arrest in Florida indicates possible election fraud
The Democrats and the media are fond of saying that election fraud barely exists and that we needn’t bother our pretty little heads about it. And yet the assertion has always seemed illogical to me on its face. The stakes in elections are high and therefore the motives to cheat are very great. One way to reassure people that it’s not happening is to make the safeguards against it so stringent that it is extremely difficult (nearly impossible?) to pull off. Instead, we’ve loosened the rules (mail-in ballots sent to all names on voter rolls that are bloated with errors; ballot harvesting; complex electronic voting systems that people inherently distrust; lack of checking for citizenship) and made it forbidden to question results unless you’re a losing Democrat challenging a GOP win.
And then there’s the fact that if fraud is done well it would be undetectable.
The above is an introduction to the following story:
A Palm Beach elections office volunteer just got arrested for STEALING an encrypted access key and computer equipment in the March 24 special election where the Democrat won by 800 votes.
This is the district the includes Mar-a-Lago.
Investigators worry that the encryption — used for training — could be reverse engineered and used to tamper with voter registration
The theft was reported on March 27, a few days after last Tuesday’s special election, per WPTV. The theft occurred on March 19, just days before election day.
Democrats are saying any concern over this is hype, because there’s no evidence that it was used in the election or affected the election in any way. But although it is certainly possible the theft had no bearing on the election, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The guy is apparently a self-described “huge tech nerd.” So perhaps he had the ability to do something with the key that would affect the actual election. He was supposedly detected because the theft was serendipitously caught on surveillance video.
Nor have the “move along, nothing to see here” crowd explained (or as far as I can see, even attempted to explain), his alternate motive for stealing the key at this point in time. Did he want to add it to his wife’s jewelry collection?
Open thread 3/30/2026
Spambot of the day
It dances on the edge of intelligibility but never quite gets there:
I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here. The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get bought an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come further formerly again as exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this hike.
Noelia Castillo Ramos, 25, slid down the slippery slope
Spanish woman Noelia Castillo Ramos, 25, died by legal euthanasia this week in Barcelona after a nearly two?year court battle with her parents over her right to end her life under Spain’s 2021 euthanasia law, following paralysis and severe psychological trauma after a gang rape and a subsequent suicide attempt in 2022.
Her euthanasia request, first approved by a Catalan medical-legal committee in 2024, was repeatedly challenged by her father with support from the conservative Catholic group Abogados Cristianos through Spanish courts and up to the European Court of Human Rights, all of which ultimately upheld her capacity and right to choose.
“In the interview, Castillo explained that her decision was rooted in a turbulent home life following her parents’ separation when she was 13. Castillo spent time in a supervised care center and was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder.
“She also recounted to her interviewer three episodes of sexual abuse: one allegedly perpetrated by an ex-partner, another in a nightclub where she said two men raped her, and a third in a bar involving three young men. She said she never reported any of them. Days after the second episode, in October 2022, she attempted suicide. She survived the attempt, but was left paraplegic and wheelchair-bound.
“This became the turning point that led her to consider euthanasia.”
Much more at the link, including the very chilling report that a good friend who came to the hospital hoping to change the woman’s mind was turned away by the authorities, and another report that the hospital was in favor of the euthanasia decision because “her organs were already committed” to being donated.
This woman had clearly been suffering for a long time. Part of her problem seems to have been a set of emotional problems that started (or first were diagnosed) in childhood. We don’t know what sort of treatment she got, or why it was so unsuccessful. We do know that she tried to end her own life, which only succeeded in making her existence more difficult. And we do know that the legal system approved her for assistance from the medical profession in order to make her next effort at suicide successful, and that the health care system had a separate interest in killing her to harvest her organs.
Those who say that medically-assisted euthanasia isn’t a slippery slope are ignoring a great deal of evidence that says it is.
RIP, Noelia Castillo Ramos.
Why are so many people on the right dissatisfied with Trump?
And are there so many people on the right dissatisfied with Trump? Polls don’t really reflect it; Republicans and people who identify as MAGA still overwhelmingly approve of Trump.
But I am convinced there is a group – mostly young – that is angry with him although they once supported him (these are not the old NeverTrumpers). The group may be small but it is vocal, and of course the right needs every supporter it can get because the country is so evenly divided. Some of those young people dissatisfied with Trump believed he would never start any military action abroad and are angry about Iran. Some think he’s too pro-Israel, and/or that he’d take Russia’s side against Ukraine and he hasn’t. Some wanted him to deport every single illegal alien and clearly that’s not happening.
They want what they want and they want it now, or perhaps yesterday. And they’ve learned that Trump has different ideas; he’s too moderate for them.
There is little doubt that there is a movement of online pundits trying to increase the number of Trump-haters on the right and pull the party futher right – so far it nearly morphs into the left on some issues. What are their motives? Clicks and money, power and the dream of being king-makers. They are willing to lie to get it; in some cases they might not even realize they’re lying because they are so ignorant of history and facts. But they are good at manipulation, and the internet is their perfect medium.