Judge Delivers Major Setback To Prince Andrew In Lawsuit Filed By Epstein Victim
Now that Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of sex-trafficking charges tied to her work as Jeffrey Epstein's de facto "madam", many legal observers expect that she will eventually be sentenced to a lengthy prison stay that could see her die behind bars. But as the world waits for her sentencing, attention is turning once again the civil courts, where Prince Andrew is fighting a high-profile lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Guiffre, a prominent Epstein accuser who claims she was trafficked to Andrew when she was still underage.
Now, an American judge has blocked two critical avenues for Prince Andrew to try and get around the lawsuit. Here's more from the Guardian:
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The judge's decision comes ahead of a critical hearing in the case that's set for Tuesday. Also, the details of a 2009 settlement agreement between the now-deceased Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Prince Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims are expected to be released on Monday. Among other things, the judge will decide Tuesday whether Giuffre's claims against the Prince are solid enough to merit a trial. All of this could greatly increase pressure on the Prince's lawyers to settle.
Giuffre’s lawyers have claimed that they have up to six witnesses linking the Duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into the civil lawsuit.
In another document, Andrew’s lawyers acknowledged that they couldn't provide documentary evidence that he has the "inability to sweat", one of the defenses employed by Prince Andrew to try and discredit Guiffre (although the reaction to the claim in the press was one of abject dismissal).
Meanwhile, on Saturday, it was revealed that David Boies, a lawyer for Giuffre, had said that Ghislaine Maxwell should have "cut a deal" - the latest indication that Maxwell had the opportunity to turn states' witness against other high-profile individuals in Epstein's circle, a group that includes former President Bill Clinton as well as Prince Andrew.
"I have said publicly for five years that she was making a mistake in not going in and trying to cut a deal with prosecutors. She could have cut a very good deal early on but she passed up that opportunity. I think that’s proven to be a fatal mistake," Boies reportedly said.
Chief Justice John Roberts used his year-end report on New Year’s Eve to denounce the threats being made against the Court and its members by Democratic politicians and groups, including threats to pack the Court to force an immediate liberal majority. Roberts referred to such threats as efforts to exercise “inappropriate political influence” on the Court in contravention of our constitutional values and traditions.
We have been discussing the ramped up threats from Democratic leaders that the Court will either vote with the liberal justices on key issues or face “consequences,” including court packing. Recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), a former law professor, became the latest to voice such reckless views.
What Democratic members are demanding is raw court packing to add four members to the Court to give liberals an instant majority — a movement denounced by figures like the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer.
Last year, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and others stood in front of the Supreme Court to announce a court packing bill to give liberals a one-justice majority. This follows threats from various Democratic members that conservative justices had better vote with liberal colleagues . . . or else.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., recently issued a warning to the Supreme Court: reaffirm Roe v. Wade or face a “revolution.”Sen. Richard Blumenthal previously warned the Supreme Court that, if it continued to issue conservative rulings or “chip away at Roe v Wade,” it would trigger “a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
For her part, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. questioned the whole institution’s value if it is not going to vote consistently with her views and those of the Democratic Party: “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” Warren seems to be channeling more AOC than FDR. Roosevelt at least tried to hide his reckless desire to pack the Court by pushing an age-based rule. It was uniquely stupid. The bill would have allowed Roosevelt to add up to six justices for every member who is over 70 years old. Warren, like AOC, wants the Democratic base to know that she is pushing a pure, outcome-changing court packing scheme without even the pretense of a neutral rule.
Despite the fact that the Court has more often voted on non-ideological lines (and regularly issued unanimous decisions), Warren denounced the Court as an “extremist” body that has “threatened, or outright dismantled, fundamental rights in this country.” Those “fundamental” values do not apparently include judicial independence.
Now Roberts has responded. His report is striking in its measured and deliberative tone in comparison to the often reckless rhetoric of these politicians. He waited to address the year in review for his court and the 107 district and appeals courts across the country. However, he included the following lines that are clearly directed toward Congress and extreme Democratic groups like Demand Justice:
“Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government.”
He is not the only justice who is speaking out to blunt the attacks on the Court.
Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer chaffed at the claim that this is a “conservative” court and noted “The chief justice frequently speaks on this subject as well and says, no, no: we don’t look at our rulings from the point of view of our personal ideology.”
Justice Thomas criticized those who seem intent on diminishing the authority or respect for the Court: “the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference…They think you become like a politician. That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently told an audience that “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”
However, as discussed in my Hill column, the attacks are likely to increase in this key election year with so many major decisions ticking away on the Court docket. The type of demagoguery denounced by Chief Justice Roberts is now going mainstream with our leaders, the media, and various advocacy groups. Yet, Democratic strategists are finding that selling court packing and attacking justices is not resonating outside of the same 30 percent of voters on the left. Instead, many view what is “dire for democracy” is the effort to destroy one of the core institutions in our constitutional system.
In line with the biology of sexual reproduction and evolutionary pressure on reproductive fitness, males and females are physically different. Physical divergence begins with primary sex development at around seven weeks in utero when, triggered by genetic information inherited at fertilization, bipotential gonads differentiate as either testes in males or ovaries in females. The differentiation and development of gonad type generates a sex-specific hormonal profile that drives ongoing development associated with sex class. Testes contain cells that produce the hormone testosterone, and it is testosterone and its derivatives that mediate the development of male internal and external genitalia, the establishment of growth parameters during high-testosterone “minipuberty” in the neonatal period, and the development of secondary sex characteristics at puberty.
Gold medalists Natalia Kaczmarek, Karol Zalewski, Justyna Swiety-Ersetic and Kajetan Duszynski of Team Poland pose on the podium during the medal ceremony for the 4 x 400m Relay Mixed Final on day nine of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
In females, the absence of testosterone production from the developing ovaries permits female internal and external genital development, and the activation of estrogen pathways promotes the development of secondary sex characteristics at puberty.
The secondary sex characteristics acquired during puberty in preparation for reproduction lead to measurably different body morphs between males and females (“sexual dimorphism”) across many physical parameters. Broadly, when compared with females, males are taller and have longer bones with narrower hips and wider shoulders; have lower body fat and higher muscle mass differentially distributed across sites, with more resistant connective tissue; have larger hearts and lungs, and higher levels of haemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen within the blood.
Male and female athletic performance
The different physical attributes of males and females have functional consequences for sports-relevant outputs. For example, superior muscle mass, particularly in the upper body, leads to greater male strength when compared with female capacity. Greater muscular strength coupled with longer skeletal levers enable males to apply superior force in activities like jumping, throwing, and punching. Males have greater cardiovascular capacity, with higher capacity oxygenation and transport systems.
On average, males can move faster, jump further, throw longer, and lift heavier objects than females, and this creates large performance gaps between males and females in almost all sports. Consequently, when comparing like-for-like athletes (such as male and female elite athletes, or male and female school-level athletes), male records and performances are better than those of females. The smallest performance gaps are evident in sports that require simple manoeuvres with weighted lower-body input, such as running, where females have higher relative (but not absolute) muscle mass. The involvement of upper body muscle mass, and/or complex sports that combine many different functional outputs, yields performance gaps that extend to 30 to 65 percent in weightlifting disciplines and 120 percent in the force applied in a rugby scrum.
An analysis of performance in weightlifting enables comparison between weight-matched (and thus, in many instances, approximately height-matched) males and females. Comparing 2010–2021 world-record lifts by body weight across males and females in weight-restricted categories demonstrates that males are around 30 percent stronger than females of the same size. In a specific example, the current 55kg male record holder, who is 1.52m tall, lifts 29.5 percent more than the current 55kg female record holder, also 1.52m tall. This gap at equivalent body weight and height is, in part, explained by differential body composition where, compared with female total mass, a larger proportion of male total mass is muscle.
When performance gaps are mapped to competitor numbers within a given discipline as a percentage, the impact is obvious and large. For example, the male-to-female gap in track sprinting is 12 percent. This translates into approximately 10,000 males having a personal best 100m sprint time faster than the current female Olympic champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah.
Thompson’s 2016 gold medal performance was, within the year, slower than not just elite senior male sprinters, but also slower than schoolboys, Master’s category males (i.e., age 35 and older), Paralympic males, and males whose primary sport is not track sprinting.
Testosterone, puberty, and athletic advantage
There are athletic differences, probably underpinned by genetic differences and exposure to testosterone during minipuberty that are evident between male and female children at schoolage. However, school sports tend to promote team play, skill acquisition, and social development, and are therefore usually mixed sex (although promising children may be streamed to dedicated extracurricular sports that are divided by sex).
Notwithstanding these childhood differences, the majority of male athletic advantage appears to be acquired at puberty, when males experience a surge of testes-derived testosterone that results, in adulthood, in circulating testosterone ranging from 8.8–30.9 nanomoles per litre (nmol/l), while female testosterone remains low, ranging from 0.4–2.0 nmol/l. Thus, from puberty into adulthood, testosterone levels between males and females form a non-overlapping, bimodal distribution.
Over several years of male puberty, prolonged exposure to high testosterone is responsible for the development of male secondary sex characteristics such as height and strength, and thus is responsible for driving the divergence of athletic capacity between males and females. This is evident in comparisons of records and performances between elite female athletes and junior male athletes, where schoolboy records in track and field overtake elite female records when those elite schoolboys are around 14 or 15 years old. As Emma Hilton and Tommy R. Lundberg noted in a 2021 Sports Medicine article, ‘Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance’:
Testosterone-driven puberty, as the driving force of development of male secondary sex characteristics, underpins sporting advantages that are so large no female could reasonably hope to succeed without sex segregation in most sporting competitions. To ensure, in light of these analyses, that female athletes can be included in sporting competitions in a fair and safe manner, most sports have a female category the purpose of which is the protection of both fairness and, in some sports, safety/welfare of athletes who do not benefit from the physiological changes induced by male levels of testosterone from puberty onwards.
Given the overwhelming data, we reject arguments that explain male advantage in sport as a by-product of social conditioning, or that cast it as a social construction more generally. That adult human males have a physiological advantage over adult human females in athletic performance is a matter of settled science. But what follows for trans-inclusion in women’s sport?
The effect of testosterone suppression in transwomen
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) regulations for transwomen in female sport, from 2015 to 2021, required transwomen to demonstrate total serum testosterone levels below 10 nmol/l for at least 12 months prior to competition in the female category and during the period of competition in the female category.
As the IOC stated that its “overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition,” it might be inferred that the IOC and the sports federations that subsequently adopted these criteria understand these regulations to nullify the physical advantages of transwomen, who were all born male and have experienced male puberty. But this view, as the IOC now accepts, is mistaken.
There have been two high-quality, high-impact academic reviews, both in leading sports journals, of muscle and skeletal physiology in transwomen who have, post-puberty, suppressed testosterone as part of their transition. The reviews cover longitudinal studies; that is, they contain pre-transition metrics such as thigh muscle area and grip strength, and matched data from at least 12 months, occasionally longer, into transition. All transwomen studied had been successfully suppressing testosterone to less than 10 nmol/l for at least one year, and would therefore qualify for inclusion in female sports categories under the regulations specified by the IOC and most sports federations. Collectively, the studies captured by these reviews cover over 800 transwomen in 10 original studies, with data acquired as a routine aspect of ongoing general health assessments within clinical care teams.
To summarize: In transwomen successfully suppressing testosterone for 12 months, skeletal metrics—height, limb/digit length, and shoulder/pelvic width—do not change, and the extent of muscle/strength loss is approximately -5 percent after 12 months, a modest change that is insufficient to bridge the baseline muscular differences between males and females.
Regarding musculoskeletal parameters, Hilton and Lundberg concluded:
“The biological advantage, most notably in terms of muscle mass and strength, conferred by male puberty and thus enjoyed by most transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed as per current sporting guidelines for transgender athletes.”
This conclusion was subsequently confirmed by Joanna Harper and her fellow researchers, who added: “Hormone therapy decreases strength, lean body mass and muscle area, yet values remain above [those] observed in cisgender women, even after 36 months.”
Hilton and Lundberg compared baseline measurements in females and transwomen who were matched for the purposes of their study (where the data were available), and calculated the extent of the advantage of retained muscle/strength in the transwomen they studied.
Thus, the most recent analyses generate a consensus that testosterone suppression in transwomen who meet the central IOC criteria adopted by most sporting federations induces only small amounts of muscle/strength loss, and does not remove the male athletic advantage acquired under high-testosterone conditions at puberty. Male musculoskeletal advantage is retained, and this raises obvious concerns about fairness and safety within female categories when transwomen are included.
In the face of this evidence, the IOC has publicly made it clear that the guidance it offered in 2015 is “not fit for purpose.” Rather than tightening the policy, though, the IOC has passed the task on to international federations and governing bodies.
Regulation of athletes with DSDs
While fewer than 0.02 percent of individuals may appear sexually ambiguous, these rare exceptions to the general rule do not undermine or call into question the reality of the discrete nature of sex for the vast majority.
Athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) do not usually present with any ambiguity of sex. However, in rare cases, some athletes may have specific presentations of a DSD that compromises fairness. For example, a DSD called 5-alpha reductase deficiency causes failure of virilization of external genitalia in genetic and gonadal males, such that they may appear ambiguous or even female-typical at birth. These athletes experience male-typical testosterone levels and androgenize in a male-typical pattern at puberty. To regulate athletes with 46XY DSDs, such as 5-alpha reductase deficiency, sports federations such as World Athletics have clear guidelines centred on the role of testosterone and its androgenizing effects on the body, particularly at puberty.
While many analyses create parallels between the regulation of transwomen and athletes with DSDs, the two groups have distinct biological features, and there is extensive variation among the latter group. Fair inclusion of athletes with DSDs must be dealt with sensitively and with nuance, and not be conflated with the regulation of the inclusion of transwomen, who are typical males at birth.
FDA Maintains PCR Tests Are "Gold Standard" Despite CDC Dropping Over Positive Results 'Up To 12 Weeks'
On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky defended the agency's decision to eliminate PCR testing at the end of a Covid infection as part of its recommended guidelines, because the tests can 'stay positive for up to 12 weeks.'
In other words, as Yossi Gestetner points out, "This means that for the past 21 months, people sat home for extra days and weeks because their test came back with an irrelevant positive."
This means that for the past 21 months, people sat home for extra days and weeks because their test came back with an irrelevant positive. We didn’t know this 6, 12, 18 months ago? Really?
The FDA, however, which called the tests the "gold standard" in a July PolitiFact "healthcheck" - effectively rebutted Walensky's comments, after spokesman Jim McKinney told Just The News that the agency stands by its assessment of PCR tests.
According to McKinney, the "high sensitivity and specificity" is exactly why the tests remain the "gold standard."
While it said "people can continue to test positive for up to 3 months after diagnosis and not be infectious to others," the CDC said that "does not imply a person is immune to reinfection" within three months. (A review of global databases last month found reinfections of the naturally immune were "rare" and "generally mild.")
McKinney also noted the FDA told the Times that "commercial manufacturers and laboratories set their own" CT levels. -JTN
So the FDA knew all along that people have been missing work and avoiding life because they're testing positive long after they're infectious?
"Think of all the lives ruined, jobs lost, education squandered b/c of false positives," tweeted Justin Heart of Rational Ground. "We've been saying since summer 2020 that the PCR test can be positive at 5 days or 75 days. And ONLY JUST NOW is it being used to adjust policy."
I can't even express how angry this makes me. Think of all the lives ruined, jobs lost, education squandered b/c of false positives. We've been saying since summer 2020 that the PCR test can be positive at 5 days or 75 days. And ONLY JUST NOW is it being used to adjust policy. https://t.co/4Q6rHFDB4S
The year was filled with hate crime hoaxes, overreactions and evidence-free accusations
Today, The College Fix will reveal to you the secret to exposing hoaxes: request the police report.
This year, The Fix has identified 11 confirmed hoaxes, six likely hoaxes and six situations we might call “overreactions” that occurred at a high school, college or involved a professor. Oftentimes, simply requesting the police report revealed the truth.
All examples but two relate to sexuality, race or religion. One example is about a fraternity falsely accused of requiring pledges to rape someone and another is about a professor who said she was sent a dog muzzle because of her promotion of COVID-19 vaccines.
Some are better considered as bias incidents — allegedly offensive comments or drawings that are likely legally protected under the First Amendment.
Zoriana Martinez (pictured) is a black student who, almost definitely, egged her own door, claimed people were targeting her dog and said someone vandalized her LGBT pride flag. The Wayne State University student also accused her school of “forcibly remov[ing]” her from the dorms. She also said a residence hall employee told students they could discriminate against each other as long as it happened off of campus.
CONFIRMED: Vaccine expert’s credit card bought dog muzzle she said someone sent her as a threat
Vanderbilt University Professor Michelle Fiscus found out that sometimes people are muzzled because of the muzzles they place there themselves.
Fiscus claimed that someone sent her a dog muzzle, ostensibly due to her sending out a memo encouraging COVID vaccination for high schoolers, in her role as a public health official in Tennessee.
But Fiscus paid for this not only in the threat she received, but literally out of her pocket, since someone used her credit card to buy the muzzle.
CONFIRMED: Muslim Maryland student won’t talk to police about hijab assault that lacks video evidence
A Muslim student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County got quiet all of a sudden when the police were asking for more information about an alleged November 16 assault against her.
Probably because she lied about the assault happening and the university determined that the existence of a bias incident was “inconclusive.” There’s also no witnesses for the attack and a review of the video cameras in the student center yielded no footage of the incident.
CONFIRMED: No evidence for LGBT hate crime attack that happened in busiest part of the campus
Just like the Muslim student attack above, an unknown man “grabbed” a female University of Maine student and “called her a dyke for wearing a pride shirt.”
“The security cameras in the area were reviewed, but nothing was observed,” a spokesperson told The Fix at the time.
Likely hoaxes: Everyone is getting real quiet when the media starts asking questions
Hoax likely: Police report for alleged hate crime against lesbian school board member finally released after intervention from state’s Attorney General office
A lesbian school board member said that someone in the very liberal city of Evanston, Illinois left a Christmas card in her car that said “you faggot” in December 2020. Despite a security camera on a nearby home capturing the incident, no one was arrested or charged for the incident.
The police and the school district refused to provide information and even tried to stop The Fix from obtaining the relevant documents. The police turned over the police reports only after The Fixfiled an appeal to the state’s Attorney General office and it ordered the documents to be released.
Hoax likely: No photos of allegedly racist whiteboard drawing at Iowa State
A student reported that he heard from someone else that someone drew a “KKK rally crucifying a black man and that being symbolic of like a colored-in Among Us character to be completely black with the words #whitesupremacy written on the board.” There were no photos and the drawing was erased before any university employees reached the scene of the inappropriate but not illegal or punishable drawing.
Some other examples include:
A College Republican group appears to have been framed for anti-Semitic flyer, the University of San Francisco won’t disclose race of student expelled for hanging noose, Princeton remains silent on noose investigation, and a lack of evidence halts Johns Hopkins’ noose investigation.
