House Passes Bill to Ban Gender Transition Treatments for Minors

Legislation that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors, such as surgery and hormone supply, and punish providers with up to ten years in federal prison was approved by a divided House on Wednesday.

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On a vote of 216 to 211, the bill—which civil rights organizations claimed was among the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress—was approved nearly entirely along party lines.

It is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate, where it would require a bipartisan alliance to move forward. However, the ultraconservative Republican majority and President Trump’s priorities were reflected in its discussion and passage in the House.

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pushed it through the House after she demanded earlier this month that Speaker Mike Johnson bring her bill to the floor in exchange for her backing of the defense policy measure she was otherwise threatening to sabotage.

According to Greene, the legislation fulfilled one of Trump’s major campaign pledges, and Congress must take action to formalize his executive order banning gender-affirming medical procedures.

“Most Americans agree that kids just need to grow up before they do anything radical, like a mastectomy on a 15-year-old girl,” she said on Wednesday on the House floor, pointing at a poster board of a child who had undergone such a surgery.

Greene has recently gained odd new respect from some Democrats for disagreeing with the president on a number of issues. She abruptly announced last month that she was leaving Congress one year before the end of her term.

“If a child believes they’re a unicorn, do adults take their word for it as well?” Greene said, adding that in electing Trump in 2024, the American people voted to end gender transition treatments.

Republican Representative Barry Moore of Alabama claimed that Democrats were indoctrinating children by falsely framing gender-affirming procedures as necessary.

“It is not lifesaving care,” he said. “It is child abuse.”

In response, Democrats claimed that proponents of the bill were attempting to replace medicine with ideology by focusing on a small and vulnerable group of trans youth. They claimed that by threatening parents with jail time, the law violated their rights and gave politicians the authority to make extremely private decisions for families.

“Does anyone believe that the Freedom Caucus and President Trump love America’s children more than their parents do?” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland.

California Democratic Rep. Mark Takano said the surgeries on minors that Greene described were extremely rare.

What the bill would really do, he said, is ban “safe and effective medications for an entire group of people.”

Takano said that the bill would not make children safe and that it would “interfere with parental choice and open private medical data up to investigation.”

A second anti-trans bill, also supported by Greene, that would prohibit Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for trans youth is scheduled to be voted on by the House later this week.

The first openly transgender lawmaker to serve in Congress, Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, claimed before Wednesday’s vote that Republicans were “obsessed” with transgender people and were concentrating on a “misunderstood and vulnerable 1 percent of the population” rather than taking any action to safeguard Americans’ health care.

“They think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people,” McBride said, speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol. “They are consumed with this and they are extreme on it.”

Three Democrats and four Republicans voted across party lines. Democrats Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, both from Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina voted for the measure.

Republicans Gabe Evans of Colorado, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York, and Mike Kennedy of Utah voted against it.

AI Model Makes Stunning Prediction of 2028 Presidential Winner

An artificial intelligence model has generated a speculative forecast about the 2028 U.S. presidential election, despite official candidates not yet being known, drawing attention on social media and YouTube.

The forecast was produced using Grok, an AI chatbot developed by the company associated with Elon Musk, after a YouTube channel asked the system to simulate a likely outcome based on a set of hypothetical candidates. The simulation included state-by-state projections, an electoral map, and projected vote totals for chosen figures from both major parties.

As the host explains, “In this video, I asked Grok AI to predict the 2028 presidential election and give us a map forecast.”

In the end, Vance was predicted to take 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 212, according to the simulation; 270 are needed to win the presidency.

On the Democratic side, Kamala Harris currently holds the lead in early primary polling with 32 percent of the support, putting her ahead of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has 23.8 percent. Former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is in third place, just shy of 10 percent, while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro follow close behind.

The host notes that Harris’s resurgence may surprise some, given that “many people did write Kamala Harris off following her 2024 election defeat.”

Recent polling indicates that she is regaining her advantage. Additionally, the betting markets reflect this positive trend, now suggesting there’s a 56 percent chance she will seek the Democratic nomination in 2028, a significant rise from just 11.2 percent a few months back.

“Today, it is more likely than not that she is going to run again,” the video states.

On the Republican side, Vice President JD Vance leads early polling with 49.2 percent support, significantly ahead of Donald Trump Jr., who is trailing by 29 points. Senator Marco Rubio has 12.5 percent, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stands at 9.2 percent.

According to the simulation, Vance is the clear favorite for the GOP nomination, with a 46 percent chance of becoming the party’s standard-bearer. Rubio follows with an 18 percent chance.

The host notes: “If nothing big changes, he will very likely become the party’s nominee in the next presidential race.”

Grok’s simulation begins by defining “solid” states as those with a margin of 15 points or more. Vance’s solid column includes the following states: Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, most of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Ohio.

The inclusion of Ohio marks a significant shift; once a key battleground, the state has trended sharply to the right, Newsner noted.

“It is not difficult to see that he will carry the Buckeye State by a solid 15-point margin,” particularly following Donald Trump’s double-digit win there in 2024, the host said in the video.

Harris’s group of solid states mirrors much of her 2024 coalition, showing some modest gains. She is projected to win the states of Washington, California, Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Maine’s first congressional district by at least 15 points. Notably, the model predicts that Connecticut and Delaware will return to solid Democratic margins after experiencing narrower results in 2020.

After accounting for solid states, Vance leads with 139 electoral votes to 108. Additionally, the “likely” category, which contains margins between 5 and 15 points, further enhances his advantage.

He is projected to win in Iowa, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Alaska, and Maine’s second district. Florida and Texas are viewed as firmly Republican due to recent gains by the party, while Arizona, which was narrowly won by Trump in 2024, is expected to remain in Republican hands. With these solidly Republican and likely states counted, Vance would secure 246 electoral votes, leaving him just 24 votes short of the 270 needed to win.

In the end, Vance is expected to take 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 212, according to the simulation; 270 are needed to win the presidency.