Two major attacks on young people are being launched by those whose only interest is making money off of them. To be specific, the push to legalize marijuana and the push to normalize transgenderism are the two biggest current threats to the health and well-being of young men and women in America.

It is worth noting that the social teachings of the Catholic Church clearly give preferential treatment to a market-based economy over a state-run economy, but there is nothing in those teachings that endorses a laissez-faire position. The Church understands the necessity of balancing economic interests with social interests, holding those in the business community to high moral standards. That voice desperately needs to be respected today.

Those making big money off of marijuana don’t care what happens to young people. There is a wealth of information on how much more potent today’s brand of this drug is compared to decades ago, leading to serious cases of psychosis. The degree of brain damage varies by the user, but no one doubts that it impairs mental acuity and is downright dangerous when users get behind the wheel.

According to Dr. Ken Finn, one of the nation’s leading experts on drug use, “Poison control calls are skyrocketing across the country in states that have both medical and recreational [marijuana] programs, particularly in the zero to five age group (our italics).” Worse, five states had marijuana legalization on the ballot in November.

Marijuana advocates argue that legalization is necessary because too many African Americans and Hispanics were selectively punished in the past for using the drug. But that is not what is driving the push to legalize the drug.

Ben Cort is the author of a book on this subject. He understands what’s really going on. “Multinational corporate interests” are leading the way. “The idea here is absolutely not social justice, nor any sort of reform in a meaningful way. The intent here is to get richer.”

Former House Speaker John Boehner, who in 2015 said he was “unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana,” did a 180 three years later when he left the Congress and became the poster boy for legalization.

To show how low he could go, he even partnered with Kathleen Sebelius, the former Health and Human Services czar under Obama. She was the one who declared war on Catholic non-profits, seeking to force them to purchase abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. But that didn’t make any difference to Boehner, who likes to tout his Catholic credentials. In fact, he got so caught up in making big bucks off of legalizing marijuana that he got into a legal dispute over his alleged failure to share profits with the man who hired him to lead the company.

Like the marijuana industry, the transgender industry is booming. Last year it posted sales of nearly $2 billion and is expected to reach $5 billion by the end of the decade. Planned Parenthood is making a fortune by ripping off sexually confused young people; it is the second-largest provider of hormonal injections in America.

To understand what sex-reassignment surgery does, consider what one of the most prominent defenders of this surgery has to say about it.

The Cleveland Clinic performs metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, scrotoplasty and chest surgery for troubled girls seeking to transition to the opposite sex. Metoidoplasty uses tissue from an enlarged clitoris so it can form a small penis. Phalloplasty uses a large section of skin and tissue from female body parts (e.g., her arm), and then it is rolled to form a shaft so it can be attached to her groin. Scrotoplasty involves the creation of a new scrotum—parts are taken from the female’s labia majora—and are then used to make a scrotum-like sac.

Unfortunately, the Cleveland Clinic gives false information to these disturbed young girls. For example, it says that metoidioplastly “is a surgery sometimes requested by people assigned female at birth.” This is factually incorrect: no one is ever “assigned” one’s sex—it is determined by the father, the outcome of which is typically recorded by a healthcare professional.

It is also wrong to say, “This surgery helps to align their physical bodies with who they really are.” In fact, everyone knows who they really are when they are born. What the cutting and splicing does is to artificially create body parts. All the surgery in the world can never alter one’s chromosomal makeup, and the Cleveland Clinic knows this is true. But there is a lot of cash on the table, and that is dispositive.

It would be a mistake to think the Cleveland Clinic is the exception to the rule. Harvard Medical School, and many other distinguished medical entities, are trumpeting the wonders of transgenderism. They know better, making their role all the more troubling.

Preying on young men and women, whether it be by poisoning their minds with drugs or deforming their bodies with surgery, is morally offensive. Indeed, it is child abuse. That the prime motivating force is to get rich makes those who are benefiting from such exploitation even more contemptible.

WABC radio legend Bernie McGuirk, who, along with Sid Rosenberg, commanded the number-one rated morning talk show in the New York area, “Bernie and Sid in the Morning,” died on October 5. On October 19, the New York Times ran an obituary on him by Ed Shanahan that read more like a tract than an honest summary of his professional life. [Full disclosure: Bill Donohue knew and liked Bernie for many years.]

McGuirk made a name for himself by working with Imus, the iconic radio talk-show host, for two decades; he was one of his sidekicks. Here is how the Times began its obit on him.

“The two men were fired because of a racist exchange about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, marring, but not ending, their shared radio success. Bernard McGuirk, a New York radio fixture who, as Don Imus’s on-air foil, helped incite a furor when the two men demeaned the Rutgers women’s basketball team in a racist, misogynistic exchange that marred—but only briefly disrupted—both of their careers, died on Oct. 5. He was 64.”

Never mind the incident took place 15 years ago—for the New York Times it was his defining moment.

What is really disturbing about the Times obit is that it reeks of politics. The newspaper doesn’t give a hoot about those who ham it up and say things that are offensive to their audience. In fact, they love it, providing what is said makes them laugh.

George Carlin was one of the most foul-mouthed and notoriously bigoted comedians in American history. When he died in 2008, the year after the Imus-McGuirk incident, the Times obit on him never mentioned his offensive language, or his bigoted commentary.

The first sentence of Carlin’s obit noted that he “gave voice to an indignant counterculture and assaulted the barricades of censorship on behalf of a generation of comics that followed him.” Indeed, this “scathing social critic” was congratulated for using obscenities on TV. Liberals loved his four-letter schtick so much that they awarded him four Grammy Awards.

Carlin had a particular hatred for Catholicism. “I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.” He once envisioned one religious person talking to another, saying, “My god has a bigger d*** than your god.” This is the kind of brilliance that the left loved about him.

More recently, there is no shortage of Catholic-bashing comedians who never get criticized by the Times or those on the left. The following is a small selection of what these people have said.

In 2012, Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central show featured a picture of a naked women with her legs spread apart with a nativity scene ornament in between. “Maybe women could protect their reproductive organs from unwanted medical intrusion with vagina mangers,” he said.

His successor, Trevor Noah, commented in 2020 how Covid was changing our lifestyle. He said that “it’s going to be hard to take Communion seriously when the priest has to throw wafers into people’s mouth from across the room, the body of Christ—from downtown.”

In 2013, when Catholic cardinals assembled to elect a new pope, Samantha Bee called the gathering a “grope,” likening it to a “molestation,” saying that the process was not complete until the cardinals reached a “fellatio,” or an “oral consensus,” culminating in “white smoke rising from the chimney.”

In 2014, Sarah Silverman hijacked Jesus to support abortion. He was depicted making fun of unborn babies, saying “fertilized eggs aren’t people. People are people.” He also announced that he is “Jesus F***ing Christ.”

In 2010, Jay Leno said, “I actually saw a Catholic priest today call for a boycott.” To which Kevin Eubanks replied, “Really?” Leno explained, “Well, maybe he was just calling for a boy on a cot.”

In 2015, David Letterman commented on Pope Francis attending World Youth Day, saying, “if there’s anything the kids can’t get enough of, it’s a 76-year-old virgin. Come on! World Youth Day. Or as the Vatican calls it, salute to altar boys.”
We have done lengthy reports on Bill Maher, the biggest anti-Catholic bigot in TV history. Here’s one example. In 2017, he noted at the start of the holiday season what Christmas is all about. “Jesus and Mary didn’t f***. Isn’t that the whole point of that story.”

In 1993, the Times ran a glowing piece on Howard Stern, the most filthy-mouthed radio talk-show host in history. It said he “built his reputation on the use of language and subject matter that offends many and amuses many others.”

George Carlin and Howard Stern picked up where Lenny Bruce left off, coarsening the air waves with their obscene skits and anti-Catholic rants. Yet they are considered geniuses by the Times. But not Bernie McGuirk. He has to be held to a different standard. He didn’t make liberals laugh.

On October 26, a Memorial Mass was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Bernie. Bill Donohue was in attendance.

Paul Pelosi gets hit in the head with a hammer and everyone is going bonkers. Those who habitually condemn crime are not the hypocrites. No, that honor goes to those who hate cops, promote cashless bail, elect Soros-funded District Attorneys, want to defund the police and empty the prisons. And according to their ideological leanings, that makes them classists—they discriminate in favor of the upper class. Had Paul Pelosi been the mailman they wouldn’t have cared.

White liberals just don’t get it. Want proof? Read the latest Pew Research Center survey on violent crime.

When asked is violent crime very important in making your decision to vote in the midterm elections, 56% of whites said yes. The figure for Hispanics was 65%. For blacks, 81% say violent crime is a very important issue.

These results dovetail with who is the most likely to be a victim of violent crime. Blacks are victimized the most and whites the least. This is not due to racism: most of the victimizers of blacks are black.

The white liberals who work at Pew are among the clueless. They delight in telling us that recent data show no recent increase in violent crime (though admitting that murder is increasing). Thus do they play into the narrative, promoted most visibly by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, that the perception of increasing crime does not match the reality of it.

This is all nonsense. Most white liberals do not know cops, much less speak to them. They should. They would learn that if cops do their job they may lose it, and if they don’t do their job they will keep it. That’s not an exaggeration.

Think of it this way. Let’s say a cop is three years from retirement (most are taking early retirement due to the anti-cop environment), and he comes home to his wife explaining that he was called on the carpet for a minor infraction while apprehending a dangerous criminal. Is she not likely to advise him to just look away the next time he sees trouble brewing? Why risk their livelihood?

That’s just how pro-criminal the criminal justice system is these days. During the 2020 riots, cops were told to stand down. Nothing has changed since. The number of arrests that are not made—but should be made—never show up in the official statistics, the data that so impress white liberals. In other words, less arrests may give the appearance of less crime, but they mask what is going on in the streets.

Moreover, in places like New York City there are no more undercover cops. The thugs know it, which is why they do what they do. They can get away with it. If they are caught, they are back on the street before the arresting officer completes the paper work. They then go back to doing what they do.

Shooting victims are up 71% in New York City from 2019 to 2022, the years when Kathy Hochul was lieutenant governor and then governor. Larcenies are up 29%, murder is up 32%, felony assault is up 24%, burglary is up 49%, and auto theft is up 148%. Yet Ms. Clueless has the audacity to ask why crime is considered so important.

Hochul should go into black neighborhoods and berate them for being so hyper-sensitive about crime. In fact, she needs to look them in the eye and tell the 81% who say crime is “very important” to them that they are delusional. Then she needs to ride the subway at night all alone, without security detail.

Crime statistics are important, but they don’t tell it all. What is driving the fear these days is something which doesn’t show up in official statistics, namely the increase in totally random attacks.

People who are walking down the street minding their own business are having their faces ripped open with box cutters, for no reason whatsoever. We understand muggers who rob a woman’s purse. We understand gangs. We don’t understand total strangers pushing innocent people into oncoming trains.

Hochul should ask all those black New Yorkers who are now taking the Long Island Rail Road to work. Why did they switch from taking the subway? After all, the LIRR is so much more expensive. She has much to learn.

What happened to Paul Pelosi was despicable. What is happening every day to blacks is worse, and that is because the crime wave is a function of policy: The crime policies that white liberals have instituted are directly responsible for the spike in violent crimes.