February 23, 2026

FIRST, DO NO HARM:

February 23, 2026

Christians welcome decision to pause puberty blockers trial (Christianity Today, 2/23/26)

Simon Calvert is Deputy Director at The Christian Institute, which has opposed the trans agenda for well over two decades. He was among the critics welcoming the pause while urging the government to go further and cancel it completely.

“It is dangerous and immoral to use children as guinea pigs for drugs that we already know are harmful for them and useless at treating gender dysphoria,” he said.

“In the overwhelming majority of cases, childhood confusion about gender typically resolves during puberty. So these drugs block the very process which relieves that confusion.

“We must hope and pray this outbreak of common sense is permanent and that the trial never goes ahead.”

Puberty blockers for people under the age of 18 questioning their gender have been banned in the UK since 2024.

James Esses, a therapist and leading campaigner against the puberty blockers trial, recently joined with other opponents to launch High Court action aimed at stopping the trial from going ahead.

He said, “This is a huge victory but now we must compel them to abandon it completely. This poison must never enter another child’s body.”

Founding

A POWER THAT CAN NOT BE DELEGATED:

February 23, 2026

No Tariffs Without Representation (Erik Matson, 2/22/26, Law & Liberty)

The president has less de facto control of the executive regulatory agencies than he ought to have as the head of the Executive Branch. But he himself also has too much power. One example now conspicuously in the public eye is the de facto powers the president now enjoys to unilaterally tax imported goods—that is, to levy tariffs.

According to the Constitution, the power to levy taxes lies with Congress. Article I, Section 8 reads: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.” In the beginning, tariff schedules, like all federal tax schedules, were determined by Congress. Tariffs were the main source of federal revenue into the early twentieth century, prior to the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913. The prospect of the president unilaterally determining the particulars of any tax, let alone such an important array of taxes for revenue purposes, would have appeared unjust to many of our founders. […]

Congress began to delegate its tariff powers to the Executive Branch in 1934. At the encouragement of the Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Franklin Roosevelt secured the passage that year of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA).

February 23, 2026

FIRST, DO NO HARM:

A POWER THAT CAN NOT BE DELEGATED:

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