The Second Term of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in July 2026 that U.S. service members ages 30 and older will have their testosterone tested every year - source: https://theconversation.com/more-te...rive-t-levels-not-the-other-way-around-287828

"Hegseth T-shots" #3,680

As a psychologist who studies masculinity, I’m certain that while the idea that more testosterone makes a man tougher and more fit to fight seems intuitive, it’s also mostly wrong.

More testosterone won’t make a better soldier or a tougher man – aggression and strength drive T levels, not the other way around

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is requiring service members to screen for low testosterone levels. Ironically, the military lifestyle itself is more likely to lower T levels.

theconversation.com

So Hegseth / Trump intend to make this official U.S. military policy, without checking the scientific validity of the concept ?!

 

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So Hegseth / Trump intend to make this official U.S. military policy, without checking the scientific validity of the concept ?!

Science? We don't need no science!!

The PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) used to have a disclaimer that there was no evidence that steroids improved athletic performance.

 

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"The PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) used to have a disclaimer that there was no evidence that steroids improved athletic performance." #3,682

Then Lance Armstrong strutted along, and won le Tour de France 7 times.

It'll be interesting to see how the courts deal with this. I hope at worst the U.S. military ends up being able to offer this, provided the individual patients are accurately informed about the long-term consequences of such tinkering.

My impression is prolonged exposure to this treatment leads to testicular atrophy. Ideal for a decades long retirement?

 

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The key to the PDR's statement is "athletic performance" - not strength but performance - they won't improve skill or technique (i.e., performance) but they will increase strength and muscle mass and can shorten recovery time.

 

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LETTER TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS: ABOUT CANADA
Credit: Douglas Brown

We lost our oldest friend on purpose. How we start deserving them back.

ROSS BOULTON
JUL 14, 2026

I’m an American writer in Baton Rouge. I spent thirty years inside this country’s institutions — utilities, audit agencies, the systems that only work when somebody keeps them honest.

This week a senator asked Canada to be nicer to us. This is my answer, addressed to the right people.

The Letter

A senator from California wrote to Canada this week asking them to be nicer to us.

I read it twice to make sure it was real. Then I got angry, and not at Canada.

Do you know what we did? I’m asking honestly, because most of us don’t. It went by in the noise. Our president called Canada the 51st state. Not once, at a dinner, as a joke. Over and over, from behind the seal of our republic. He looked at a country of 40 million people — a country with its own flag, its own parliament, its own dead from two world wars it entered before we did — and called it a real estate opportunity.

Then we tariffed their steel, and their aluminum too — aluminum we barely make anymore. We shut our own smelters years ago, and then taxed the neighbor who kept our factories running. And he told us Canada would pay those tariffs. That was a lie, and not a complicated one. A tariff is a tax collected at our own ports, paid by our own importers, passed down to us at the register. Canada never wrote a .....

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