By Mark W. Fowler

“I cannot say I don’t disagree with you.” —Groucho Marx

It is no wonder the American public is confused. In today’s world, up is down, and down is up. Consider:

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — presumably a smart lawyer — cannot define a woman because she is not a biologist. Can she distinguish between a bull and a cow? Between a stallion and a mare? If not, should this skill be taught in law school? How will she decide a case involving sexual discrimination against a woman?

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) says forgiving student loan debts is a good idea because it would allow debtors to travel abroad, start a family, buy a house, or even go back to school to incur more debt. Can she point out where in the Constitution the president has the ability to unilaterally transfer debt so individuals can travel abroad? Does her comment shed any light on whether she is more qualified to bartend or sit in Congress?

Iran recently launched hundreds of missiles toward Israel. There were no fatalities. In Chicago, over the same weekend, 43 people were shot and seven killed. Can it really be true that you are safer in a war zone than in one of America’s largest cities — one with strict gun control laws?

In Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally declared former President Donald Trump ineligible to appear on the ballot for leading an insurrection. This is a federal issue exclusively under the jurisdiction of Congress. Trump has never been indicted, charged, or convicted of insurrection. Bellows, a former ACLU executive, went to Middlebury College. Is it possible that during her education, or even while in the ACLU, she never heard of due process?

President Joe Biden has argued for billions of dollars to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine from invasion by Russian soldiers and paramilitary operatives. In the meantime, as many as 10 million illegal aliens have streamed across the southern border of the United States during his term. Why is Ukrainian territorial integrity more important to Biden than United States territorial integrity? Are we not experiencing an invasion even if the illegal aliens have no tanks and rifles?

Lia Thomas, a mediocre male swimmer, woke up one day and decided he was really a “woman” and should swim competitively as a woman. The women swimmers who were forced to change in the same room with him observed that he appeared to be fully male. (It is not known if any were biologists.) If he wakes up next year and decides he is really male and not a woman, does he have to forfeit his medals won as a woman? Will the record books have to be revised?

Transgender advocates insist that prepubertal minors can and do know if they are of the wrong sex and should be allowed to consent to sex-change surgery and puberty-blocking hormones. In that posture, has society been wrong for refusing to allow minors to buy cigarettes, drink alcohol, get a tattoo, fly planes, drive cars, or enter contracts? Which category of decision-making is more complex — drinking a beer, or undergoing life-changing surgery?

A photographic identification is required to drive a car, purchase medications, obtain medical care, board a plane, borrow a library book, buy a gun, buy tobacco, buy alcohol, rent a car, cross international boundaries, and open a bank account. Why is it racist to require a photo identification to vote for president? Is it racist to require a photo identification to do those other things?

President Biden has misspoken (or lied) about his college grades, his college record, his graduation rank in law school, whether he got a scholarship in law school, about being the first to go to college in his family, about being arrested in South Africa, about being a professor of political theory, and about conversations he had with people who were deceased. While in law school, he was found guilty of plagiarism and forced to repeat a course. In 1988, Biden lifted large parts of a speech verbatim from Neil Kinnock and was forced out of the race for president.

Recently, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital that President Biden “is proud to have restored honesty [and] integrity” to the White House. In what sense is Biden’s history of prevarication honest? In what sense does it restore integrity?

For years, while illegal immigrants poured across the border, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted the border was “closed.” There was no crisis at the border, only a challenge. Now he has admitted the border situation is a crisis. Can he identify anything different in the last 14 days that alerted him to this crisis? Does this change of opinion suggest Mayorkas is a stooge, incompetent, or just a liar?

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial. He has refused to allow Trump to attend a U.S Supreme Court hearing involving another of Trump’s cases. Does the honorable judge not understand that the right to attend trial is personal to Mr. Trump and can be waived? In what sense is his court more important than attending a hearing of the U.S. Supreme Court? Given that the alleged acts for which Trump is being tried occurred in 2016, what difference does a day or two delay make now?

Sheila Jackson Lee is a Democrat member of Congress. During this year’s solar eclipse, she related that “the moon is made of gas” and the sun is “almost unapproachable.” This woman has a degree from Yale and was once on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Does Yale no longer teach the moon is made of rock, or is her misunderstanding a sign of the diminished value of a Yale education? And finally, does this comment confirm or refute her ability to serve in Congress?

Mark Fowler is a board-certified physician and former attorney. He may be reached at [email protected].