Without being asked, the Justice Department intervened in a private employment lawsuit on Wednesday, arguing that the ban on sex discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect workers on the basis of their sexual orientation. The friend-of-the-court brief, filed at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, was a striking shift in tone from the Obama administration, which had shied away from that question. The move ended a day that began with a tweet from President Trump announcing a ban on transgender people serving in the military, surprising Pentagon leaders and reversing a year-old Obama administration policy. Also on Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced that he would nominate Sam Brownback, the governor of Kansas and a vocal opponent of gay rights, to be the nation’s ambassador at large for international religious freedom.
“Yesterday was this administration’s anti-L.G.B.T. day,” James D. Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project, said on Thursday. “Whether coordinated or not, to have it all happen on the same day certainly brings into focus the profoundly anti-L.G.B.T. agenda of this administration.”
Administration officials insisted that the timing of the three actions was coincidental. Wednesday just happened to be the deadline for the Justice Department to submit briefs in the employment discrimination case, they said, and Mr. Trump’s tweets about transgender troops unexpectedly skipped past lawmakers and the military brass who were considering the issue. But whether by accident or intent, the result was a striking reversal from Mr. Trump’s predecessor, who repeatedly used administrative actions and legal arguments to press for protections for gays and lesbians. And taken together, the administration’s actions are a prize for religious conservatives who backed Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign but were far more enamored of his vice-presidential pick, Mike Pence.
Well, this is a weird twist in the “trans military ban” story – Trump never actually discussed anything with the Department of Defense or issued any kind of formal order. He just impulse-tweeted that trans people were banned. So for the moment, there’s no actual policy change and trans people are still allowed, with trans healthcare still covered by military plans.
I don’t know if this situation will last for long, but it’s a reminder of just how incompetent and unprofessional our would-be dictator is.He declared a major and extremely unpopular military policy change on Twitter, with no planning or consultation with the DoD at all, lied about discussing it with generals, and then he never actually put in the order.
I’m just going to batch-respond to some of the responses on here:
1. “The military is an evil colonialist institution anyway! Trans people should be glad to not be part of it!” – Wow, congratulations on winning the Leftist Purity Olympics, at the low low cost of endorsing segregation.
2. “Okay, this was poorly implemented, but we need to put away political correctness and ask what the effects of allowing trans people in the military will be?” – Probably not much, since we’ve already been doing it. Trans people have been serving openly in the military for a year now, and with various degrees of secrecy for many decades. Neither the military medical system nor troop morale has collapsed as a result.
3. “As President, Trump can order anything he wants!” – Yes, he can order this. He also can order the military to rename itself Clownin’ Charlie’s Balloon Platoon and replace boot camp with juggling and pie-throwing instruction. Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be a terrible idea.
4. “Attack helicopter special Tumblerina snowflake did you just assume my gender!?!?!” – whoaa, 3edgy5me
5. “This is just a distraction!” – Yes, except that it’s also a real thing the President did, and that DoD unfortunately will probably have to follow up on. Someone setting your house on fire may be doing it to distract you while they steal your car, but even so, your house is on fire.
Something easy I made last night, which turned out really delicious. In this case, to go with some baked trout and lemon-garlic green beans. Just getting a little more of the leftovers now 😉
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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