Showing posts with label transgenderism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transgenderism. Show all posts

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Court Watch

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man. 

Henry Adams.

A glimpse into what's going on in the law, and the Court's.


April 21, 2025

1.  The U.S. Supreme Court had issued a temporary stay on deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Enemy Aliens Act, as it well should have.  There isn't a war going on.

The pause is so that it can take the question in chief.

On the same basic topic, a Federal judge has issued a finding of probable cause of criminal contempt for the administration's refusal to adhere to his order regarding such deportations.

2.  Wyoming Tribe's Law Firm One Of The Few Fighting Trump's Big-Law Orders

Trump's ongoing assault on the law includes assaulting law firms that have displeased him. Quite a few have caved in, but this one didn't.

3.  A federal judge ordered that Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk be transferred from a detention center in Louisiana to Vermont no later than at the start of next month.

4.  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Trump administration's plans to end birthright citizenship next month.  Trump, in one of his many stupid statement moments, said that this should be an easy win as birthright citizenship was tied to slavery, which is really ignorant.

5.  Wyoming Supreme Court mulls constitutionality of state’s abortion bans: Much like the case, Wednesday’s hearing largely focused on whether a section of the state’s constitution that protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions prevents the state from banning abortion.

A frustrating thing for conservatives who would like to find a more middle of the road set of people to vote for, now that the Wyoming Republican Party is in a civil war between real conservatives and populists, is that the Democratic Party nationally and locally just can't wash it hands of blood.  

It puts voters in a horrible position.  Insane gerontocracy v. seas of blood.

Former Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Keith Kautz created some controversy when he joined some legislators in a prayer session associated with the oral arguments, stating as a prayer:

I especially pray for the justices on the Wyoming Supreme Court.  May they know that the true beginning of wisdom is to acknowledge you. Give each of them wisdom and courage in deciding the case coming next week. Let them see how much you love each human and the world you created.

I don't see a problem with that, but apparently some people did.  Justice Kautz noted that he asked, upon retiring, not to be assigned to any cases dealing with abortion because of his religion based opposition to it.  He apparently is a member of a Baptist group called "Converge". 

6.  A group of Wyoming lawyers wrote an open letter about recent legal developments.  It was directed at Wyoming's Congressional representation.

Condemn attacks on judiciary, Wyoming lawyers and judges urge delegation

The letter was met with a "pound sand" response from that representation which went on to say that Federal courts had too much jurisdiction, which they are seeking to limit.

That's wrong, and that's a mistake.

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts

April 24, 2025

Trump has issued an order which takes on accrediting bodies, including the ABA.

REFORMING ACCREDITATION TO STRENGTHEN HIGHER EDUCATION

Executive Orders

April 23, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  A group of higher education accreditors are the gatekeepers that decide which colleges and universities American students can spend the more than $100 billion in Federal student loans and Pell Grants dispersed each year.  The accreditors’ job is to determine which institutions provide a quality education — and therefore merit accreditation.  Unfortunately, accreditors have not only failed in this responsibility to students, families, and American taxpayers, but they have also abused their enormous authority.

Accreditors routinely approve institutions that are low-quality by the most important measures.  The national six-year undergraduate graduation rate was an alarming 64 percent in 2020.  Further, many accredited institutions offer undergraduate and graduate programs with a negative return on investment — almost 25 percent of bachelor’s degrees and more than 40 percent of master’s degrees — which may leave students financially worse off and in enormous debt by charging them exorbitant sums for a degree with very modest earnings potential.

Notwithstanding this slide in graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market, the spike in debt obligations in relation to expected earnings, and repayment rates on student loans, accreditors have remained improperly focused on compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology, rather than on student outcomes.  Some accreditors make the adoption of unlawfully discriminatory practices a formal standard of accreditation, and therefore a condition of accessing Federal aid, through “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI”-based standards of accreditation that require institutions to “share results on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the context of their mission by considering . . . demographics . . . and resource allocation.” Accreditors have also abused their governance standards to intrude on State and local authority.

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (Council), which is the sole federally recognized accreditor for Juris Doctor programs, has required law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including by “commit[ting] to having a student body [and faculty] that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”  As the Attorney General has concluded and informed the Council, the discriminatory requirement blatantly violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).  Though the Council subsequently suspended its enforcement while it considers proposed revisions, this standard and similar unlawful mandates must be permanently eradicated.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which is the only federally recognized body that accredits Doctor of Medicine degree programs, requires that an institution “engage[] in ongoing, systematic, and focused recruitment and retention activities, to achieve mission-appropriate diversity outcomes among its students.”  The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which is the sole accreditor for both allopathic and osteopathic medical residency and fellowship programs, similarly “expect[s]” institutions to focus on implementing “policies and procedures related to recruitment and retention of individuals underrepresented in medicine,” including “racial and ethnic minority individuals.”  The standards for training tomorrow’s doctors should focus solely on providing the highest quality care, and certainly not on requiring unlawful discrimination.

American students and taxpayers deserve better, and my Administration will reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price.  Federal recognition will not be provided to accreditors engaging in unlawful discrimination in violation of Federal law.

Sec. 2.  Holding Accreditors Accountable for Unlawful Actions.  (a)  The Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law, including by requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives.

(b)  The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American law schools that is advanced by the Council, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.  The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law.

(c)  The Attorney General and the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education, including unlawful “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.  The Secretary of Education shall also assess whether to suspend or terminate the Committee’s or the Accreditation Council’s status as an accrediting agency under Federal law or take other appropriate action to ensure lawful conduct by medical schools, graduate medical education programs, and other entities that receive Federal funding for medical education.

Sec. 3.  New Principles of Student-Oriented Accreditation.  (a)  To realign accreditation with high-quality, valuable education for students, the Secretary of Education shall, consistent with applicable law, take appropriate steps to ensure that:

(i)    accreditation requires higher education institutions to provide high-quality, high-value academic programs free from unlawful discrimination or other violations of Federal law;

(ii)   barriers are reduced that limit institutions from adopting practices that advance credential and degree completion and spur new models of education;

(iii)  accreditation requires that institutions support and appropriately prioritize intellectual diversity amongst faculty in order to advance academic freedom, intellectual inquiry, and student learning;

(iv)   accreditors are not using their role under Federal law to encourage or force institution to violate State laws, unless such State laws violate the Constitution or Federal law; and

(v)    accreditors are prohibited from engaging in practices that result in credential inflation that burdens students with additional unnecessary costs.

(b)  To advance the policies and objectives in subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary of Education shall:

(i)    resume recognizing new accreditors to increase competition and accountability in promoting high-quality, high-value academic programs focused on student outcomes;

(ii)   mandate that accreditors require member institutions to use data on program-level student outcomes to improve such outcomes, without reference to race, ethnicity, or sex;

(iii)  promptly provide to accreditors any noncompliance findings relating to member institutions issued after an investigation conducted by the Office of Civil Rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.) or Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.);

(iv)   launch an experimental site, pursuant to section 487A(b) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1094a(b)), to accelerate innovation and improve accountability by establishing new flexible and streamlined quality assurance pathways for higher education institutions that provide high-quality, high-value academic programs;

(v)    increase the consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness of the accreditor recognition review process, including through the use of technology;

(vi)   streamline the process for higher education institutions to change accreditors to ensure institutions are not forced to comply with standards that are antithetical to institutional values and mission; and

(vii)  update the Accreditation Handbook to ensure that the accreditor recognition and reauthorization process is transparent, efficient, and not unduly burdensome.

Sec. 4.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                              DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,

April 26, 2025

The Trump administration really took a step towards Nazism with the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for supposedly interfering with immigration laws.

Wyoming’s crossover voting ban and closed primary elections are being challenged in a newly filed civil action.

This should be really interesting.

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, has died by suicide at age 41.  Prince Andrew's fall is directly tied to her, and there's no doubt that they met when she was just 17 years old, although he denied any improper conduct with her.

She was a married woman with three children, and had relocated to Australia. Apparently she and her husband had recently separated, and she had recently been in an automobile accident.

The topic of releasing the Epstein files has come up, but so far the Trump administration has failed to release them.  Trump, of course, knew Epstein.

April 29, 2025

Hageman, Barrasso Say Judges Who Shield Illegal Immigrants Should Be Arrested

President Donald Trump’s administration did not go too far in arresting judges for allegedly shielding illegal immigrants from federal agents, say members of Wyoming’s congressional delegation.

April 30, 2025

Judge: Rock Springs school didn’t violate parental rights in transgender pronoun case: School district officials, educators did not keep information from high schooler’s parents or violate mother’s religious rights, federal judge concludes.

May 2, 2025

A federal judge in Texas barred the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelans from South Texas under the Enemy Aliens Act.

May 3, 2025

I missed it, as I was busy, but Law Day, which is May 1, was rebranded by Trump as Loyalty Day.

The meanings aren't even remotely close.

A Federal Court blocked the Trump administration sanctions on a U.S. law firm.

May 16, 2025


A retired lawyer has sued Secretary of State Chuck Gray maintaining that as Gray spread lies about the January 6 insurrection, he supported the campaign of insurrectionist Donald Trump and therefore is disqualified from office under the 14th for being an insurrectionist himself.

That suit will go nowhere, it's really strained.

Trump is an insurrectionist and isn't qualified to hold office, and Gray did support him, but there was never an adjudication in Wyoming as to Trump's status and therefore Gray would have been entitled to argue in favor of him, even with wild fantasies that the election was stolen.

Moreover, the 14th Amendment in the end disallows an insurrectionist from being seated in office, which is why I take the position that Trump is not currently the President, but it also allows for the disqualification to be lifted by Congress.  I think, therefore, that it would have been valid to argue that Trump should be elected, as Congress could have lifted the disability.  It simply never came up.

Lawsuits like this amount to pointless tilting at windmills and frankly discredit those who oppose Trump by being goofy.  Gray has resorted to his usual speech decrying the "radical left". That speech has grown tiresome and I frankly doubt anyone listens to it anymore, but it is giving him something to complain about that fits in with his campaign's past themse, and it likely future one.

On other news, the Federal Court is allowing UW sorority sisters to amend their complaint against the man who has been admitted as a sister in their sorority.

A lot of people have heard that the Supreme Court heard arguments on birthright citizenship this week, but it didn't.  It heard a case on nationwide injunctions which involved birthright citizenship.  The court can, and probably will, issue its opinion without addressing the question of citizenship.

May 17, 2025

The US Supreme Court extended an injunction prohibiting the deportation of Venezuelans under the Enemy Alien Act, with their being two dissents.

June 10, 2025

Wyoming sorority sisters file new lawsuit, but drop transgender student from case

June 14, 2025

Wyoming Education Association files lawsuit to stop school voucher payments: Complaint argues that the state funding private education violates the Wyoming Constitution in two key ways.

US Civil Unrest

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the Trump's direct Guard deployment was illegal, violating the Tenth Amendment and exceeding Trump’s statutory authority.  An appeals court stayed enforcement of the order upon review.



Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and flags.

An interesting episode in Evansville:

‘This is awesome’: Casper organizes to cover up swastika display in Evansville

And an episode all played out against the background of the state's GOP going increasingly to the very far right.

I'll note that this is "Pride Month".  As I've noted before, I don't really get pride month for a bunch of reasons, one simple one being I don't see how a person can be "proud" of their sexual drive.  That just seems odd to me.  My views on the topic are found in the related thread links below, and a person can read them if they're interested.

I'm also kind of in the camp of the months just being the months, although I do see why Black History Month and Women's History Month got started to focus attention.

Anyhow, over time, Prime Month, which originally was limited to homosexuality, expanded out to LGBTQ, and that's another topic.  L G & Q are related topics, but T is really a seperate one entirely, a fact that has caused some Ls to be upset by being included with Ts, and understandably so.

Anyhow, that's the topic of the post.

As noted, this is Pride Month and the Mayor of Evansville, on her own volition, put out small rainbow flags at the Evansville Town Hall.  She noted that it represented a municipal spirit of acceptedness, although it was not a municipal act. It was a private one.

This shows something really interesting in general.  For native Wyomingites, the view towards LGBTQ topics long was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone".  That's the native Wyoming view on a lot of things.

For this reason, for decades, locals in this community would find themselves in the grocery store line with a man wearing a tutu (I'm sincere on this), and think, "um. . .whatever".  Or in my case, "um. . . poor taste in dresses".

The current right wing populist view, however, is very much "I care exactly what you are doing and I'm going to force you to stop doing it".

For locals, therefore, this entire topic has been a bit odd.  There's been the movement towards "you must accept", which is generally met with "What?  I wasn't bothering you" while also being met with "you must stop them", which has been met with "Why?  They weren't bothering me".

Anyhow, the mayor put out flags.

This was, in turn, met with the actions of one Evansville resident who went out and drew swastikas on the sidewalk in protest.  In addition, he threatened to purchase German swastika flags and put them out.

Why swastikas?

Well, nobody can really figure that one out.  Asked about it in a town work session, he replied:

Yeah, there’s a difference. I’m not that stupid, but what I’m doing here is to make a point.

And what is that point?

Hard to figure.

Anyhow, Evansville residents reacted by having a sidewalk chalk fest.  Seems about the best possible reaction, really.

A lesson here is that street level Wyoming isn't nearly as far right as GOP.  At some point, that probably begins to have an effect.

Another lesson may very well be that the center needle on this has moved on, giving us an example of Yeoman's Twenty First Law of Behavior for the second time in two days.  If that's the case, social conservatives will have a pretty hard time actually moving things back to where they want, as that requires a cultural change, and that change may have already taken place in the opposite direction.

Somewhat related, Wyoming's lone Congressman is backing a bill in Congress to change Pride Month (and I don't know how it ended up being called that) to "Family Month".  A Hageman Facebook post stated:

This June, I am proud to cosponsor Rep. Mary Miller's resolution to officially declare June as Family Month.

It is time to reject radical ideologies and honor traditional family values that have shaped our country for generations.

A press release said something similar. 

Some Facebook wag  posted in reply:

Where's your Hageman family picture?

Whoever posted that was probably well aware that Ms. Hageman goes by her maiden name, under which her legal career was established prior to her marriage, and not the last name of her husband.  More significantly, she has no children.

I've always wondered if somebody would start to take notice of this.  As a far right Republican, Hageman ran on family values but, with no children of her own, made reference to her nephews and nieces, which aren't ballpark close to you own children.

Now, women don't have children for a lot of reasons.  Some can't, for various biological reasons.  Sometimes their spouse is sterile, either due to biological reasons or surgical mutilation.  Lots of times, however, children were simply avoided, a species of tragedy, frankly, for those who have had children and grasp how they complete your lives, and make you into a real adult.

In polite society, you don't ask, however.

But American polite society is nearly a t hing of the past anymore, and here maybe there's a point to raising it.  Amongst the things the far right of the GOP has embraced is pronatalism.  


Pronatalism is a philosophy that is based on the concept that (married) couples ought to have a lot of children.  Frankly the general thesis of it is that "our" culture is dying and we need to combat it by having children.  The concept has actually been around for a very long time and is sometimes associated with the phrase "the battle of the cradle" and the concept of "race suicide".  No less of President than Theodore Roosevelt advocated the idea, stating that a man or woman who was childless by choice "merits contempt."

Which is I guess why the question is fair game in regard to the Congresswoman.  I'm not suggesting that she has avoided children by choice (I don't know), and even if she had, I wouldn't suggest that, therefore causes her to "merit contempt"  However, ff you raise the topic, well then. . . questions can logically follow.

The current GOP has become so focused on this that its floated the idea of a baby bonus, something that hasn't been paid in a Western nation for years and which has never been done in the U.S.  The proposal was to pay parents of newborns $1,000, which is just about the cost of one week of Huggies.  It's a stupid idea.

From the perspective of Catholics, however, this is a lot of fish on Fridays' during Lent.  You find people adopting something sort of generally associated with you, in this case children in marriage, but for oddball secular reasons, and as if the concept is brand new.  Catholics don't have children in marriage as a part of a race war.  Indeed, Catholics don't really recognize the validity of the concept of "race" at all, which is pretty plain if you go to a Mass in any metropolitan area of more than 10,000 people.  By the same token, we don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent (or in many cases, the rest of the year) as we've adopted the Mediterranean Diet or something.  


Oh my.


There's been some fears, I might note, that the current set of populists would do just that.  It's quite clear that some in the National Conservative/Christian Nationalist camp, would do that if they could.  

Anyhow, sidewalk chalk over the top of swastikas was a good end to an odd story.

Related threads:

On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.




Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Monday, June 9, 2025

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Pretty effective 1970s vintage Army recruiting poster seeking female recruits.

There's been some interesting signs of things to come recently, including where Hegseth is headed on women in the military, and where Trump's close acolytes are headed in regard to his increasing mental decline.

Interesting times.

We'll start with Hegseth.

As anyone who stops in here is well aware, I'm not a Trump fan.  I'm conservative, actually conservative, but I'm not lockstep in line with anyone.  Frankly, anyone who is, just isn't thinking.  Anyhow, The Trump regime is not conservative but populist, and populist in the same way that gave rise to fascism in various European nations in the 30s, or to Communism to others in the teens and twenties.  But I can see how we got here and indeed I'd been warning about this for some time before it happened.  As readers here know, once Obergefell was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court I feared a political breakdown was inevitable.I also thought that claims made at the time that Obergefell wouldn't lead to a more radical development in the category of gender norms were badly misguided, and I was proved correct about that.  The country was headed toward acceptance of homosexual unions as marriages, irrespective of what social conservatives may think of that, but Justice Kennedy and his fellow travelers hijacking the trend line without any real legal weight behind it jump started the country right into the transgender movement which helped radicalize an already radicalizing populist base in the right wing of the GOP.2 

Women in combat roles in the US came the following year, 2016, and was controversial at the time and remains so in social conservative   I recently posted on it, and I remain very much opposed to it.   While I'm not a fan of Hegseth, he's on record as opposing it as well.

Some time ago Hegseth ordered that the service review its physical fitness standards on a gender neutral basis.This isn't really the first time that this has been done and the results can probably be predicted.

Indeed, they can be predicted in part due to the experiences of women in sports competing with men who are surgically and chemically altered to female morphologies, but more on that in a moment.

At the time, I thought that was probably step one towards removing women from combat roles.

Then Hegseth came out with a tweet (I wish government officials would stay off Twitter) endorsing a story in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The article was this one:


Hegseth, in his comment, noted the problems of women in combat roles, although only briefly and vaguely.

Like a lot of things repeated on Twitter, the Tweet falls sort of teh full story:

IDF chief halts mobility unit pilot program for female combat troops

The IDF is just suspending the study and will get back to a new one.

Before all of this, Hegseth ordered that "transgendered" troops leave the service.  That was probably the least controversial thing he could do, and it makes perfect sense.  Gender Dysphoria may exist, but transgenderism does not.  Moreover, if you have to take medication just to keep your morphology, you really aren't ready for the rigors of military life.

Transgenderism in general, which will also get to below, is really a manifestation of, in my view, a mental illness.  It's a trendy one, however, and is part of the culture wars which gave rise to a radicalized far right, and then to Trump.

Ordering that "transgendered" troops get out of the service is one thing, but then there's this:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 85th Edition: Hegseth directs Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk days into Pride Month.

This isn't related to women in combat, but it's certainly a shot in the culture wars and a surprising one.  With the constant storm surrounding the Trump Regime, it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as I thought it would, and that may have been why it was done.  Running that up the flagpole may have been a test by Hegseth to see how much flak he'll get if he orders women out of combat roles.

I suspect it was.

And I suspect that its coming very soon.

Indeed, it has to be soon.

And hence our next prediction.

People have predicted that Trump is running out of steam since day one, but now it appears he really is.  In the old phrase, Trump has "jumped the shark".  Indeed, there's an odd maxim that once something has maximum attention in the public eye, it's probably passed its peak.

There's a lot of evidence of this around, and it makes a big difference to what Hegseth, and others in the Trump Administration, depending upon how savvy they are to trends, are behaving.

Trump is increasingly erratic and weird.  He's also becoming increasingly ineffective.  Having done a lot early on in a flurry of Executive Orders, the Courts, save for the Supreme Court, so far, are effectively saying "hold on Buckwheat" and stopping much of what he's done.  The entire goofball DOGE effort is the same.  Indeed, at least one minor agency is being reconstructed, amazingly, after Musk and his wrecking crew attacked it.4  Indeed, DOGE achieved a mess, but that's about it.  Bill Clinton's effort to cut the size of the government, which lead to a surplus in its day, was much more effective.  

Now the wheels are coming off.  Musk is feuding with Trump.  The Senate may not pass the Big Ugly Bill, at least not in the form the sycophantic House did.  Questions are being razed.

Trump is being publicly mocked as "Taco".

The bloom is off the rose, Trump's authority is declining, and the looming 25th Amendment is getting warmed up.

Have you noticed that  James Donald Bowman, aka J. D. Vance, whom we heard from constantly early on, is now pretty much silent.  That's not an accident.  Vance will take over when Trump is booted, and my guess that he doesn't want to be tainted with Trump any more than he has to be.  He's gone from insulting Ukrainian Presidents for not wearing suits, to just not being there.

Which brings this back around to women in the military, and other social issues.  National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist rode into power on Trump's back as they knew that they could.  They also know, however, that they need time to completely overhaul the nation to look like they want it to, and 18 months, all the more time I've given Trump before he is hauled off to an assisted living wing of Mar A Lago, isn't enough.  Four years isn't either, and frankly the Democrats are going to retake the House of Representatives nexts year.  If Vance doesn't secure reelection after this administration is done with, much of what the National Conservatives/Christian Nationalist did during their four years will just be dust in the wind.

In order for anything to stick, it has to be done quickly, so that the electorate is acclimated to it by 2028, or there has to be a plan to stay in power in 2028.  My guess that Vance's disappearing act is part of that.

I fear what else may be.5

Back to some rambling.

As is often the case, a certain element of synchronicity tends to work on these posts, with various things coming up with that cause the thread to be posted.  Just as I started contemplating the women in combat topic, again, a couple of such things did which are related.

I subscribe to Mandatory Fun Day on Instagram.  A buddy of mine who had been in the service sent me some of his clips and they're hilarious, if you've been in the Army.  If you haven't, they're probably completely baffling.

Anyhow, as I subscribe on Instagram, they started coming up on Facebook as "reels".  No problem.  The fact that they did, however, meant that I'd get suggested reels by other service members following in the creator's wake.  They were uniformly pretty bad.

All of a sudden, having not taken interest in those, Facebook started suggesting reels by female service members, a large number of which are service women in their t-shirts being cute in a college coed fashion, or worse.  Dancing female soldiers show up, and even twerking ones.  Women showing how they dress in their uniforms, starting with pretty much only skivvies on, is another.  Perhaps the one most illustrative of why I regard this all a problem was one in which a female soldier photographed herself in GI trousers, and regulation brown t-shirt, showing "how I feel when I see my man in uniform", which involved clutching her breasts and and having her free hand south of her fly.

And all of this is observable just on the suggested feed, not on what shows up if you click on it.

One I did click on, as it was so oddly titled, involved a cute young woman making babyish "moo" sounds, in an item entitled "she found her moo".  The voice of the filmer was also female.  Apparently the moo thing is some sort internet trend.

Anyhow, relationships, and you can use your imagination as to what I mean by that, are a problem in college dorms where nobody is expected to kill anyone. They've been a huge problem in the service, and the Marine Corps had to take steps some time ago to order female Marines to knock off seductive filming, some of which featured female Marines nude.  Young women acting like young women away from home and in college dorms isn't surprising, but it sure isn't conductive to unit cohesiveness in organizations in which death and destruction is a routine norm.  

Put another way, the "man" whom the young woman touching body parts which used to be referenced in the Jody Call "The Prettiest Girl I Ever Saw" is going to be a problem in any unit, let alone one in which a soldier may be expected to leave her behind to be killed.7

Moo.

Anyhow, while noting all of this, I also saw a series of stories recently about women being upset by having to compete against men, who are "transgendered".  Also, UW is now being investigated due to Artemis Langford being in a sorority, at the same time that sorority sisters are trying to keep him out.

That caused me to realize how often its women who lead the charge in this are. Women know they are women and they justifiably feel that in sports they shouldn't have to compete against men.  And they aren't the only ones. An international body that regulates boxing has imposed genetic tests on female boxers to make sure they're female.

The reason for all of this is that even second rate male athletes turn out to be almost unstoppable competition in female sports, when they compete as transgendered.  Women resent it, and rightfully.

But oddly enough society hasn't seemingly noted something that Hemingway noted many years ago.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Ernest Hemingway.

I'm not saying that war is nice. Quite the contrary.  But in some ways its the ultimate athletic endeavor, even now in the era of high tech weapons. And let us be honest  Killing is part of it, but there's never been a conflict anywhere in the world where brutalization and rape haven't been part of it, nor has there ever been one in which some women took advantage of their assets in a wartime pinch.

Women don't belong in combat.

Let's go back to the plight of the UW sorority for a second.

The entire saga here shows how difficult it can be for public institutions in this bizarre era in which we live.  It's obvious that a male should not be in a sorority, and Langford may dress as a female and wish to be regarded as one, but at least the last time I checked on the story, he hadn't "transitioned", which means he's full equipped.  There's no reason that a young woman should be forced to live in close residential confines with a man if she doesn't wish to.

The other sad aspect of this is that this entire saga, in which they've sued, and I don't blame them, and now the Trump Administration is investigating UW, means that his entire delusion has become his identity, when had this been treated as what it was, a mental illness, it might all be past tense by now.  Indeed, just looking it would suggest that it might very well have been.8

Anyhow, stuff like this puts universities in the can't win for losing situation.  Charlie Kirk, a right wing populist babbler, has made comments on Langford, and a right wing populist law student just sponsored him talking on campus.

Pity poor UW.

Back to Hegseth t he White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support him, but there's been no takers.

Again, this Administration has shot its bolt, and its showing.

On other things military, we have this:

June 8, 2025

US Civil Unrest

Donald Trump has federalized some units of the California National Guard and ordered them to Los Angeles in response to violent immigration protests there.

A President federalizing a Guard unit ab initio like this is very unusual.

Some are declaring that this is a first step towards nationwide martial law.  I doubt it.  It's a bad move however.  Troops, including National Guardsmen, make poor police.  They really aren't trained for it, but are trained to use force.

Usually troops, including National Guardsmen, who are deployed in this role aren't given ammunition.  The opposite can happen, of course, as Kent State famously and tragically indicated.  This is a bad look, anyway you view it.

To circle back, how much of what we're seeing now, will stick?  Trump's really on his way out, and it's doubtful the culture has been much impacted, so far.

Footnotes: 

1.  This thread has been getting a lot of views for some reason recently, and is often one of the most popular ones of the week.

2.  Kennedy provides us with another example of the disaster of the very aged being in a position of authority.

3.  The order states:

High standards are what made the United States military the greatest fighting force on the planet. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. We are made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards.

I am directing the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards. The USD(P&R) will conduct a review of these standards and how they have changed since January 1, 2015 . The review will also provide insight on why those standards changed and the impact of those changes. The USD(P&R) has the authority to task the Secretaries of the Military Departments and other DoD Component heads as necessary to provide any required information in support of this review and will provide detailed guidance to the Military Departments.

We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world' s most lethal and effective fighting force. Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards.

4.  None of which has kept the perpetually behind the curve Wyoming legislature from heading off with its own DOGE effort, just as the  Federal effort is sinking. 

5.  Having said that, by any standard Vance will be more normal than Trump, which doesn't mean he will get reelected in 2028.  

6. They must be banned now, but the Army used to have a lot of Jody Calls that were outright foul, but probably serve to illustrate the atmosphere that units of young men tend to have, for good or ill.  In this call, a solder recalls drinking in a bar and touching a woman next to him in various place until she says "GI, you know the rest", resulting in his now having a bunch of children.

7.  As a totally random item:

As more women head to war, IDF uniforms designed for men expose female troops to risks

The army’s one-uniform-fits-all approach means a fifth of combat soldiers are operating in clothes, vests and other gear unsuited to their physiques, harming safety and effectiveness

8.  I don't know all the details, but from what little you can pick up on the net, Langford's parents seem to have gone through a bad divorce and his father obtained custody.  Langford relates that he solidified his view of himself as a woman following a desperate nighttime prayer.  He was a Mormon, and while many faiths recognize praying for guidance, the Mormon faith has a "burning bosom" line of thought on some things.  The LDS are not, however, supportive of transgenderism, which is interesting, and Langford now identifies as an Episcopalian. Some branches of the Episcopal church have been notoriously willing to accept gender trends, which is part of the reason that the Episcopal Church is rapidly declining in membership.

Related threads:

Women and combat


Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 87th Edition. No, "Liberals" are not flocking to Musk.

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 84th Edition. The uncomfortably agreeing with the far right edition (on some things). Hegseth orders transgenderism out and a bill to outlaw pornography.

"Transgendered" troops to depart.

I'll be frank, I don't think transgenderism exists at all.

Gender dysphoria, however, certainly does.  It's a psychological condition, and indeed, a mental illness, often a temporary one.

Moreover, "transitioning from a man to a woman", or vice versa, is impossible.

Whether or not that fiction should be allowed to medically occur for adults (for anyone not in their majority, it's child abuse), is another thing.  I basically don't feel that it should be allowed, as its a manifestation of a mental illness that isn't served by being medically and surgically coddled, but I'll also fully admit there's more than one allowable medical procedure I don't think should be legal either.  Plastic surgery, for example, for mere cosmetic reason for uninjured and the morphologically normal people is also wrong, in my view, and that's not the only such thing.

Nonetheless, the sudden, and it was sudden, post Obergefell societal trend towards treating this mental delusion as something that should be fully supported is not only stunning, but it's flat out wrong.  It may be the only mental illness which has rising to be not only culturally tolerated, but for which the left makes cultural demands.  As I predicated at the time of the Obergefell, making such demands would have a societal ripple that would be devastating, and it has been. There's a straight path from Obergefell to  Donald Trump, as what it brought in was just a bridge too far.

So, here, I find  myself agreeing with Secretary Hegseth's action, even though I'm not a fan of Secretary Hegseth.




As readers here know, I don't agree with letting women serve in combat, so I'm clearly on the far edge of the right on these matters.  But I don't feel that appropriate.  Be that as it may, while women's cycles propose challenges to their serving as combat troops, they don't require medication just to exist in their state.  The "transgendered" do.  So, setting aside that what transgenderism really is, is a mental illness, it'd rapidly become a physical illness to a soldier trapped in an isolated combat environment or a prisoner or war.  As stated here some time ago, I fear for women who will be POWs, as I know exactly what they're going to be subject to. For a soldier who was "transgendered", the treatment as a POW would be barbaric.

By the way, there's a transitioned high school softball picture who has been blowing the doors off of her opponents with her pitches.  Well, she's genetically a guy.

This is just wrong, and shouldn't be allowed to happen.

I'll also note that I may be one of the view Wyomingites in my region to have encountered a guy pretending to be a gal and seeking medical assistance for the delusion, with that person in uniform.  Some time back I had some email correspondence with a full time National Guardsman on something, although I don't recall what.  What I do recall is that he was "transgendered".  Like a lot, but not all, "transgendered" men affecting the appearance of a woman, he looked very much like a guy, which of course what he genetically and morphologically is.

Gender studies also out.

In something that is sort of related, and sort of not, UW is eliminating its Gender Studies degree.

UW looks to end embattled gender studies degree

I don't know much about gender studies other than its one of those host of degrees that came in during the 1970s and 1980s in the liberal arts that have always baffled me a bit.  What do you do with it?

Having said that, I'm not as condescending towards the degree as I once was.  I do, however, think that what US is doing makes sense.  Folding the program into some other sort of sociology degree strikes me as making sense, rather than having it stand alone.

Sorority transgender pleading allowed.

In something else sort of related, and sort of not, the Federal Court has allowed for an amended complaint to be filed in a suit in which it seeks to address a man identifying as a woman being admitted to its house at UW as a sorority "sister".

Banning pornography.

And here's another item that come from the far right, and indeed from Project 2025, which generally scares me overall, but whose goal I find myself in agreement with:


I've posted on the topic of pornography here from time to time.

Pornography is a devastating scourge. It's wholly destructive, and about that there's no doubt

This bill will be interesting to watch.  I suspect it will get no traction  I don't know, for one thing, that Donald Trump cares one whit about pornography.  After all, his wife became famous as a model for posing in a manner that I'd regard as pornographic.  And a guy who rode the Lolita Express to Epstein's jail bait fantasy island doesn't strike me as a man of deep moral principles.  And hte pron industry is powerful and will take this on in the guise of free speech.

It may ironically prove to be the case that deporting people to foreign concentration camps is something most Americans are willing to tolerate, but stopping young women from prostituting their images is not.

Related posts:

Topic One.

Normalizing Mental Illness isn't helping to address it.





Topic Four

The life of Fran Gerard/Francis Anna Camuglia. Was Francis Anna Camuglia and Cynthia Blanton.






Secrets of Playboy


Lex Anteinternet: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. M'eh. Throwing rocks at Hugh Hefner . . . I'm not alone in that.




De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. M'eh


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