Trump bans transgenders from military service

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

Making America Sane Again.

[Gass3268]

McCain with a statement against. It would mean more if he actually followed through with his statements.

[Deblano]

IIRC, General Mattis was the driving force behind this, no?  

He pushed back against an outright ban but helped to delay a decision on it. I'm assuming Trump in his tweet "with the generals" was the JCS and SecDef. Curious to see how that one was decided, split or unanimous.

Yeah I mean I'm not really behind this decision but I doubt Trump just decided on his own without both the JCS and Mattis supporting it.

I doubt JCS and Mattis had much to do with the decision. I mean after all...Trump knows more than the generals

Trump has a pen and a phone. He doesn't need those pesky "experts" and "congresscritters" getting in the way of him making laws.

[SoLongAtlas]

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1530.html Report on numbers, etc. from earlier.

[PragmaticPopulist]

Interesting how Republicans seem to be taking the Pat McCrory strategy to the national level, even though it was a failing one in an evenly divided state.

[SoLongAtlas]

Interesting how Republicans seem to be taking the Pat McCrory strategy to the national level, even though it was a failing one in an evenly divided state.

It's their strategy for 18 and 20, same as in 04, to gin up waves of social warrior voters. Last chance to do this, since in the next few cycles those same voters will be dead or close to it.

[publicunofficial]

Either Badger or Reaganfan needs to change their avatar or just quit arguing.  I can't figure out who is who.  

Reaganfan is the manchild with no capability for abstract thought, Badger is the other one.

[Yank2133]

Interesting how Republicans seem to be taking the Pat McCrory strategy to the national level, even though it was a failing one in an evenly divided state.

The majority are actually not.

Trump is getting surprising push back from many national R's.  I think many of them realize that this isn't the 90's to early 2000's anymore and this issue doesn't have the bite that it use too.

[Deblano]

Trump lost Joni Ernst:

So why don't these frauds hold a vote about it ?

Because the legislative branch is becoming increasingly weak and feckless.

[SoLongAtlas]

NYT article on it https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/politics/trump-transgender-military.html

They pointed out that this was done on the anniversary of Truman's integration order. Doubtful that that was just a coincidence.

[publicunofficial]

This seems like a really stupid strategy!:

[Brittain33]

I'm pretty sure that Trump was announcing a delay on lifting the ban on transgendered people joining the military, which is a hot issue right now, and was so confused that he inadvertently tweeted out a ban on transgendered people serving in the military.

Just like how the Travel Ban was so sloppily worded that it canceled the visas of permanent residents and people then in flight to the U.S. with valid visas.

I expect the ban on transgendered people from joining to stay in place, but that no ban on current members of the service to actually materialize—especially not with all of the Republican senators (McCain, Ernst, Hatch (!), Shelby (!!!)) declining to back up Trump. Also, Trump doesn't care about this issue the way he hates other groups.

[Brittain33]

Meh, when I enlisted you couldn't even be openly gay. This isn't that controversial to me or many other people.

A.) You probably never enlisted.

He did enlist some time ago, but it didn't work out.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

B33's reply is exactly correct from what I've seen.  No one currently serving will be ousted.  A ban on new service is what this is.  I still don't agree with it, but no one asked me.

[DrScholl]

This will create tons of jobs in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump hates identity politics and that is why he won!

[Beet]

Yeah, transgenders are a protected group now, as you can see from the reaction to this. Even Grumps is minimizing. Most likely because they don't actually threaten anyone. The real most hated domestic group right now is undocumented immigrants, followed closely by Muslims.

[Gass3268]

House Republicans wanted Trump's help on funding for gender reassignment.

[Gass3268]

Really hard to make this a electoral issue if you have numerous Republicans disagreeing with you.

[Gass3268]

Folks at the Pentagon thought Trump was going to announce strikes against North Korea.

[Virginiá]

Surely there is a better way to make and announce policy than via Twitter.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Surely there is a better way to make and announce policy than via Twitter.

What is better than going straight to the masses??

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Folks at the Pentagon thought Trump was going to announce strikes against North Korea.

It's like Reagan's joke about bombing Russia. Only, you know, not a joke and not funny.

Whenever you wonder who gave the keys to Armageddon to this infantile maniac, remember: it was the Republican Party.

[Santander]

Surely there is a better way to make and announce policy than via Twitter.

[publicunofficial]

Surely there is a better way to make and announce policy than via Twitter.

What is better than going straight to the masses??

It'd be better if Trump didn't type like an old man and take 9 minutes between tweets.

[Person Man]

Interesting how Republicans seem to be taking the Pat McCrory strategy to the national level, even though it was a failing one in an evenly divided state.

It's their strategy for 18 and 20, same as in 04, to gin up waves of social warrior voters. Last chance to do this, since in the next few cycles those same voters will be dead or close to it.

It will be really interesting if Republicans can still coast to small but comfortable victories on the back of the Religious Right's Single Issue voters. I guess abortion isn't enough. So these are TWO issue voters, with one of them being making abortion illegal.