My cat Hobbes has orange and white fur. The fact that these are the colours is determined by his DNA: one parent was presumably white, the other orange. But why are his ears orange? No gene determined this SFIK. Instead, at about the 32-cell division of his embryo, in half the cells the white coat genes from one parent were turned off, in the other half the orange ones from the other parent. This is essentially random and the normal course of events. But it could also be influenced by epigenetic environmental factors, like those that set the gender in certain reptile species depending on the temperature. The Pentagon does not understand what "biological sex" means.

Relevantly, in case anyone has missed this new Federalist take, which Freud could have written entire libraries on….

https://twitter.com/AndrewK...

I can't believe they actually used the word "flaccidity" in that sentence

It's almost bad enough to make me think the author is a deep-cover troll

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Isn’t the FBI sitting on loads of evidence that Bart perjured himself to get his seat ? In the form of all the people contacting them, wanting to make statements during the sham/figleaf-for-Jeff-Flake investigation in Oct?

Should Dems gain power can that be looked into?

Any chance we could get Ben Folds or Dave Clark and some session judges in here instead?

I vote for Sex Clark

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

I do not get.

That would make me glad all over.

Now watch as military people of all shades of gender identity who get on someone’s shit list are dragged before a trans id board as part of a ritual humiliation process designed not for any justice, but to be a punitive measure in and of itself

Do you now or have you ever had a penis?

All the Dem primary candidates should pledge to nominate that if elected, they will nominate Merrick Garland as the 10th Justice with or without vacancy on the court. If he died before 2021, nominate someone as #JusticeoforMerrick Justice.

I'm sure they can find someone with garland's credentials that is 15 years younger.

Someone also a bit to the left of Garland.

Also someone who is several people instead of just one person.

This most of all. Garland is a fine jurist, but very centrist. Can we get 5 Innicence Project alumna and 4 ACLU lawyers?

I used to always say Derrick Bell and Catherine MacKinnon, but Bell is dead and I'm not sure what MacKinnon is up to now. Anyway there are literally thousands of lawyers and academics in the country who would be better than anything the Federalist Society can scrape up.

the point is to aim higher than "better than the Federalist Society". If the readers HERE can't come up with a list of real progressive jurists, where exactly is it going to come from?

Well, any randomly selected American would very likely be a better choice than anyone approved by the FS. But do Supreme Court justices have to be Americans in the first place?

Catherine MacKinnon would be an astoundingly bad Supreme Court justice. Justice Tulsi Gabbard would be considerably superior.

Luckily, your second point is correct; there are plenty of excellent liberal judges around-- Nina Pillard, Mariano Cuellar, Cheryl Krause just off the top of my head-- although nominating any of those people would admittedly require the Democrats to get out of their usual posture of crouched cowering before the right wing, and actually have the courage of their convictions for once.

Cuellar is the youngest of the three. Let's nominate him.

I will take your word for Pillard, Cuellar, and Krause. I haven't thought about it in a long time. I feel like all of the worst possible options have already been inserted into the federal court system.

Trump is finally hurting the people he's needs to hurt!

Roberts 5 - the shittiest sequel to Ocean's 11.

"The Dipshit Dozen Divided By Two Minus One."

ETA: I thought there was an SNL "three tines one minus one" or other suitably overcomplicated boyband name, but I could only find this Mr. Show video.

https://youtu.be/JEID8WxnE_I

This should put to bed any discussion about politicizing the court by packing it. The court is already politicized and compromised. Packing it is the only thing that's going to save it.

That’s been apparent since Bush v Gore, but yes to all of that!

Thank God that these "people" can no longer steal the rightfully-earned places in the military that should go to the sons of congressmen and Wall Street execs, who willfully volunteer for a spot to risk life and limb protecting the country they love solely out of a desire to help, but were turned away for a less-qualified transgender.

I mean, someone has to take those plum assignments that the trans people were taking!

Total affirmative action welfare bums. Between that and the almost monopolistic control that "big illegal" has over picking fruits vegetables for $3 an hour, there are no jobs left for real Americans looking to earn an honest living. (Dad joke alert - that literally is a "plum assignment")

It seems to me that you need to at least breathe on the legal issues of this case (e g., is transgender a protected class, does Rokster v. Goldberg apply, does Lawrence's animus rationale apply to the military?), and whether petitioners were entitled to a stay (a complicated question under SCOTUS' practices); before going off on this take.

Why? It's not like the court did.

Forget it, Dilan; it's LGMtown -- the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of all policies is determined by the preferences of the LGM commentariat, notwithstanding any lack of precedent for the proposition.

You and MikeFurlan are consistently the two that can be counted on to upvote an Esper-Ranto(TM) comment. I am beginning to suspect sock puppetry. Although I hate to imagine the state of Dilan's socks as he posts these comments.

Well, being accused of being a sock puppet is at least different from being accused of being a Russian bot, I guess....

I've been assuming Furlan does it ironically since I never see him actually SAY anything about them.

I suppose that's a possibility, and Mike can speak for himself if he/she wants. But personally, when it comes to irony, I'd rather have a fly in my chardonnay than upvote Dilan.

Regardless of "breathing on the legal issues" in this case, there is no recourse to reverse a Supreme Court decision unless the Supreme Court decides itself to reverse it. The Supreme Court only rests on the appearance of legality in so much as it preserves the appearance of legitimacy for the court. The five conservative members (and McConnell) threw out legitimacy a long time ago.

The 5 faux-conservatives on the Court should have been indicted and imprisoned in 2000 for violating citizens' rights under color of law.

"Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.

The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any."

Followup:

FUCK YOU, you arrogant, privileged asshole. This is people's lives we're talking about.

(Abigail you can sue me for plagiarism if you want but it had to be said.)

Perhaps, but that's not SCOTUS job to determine. Appellate courts rule on law, not individual harms.

They demonstrably do not unless you think you can make an argument that it's a really weird coincidence that we keep seeing 5-4 party-line splits that inexplicably do individual harm to whatever marginalized group the Republican Hate Circus is kicking around this week.

Like if the issue at hand is that Republican judges follow a legal principle that America will pass no law that benefits non-whites I don't see how that's a distinction with a difference.

This is one of those narrow but important distinctions where it's possible to come to the right answer by the wrong process. It's been a long time since SCOTUS actually gave a shit about what the constitution really says and morphed into an unelected legislature. Properly an appellate court should consider only the law and leave any contemplation of human effects to the legislature.

Traditionally, SCOTUS has given the president wide latitude in the order and discipline of the armed forces, including baring or separating people for all kinds of reasons. Anxiety disorders, chronic conditions requiring medications... the list is practically endless. I have not read the DOD's pleading but it's easy to imagine where the lifetime medical requirements of a trans person would fall into that category.* More generally, this seems a place for rational basis review rather than strict scrutiny because joining the armed forces would be a very strange sort of right indeed.

The idea that there’s one “right” legal answer to a case like this is just flatly absurd. The relevant precedents make arguments for granting or not granting a stay in a case like this both plausible. And the relevant precedents on LBGT rights tell us virtually nothing about how to decide future cases because Kennedy it a yutz. So what’s left is the political views of the justices, which is what decided this case.

Sorry, no. There is a legal right answer here and your position that there isn't one is part of how we got the SCOTUS we now have. This court probably can't find that right answer, but that's because it has basically agreed with your position for at least 50 years.

The current holding position is no new accessions, no separations. That is: stasis, the only appropriate situation on an undecided law.

**duplicate**

Mojrim before I go off and possibly waste everyone's time can you clarify if your last line there means "It would be very strange to say people have a RIGHT to join the armed forces" please? I just want to make sure I'm reading it right if I'm going to possibly get all ranty about it.

(Actually I might just do the "fuck you" gag again, it depends how much time I have before dinner.)

It's pretty straight forward, Mike. Some things are beyond the scope of individual rights and this is one of them. Joining the service isn't like getting a job, it's more cross between getting married and joining a cult. If the cult doesn't believe you fit that's the end of it.

I want to be clear that I'm not necessarily in support of this. I don't know enough about either trans medicine or 20-something attitudes towards trans people to judge. What I do believe is that, in this matter, I'd rather have a mean and stupid policy from the white house than a generous and intelligent policy from SCOTUS.

If that makes you all ranty then, pre-emptively, fuck you, too.

It’s an extremely dumb argument in any case. You have no right to a job with the USPS but that doesn’t mean you can be fired based on your race.