Democrat-appointed activist judges appear eager to prevent the democratically elected president from exercising his constitutional authority and realizing his popular agenda.
In the latest instance of judicial overreach, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — a Biden-appointed lesbian judge who previously worked as a lawyer to fight the first Trump administration's immigration policy — decided to indefinitely block the implementation of the second Trump administration's ban on transvestites in the military, suggesting it likely violated their constitutional rights.
At issue in Talbott v. Trump, a case brought by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, is Trump's Jan. 27 executive titled "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness" and the resulting Pentagon guidance.
Trump underscored in his order that the military's policy to establish "high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity" is incompatible with the accommodations sought and health constraints faced by gender-dysphoric individuals.
Trump added that those "expressing a false 'gender identity'" at odds with their actual sex "cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service" and cannot satisfy the soldier's "commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle."
The Pentagon's new guidance states:
Military service by Service members and applicants for military service who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is incompatible with military service. Service by these individuals is not in the best interests of the Military Services and is not clearly consistent with the interests of national security. Individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are no longer eligible for military service.
Reyes, formerly of the Feminist Majority Foundation, acknowledged in her Tuesday ruling that Trump has the "power — indeed the obligation — to ensure military readiness." However, she figured that it was nevertheless her job to interfere, both characterizing Trump's exercise of presidential authority as an attempt to "deny marginalized persons the privilege of serving" and glossing over the military's prohibition on other medically and mentally compromised individuals enlisting, including those found to be on medications, women with abnormal uterine bleeding, men with deformed genitals, those with chronic anxiety, those who have committed self-harm, and those who have met in the past with psychiatrists.
Reyes suggested in her ruling that it was her responsibility as a judge to keep the executive branch in its proper place, despite acknowledging the "pernicious" nature of judicial overreach.
'Each day the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be.'
Reyes suggested further that the "Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact."
Reyes clearly did not bother shrouding her animus toward the Trump administration in the ruling or during past hearings.
The foreign-born judge previously suggested that Trump, through his executive order directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to update military policy to effectively ban medical and cosmetic transvestites from the military, was "literally erasing transgender people." In addition to claiming that Pete Hegseth, a recipient of two Bronze Stars, had no military experience, Reyes also tried to dunk on the administration with a bizarre distortion of Christian teaching, asking Justice Department attorney Jason Lynch how Jesus Christ would respond to Trump's order — prompting a misconduct complaint.
Fresh off condemning one Obama judge for preventing President Donald Trump from deporting terrorists under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and another Obama judge for "appoint[ing] himself king of foreign policy," Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, asked, "Is there no end to this madness?"
After noting that district court judges "have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces," Miller likened the actions taken by Reyes and other activist judges to "Marxist university professors being able to unilaterally veto, edit or override the exercise of presidential authority."
"Currently, district court judges have assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief," wrote Miller. "Each day, they change the foreign policy, economic, staffing and national security policies of the Administration. Each day the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be. It is madness. It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must and will end."
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk noted, "We either have a presidency or we have a rule by 677 gavel-wielding dictators."
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded, "We don't play 'Hail to the Chief' when they enter the courtroom."
An analysis of nationwide injunctions issued between 2001 and 2023 published last year in the Harvard Law Review revealed that Democrat-appointed judges zealously tried to hamstring the first Trump administration. Of a total of 96 injunctions issued across four administrations, the Trump administration was slapped with 64. Of those 64 injunctions, 59 were issued by judges appointed by Democratic presidents. Over 50% of all injunctions issued since 1963 were issued against Trump administration policies.
It appears that Reyes and some of her peers are keen to pick up where their fellow travelers left off.
When the first Trump administration passed a ban on transvestites in the military, the Supreme Court let it take effect in 2019. It did not, however, rule on its constitutionality. Reyes' latest effort to undermine the president may pave the way to such a ruling.
The Pentagon has until Friday to ask a higher court to stay Reyes' order. Failing that, it can appeal.
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The Department of Defense is preparing to slash approximately 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs, a senior defense official told ABC News on Tuesday.
According to the official, the Pentagon intends to reduce its civilian workforce by 5% to 8%. With 878,000 employees, it plans to achieve this partly by not filling vacancies left by the roughly 6,000 staff who leave each month.
'We are confident we could absorb those removals without detriment to our ability to continue the mission.'
A senior defense official told ABC News, "The number sounds high, but I would focus on the percentage, a 5% to 8% reduction is not a drastic one."
The DOD is also reportedly relying on voluntary resignations and the termination of probationary workers to reach its goal.
It is unclear how many civilian employees have opted for the voluntary resignation offer. However, ABC News estimated the total to be approximately 31,000.
The Pentagon has attempted to terminate roughly 5,400 probationary workers, but the cuts are on hold as the move faces legal challenges.
The official told the media outlet that the probationary employees were not let go "blindly based on the time they had been hired" but that they "were documented as significantly underperforming in their job functions and or had misconduct on the record."
"The fact that someone was a probationary employee did not directly mean that they were going to be subject to removal," the official added.
DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth does not want the cut to impact military readiness, adding that the department is evaluating staff individually to ensure critical national security roles are retained, the official said.
While Hegseth has not yet publicly commented on the official's claims, he addressed the impacts of budget cuts in a leaked February memo obtained by the Washington Post.
"The time for preparation is over — we must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence," Hegseth wrote. "Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit."
Hegseth contended that the DOD should implement funding for a "wartime tempo" while offsetting the costs by cutting "low-impact items," the Post reported.
The defense official told ABC News, "We are confident we could absorb those removals without detriment to our ability to continue the mission, and so that's how we can be confident that we don't need to worry about any resulting impact on the uniformed force."
The official noted that "some" of the employment cuts would impact veterans.
"There are so many critical skills and experience that veterans have to offer, and that's part of the analysis when we consider who is contributing to the core mission functions and who should be retained," the official stated.
The DOD did not respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
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In the spring of 2003, the U.S. military spearheaded a major push in high schools nationwide to recruit young women. Military recruiters even called homes asking for high school girls by name.
Meanwhile, military recruiters handed out trendy military “swag” at schools to help boost recruitment efforts. This occurred against the backdrop of the tragic story of 19-year-old Pfc. Jessica Lynch, whom the enemy captured in the post-9/11 Iraq War.
Truly moral nations do not place their women on the front lines.
Her eight days in captivity and her dramatic rescue became a round-the-clock news event. Jessica’s story was initially romanticized to lure young women into military service. Many moms, however, sensed the “fake news” was not telling the whole story.
The heinous reality of Lynch’s captivity, revealed in her authorized biography, “I Am a Soldier, Too,” shattered the romanticized narrative surrounding women in the military. In captivity, Jessica endured three hours of torture by several Iraqis, which included anal sexual assault and rape. Her spine was fractured, her arm shattered, multiple other bones were broken, and she suffered internal injuries.
By the grace of God, Jessica was rescued by U.S. special operations forces from behind enemy lines. When asked eight months later in an interview by ABC’s Diane Sawyer about the decision to include the brutal sexual assault in the book, Lynch — to her credit — said, “It was a decision to tell the reality, not selective parts, of a story of going to war.”
We owe Lynch a debt of gratitude for her honesty and courage in sharing such a painful truth.
In 2013, 10 years after Lynch’s rescue, the Obama administration officially lifted the ban on women serving in combat roles. In fact, women were already serving in combat when Obama initiated this major policy shift, even though Congress had not approved it.
The original policy only allowed women in combat roles if they met the same training standards as men. When they failed to do so, the Pentagon lowered the standards, weakening military readiness and effectiveness. Twelve years of data now justify reconsidering why women were banned from combat roles in the first place.
Beyond physical strength differences, other practical concerns make integrating men and women in training or war zones problematic. These include increased romantic relationships, sexual activity, higher rates of STDs, unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexual assault. Military leadership ignored these concerns to push a political agenda.
Thankfully, the “roar to restore” was heard in the 2024 election.
Moms for America is grateful to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for having the courage to say aloud that women — especially moms — do not belong in combat. Years of radical feminist indoctrination have led young women to believe there is no difference — physical or emotional — between men and women. Such indoctrination has misled women, marginalized men, and perverted the natural chemistry of relationships between them.
Strong, intelligent, determined, and accomplished women have long held critical noncombat roles in the military, including medics, nurses, doctors, intelligence analysts, communications specialists, cybersecurity experts, logistical specialists, linguists, and many others. These roles are no less essential to the military’s mission than the infantry.
Men and women possess incredible and unique gifts and, in some roles, can perform to the same standards. Yet men and women are different, and acknowledging those differences is not discriminatory.
The call to reinstate the ban on women in combat does not disrespect the valued women who serve in the military, the parents who have daughters in the military, or those women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Instead, it is a call back to sanity — to evaluate and assess a policy that never should have been changed.
Lowering standards for women decreases the military’s effectiveness and strength to protect and defend America. Moreover, keeping women in combat puts them at the same risk of torture and rape that Jessica Lynch endured during active combat.
Truly moral nations do not place their women or children on the front lines.
The feminist left has demonized the God-given instinct of men to protect women since at least the 1960s. It is time to tell the truth again. It is OK to say that we want men to protect women — and we are grateful for it.
It’s time to protect once again America’s mothers and daughters: Ban women in combat.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is razing the in-house Pentagon think tank that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) accused last month of "egregious waste, fraud and abuse."
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Thursday, "As part of the Department's ongoing commitment to strengthening our national defense, the Secretary of Defense has directed the disestablishment of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and the development of a plan to rebuild it in alignment with the Department's strategic priorities."
"This decision ensures that our resources are focused on the most pressing national security challenges while maintaining accountability and efficiency," added Parnell.
ONA personnel will be reassigned to mission-critical roles within the Defense Department, noted the spokesman.
Grassley celebrated the move, stating, "After years raising Cain about the Office of Net Assessment's failure to strengthen our national defense and its rampant abuse of taxpayer dollars, I'm thrilled to hear the news that President Trump is abolishing this wasteful and ineffective office."
"Praise the Lord," continued Grassley. "This wise move saves American taxpayers over 20 million dollars a year."
The ONA, which has contracted a lot of work out to Washington, D.C.-based think tanks, was established during the Cold War as an outfit that would go beyond traditional intelligence reporting and short-term trends assessments, and instead provide long-term "comparative assessments of trends, key competition, risks, opportunities, and future prospects of U.S. military capability to the secretary of defense."
The agency, which has apparently had trouble in recent decades performing the very future-oriented work that it was created to do, has sunk time and money into various pet projects, or what former Pentagon press secretary John Kirby alternatively referred to as the study of "'orthogonal' issues — issues that may not obviously appear to affect the department, but that may indeed turn out to have important implications for the future security environment and future warfare that DOD will need to take into account."
The Pentagon confirmed in 2014 that the agency was spending $300,000 annually to study the body language of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Politico noted that this research continued even though the Pentagon admitted that such analysis turned out to be useless regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War, which kicked off that year.
'ONA is not performing its mission for the taxpayer and has engaged in financial waste.'
In his Feb. 7 letter to Hegseth, Sen. Grassley highlighted another pointless study undertaken by the ONA in 2009 that discussed the connection between the American willingness to use military force and the "persistence of Scotch-Irish culture in America" — a culture the authors claimed "must also be understood as having been reinforced by slaveholding, and American Protestant religious beliefs" and shaped by "endemic warfare that placed high value on violent and immediate personal responses to challenges and high loyalty to clan and kin."
Grassley suggested that discussions of Scotch-Irish culture in America and the study speculating about Putin potentially having Asperger's "have nothing to do with ONA's core mission, which is to produce a net assessment that measures our military capabilities against our foreign adversaries."
The senator also raised concerns about the agency's apparent improper classification of contract and project data to "prevent embarrassment," as well as its contracts with Stefan Halper, the professor who helped the Obama FBI get FISA warrants to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign by serving as a confidential informant for the bureau's Crossfire Hurricane operation.
A Pentagon Office of Inspector General audit found various problems with the ONA's contract management and oversight process, noting that in the case of the FBI's Trump campaign infiltrator, the ONA "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations" and "did not require Professor Halper to submit any evidence that he interviewed personnel cited in his proposals and statements of work."
"I remain concerned that ONA is not performing its mission for the taxpayer and has engaged in financial waste," wrote Grassley.
To Grassley's delight, Hegseth has directed the Pentagon's top acquisition official in a memo obtained by Breaking Defense to "ensure that the necessary steps are taken" by department contracting authorities to scrap "all ONA contracts awarded for ONA and ONA-related requirements."
While the defense secretary is gutting the agency, he indicated that he wants a plan in 30 days concerning how to rebuild the office such that it is in accord with the Pentagon's priorities.
The decision has rankled some so-called experts in the D.C. think-tank game who might be out a potential source of income.
Rush Doshi, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations' China Strategy Initiative, called the decision to raze then rebuild the ONA "an enormous mistake."
"This was a little-known but enormously consequential fifty year-old institution that actually thought long-term. It helped us win the Cold War, grasped the China challenge early, and figured out revolutions in warfare," continued Doshi. "When I was at the [National Security Council], ONA produced some of the best analysis anywhere in the USG and had enormous and even historic policy impact. No other institution presently can do what it did. Ending it is another unforced error."
Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the D.C.-based Center for a New American Security, also clutched pearls, suggesting the ONA's overhaul might weaken America's national defense.
Kyle Balzer, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, called it a "poor decision."
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Even leftists know the Constitution would never allow courts to force presidents to enlist deranged men wearing skirts. That's why they hate the Constitution.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a complete overhaul of a Pentagon think tank that infamously gifted lucrative contracts to a key player in the Russia collusion hoax, the Defense Department revealed on Thursday. “As part of the Department’s ongoing commitment to strengthening our national defense, the Secretary of Defense has directed the disestablishment of […]
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