monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

A federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration’s request to delay an order requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits starting Jan. 1 saying the argument for more time seemed based on “vague claims.”

“The Court is not persuaded that Defendants will be irreparably injured by” meeting the New Year’s Day deadline, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

The ruling from Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia follows her earlier opinion blocking the president’s ban on military recruitment of transgender men and women that possibly would have forced the dismissal of current service members starting in March.

“With only a brief hiatus, Defendants have had the opportunity to prepare for the accession of transgender individuals into the military for nearly one and a half years,” when the policy was initially issued in June 2016, she wrote. “Especially in light of the record evidence showing, with specifics, that considerable work has already been done, the Court is not convinced by the vague claims in [the government’s] declaration that a stay is needed.

A second federal judge in Baltimore also issued a preliminary injunction in November that goes further in preventing the administration from denying funding for sex-reassignment surgeries after the order takes effect.

Wow. A political train wreck. In slow motion. As the rising sea inundates our coastline. As California burns. As the former "working class" searches for its next opiate fix. Can the doomsday asteroid be far behind?

Just came across this piece on what may have happened to send Trump and McConnell and others over to support of Moore. TPM

@Lash,
Quote:
I don’t know what Moore did.

blatham wrote:
I will point out one humorous aspect to all this. There is one poster on the site who has tried on a number of occasions to duplicate certain stylistic or rhetorical devices I use. And that's Finn.

Really?

the former waggish nature of our exchanges has soured.

God that is truly awful.

Re: Lash (Post 6554579)
I really don’t understand how you choose when to engage restraint when hearing unproven accusations and when you choose to believe every one of them to obsessive degrees.

What are you, an elitist?

...So one crucial reason why Moore’s most adamant supporters don’t see a scandalized politician is that they see a folk hero. “He’s our Johnny Appleseed, our Davy Crockett,” says Thomas Sparrow, who works on the Moore campaign as a volunteer.

...Ann Bennett, a third-generation Alabama Republican living in Opelika, has a very different view. She says Moore’s actions were like the biblical figures Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow down to, and worship, a golden statue of a king, and were thrown into a furnace for their disobedience. “Roy Moore has to be one of the highest integrity people who have ever entered politics,” Bennett says. “Who else gives up the most powerful positions in the state of Alabama, and the money that came with it?” At one point, Bennett joked Moore may be “far too ethical” for the Senate.

Suspect ID'd in 'attempted terrorist attack'

A Bangladeshi man reportedly inspired by ISIS set off a pipe bomb inside New York's Port Authority bus terminal during rush hour Monday morning, sowing mass chaos but causing few injuries -- likely because the "attempted terrorist" detonated his "low-tech device" prematurely.

Akayed Ullah, 27, set off the "effectively low-tech device" in a subway passageway just before 7:30 a.m., New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news conference. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the explosion "was an attempted terrorist attack."

Ullah strapped the crude pipe bomb to his body with Velcro and zip ties. The suspect allegedly packed the 5-inch metal pipe bomb and battery pack into the right side of his jacket, but the device exploded earlier than intended, law enforcement sources told The New York Post. Cuomo told NY1 officials “have reason to believe that [Ullah] went to the internet and found out how to make a homemade bomb.”

Department of Homeland Security Press Secretary Tyler Houlton said in a statement Ullah entered the U.S. in 2011 from Bangladesh on a chain migration visa. He had used a "passport displaying an F43 family immigrant visa in 2011.