Crosstalk: March 13, 2018

Mission readiness is critical to the safety and security of our nation. In spite of this there are those seeking to use our military as a social experiment putting political correctness and even transgender activism ahead of all else.

Joining Crosstalk to discuss this issue was Elaine Donnelly. Elaine is the president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent, nonpartisan public policy organization that specializes in military/social issues.

Since February 23, two gender-confused recruits have signed contracts to enlist in the military. The allowance of this began under President Obama who issued an order saying that the military would have to recruit individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria. This is a psychological condition that is defined by confusion about gender identity and requires compassion and competent medical care.

Adding to the force of what President Obama issued, Elaine noted 4 district judges, one who basically stated that this has never been done before but he would issue a preliminary injunction that the military must accept individuals suffering from gender dysphoria or who claim to be transgender.

She explained that if you look at Article I and Article II, you see that Congress has a certain authority over the military. The president and the executive branch also shares such authority. However, in Article III, where it outlines what judges do, there's no word about running the military. In other words, these judges have exceeded their authority.

The Department of Justice has appealed to 2 appeals courts. One is in the District of Columbia and the other is in Baltimore, Maryland. Both of these courts rejected the requests for immediate stays. Elaine believes there should have been an immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case would have gone to the Chief Justice who has jurisdiction over the D.C. courts.

The appeal for a stay has not been filed. Why? Elaine indicated that when the Department of Justice acts as an attorney for a branch of government, that branch must agree to have the appeal go forward. In this case, James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, didn't authorize that appeal. Also, there apparently was a 'study' pending. That 'study' was assigned to a person who helped to implement the Obama policy. This person was put in charge of coming up with recommendations to present to Mattis and he would give them to President Trump.

We don't know exactly what was given to the president, but it's been reported that Mattis said that we should have openly recruited and retained transgenders in the military. This is at odds with what President Trump has said. Now the question is: What will the president do? He's not bound by the recommendations of Mattis and has the legal power to undue what President Obama did.

Other factors are worth considering. For example, people attempting to change genders are not deployable for long periods of time due to the need for medical care and time off for what's called, 'real life experience'. This latter point involves time off to experiment by living as a member of the opposite sex.

How does all this help maintain or improve America's military readiness? Could some individuals see this as an opportunity to scam the system in order to have expensive operations and hormonal therapy paid for at military/taxpayer expense? These and other points are probed by Jim and Elaine on this important edition of Crosstalk.