The Fifth Circuit Issued a Ruling

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Some time ago, recall, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, with the full and enthusiastic support of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, put into effect a Rule (referred to as Guidance Documents in the court’s ruling) that sought to rewrite Title IX to claim that a child’s, or near-adult college student’s, claim of “self-identified” gender was sufficient to allow a boy or a near-adult male access to girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic endeavors as “teammates.”

Texas demurred, and the Fifth Appellate Circuit Court agreed.

Among other things, the court wrote [citations included, emphasis added]:

The Guidance Documents build on previously enjoined guidance issued under President Barack Obama. See Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence B-2, 89 Fed. Reg. 33,474 (Apr. 29, 2014) (“Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity.”); see also 2016 Dear Colleague Letter on Title IX and Transgender Students 2, US Dep’ts of Educ & Justice (May 13, 2016) (informing educational institutions about the new “Title IX obligations regarding transgender students”). This Court enjoined implementation of these prior guidance documents as contrary to law because “the plain meaning of the term sex as used in § 106.33 when it was enacted by [the Department] following passage of Title IX meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.” Texas v United States, 201 F. Supp. 3d 810, 832–33 (N.D. Tex. 2016) (O’Connor, J.).

And [citation included]

…Defendants maintain that their actions will only be final when they apply these interpretations to particular factual circumstances via enforcement. But a substantive interpretation that will eventually result in investigative and enforcement activities constitutes final agency action even if an application to specific individual cases has yet to occur. Cf. MPP, 597 U.S. at 809 n.7 (noting agreement between the majority and dissenting opinions that final agency action exists when the action results in a final determination of rights or obligations regardless of some contingent future event).

And:

Regarding the first vacatur-versus-remand factor, the Department will not be able to justify its decision to create law that Congress did not pass and that the Supreme Court did not allow.
…
Not only are the Guidance Documents contrary to law and in excess of the Department’s authority, but the Department will also not be able to substantiate its decision on remand because there is no possibility that it could correct the fundamental substantive and procedural errors.

Thus, the matter won’t even be sent back to the DoEd for correction: there is no deficiency here that the department is capable of correcting.

And, as bluntly as court rulings get:

Thus, the Court applies this default remedy and VACATES the Guidance Documents on the grounds that the Department enacted a substantive rule that is contrary to law, did so in a manner beyond the scope of its legitimate statutory authority to promulgate it in the first place….

In fine, as the court emphasized at the outset of its ruling,

Having considered the briefing and applicable law, the Court concludes that Defendants cannot regulate state educational institutions in this way without violating federal law.

However, in the end, the ruling applies Texas-wide only; it does not apply to the whole of the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction. The other States in the circuit—Louisiana and Mississippi—will have to go to the expense of bringing their own suits.

The court’s ruling can be read here.

 

h/t Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton.

The Left’s Antisemitic Bigotry

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The blind hatred of the Left for America’s Jews, Israel’s Jews, and for Jews everywhere was on full display in New York City, and the hatred and bigotry is showing no signs of doing anything but growing.

On Monday anti-Israel protesters wouldn’t even let a tribute to Israelis murdered at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 be held in peace.
Hamas massacred some 260 people, mostly young, at that festival. Women were raped and their bodies mutilated before they were killed. The butchery and sadism were the point, inflicted out of hatred merely because the victims were Jews.
The protesters in New York didn’t kill anyone, at least not yet. But the hatred for Jews was on ugly display. The protest was part of a “Citywide Day of Rage” that targeted New York’s museums. The group Within Our Lifetime, which organized the protests, says cultural institutions are “drenched in the blood of Palestine’s martyrs.” They seem to mean the museums’ Jewish donors.
“Long live Intifada,” the crowd cheered, waving flares outside the exhibit commemorating the hundreds who were massacred at the Nova festival. “Israel, go to hell.”

This is the Left from which the Progressive-Democratic Party draws so much support. It’s instructive that, so far at least, the Progressive-Democratic Party as a whole is determinedly silent, choosing to not condemn their supporters’ bigotry, even as the dominant faction of Party, led by Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI) and by Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY), actively celebrates Hamas’ terrorism and their own Jew-hatred.

A Two State Solution

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The Biden administration is looking to offer a “security alliance” to Saudi Arabia that would commit the US to “help defend” it in return for Saudi normalization of relations with Israel. Israel’s end in this deal centers on a quick end to the Hamas-inflicted war in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s commitment to a credible path to a two-state solution with the Palestinians. It’s well enough known that Israel’s current government, and more than a few predecessor governments, don’t like the idea of a Palestinian state on Israel’s border.

I have an idea on the matter, because in my awesomeness (and hubris) of course I do.

I’ve written before about what to do about governing the Gaza Strip once Hamas is destroyed (assuming that’s the outcome of Hamas’ war (which Israel is trying to achieve as quickly as possible despite the roadblocks the Biden administration keeps throwing up)). A Palestinian state next door to Israel might become more palatable to Israel (I obviously don’t speak for them) if more nations than just Israel had some skin in that outcome.

Thus: the defense/two-state commitment might become a serious thing for Israeli consideration if Saudi Arabia, the Abraham Accord nations other than Israel, and Egypt were as deeply involved in that pathway to a Palestinian state as Biden and those other nations want Israel to be.

Let Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Abraham Accord nations, less Israel, be the governing body of a nascent Palestinian state until there is a strong consensus among Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Abraham Accord nations, less Israel, that the Palestinian state is ready for self rule, and Israel agrees with that consensus.

Of course, I’m eliding the reliability of any Biden agreement with a nation that Progressive-Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden promised to treat like a pariah, but we’re already dealing in hopes and dreams; what’s one more in the mix?

I’ll Decide

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George Stephanopoulos is at it again. In a recent interview with CNN, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos (nothing incestuous about news personalities interviewing each other instead of actual news makers—oh, wait…), had this to say about questions that should be asked of former President and current Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump:

If you can’t pass that fundamental threshold of saying, “yes the last election was not stolen,” two, “I will abide by the results of the next election,” then I think that’s all voters and viewers need to know.

And at that point, unless Stephanopoulus got answers of which he personally approved, he’d terminate the interview.

No. Those are valid questions, certainly. However, this voter and viewer—and average American—will decide for himself what he needs to know. He does not need a news personality to filter his knowledge.

The self-important arrogance of Stephanopoulos is a major reason why it’s not possible to take anything the man produces seriously.

Some Thoughts on the Supreme Court

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The Wall Street Journal has an article regarding claimed internal dissention in the Supreme Court. There are some items within that article that triggered my pea brain.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, said she sometimes weeps in her chambers after the conservative majority issues one of its polarizing rulings.

Justice Sotomayor may well weep over the rulings and their nature; emotions can run high. But there’s nothing polarizing over the Court’s decisions to adhere to what our Constitution and a statute actually say, rather than what this or that Justice might wish either to say. Nothing polarizing, that is, except in the fetid imaginations of the Left and of some WSJ news writers.

And this from Daniel Ortiz, a University of Virginia Professor of Law:

There’s a lot of ill will and anger that’s been building up, and now that they are in the crucible, it’s just going to get worse.

A lot of that ill will and anger is borne of the distrust that has developed from the despicable leak of a draft opinion, a leak whose perpetrator has not been identified, and which investigation the Court’s Chief Justice John Roberts apparently has decided not to pursue with any seriousness, using only the Court’s own policing agency, the Marshal of the Supreme Court and her staff, which have no investigatory experience. That much is on the Chief Justice for his decision to not take the leak seriously except rhetorically.

And this:

Democratic lawmakers called on Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from those cases after reports that MAGA-associated flags flew from his homes in Virginia and New Jersey. Alito said no, declaring that his impartiality in the cases couldn’t reasonably be questioned—the legal standard—because it was his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, who raised the flags, at times over his objection.

“At times over his objection” is wholly irrelevant here. The Progressive-Democrats’ objections are insults to all women, not just to Ms. Alito, and to husbands everywhere, not just to Justice Alito. Progressive-Democrats are suggesting that the little woman cannot act on her own initiative, but only within the bounds of husbandly…guidance. And husbands don’t respect their wives’ intelligence and independence of action, needing always to…guide…them in all areas. The little woman isn’t the man’s partner in life, but his subordinate. This is the utter contempt the Left has for the rest of us.