Biden escalates US military response to Ukraine War by authorizing activation of 3,000 reserve troops

Diana Glebova

The Daily Caller

President Joe Biden on Thursday, July 13, granted the U.S. military permission to activate upwards of 3,000 reserve troops to augment its response to the war in Ukraine.

Biden authorized the secretary of defense and the secretary of homeland security to activate “any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category.”

The unit groups are “not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve,” the statement added. It remains unclear whether or not

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin intends to activate the reserve troops.

“These are not additional forces; these are forces that will augment what we already have there. So as an example, over time, where we may have had someone from an active-component organization doing something, that job now under these authorities may be something that a reserve component unit may be able to do,” Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II said in a statement.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday touted America’s involvement in aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia, saying the world should show “gratitude” for the billions the U.S. government has provided.

“The United States of America has stepped up to provide an enormous amount of capacity to help ensure that Ukraine’s brave soldiers have the ammunition, the air defense, the infantry fighting vehicles, the mine-clearing equipment and so much else to be able to effectively defend against Russia’s onslaught and to take territory back,” Sullivan said. “I think the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude — from us, from the United States, from our government — deserve gratitude for their willingness to step up, and from the rest of the world, as well.”

Biden spoke to NATO leaders in Lithuania on Thursday and assured them the U.S. would help Ukraine for as long as it takes. He said Ukraine is not yet ready to join NATO due to the country being at war with Russia.

“I think we have to lay out a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO,” Biden said on CNN.

The president has also said there is “no possibility” Russian President Vladimir Putin can win the war in Ukraine.

Supreme Court could end up deciding the fate of child sex change bans

Katelynn Richardson

Contributor to the Daily Caller

The Sixth Circuit’s decision to allow Tennessee’s ban on sex change procedures for minors to take effect last week signals the issue could soon be heading to the Supreme Court. If another circuit court comes to a different conclusion than the Sixth Circuit in one of the many pending lawsuits against such bans, “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal,” Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits over child sex change bans in multiple states, including Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky. A federal appeals court’s decision to allow Tennessee’s child sex change ban to take effect could mean the Supreme Court will soon be asked to weigh in on the issue.

After midnight on July 8th, the Sixth Circuit paused a lower court’s injunction on Tennessee’s ban on providing children with sex change surgeries, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and “any drug or device” intended for the same purposes. With lawsuits challenging similar bans popping up throughout the country and multiple cases now being appealed in the circuit courts, Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation “there’s no question” the issue will end up before the Supreme Court.

“These are emergency motions where these judges are having to determine whether a state’s interest in protecting the welfare of children outweighs a parents’ interest in getting experimental medical treatment,” Perry explained.

If another circuit court determines, contrary to what the Sixth Circuit just found, that a parent has a right to “experimental medical care” for their children, Perry said “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal.”

The Supreme Court, she noted, has “never held that there is an unfettered right to get experimental medical treatment for one’s children.”

Gene Hamilton, general counsel and vice president at America First Legal (AFL), told the DCNF AFL is “optimistic that other courts will follow the Sixth Circuit’s lead in rejecting attempts by the radical left to accomplish through the courts what they cannot achieve legislatively.”

“The [Sixth Circuit] Court rightly held that the plaintiffs were not likely to prevail on their due process and equal protection claims, which were novel and rooted in political activism rather than the Constitution,” Hamilton said. “The Supreme Court has not extended either area of law to cover procedures and treatments that amount to genital mutilation or chemical castration of children, and we suspect that it will not do so absent an unprecedented courtpacking by the Biden regime.”

Obama-appointed Eastern District of Arkansas Judge Jay Moody struck down Arkansas’ law in June. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton-appointee, also granted a preliminary injunction in June preventing Florida’s ban from being enforced against the plaintiffs who sued, asserting in his opinion that “gender identity is real.”

The case against Florida’s law will soon be appealed in the 11th Circuit, Perry told the DCNF. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits often argue “gender-affirming care” is

“medically necessary” to prevent mental health problems like anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.

Contrary to the opinions issued by the Florida and Tennessee trial courts, Perry said there is “no data to support the fact that this is life saving care.”

“In fact, suicidal idealation likely to remain after these particular hormone or surgical interventions,” Perry told the DCNF. “That is, behind all of this, one of the great tragedies in this push towards gender-altering treatments that we’re seeing in these federal trial courts across the country.”

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