#Talbott v. Trump

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to lift a court order blocking its transgender military ban, reinstating a preliminary injunction that protects active-duty and prospective service members from discharge. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes denied the Department of Justice’s emergency motion to dissolve the injunction she issued last week in Talbott v. United States, which halted enforcement of Executive Order 14183 and related Pentagon guidance targeting service members with a diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria. Reyes had paused the implementation of her preliminary injunction, which was scheduled to take effect Friday at 10:01 a.m. The judge said she would allow the administration time to appeal. The DOJ responded with a filing last Friday claiming the Pentagon had issued new guidance limiting the policy to service members with a current medical condition, and not all transgender people. But Reyes was unconvinced. She reaffirmed her finding that the Department of Defense’s justification for the ban was based on pretext and anti-trans animus. Attorneys for the plaintiffs—represented by GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights—said in court that the government’s filing was a last-minute “shenanigan” meant to delay compliance and mislead appellate courts. The administration had argued that newly issued “Military Department Identification Guidance” narrowed the ban to apply only to service members with a current medical condition and not all transgender people. But Reyes rejected that claim as “unpersuasive,” writing in a blistering 16-page ruling that the government’s arguments “did not sway the Court before; regurgitating them with the MDI Guidance is equally unpersuasive.” “Gender dysphoria is not like other medical conditions, something Defendants well know,” Reyes wrote. “It affects only one group of people: all persons with gender dysphoria are transgender and only transgender persons experience gender dysphoria.” Reyes sharply criticized the government’s attempt to reframe the policy as a neutral medical regulation, writing, “This litigation is not about a medical condition. A medical condition has not given its country decades of military service… People have. Transgender people.”

Trump’s trans military ban is being halted nationwide once again. Good news. 🏳️‍⚧️

[sock-to-the-third]

“If you want to get me an officer of the U.S. military who is willing to get on the stand and say that because of pronoun usage, the U.S. military is less prepared… I will be the first to buy you a box of cigars” [said Judge Ana Reyes].

“Unadulterated Animus” by GLAD [2025_2_19]

[dutchbabey]

This is her by the way. This is Judge Ana Reyes who is absolutely tearing those bad boys up. Go girl!

Literally sobbing. A judge, a US judge defended us. A judge brought up intersex people, uaing the term intersex, to *defend* us by not allowing our erasure. I'm having a lot of feelings right now

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright, Samuel Stagg, Christina Buttons

Published: Mar 14, 2025

Earlier this week, City Journal published the tragic story of Yarden Silveira, a young detransitioner—someone who pursues hormonal and/or surgical “sex change” procedures but then seeks to reverse course—whose life ended abruptly after suffering severe complications from a gender-related genital surgery. What led Yarden to adopt a transgender identity in the first place? In 2014, after encountering the growing wave of pro-trans narratives in popular culture, Yarden told his family that he believed he had a “female brain.” Though initially uncertain, his mother was ultimately convinced by scientific papers that suggested that her son could have a female brain trapped in a male body, and that this mismatch caused him unimaginable distress.

“A trans woman (such as myself) was born with a male body, but she has always had her female brain. Literally born with a female brain,” Yarden wrote in 2016.

This belief was widespread back then—and it still is. On January 31, Wisconsin Public Radio featured an interview with a mother, Carri, concerned about President Trump’s new executive order banning federally funded medical and surgical “sex change” procedures for minors. Carri spoke about her daughter, who identified as transgender at 15 and was allowed to medically transition. She said, “Those hormones really helped match his brain with his body which, to me, that’s just the basic level of care we can provide individuals that identify as trans.”

The power of this narrative in persuading people to pursue, or to allow their children to pursue, irreversible medical procedures cannot be overstated. But the notion that males can have “female brains,” and vice versa, rests on a flawed interpretation of “brain sex” studies that in no way demonstrate or even suggest a definitive biological basis for “gender identity.” Little effort has been made to correct this misleading assertion.

The theory is advanced for relatively straightforward reasons. Civil rights lawyers, activists, and researchers contend that people who identify as transgender possess a “brain sex” misaligned with their physical body, thereby establishing a biological basis for “gender identity” akin to immutable traits like race. This framing carries significant legal weight, as U.S. civil rights law offers strong protections for characteristics considered “innate” or rooted in biology.

In courtrooms, prominent gender clinicians routinely invoke “brain sex” literature to bolster the perceived immutability and innateness of “gender identity.” For example, Daniel Shumer, a pediatric endocrinologist and clinical director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic at Mott Children’s Hospital at Michigan Medicine, provided expert testimony in a case challenging Texas’s prohibition of “gender-affirming care” for minors. He linked “gender identity” to “brain structures,” arguing:

Scientific research and medical literature across disciplines demonstrates that gender identity, like other components of sex, has a strong biological foundation. For example, there are numerous studies detailing the similarities in the brain structures of transgender and non-transgender people with the same gender identity.

Such statements have become standard in legal battles over “gender-affirming care” and other trans-related policies. In Talbott v. Trump, a legal challenge to the president’s executive order barring transgender individuals from military service, Nicolas Talbott—a transgender-identifying female and activist—joined six active-duty service members and two prospective enlistees in arguing that “[s]trong research supports the conclusion that gender identity has a biological basis” and that “transgender women and non-transgender women have similar brain structures, specifically in the volume of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.”

Outside the courtroom, the idea of a brain-body mismatch has permeated popular culture, resonating with the “born this way” narrative embraced by many in the LGBT community. Mainstream television and other media have reinforced the concept. For instance, in a 2009 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, psychiatrist George Huang, played by B.D. Wong, explained that a trans-identified boy had a “female brain”: “For some children, something happens in utero where the brain develops as one gender and the body the other.” Children’s books have reinforced this idea, with the trans-identified protagonist in I Am Jazz declaring, “I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!”

There is reason to believe the “brain sex” narrative has influenced many young people’s decisions to pursue medical transition. In a forthcoming survey conducted by coauthor Buttons, 49.2 percent of detransitioner respondents recalled health-care providers framing the respondents’ transgender identity as a brain condition, using phrases like “male brain in a female body,” or vice versa. In total, 85.7 percent of those surveyed said that their providers characterized transgender identity as an inherent, biological trait that required medical intervention.

To bolster these claims, providers often cite a growing body of scientific literature that purportedly validates the brain-body mismatch hypothesis. These studies claim that the neuroanatomy of people identifying as transgender more closely resembles the brain structures typical of the sex with which they identify, relative to non-transgender-identifying controls. Media amplified these findings, often presenting them as definitive proof that trans-identifying people “are who they say they are.” Headlines such as “Science Proves Transgender People Aren’t Making It Up” and “Transgender people are born that way, a new study has found” further entrench the narrative.

Proponents of these studies, however, rarely possess the expertise and background knowledge needed to examine their methods and conclusions critically. And the culturally charged atmosphere surrounding transgender issues means that facts often take a backseat to politically—and legally—expedient narratives.

The central flaw in current research purporting to validate the cross-sex brain hypothesis is an inconsistent—or complete lack of—control for individuals’ sexual orientation. Why does this matter? Because most people who identify as transgender are not exclusively heterosexual, and same-sex attraction has been linked to neuroanatomical differences that reflect a cross-sex shift—or, more broadly, to a reduction in typical sexual dimorphism (i.e., to having more androgynous brain structures). This raises serious methodological concerns about the extent to which sexual orientation might confound or interact with the neurobiological markers that “brain sex” studies routinely attribute to gender dysphoria. It also raises major ethical concerns about the use of “gender-affirming care” as a form of gay conversion therapy or as a maladaptive coping strategy for gay men.

If one properly controls for sexual orientation, the reported neuroanatomical shifts in transgender brain-scan studies diminish greatly or vanish entirely. To illustrate that point, consider three influential studies examining regional gray matter differences between transgender-identifying individuals and controls. These examples, considered together, illustrate a pervasive problem in the “brain sex” literature.

The first study, by Lajos Simon et al. and titled “Regional Grey Matter Structure Differences between Transsexuals and Healthy Controls—A Voxel Based Morphometry Study,” reported that trans-identifying individuals exhibit brain structures more closely resembling those of the opposite sex, relative to controls. This study is frequently cited as evidence supporting the brain-sex hypothesis. However, a different study by Eileen Luders et al. titled “Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism,” which used similar neuroimaging techniques, found no significant differences overall in gray-matter volume between male-to-female (MtF) trans-identifying individuals and male controls. In one small brain region, the putamen, the MtFs did exhibit a cross-sex shift, relative to their dataset—i.e., putamen volumes in MtFs were larger and more similar to female controls—but this result is anomalous and incongruent with the findings of large-scale studies and meta-analyses demonstrating that males, not females, have larger putamen gray-matter volumes, on average.

A third study, by Ivanka Savic and Stefan Arver titled “Sex Dimorphism of the Brain in Male-to-Female Transsexuals,” comprehensively analyzed structural brain differences using MRI. While the authors observed some structural differences in the brains of trans-identifying men compared with those of non-trans-identifying male controls, these differences did not align neatly with a feminization pattern. Instead, the variations were distinct from typical male or female brain structures, suggesting a unique neuroanatomical profile rather than a simple cross-sex shift. Importantly, Savic and Arver controlled for participants’ sexual orientation and found that, when they did so, the brain differences attributed to gender dysphoria were much less pronounced.

A clear pattern emerges when comparing these and similar studies: the magnitude of the cross-sex shift reported in trans-identified individuals’ brains correlates with the proportion of homosexuals in the sample. For example, in Simon et al.’s study, all transgender participants were homosexual, potentially amplifying participants’ sex-atypical neuroanatomical features. In contrast, Luders et al.’s cohort had a much lower proportion of homosexual participants, coinciding with null findings overall regarding brain feminization. Savic and Arver’s rigorous control for sexual orientation further demonstrates that some neuroanatomical differences previously attributed to gender dysphoria likely reflect—or are confounded by—sexual orientation-related brain variations.

Popular “transgender brain” studies, in short, often fail to control for sexuality, undermining the claim that people with transgender identities have brains that more closely resemble those of the opposite sex.

What would it mean if the “transgender brain” hypothesis were true, and properly controlled studies did document a statistically significant cross-sex shift in the brains of people who identify as transgender? It would not logically follow that a brain scan can capture a person’s “gender identity”—just as brain scans cannot ascertain a person’s sexuality. Differences in group averages do not mean that every individual within a group shares those characteristics. Populations contain variance; for instance, some straight men exhibit brain structures that skew feminine, while some gay men exhibit brain structures that skew masculine. Brain scans therefore cannot verify whether a person is homosexual; nor could they verify whether a person “is transgender.” Brains, like most physical traits apart from primary sex organs, are not discretely sexed; they simply exhibit average differences between the sexes.

Even if there were compelling evidence for “brain sex,” gender clinicians, though often expressing strong confidence in the hypothesis, would be the last to advocate for the use of objective brain scans to validate their claims. Their hesitancy has roots in the history of sexuality research. When scientists proposed the existence of a “gay brain,” many gay rights advocates strongly objected, citing its potential for eugenic abuse (imagine, for example, a drug company developing a fetal “treatment” to “cure” homosexuality based on such findings). Despite progressives’ deep pessimism about science’s potential for abuse, however, many activists still peddle the “brain sex” narrative.

Notably, even though homosexuality is associated with a cross-sex shift in certain brain structures, activists avoid claiming that gays and lesbians exhibit a brain-body mismatch. This avoidance highlights a striking inconsistency in the application of the “brain sex” narrative. For decades, research has shown that homosexuals exhibit subtle neuroanatomical differences that trend toward patterns typical of the opposite sex. Yet, proponents of LGBT rights have rejected the notion that these differences imply a pathological misalignment requiring medical correction.

The persistence of the “brain sex” narrative has real and sometimes tragic consequences. For individuals like Yarden Silveira, it contributed to life-altering—and ultimately life-ending—medical decisions based on a flawed understanding of the science. The notion that transgender identity is rooted in immutable brain structure has led countless young people to undergo unnecessary and often harmful medical treatments, frequently without fully informed consent or consideration of alternative approaches. Challenging that notion isn’t just an academic exercise—it’s a necessary step toward protecting vulnerable individuals from medical abuse.

Policymakers should mandate rigorous, independent reviews of the scientific claims surrounding transgender identity’s supposedly biological basis. This review should include scrutinizing studies that promote the “transgender brain” hypothesis, and incorporate evidence from desistance and detransition research, which highlight how transgender identities are often transient.

Public-health policies must be grounded in comprehensive and unbiased research. Otherwise, vulnerable young people will continue to face irrevocable and potentially devastating treatments.

==

It's funny how there are supposedly no differences between males and females when it comes to sports, and yet there are supposedly MRI-detectable "male brains" and "female brains."

🤔

This ideology is completely incoherent.

It's astonishing how many formerly reputable scientific institutions have embraced abject pseudoscientific gobbledygook.

[the-psudo]

Welcome to the Thirty-Fourth Day

In the case of Talbott v. Trump, Judge Ann Reyes ripped the DOJ lawyer a new one over the absurdity of the argument that using a soldier's preferred pronouns will harm military readiness.

Source for Images (a Politico reporter on Twitter/X)

The case is about Trump trying to kick trans people out of the military. Intersexed people are caught in the crossfire, because the Trump administration doesn't acknowledge their existence enough to carve out an exception for them. And this judge, Ann C. Reyes, is absolutely destroying this DOJ bullshit from the bench.

She's standing up for trans people and for intersexed people. She's standing up against the arbitrary cruelty of this authoritarian regime.

2025-02-22

[meret118]

According to trump, he determines what's legal. Not congress, not the constitution, not scotus. Just trump.

“He who saves his country violates no law.”

. . .

Which is why it’s so troubling that Trump tweeted the same Napoleonic phrase that Breivik made famous. The phrase every white supremacist has memorized, along with the fourteen words and the number 88 as code for “Heil Hitler.”

. . .

The phrase was most recently quoted three weeks ago — on January 24, 2024 — by El Salvador’s notoriously violent and lawbreaking President Nayib Bukele, who also tweeted: “He who saves his country violates no law.”

. . .

So long as he’s “saving the country,” he argues, he’s “violating no law.” It’s why he’s defying court orders right now to eject Musk’s teenage hackers from the Treasury Department or restart NIH and USAID funding.

And, truth be told, six corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have already ratified the White House’s new American dictator doctrine with the Trump v US decision last July, saying that if the president breaks the law while executing “official acts,” he’s immune from criminal prosecution for the crime.

CBS News reporter Jake Rosen tweeted Friday that the Trump DOJ is now filing an official complaint against Judge Ana Reyes, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The administration is arguing that Reyes displayed "hostile and egregious conduct" this week during oral arguments in the Talbott v. Trump case, in which transgender members of the military are alleging the administration's ban on trans service members is unconstitutional.

That's according to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who posted the full text of a letter he received from Edward Martin — the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin's letter is just one of several he sent to Democrats who publicly criticized both Trump and centibillionaire Elon Musk. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also received letters from Martin, with each one including a deadline to respond.

-----

They're threatening prosecution for daring to criticize trump or musk.

[newsmatik]

Doj offers complaints about Federal judge in case of the military force

The Office of the Law (DOJ) provided a complaint between the United States District of Columbia Cirts for the Trump Circtions and the LGBTQ region. The letter was signed by the lawyer of staff, CAD Mizelle, about the DOJ’s signatures that represent the work of Nicolas Talbott et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al. According to the complaint, the text message showing the judgment of the judge of work…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

S. Baum at Erin In The Morning:

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s anti-trans military ban, including “Executive Order 14183—Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” as well as a similar policy issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed—some risking their lives—to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,” wrote Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, in her opinion published today. “In the self-evident truth that ‘all people are created equal,’ all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.” The court affirmed the President’s ability to discern who can serve the military, but emphasized the high standards needed to do so. “Leaders have used concern for military readiness to deny marginalized persons the privilege of serving,” she wrote. “First minorities, then women in combat, then gays.” Today, trans people are the target — Trump’s executive order from January declared that being trans “conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle,” and that it “is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.” The order was accompanied by Hegseth’s anti-trans memo to the Pentagon on Feb. 7. To categorically ban trans people from the military, the government would have to show that trans inclusion has resulted in tangible, material harm.

The court ruled that this is not the case. Even more, Reyes says that neither Trump’s executive order nor Hegseth’s directive seemed to have received input from military rank and file. “Neither document contains any analysis nor cites any data,” Reyes writes. “They pronounce that transgender persons are not honorable, truthful, or disciplined—but Defense counsel concedes that these assertions are pure conjecture.” The plaintiffs, Reyes continues, have cumulatively provided over 130 years of military service. “They have served in roles ranging from Senior Military Science Instructor to Artillery Platoon Commander to Intelligence Analyst to Satellite Operator to Operations Research Analyst to Naval Flight Officer to Weapons Officer,” she writes. “They have deployed around the globe [...] One is presently deployed to an active combat zone. They have earned more than 80 commendations.” The ban was not only discriminatory, Reyes says, but also unscientific. “Who considered the information [...] is anyone’s guess. [Trump officials] do not know. Maybe no one, because one study is eight years old and the other two support Plaintiffs’ position [of opposing a trans military ban].” She characterizes the ban as “soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.”

Judge Ana C. Reyes rules in Talbott v. Trump that Donald Trump’s transphobia-laden ban on trans people serving in the military is “soaked in animus.”

See Also:

The Advocate: BREAKING: Federal judge blocks Trump's transgender military ban

[thewebofslime]

Judicial Watch today announced it received 756 pages of newly uncovered emails that were among the materials former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to delete or destroy, several of which were classified and were transmitted over her unsecure, non-“state.gov” email system. Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury in 2015 that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.” In 2017, the FBI uncovered 72,000 pages of documents Clinton attempted to delete or did not otherwise disclose. Until the court intervened and established a new deadline, the State Department had been slow-walking the release of those documents at a rate that would have required Judicial Watch and the American people to wait until at least 2020 to see all the releasable Clinton material. The production of documents in this case is now concluded with the FBI being only able to recover or find approximately 5,000 of the 33,000 government emails Hillary Clinton took and tried to destroy. Judicial Watch obtained the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, after the State Department failed to respond to a March 4, 2015, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)) seeking: All emails sent and received by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State, as well as all emails by other State Department employees to Secretary Clinton regarding her non-“state.gov” email address. This final batch of Clinton emails includes five new classified emails and communications with controversial figures Lanny Davis and Sidney Blumenthal. On April 27, 2011, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent classified information discussing Palestinian issues to Clinton’s personal unsecure email account. On May 19, 2011, Blair again sent classified information to Clinton’s personal unsecure email account discussing a “speech.” A classified email exchange between Blair and Clinton took place from January 16, 2009 (while George W. Bush was still president) and January 24, 2009. The subject line is “Re: Gaza.” Blair on January 16, 2009, relayed information he learned from Middle East leaders and noted that he wanted to get something “resolved before Tuesday” (when Obama would be sworn in as president). Clinton responded to Blair on January 19, 2009, writing “Tony – We are finally moving and I am looking forward to talking w you as soon as I’m confirmed, tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. Your emails are very helpful so pls continue to use this address,” hr15@att.blackberry.net. Blair followed up by saying “It would be great if we could talk before any announcements are made.” Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane sent Clinton classified information, apparently during early 2009. The subject line of the email is redacted, but the text appears to show a discussion on information about Iraq. In September 2, 2010, email exchange marked classified, longtime Clinton confidante Lanny Davis tells Secretary Clinton that he could serve as a private channel for her to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he had a “private and highly trusted communication line, unofficial and personal, to PM N[etanyahu].” Davis goes on to say “[N]o one on the planet (other than your wonderful husband) can get this done as well as you.…” Secretary Clinton responds with classified information, saying “I will reach out to you directly and hope you will continue to do the same w me. The most important issue now is [Redacted B1].” In a September 18, 2010, email, Davis emails Clinton to tell her that “As soon as I wrote last email, I reverted to my old role as your crisis manager and worrier about you, read the word ‘optics’ I suddenly felt – oops. I am registered under FARA for one or more foreign governments or businesses. I don’t think it would look right. I want to avoid any even slight chance of misperception.” Clinton replies, “Thx for looking out for me, my friend. I’ll tell Cheryl to stand down.” Davis replied, “100% off-the-record.” An email with the subject line “Clinton-Ivanishvili Meeting” shows a meeting with pro-Putin, Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who was reportedly involved in a Russia-rigged election for president of the Republic of Georgia. On May 29, 2012, longtime Clinton political operative Craig T. Smith emailed Cheryl Mills, asking if a meeting between Secretary Clinton and Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili was “happening,” saying: “Would be a good thing if it can work out.” Mills tells Smith she’ll revert and forwards the email to Jake Sullivan, Human Abedin and Lona Valmoro, asking them if they were setting up the meeting, noting that it involved “meeting with the opposition” and asking what she could tell Smith. Valmoro responds that the meeting with Ivanishvili was “on the schedule.” An undated email from former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott to Clinton discusses that “VP” Joe Biden was “thinking seriously about a Biden-Putin Commission.” The documents reveal that Clinton had been assigned an official government email address with which she could have conducted government business, clintonhr@state.gov. She also reportedly had additional government addresses at her disposal: SMSGS@state.gov and SSHRC@state.gov, neither of which were configured to send or receive emails. The documents uncovered by Judicial Watch also include an email to Tamera Luzzatto, former chief of staff during Clinton’s tenure as U.S. Senator for New York. Clinton talks about getting “a secure computer set up soon.” Tamera–this is my new address, but, pls know, I cannot check it during the day unless I leave my office. I hope to have a secure computer set up soon to be able to get email during the workday. Much love, H. On October 29, 2009, a Clinton Foundation employee and close Clinton adviser Sid Blumenthal forwarded a proposal for a commercial contract related to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from retired CIA officer-turned-contractor Gary Berntsen, to Clinton (copying Cheryl Mills), saying that Berntsen had been “unable to break through the bureaucracy with it.” Mills then forwarded the email to Jake Sullivan. Blumenthal noted that “Cody [Shearer] and I are following up.” Blumenthal and Shearer were both implicated in the creation of the Obama administration’s anti-Trump Russia “collusion” counterintelligence operation by providing “reports” relating to Trump-Russia collusion to the U.S. Government. On January 29, 2009, Blumenthal emailed Secretary Clinton a memo he titled “Good Cop, Bad Cop”, where Blumenthal informs Clinton that his sources tell him that an “attack” on the appointment by Obama of former Sen. George Mitchell as Special Envoy to the Middle East was “coordinated by Jewish institutional leaders and carefully scripted.” Also cited is Mitchell’s “Arab descent” as making him “politically vulnerable.” Blumenthal told Clinton that any conversations she had with Netanyahu “flows directly and instantly back to top (U.S.) Jewish leadership.” Further on in his memo, Blumenthal says that Netanyahu and “Jewish leadership” should “be expected to use political means, including outsourcing personal attacks” to counter Obama administration moves and said Netanyahu was “deeply connected to political networks in the U.S. – media, Jewish groups, Republican leaders, and right-wing Christian” organizations. To provide a “heat shield” from Netanyahu’s attacks, Blumenthal advises Clinton that Obama should hire a “bad cop” who is “organically tied to the President” and a “political appointee, Jewish, considered a true friend of Israel…” Clinton responded by saying, “Thanks for these. And I will call you in the next few days.” In an October 20, 2012, email exchange between top State Department and Clinton Foundation officials discussing arrangements for Bill and Hillary’s trip to Haiti. That trip focused on the opening of the Caracol Industrial Park, funded by a $300 million+ grant from USAID. The Caracol Park came to be seen as a hugely wasteful disaster, that was supposed to create 65,000 jobs for Haitians but as of January 2015 only produced 4,500. On January 25, 2009, Chelsea Clinton’s high school friend Nicole Davison (now Nicole Davison Fox), made a hiring recommendation to Secretary Clinton for the State Department. Clinton forwarded Davison’s recommendation on to Cheryl Mills, telling Mills to “follow up” on the “wonderful recommendation.” Mills replied, “K.” Maggie Williams, campaign manager of Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid, forwarded to Clinton a note sent to her by then-managing partner of the Gallup Organization, which said that “Gallup Polls suggest Obama’s plan to expedite withdrawal from Iraq could help improve some residents’ opinion [referring to Iraqis’ opinion of US leadership.]” Williams proposed to Secretary Clinton sending a group of high-level State Department officials to Gallup “for a presentation”, including Jack Lew, Jim Steinberg, Cheryl Mills and Lissa Muscatine. Williams would later suggest adding Jake Sullivan and Anne-Marie Slaughter to the Gallup presentation. On February 18, 2009, chairman of telecom company Centurylink, Bill Owens, emailed Clinton (copying Abedin) asking if he could get a meeting with the secretary during her upcoming trip to China. Abedin responded, saying that she was talking to Owens’ assistant to “arrange for the two of you to visit for a few minutes” during Clinton’s trip. Owens had been appointed Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. After retiring from the Navy in 1996, he became chairman of defense contractor SAIC. In a January 3, 2011-March 1, 2011, email thread, Susanne Helmsley, a staffer at the World Economic Forum (ie, Davos) emailed leftist Christian writer-activist Jim Wallis to inform him that former British PM Gordon Brown would not be invited to the upcoming Davos meeting, because “our policy (and this makes Davos distinctive) is to only invite people who are still in power.” She also noted that the “theme” of the upcoming Davos meeting would be “Shared Norms for the New Reality”, noting that “the discussions of values will be a major element in Davos, since norms are only sustainable if built on values.” Wallis mentions his prior partnership with Bangladeshi banker Mohammad Yunus, who would be charged the next year with tax fraud and embezzling from the bank he’d founded, Grameen Bank. On five occasions Clinton’s secretary, Lauren Jiloty, sent Clinton’s sensitive daily itinerary to her on her unsecure email account. On January 29, 2009, State Department official Ashley Yehl received a Judicial Watch press release from Associated Press reporter Matt Lee about a lawsuit Judicial Watch filed on behalf of State Department official David Rodearmel challenging Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State. Yehl forwarded the email on to several other State people, who in turn forwarded it on to State’s Legal Office and official James Thessin. Thessin sent it along to Cheryl Mills who sent it on to Secretary Clinton, assuring Clinton that the Department of Justice would defend her against the Judicial Watch lawsuit. “We continue to uncover classified information mishandled by Hillary Clinton in emails that she tried to hide or destroy. This is further evidence of the urgency for the DOJ to finally undertake a complete and legitimate criminal investigation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Attorney General Barr should immediately order a new investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.”

[newstfionline]

Trump Opens His Arms to Russia. His Administration Closes Its Fist.

By Mark Landler and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, NY Times, July 14, 2018

WASHINGTON--It was a jarring moment, even for an American leader whose curious attraction to Russia has often resulted in mixed messages from the United States.

Just a few hours after President Trump doused expectations of extracting any confession from President Vladimir V. Putin on Russia’s election meddling when they meet on Monday, his own Justice Department issued a sweeping indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.

The move demonstrated how he is almost wholly untethered from his administration when it comes to dealing with Moscow. Whether it is Russia’s interference in the election, its annexation of Crimea or its intervention in Syria, Mr. Trump’s statements either undercut, or flatly contradict, those of his lieutenants.

The disconnect is so profound that it often seems Mr. Trump is pursuing one Russia policy while the rest of his administration is pursuing another.

As Mr. Trump prepares to meet with Mr. Putin in Finland, diplomats and former government officials said these contradictions would undermine both the president’s efforts to cultivate a relationship with Mr. Putin and his government’s efforts to halt Russia’s campaigns to damage American democratic institutions and bully its neighbors.

“The president has hobbled his own executive branch, and the executive branch has hobbled its own president,” said Strobe Talbott, a Russia expert who served as deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration and was president of the Brookings Institution. “It’s a three-legged race with the contestants going in opposite directions.”

This past week provided a spectacle of crossed signals on Russia. In Europe, Mr. Trump disparaged the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, while in Washington, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, somberly announced the latest round of indictments in the case.

“I call it the rigged witch hunt,” Mr. Trump said, as Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain looked on. “I think that really hurts our country and it really hurts our relationship with Russia.”

A few hours later, Mr. Trump’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, compared the danger of Russian cyberattacks to the stream of terrorist threats against the United States before Sept. 11, 2001. He said Mr. Putin should be held responsible for them.

The president typically adopts a tone of weary irritation when he is asked about questioning Mr. Putin on the topic of election meddling, like a parent being asked by a child, for the 20th time, whether a long family drive is almost over.

“Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin, after the two spoke in Vietnam last November. “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry, echoing Mr. Trump’s claim of a “deep state” conspiracy behind the special counsel inquiry, said late Friday that political forces in the United States that are opposed to a rapprochement had timed the release of the new indictments to “spoil the atmosphere” before the Russian-American summit meeting.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

According to a newly filed document in Talbott v. Trump—the court case that will determine whether transgender people can continue to serve in the U.S. military—the military now plans to ask all service members if they exhibit “symptoms” of being transgender. The filing signals a shift from targeting only openly transgender individuals to potentially investigating those who are closeted or concealing their transgender status. Filed on March 21, the document states that the policy will not be implemented unless the preliminary injunction blocking the military ban, issued last week, is lifted. The document states that “Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are no longer eligible for military service.” While a footnote clarifies that the symptoms must be “marked and clinically significant,” such determinations are typically made confidentially between a psychologist and patient. Regardless, the language appears deliberately broad, seemingly designed to target not only openly transgender individuals but also those who are closeted or have not disclosed their identity.

Furthermore, the filing states that all service members will be asked about gender dysphoria. It notes that “service members have a responsibility to report medical issues,” and instructs unit commanders to include gender dysphoria evaluations as part of the Individual Medical Readiness program. The Periodic Health Assessment questionnaire—which all service members are required to complete—will now include a question asking whether they are transgender or exhibit symptoms of gender dysphoria. Those who answer yes will be evaluated and recommended for separation from service. The idea that there is a medical justification for the ban and accompanying questionnaire is undercut by the language of the executive order itself. 

According to a newly filed document in Talbott v. Trump, the US Military now plans to ask all service members if they exhibit “symptoms” of being transgender as part of the war on trans people.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

One day after Department of Justice lawyers struggled to explain the need for a ban on transgender people‘s service in the U.S. Armed Forces to a federal judge in Washington, D.C., the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to purge transgender service members from the military have taken another step forward. The U.S. Department of the Navy has issued formal procedures for the removal of transgender personnel, filing the directive in federal court Thursday as part of an ongoing legal battle. The new guidance orders the Navy and Marine Corps to begin involuntary separations of service members with a history of gender dysphoria after March 28, two days after a previous March 26 deadline for voluntary separations—unless they obtain a so-called “waiver,” which, according to legal experts, is nothing more than an illusion. The administration claims the waiver provides a path for transgender troops to remain in service, but critics and attorneys involved in the case say the requirements are designed to be impossible to meet. For a waiver to even be considered, service members must have lived as their assigned sex at birth for 36 consecutive months, never attempted a gender transition, and be willing to adhere to all military standards associated with their sex assigned at birth. In short, the waiver is only available to those who are not—and have never been—transgender. The Navy’s directive follows President Donald Trump’s executive orders—Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which reversed previous policies that allowed transgender individuals to serve openly. The new procedures not only eliminate accommodations for transgender service members but also revoke past exemptions and establish rigid guidelines for both voluntary and involuntary separation.

[...] U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, who is presiding over Talbott v. Trump, one of two legal challenges to the ban, has openly criticized the administration’s justification for the policy. In a Wednesday hearing, Reyes questioned the government’s failure to provide evidence that transgender service members negatively impact military readiness. She also addressed the impossibility of meeting the waiver’s requirements, emphasizing concerns raised by legal experts who have called the process a deceptive attempt to avoid outright acknowledging a ban.

Beginning March 28th, the Pentagon will begin to kick out trans troops. What a bigoted disgrace! Trans troops have ZERO impact on military readiness, and if anything, this move weakens military readiness.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

The Department of Defense issued its new military policy on Wednesday banning all transgender people who are living as themselves from joining or continuing to serve in the military. Under the policy, “separation actions” of current service members who are transgender are to begin within the next two months. The policy, implementing President Donald Trump's anti-trans military executive order, was filed Wednesday night on the docket in one of the cases challenging the executive order. The policy — “Service Members and Applicants for Military Service who Have a Current Diagnosis or History of, or Exhibit Symptoms Consistent with, Gender Dysphoria“ — was issued by Darin Selnick, an official “Performing the Duties of Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.” According to his Defense Department bio, “Mr. Selnick leverages his extensive government and non-government experience advocating for veterans to position Service members for productive post-separation lives from the first day they put on a uniform.” On Wednesday, Selnick “advocated for veterans” by creating many more of them — putting in place a policy that would kick all trans service members out of the military.

In an egregious attack on military readiness, Department of Defense will begin the process to kick out all currently serving trans troops from the military within the next couple of months. 🏳️‍⚧️

See Also:

USA Today: Pentagon issues transgender policy requiring waiver to serve in military

The Guardian: Transgender US military personnel must be identified and stood down, says Pentagon memo

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Marcie Jones at Wonkette:

In a world of disheartening news, let us enjoy Judge Ana Reyes’s epic scorching of Trump lawyers in court, in a hearing that will continue today!

ICYMI, Donald Trump banned trans people from serving in the military (again) with his “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” Executive Order, which followed his bonkers order about sexes producing large and small reproductive cells that actually proclaimed everybody is nonbinary, because his administration does not actually understand how biological sex works. Then Defense Secretary Shitfaced, AKA Pete Hegseth, followed that up with a memorandum “pausing” all “medical procedures” associated with “facilitating a gender transition.” So that got Bone Spurs and Secretary Shitfaced immediately sued by transgender people actively pursuing enlistment, and transgender service members — some of them much longer-serving and more qualified than Hegseth— who are represented by Jennifer Levi of GLAD Law and Shannon Minter from the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), in a case called Talbott v. Trump. And the government’s case is being defended by DOJ attorney Jason Lynch, who also happened to be on the team prosecuting Hunter Biden. Here’s a picture of him from LinkedIn, so you can better picture him being humiliated in the story to come.

So now to court, where the case just happened to get the first openly gay DC federal judge. And would you believe that the DOJ struggled mightily and failed miserably to come up with any defense whatsoever? The following is compiled from transcriptions by Michael Paulauski, Kyle Cheney and The Independent, to the best of our wonkability. Grab a bag of Cheez Balls for this one, it’s real good! First, Judge Reyes got both sides to agree that it's reasonable for the US military to prioritize lethality and readiness and that the White House is owed deference to oversee the military. Sure! And she got DOJ lawyer Jason Lynch to agree that the plaintiffs served honorably, truthfully and with discipline, and made America safer, and that they had already all been determined to be mentally and physically fit to serve by the military, gender dysphoria and all. Queried the judge: “If you were in a foxhole, you wouldn’t care about these individuals’ ‘gender ideology,’ right?” Lynch agreed. And would Lynch pick one of the plaintiffs in that circumstance over someone with less experience? Why, you betcha! And it was all downhill from there for Lynch. He tried to argue that Trump’s executive order on military service by transgender people does not bar all transgender people serving in the military, which was reportedly baffling to the judge, and anyone else with eyeballs who read the order. What other conclusion could anybody come to from the sentence “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service”? Or the part where it accuses trans service members of being mentally ill and unable to adhere to an honor code that requires a “commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life”? (Hoo boy, is that rich coming from Hegseth! And Trump!) Then the judge zeroed right in on the bullshit about pronouns: “The Secretary shall promptly issue directives for DoD to end invented and identification-based pronoun usage to best achieve the policy outlined in section 2 of this order,” and the order’s whinings that President Joe Biden’s policy was “inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

Love this. Trump’s anti-trans military EO’s defense got scorched.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Federal judge mocks Donald Trump’s “frankly ridiculous” trans military ban

The Advocate: Federal judge roasts Trump DOJ attorney over ‘frankly ridiculous’ claims in transgender military ban case

Law Dork: DOJ lawyer tells judge animus wouldn't be the end for Trump's anti-trans military EO

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

A Justice Department lawyer on Tuesday afternoon insisted that, even if President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to bar transgender people from the military was motivated by animus, the Pentagon should still be allowed to implement it. The claim from DOJ Special Litigation Counsel Jean Lin drew a surprised response from U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who suggested past cases, including 1996’s Romer v. Evans, strongly counsel otherwise. [...]

Both judges, Reyes and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, appeared to come away from their engagement on the issues Tuesday with substantial — if not yet determinative — skepticism of Trump’s anti-trans actions. Reyes, a Biden appointee who was born in Uruguay in the 1970s and moved to the United States as a child, is a lesbian who is the first out LGBTQ person on the federal district court in D.C. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, was born in the 1940s, appointed to the federal bench before Reyes graduated from high school, and took senior status more than a decade ago. At 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, following a hearing earlier in the day, Lamberth issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the Trump administration for now from implementing either of two provisions in his January 20 executive order defining “sex” that relate to prisons. One would block trans women from women’s prisons, and the other would prohibit trans people from receiving gender-affirming medical care. [...]

The military case

Soon after Reyes, a Biden appointee, set a schedule for briefing on the preliminary injunction request filed Monday in the military case, which would have arguments begin at 10 a.m. February 18, the case took a turn. The plaintiffs soon thereafter Tuesday filed for more expedited relief — a motion for a TRO — after receiving word that a trans woman in military training in South Carolina was removed from the women’s barracks and told that she “is already being administratively separated based on the Order,” as the plaintiffs discussed in their legal filing supporting their TRO motion. [...] When Lin still wouldn’t budge, Reyes then moved on to the question of whether the order was motivated by animus, noting Trump’s campaign statement that he would “stop the transgender lunacy.” When Lin responded, “I don’t have an answer,” Reyes moved to the executive order’s language that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.“ Lin told Reyes, “You’re putting me in a difficult position,” a statement that led Reyes to shoot back that there are often difficult questions in the practice of law and that that is why we went to law school.

Jean Lin got rekt by Judge Ana Reyes during the Talbott v. Trump hearing, the case that deals with Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order that bans trans people from the military (EO 14183).

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Federal judge mocks Donald Trump’s “frankly ridiculous” trans military ban

The Advocate: Federal judge roasts Trump DOJ attorney over ‘frankly ridiculous’ claims in transgender military ban case

Wonkette: President Bone Spurs’ Anti-Trans Military Order Epically Scorched In Court

[newstfionline]

Putin and Merkel: A Rivalry of History, Distrust and Power

By Alison Smale and Andrew Higgins, NY Times, March 12, 2017

BERLIN--He was skinny in his trim, dark suit, an almost lupine figure, nervous and unexpectedly youthful for a president of Russia. Taking the lectern beneath the dome of the restored Reichstag, Vladimir V. Putin soon shifted to German, with a fluency that startled the German lawmakers and a pro-West message that reassured them. The Cold War seemed over.

It was 2001, just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mr. Putin pledged solidarity with America while also sketching a vision of Russia’s European destiny. He was the first Russian leader to address the German Parliament, and lawmakers jumped to their feet, applauding, as many deputies marveled that he could speak their language so well.

Except for Angela Merkel, then the relatively untested leader of the opposition. She joined the standing ovation but turned to say something to a lawmaker who had grown up in the formerly Communist East, as she had. She knew how Mr. Putin’s German had gotten so good.

“Thanks to the Stasi,” Ms. Merkel said, a reference to the East German secret police Mr. Putin had worked alongside when he was a young K.G.B. officer in Dresden.

Fast-forward more than 15 years, to a world where the Cold War seems resurgent, which has seen a procession of American and European leaders try and fail to engage Russia, and only Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin remain. Their relationship, and rivalry, is a microcosm of the sharply divergent visions clashing in Europe and beyond, a divide made more consequential by the uncertainty over President Trump’s policy toward Russia and whether he will redefine the traditional alliances of American foreign policy.

Ms. Merkel, 62, is now the undisputed leader of Europe, weary but resolute, the stolid defender of an embattled European Union and of Western liberal values. Mr. Putin, 64, is now the equivalent of a modern Russian czar, who wants to fracture Europe and the liberal Western order. He has outlasted George W. Bush and Barack Obama in America, and Tony Blair, David Cameron, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy in Europe.

Now Europe’s fate is on the line, with coming elections in the Netherlands, France, possibly Italy and in Germany, where Ms. Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor. If not on any ballot, Mr. Putin is a shadow figure in every race, inspiring angry European populists who embrace his nationalistic ethos, while Russia is also suspected of meddling through cyberhacking and spreading disinformation. Toppling Ms. Merkel would mean Mr. Putin had bested his last rival.

“Chancellor Merkel is the most steadfast custodian of the concept of the liberal West going back 70 years,” said Strobe Talbott, who was President Bill Clinton’s leading adviser on Russia, “and that makes her Putin’s No. 1 target.”

The new geopolitical dynamics will be on display on Tuesday, when Ms. Merkel visits the White House for her first meeting with Mr. Trump. Mr. Putin, in turn, on Thursday invited the German chancellor to visit Moscow in the near future. It is a poker game featuring two inscrutable players with a long history--and a new, inscrutable third participant.

Back in 2000, as the West struggled to size up the new Russian leader, the puzzlement was distilled in a panel question at the elite talkfest at Davos, Switzerland: “Who is Mr. Putin?” Years later, Mr. Putin remains an enigma, sometimes depicted as a cartoonish, shirtless macho man, or drawn as a master political strategist, a Slavic Machiavelli.

But equally apt is this question: “Who is Ms. Merkel?” Pragmatic, nonideological and cautious, Ms. Merkel, too, remains largely unknowable. Her status as Germany’s “Mutti,” or “Mother,” is mostly a reflection of the biases of the country’s male-dominated media and political class, still unsure how to categorize a powerful woman.

Between them, there have been dozens of meetings and scores of telephone calls over the years, if never a breakthrough moment nor a partnership of the sort that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain once forged with the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev. If that pair helped the world out of the Cold War, Mr. Putin and Ms. Merkel’s relationship often seems trapped in it, shaped by their very different experiences in East Germany.

Never a friend nor an open foe, Ms. Merkel has always sought to nudge Mr. Putin and Russia toward a relationship rooted in rules rather than emotion, a comity built on clearly defined common interests, not personal chemistry. Mr. Putin, in turn, has longed for a transactional leader in Europe, someone who would strike a grand bargain and guarantee Russia a fixed, even privileged, place at the decision-making table.

Before Ms. Merkel took power, Mr. Putin had that rapport with her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. Now it is one of Mr. Schröder’s heirs, Martin Schulz, leading the center-left Social Democrats, who poses the biggest challenge to Ms. Merkel. Having the Social Democrats back in power, with their warmer embrace of Russia, would be a boon to Mr. Putin--just as he is hoping for friendlier leadership in France, and with Mr. Trump in the United States.

Ms. Merkel traces her first political memory to when she was 7, living in East Germany in the town of Templin, where her father was a Lutheran pastor. On Aug. 13, 1961, a Sunday, the news came that the Soviets had started constructing a wall to divide Berlin between East and West. As young Angela watched, many of her father’s parishioners wept openly in church that morning.

Her most fateful moment came in November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. The long years between those bookend events shaped the politician Ms. Merkel would become: cautious, calculating, yet also idealistic; deeply suspicious of Russia, if fascinated by it, having studied Russian literature and culture and attained enough of a fluency in the language to win a prize and travel around the Soviet Union as a student.

Growing up in East Germany, in what she would describe as a dictatorship, Ms. Merkel became accustomed to regurgitating nonsensical Soviet platitudes, or listening to the mind-numbing decrees broadcast daily on state radio. “We had to deal with this every day,” Ms. Merkel recalled in a 2009 interview with the newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “It’s a miracle that we could even unlearn it.”

Not surprisingly, Ms. Merkel doesn’t get misty-eyed about the Russians. In East Germany, the Stasi and the K.G.B. oversaw one of the Soviet bloc’s most extensive spy states. Mistrust and mediocrity were rife, yet, Ms. Merkel has noted, few really thought the system would collapse.

“And just when almost nobody believed it possible anymore,” she once recalled, “it happened.”

For Ms. Merkel, the lesson is that resolving some things, such as the conflict in Ukraine, takes a long time, and patience is essential. Yet for Mr. Putin, the lesson may be that seemingly impregnable political systems can be unexpectedly vulnerable.

Born in 1952, Mr. Putin grew up in a communal apartment in the tough back streets of what was then Leningrad, the city that had survived a Nazi siege and famine, which claimed the life of an older brother he never knew. Mr. Putin studied law in Leningrad, while Ms. Merkel chose science, a subject where, she said decades later, “you could change the facts less” than in something like history or law as taught by the Communists.

He joined the K.G.B. and in 1985 was stationed in Dresden, a backwater posting in East Germany. After the Berlin Wall fell, Germans rejoiced at the reunification of their country and the departure of Soviet troops, while Ms. Merkel soon plunged into the newly democratic politics of her new country.

By contrast, Mr. Putin has lamented that it all happened too fast, once describing the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

“We would have avoided a lot of problems if the Soviets had not made such a hasty exit from Eastern Europe,” he told three Russian journalists commissioned by the Kremlin to write a book about him in 2000.

Mr. Putin, the K.G.B. agent, watched in horror from Dresden. The local Stasi boss, with whom the K.G.B. worked closely, was detained and committed suicide by taking sedatives and lying down beside an oven belching gas. Mr. Putin later recalled how an angry crowd in “an aggressive mood” gathered outside the K.G.B. offices. Fearing mayhem, Mr. Putin asked for help from Soviet military forces stationed nearby but was told that the order must come from Moscow.

“Moscow is silent,” he was told. The crowd finally dispersed, but the drama left Mr. Putin with “the feeling that the country no longer existed.”

Mr. Putin later described the lesson he learned: that power had to be asserted boldly, at home and abroad, if Russia was to avoid the same fate as the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, he recalled, “had a terminal illness without a cure: a paralysis of power.”

If not accidental leaders, Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin were unexpected ones.

Little known to the outside world or even to the Russian public, Mr. Putin became president after Boris N. Yeltsin dramatically resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999. Soon afterward, Ms. Merkel took charge of the center-right Christian Democratic Union by pushing aside her mentor, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Underestimated as a female politician, Ms. Merkel proved the skeptics wrong when she became chancellor in 2005.

During Ms. Merkel’s first official visit to Moscow in early 2006, Mr. Putin demonstrated his style of gamesmanship, presenting her with a stuffed toy dog even though the Kremlin had been alerted that she was uneasy around dogs. During talks held a year later on the Black Sea, he let his large black Labrador into the room.

Yet Ms. Merkel continued the German tradition of frequent meetings with Russian leaders, positioning herself as Europe’s main interlocutor to Russia, while maintaining the centuries-old business relationships between the two powers.

Konstantin Eggert, a Russian journalist who has spoken privately with Ms. Merkel over the years, said the Kremlin never understood the chancellor, believing that, like Mr. Schröder, “she would be in thrall to German business and the traditional German faith to Ostpolitik.

“But she was not in thrall to anybody, or anything.”

Mr. Kohl bonded with Mr. Gorbachev in the sauna. Mr. Schröder appealed to Mr. Putin as a kindred manly spirit. Not Ms. Merkel. “What she always found distasteful was these man things,” said Stefan Kornelius, a Merkel biographer.

Instead, Ms. Merkel has impressed Mr. Putin with her grasp of detail, a quality he shares, and her knowledge of Russia and its culture and her readiness to stand up for her views--just as he does for his own. At a security conference attended by Ms. Merkel in Munich in February 2007, Mr. Putin made what is now considered a pivotal speech, signaling his turn against the West and lambasting American domination of world affairs.

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who was Ms. Merkel’s defense minister, recalled that while many in the audience, including American officials, were shocked and alarmed by Mr. Putin’s tone, Ms. Merkel “did not seem to be surprised. She already had an extremely cautious view about Mr. Putin’s wider strategy.”

And if there is a symbol of how things have changed since Mr. Putin’s pro-West speech at the Reichstag in 2001, consider this: Last month, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced it would build a scale model of the Reichstag on the outskirts of Moscow. It is not a tribute or gesture of friendship. It will be used to train young Russian patriots on how to storm buildings in a time of war.