Blog Assignment Three; on a critique of Trumps rescission of the Transgender Rights rule

Trump’s stance on LGBT rights has been all over the place, but his actions this week has finally made apparent his true opinions on the matter. He made the decision to rescind the rule protecting transgender bathroom rights on a national level, and many people had very opinionated responses. I read this opinion piece on the New York Times website. Written by The Editorial Board, the writers dissect the meaning and intentions of this move. The title of the article, “President Trump Breaks a Promise on Transgender Rights” makes it immediately clear that the writers’ intention is to convince their audience that this decision was injurious to a minority group and that this move was a hateful display by the president and those who supported the decision. The opinionated nature of the article would be irritating if it wasn’t so well sourced and backed up, and that is coming from someone who supports the opinion of the article that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was ignorant in making this decision and that his “baffling rationale” helped nothing. In fact the writers believed it did the exact opposite. Mr. Sessions believe that the rule that protected trans rights added to the confusion on the topic and has prompted legal fights that could be much more easily solved if the trans bathroom protection decisions were left to the states to decide. The rule that Obama put in place simply guided the interpretation of the 1978 law in order to support equality for all, and the rescission of the law effectively reinterprets the meaning of the original law, and takes away the individual rights of multiple minority groups. The New York Times caters to a wide audience, and the extremely researched nature of the writings of the Editorial Board supports the idea that the intended audience of this article is most importantly the groups of people who supported the rescission of the law in order to convince them of their ignorance. They used the facts of the laws to support their claims and it is difficult to refute facts, making their argument fairly solid.

The Silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren

No matter which side of this matter you are on, the precedence that this event sets for the future of our Senate is important for everyone to be aware of. This particular article depicting the "Silencing of Elizabeth Warren[...]" appears on CNN. This article focuses on the fact that the silencing of Elizabeth Warren brought far more attention to the point she was trying to make, then just allowing her to read the letter in discussion. It's also curious to consider how Rule 19, used to silence the senator in regards to the nomination of Session's due to apparent "impugning" of another senator, has brought the rarely used rule to the forefront of discussions and raises the possibility of an increase in use.