Ok he’s dead, ok we killed him, but it wasn’t murder, it was an interrogation gone wrong, all right? Are you happy now?

The Saudi government is preparing to say that the death of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi was the result of an interrogation by Saudi operatives that went wrong, two sources close to the Saudi kingdom tell CBS News. Khashoggi vanished after entering a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, igniting a global firestorm over the circumstances of his disappearance.

Saudi officials are expected to claim that the mission was initiated to interrogate Khashoggi, a frequent critic of the government, not to kill him.

Of course, they didn’t have any business “interrogating” him either, if you think human rights are a thing.

The admission would mark a departure from the kingdom’s repeated insistence that it had no knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi, who was picking up paperwork needed to marry his fiancée. CNN first reported that the Saudis were planning to admit Khashoggi died in the consulate.

As recently as Monday morning, Saudi leaders were still not admitting any wrongdoing.

That was then. Can’t a guy change his mind?

My eyes my eyes.

There’s a painting. In the Trump White House. The artist is one Andy Thomas, who usually paints cowboys.

 Photograph: Andy Thomas

Hard to say if it’s more ugly or absurd.

A few questions occur to me. Where is Taft? Where is Harding? Where is Coolidge? Where is Hoover?

Why is Lincoln the one selected to have his back to us?

What is Lincoln drinking?

Why is Nixon drinking wine? He was big on the hard stuff, from what I remember.

What the hell are they all laughing at?

Why is Eisenhower the only one in a casual shirt?

What is Nixon looking so cheerful about?

Is it a solecism to include Ford when he was never actually elected?

Is it a solecism to include Nixon when he resigned in disgrace?

Who’s the creepy dude behind Roosevelt’s shoulder?

Who’s the ghostly woman approaching?

What is this painting doing in the White House?

H/t Acolyte of Sagan and latsot

Updating to add:

His Station and Four Aces by C. M. Coolidge, 1903

Updating to add 2 via Screechy Monkey:

I fixed it. pic.twitter.com/N0u0h4yYPz

— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) October 15, 2018

Amnesty International on the arrest of Gulalai Ismail:

Pakistan’s authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Gulalai Ismail, a Pashtun human rights defender, who was detained on her arrival at Islamabad airport today, Amnesty International said.

Gulalai Ismail is a supporter of the nonviolent Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), which has been campaigning across Pakistan against enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and discrimination against the country’s Pashtun ethnic minority.

“Gulalai Ismail must be immediately and unconditionally released. There is no justification whatsoever for her detention or for imposing a travel ban on her. She is being detained solely for her peaceful human rights work,” said Rabia Mehmood, South Asia Researcher at Amnesty International.

Gulalai Ismail, who is the founder of the Seeds of Peace network and the 2017 winner of the Anna Politkovskaya award, was detained at Islamabad airport on her return from London.

Upon her arrival in Islamabad, she was informed that her name had been placed on the “Exit Control List”, which imposes a ban on her from traveling outside the country.

Over the past year, the authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced a series of charges for alleged sedition and cybercrimes.

Hayat Preghal, a social media activist and supporter of the PTM, was released on bail on 3 October, after enduring more than two months in jail simply accused for social media posts that were deemed critical of the Pakistani authorities.

Gulalai Ismail issued a WhatsApp audio message to friends and supporters from the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigative Agency (FIA), where she said she was about to be arrested. “I was taken into custody at the airport,” she said in the audio message. “I was brought to the main branch of the FIA, where the police is coming to arrest me for speaking for making speech for PTM in the Swabi [rally].”

Gulalai was one of 19 people named in a police complaint report for organizing and speaking at a PTM rally in the northwest town of Swabi on 12 August. The charges against PTM activists include “unlawful assembly”, “punishment for rioting” and “punishment for wrongful restraint”.

In her message, Gulalai Ismail said that her arrest was the latest sign of how much the civic space is shrinking in Pakistan. “This is not an attack on Gulalai Ismail, or PTM,” she added. “This is an attack on civic freedoms. This is an attack on our liberty to speak out. This is an attack on our freedom of speech.”

“This is an extremely worrying move. The new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan had said it would protect human rights and engage with members of the PTM to address issues such as enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions,” said Rabia Mehmood.

“Gulalai Ismail’s arrest severely tests those commitments. Instead of trying to silence human rights defenders, the new government must work to create a safe and enabling environment for those who raise their voices for justice.”

She’s free only provisionally. All charges should be dropped.

Gulalai at last:

On 12th October, I was detained by FIA and my passport was confiscated because my name had been put on Exit Control List. Apparently, defending human rights has become a crime and security threat in our country. I was released after 9 hours of detention. I am overwhelmed with the support I received after I was detained by FIA. I am very thankful to the political groups, movements, international and national organizations, media, social media activists and individuals who raised their voice for me. I received tremendous organized support from leaders and workers of political groups including Women Democratic Front, Pashtun Tahafuz Movement PTM – پښتون تحفظ موومنټ Awami Workers Party, and Awami National Party. Thank you for standing like a rock by my side. Many international human rights organizations raised their voices for me including Amnesty International, Humanist International, Humanists UK, World Movement for Democracy and Pakistan Human Rights Defenders Network. Thank you for reminding the world that human rights are universal and abuse of human rights in any part of the world is a global concern. I am thankful to media especially BBC, Deewa-VOA, Reuters and 24 News for standing by me. I am particularly thankful to the people who showed in person presence in FIA office during my detention and in Swabi Courts during my Bail Before Arrest Application Submission. Ismat Raza Shahjahan immediately reached to airport after I was detained to protect me from mishandling. She spent these 9 hours in detention with me negotiating my bail, strategizing, informing everyone, mobilizing support and taking care of each and everything. Without Ismat Bibi it would have been a very hard and dark day. Thank you Ismat Bibi, Abdullah Nangyal, Shah Baaz Stouryani, Meena Gabeena, Tooba Syed, Alia Bakhshal, Rahim Advocate, Asadullah Advocate, Khudai Noor Nasar, Sanna Ejaz, Nargis Afsheen Khattak, Shahab Khattak, Gohar Nangyal, Shereenyãr Yousafzai, Usman, Jamil Khan Manager and other PTM activists for accompanying me in these 2 very hard days. Your presence gave me courage in the face of despair. I am specially thankful to my lawyers and their team Saleem Khan and Ashfaq Khan, I am overwhelmed with the support I received in my home town Swabi. Thank you to all those who couldn’t reach but kept on calling to check on me. I also want to thanks wholeheartedly all social media activists and every individual whose name I might not know or skipped because I haven’t yet got time to scroll through social media, without your voices it would have been impossible to respond to the state oppression. My family and friends have always paid a huge cost for my rebellion in the form visiting courts, facing persecution, attacks and propaganda- this is not new for them. They have always got my back. Once again thank you for standing up with me, for standing up for our constitutional right to freedom of speech, right to association and right to life. Asking for peace and human rights is not a crime, together we will make this world a better place.

Pertinent.

Saudi Arabia is issuing threats.

Saudi Arabia has said it will retaliate against any sanctions imposed over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, as the Riyadh stock market had its biggest fall in years.

…

The French, German and UK foreign secretaries ratcheted up the pressure by releasing a joint statement calling on the Saudi government to give a complete and detailed account of Khashoggi’s disappearance, adding that those found to be responsible must be held to account.

Riyadh vowed to hit back against any action. “The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether through economic sanctions, political pressure or repeating false accusations,” it said.

The kingdom affirms its right to murder anyone it wants to.

Saudi Arabia’s vast oil reserves, said to be about 260bn barrels, give it enormous clout in the global economy. It has significant power to drive up prices, which would hurt every major developed economy.

It has that, and that’s all it has. If it weren’t for the oil it would be a pariah state.

In the firmest joint language to appear from Europe since the crisis broke, the European foreign ministers said “light must be shed on Khashoggi’s disappearance”.

They said they shared the “grave concerns” expressed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and “are treating this incident with the utmost seriousness. There needs to be a credible investigation to establish the truth about what happened, and – if relevant – to identify those bearing responsibility for the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi and ensure that they are held to account.”

The statement added: “We encourage joint Saudi-Turkish efforts in that regard, and expect the Saudi government to provide a complete and detailed response. We have conveyed this message directly to the Saudi authorities.”

It would be nice if the US were part of that statement, but of course it’s not. Donnie Two-scoops likes the Saudi dictators; they’re his kind of guys.

Rachel Anne Williams wrote a post on this question of believing what people say about themselves, in addition to that tweet.

Williams’s Twitter/Medium bio:

Author & writer, ex-academic philosopher, Science Nerd. Read more at www.transphilosopher.com Forthcoming book Transgressive with @JKPBooks

I can’t find where Williams was an academic philosopher, and given the quality of argument in this post I have to say I don’t believe it.

What does it mean to say trans people are who we say we are? It means that if a trans woman says she is a woman, then you should believe she is a woman (and likewise for trans-masculine and non-binary identities).

Trans exclusionary radical feminists (henceforth radfems) respond by saying “Why should I believe what you say you are? Ok, then! I am seven feet tall and 400 lbs. Clearly, that doesn’t actually make me seven feet tall. Just because you say you’re something, doesn’t mean you are that thing.”

We need to therefore modify the definition.

It means that if a trans woman authentically says she is a woman, then you should believe she is a woman.

Ohhhhhh; that explains everything.

Kidding. It’s absolutely ludicrous. It’s like thinking if you say “really” five times then what you say is true. It’s like thinking emphasis=verification.

The radfem is not being authentic, see, she doesn’t mean it. Well no shit, Sherlock, because the radfem is using a reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate how idiotic your claim is. The inauthenticity is the whole point. (See also: sarcasm.)

Ex-academic philosopher who doesn’t know a reductio when she sees one? I think not.

She doesn’t live that truth. It’s not part of her core identity. She hasn’t spent years struggling with her desire to be seven feet tall.

But what if she has spent seven years struggling with her desire to be a genius poet? Does that mean she is a genius poet? No, it means she really really (plus 3) wants to be one. Most people have unfulfilled desires. They’re authentic all right, but that doesn’t mean we are or do or have the thing we desire to be or do or have. Desire doesn’t become the desired goal over time alone.

But we must ask about other identities we might take on, such as different animal species. It seems possible to me that someone could authentically identify as a non-human species. But clearly that wouldn’t actually make them non-human. That’s immutable.

The question then is whether gender/sex is immutable in the same way.

No, it isn’t, because sex and gender are not the same.

In regards to the person who identifies as a non-human species, we have to consider why we find it implausible that if you say you’re a dragon you actually are a dragon.

The answer is that specieshood is simply not the type of metaphysical category that is subjective in that way. I contend that gender is different.

But the issue is sex. Is sex subjective? Or is it a brute physical fact like being a dragon (or not)? If it’s not a brute physical fact, how do animals keep up all this reproducing all over the place?

But gender is also very much objective insofar as you can’t just will yourself into being trans. You either are trans or you’re not. (I’ve actually written an essay that talks about choosing to be trans but it’s a complex topic and not relevant here so we can bracket it).

But gender is objective in the same way. If you’re a cis male, you can’t just will yourself to be a woman.

“Ahh!”, says the TERF, “That’s what we’ve been saying — men cannot be women!”

But that’s not what I said. I said “cis male”. Trans women are by definition not cis males. They are trans women. And furthermore, they are women. Trans women. Or trans women. Or transwomen. We all have different individual emphasis in our identities. We don’t all identify as women in the same way or experience femininity the same way.

Ah yes, that’s the magic. Add “cis” and it all works. A cis male cannot just decide to be a woman, but a trans man can. No wait, that’s not right. A trans woman can, and furthermore she is a woman. But if a cis male can’t decide to, why doesn’t it work to say a trans man can? Because a trans man started out as a woman. No, that’s not right, because a trans man is a woman. Can we say “a cis male cannot just decide to be a woman, but a not-cis man can”? But not-cis is trans, we’re always told – cis is not-trans and trans is not-cis. Are we confused enough yet?

This is also something that differs from culture to culture. There are also many non-binary femmes and in reality the trans-feminine spectrum is just that: a multidimensional spectrum.

It’s a multidimensional spectrum plus a trans woman is a woman.

So what does it mean to be authentic? Because that’s what distinguishes the transphobic identities like “attack helicopter” from trans identities.

I would say that authenticity is about being true to your deepest vision for how you want your life to go. Your ultimate desire for how you want to live your life. It’s about not letting society dictate the terms of your life or your identity. It’s about being true to yourself. Of being actually fucking honest with yourself and not being afraid of accepting yourself for who you are.

Great. So if your ultimate desire for how you want to live your life is as a neurosurgeon at a top hospital, society cannot dictate the terms of your life or your identity.

Another Rachel steps up to defend Rachel MacKinnon.

I support @rachelvmckinnon as a trans athlete. She just set a world record in cycling and TERFs are giving her shit about it. But I know Rachel. I've seen how hard she's worked for this. How dedicated she's been. Hitting the gym. Practicing. Working with coaches. She deserved it.

— Rachel Anne Williams (@transphilosophr) October 13, 2018

But the issue isn’t working hard and dedication and hitting the gym and practicing and working with coaches. The issue is doing all that with a huge physical advantage over all your competitors – the issue is doing it while competing against women while having a male body, and quite a large-framed male body at that. MacKinnon doesn’t “deserve” a world record in women’s cycling because MacKinnon has a male body. Also: the fact that MacKinnon hit the gym does not mean that the women competing did not, so it’s pretty much beside the point. MacKinnon trained; yes; presumably they all trained, but only MacKinnon had the large male body.

Anyway, I read a few other tweets by transphilosophr (not for the first time) and found other peculiar “philosophy.” In particular:

On Medium some TERF responded to one of my articles calling me a "transgender extremist" for having the gall to suggest we should trust trans people about who we say we are. Yup. So extreme. Listening to people's authentic stories and believing them. So radical.

— Rachel Anne Williams (@transphilosophr) October 12, 2018

I keep coming back to this. It’s probably tedious that I keep coming back to it, but it still amazes me that so many people treat that claim as not just reasonable but downright binding, if you want to avoid being labeled a “TERF.” It’s doubly or triply amazing in someone who Identifies As a philosopher. No, there is no broad rule that we should trust people about who they say they are. On the contrary. If it were that simple there would be no such thing as civil service exams or medical degrees or exams in engineering or security clearances or CVs or passports…you get the idea.

In practice, we mostly do trust people in the sense of believing what they tell us about themselves as long as there’s nothing in particular at stake. But when there is something at stake? Then we may want more than simple belief or trust.

Also, we mostly do trust people in the sense of believing what they tell us about themselves as long as there’s nothing in particular at stake and what they tell us about themselves isn’t magical or supernatural. If people tell us they’re aliens from another galaxy, we don’t necessarily believe what they tell us about themselves, and if we do we’re credulous chumps. The things trans people tell us about themselves vary wildly, which is another reason we can’t undertake to believe all of it no matter what, but is also why we can’t even know what it is we’re agreeing to believe. Rachel Anne Williams might tell us one thing about herself while Rachel MacKinnon might tell us something quite different (and in tension with what Rachel Anne Williams told us). Calling both “authentic stories” is not a magic way to make them cohere.

This is simply childish. Of course we can’t just believe whatever people tell us about themselves sight unseen just like that. There is no such rule, so Williams’s implication that there is is kind of extreme, especially coming from someone who tells us she’s a philosopher.

Nicholas Kristof on Trump on Saudi Arabia and MBS and Khashoggi:

Turkey claims to have audiotape of Saudi interrogators torturing Jamal and killing him in the Saudi Consulate. None of this is confirmed, and we still don’t know exactly what happened; we all pray that Jamal will still reappear. But increasingly it seems that the crown prince, better known as M.B.S., orchestrated the torture, assassination and dismemberment of an American-based journalist using diplomatic premises in a NATO country.

That is monstrous, and it’s compounded by the tepid response from Washington. President Trump is already rejecting the idea of responding to such a murder by cutting off weapons sales. Trump sounds as if he believes that the consequence of such an assassination should be a hiccup and then business as usual.

Frankly, it’s a disgrace that Trump administration officials and American business tycoons enabled and applauded M.B.S. as he imprisoned business executives, kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister, rashly created a crisis with Qatar, and went to war in Yemen to create what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis there. Some eight million Yemenis on the edge of starvation there don’t share this bizarre view that M.B.S. is a magnificent reformer.

And did anyone consult the thousands of foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia? I doubt that MBS is a big reformer to them.

In the end, M.B.S. played Kushner, Trump and his other American acolytes for suckers. The White House boasted about $110 billion in arms sales, but nothing close to that came through. Saudi Arabia backed away from Trump’s Middle East peace deal. Financiers salivated over an initial public offering for Aramco, the state-owned oil company, but that keeps getting delayed.

But hey, he said women could drive.

But he also imprisoned the women’s rights activists who had been campaigning for the right to drive. Saudi Arabia even orchestrated the detention abroad of a women’s rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, and her return in handcuffs. She turned 29 in a Saudi jail cell in July, and her marriage has ended. She, and not the prince who imprisons her, is the heroic reformer.

Just last month in London, unidentified Saudi men, one wearing an earpiece, attacked a Saudi dissident named Ghanem al-Dosari, who has mocked M.B.S. as “the tubby teddy bear.” As they punched Dosari, they cursed him for criticizing the Saudi royal family.

“M.B.S.’s message to Saudis is clear: I will shut you up no matter where you are and no matter what laws I have to break to do it,” Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch told me.

Yes but he and his entourage spend so much lovely money in Trump’s hotels – how can we possibly criticize them?

Why are we so cozy with Saudi Arabia, again?

Each year, Saudi Arabia employs, through consultants or otherwise, a host of retired American generals, diplomats, intelligence experts and others. Until now, they could assure themselves this was a win-win: lucrative for them, to be sure, but also enhancing mutual understanding with an important U.S. ally.

Now, as more and more evidence implicates Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the reported murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Saudi diplomatic property in Istanbul, the equation has changed.

Not really. Saudi Arabia is a theocratic hell-hole that abuses women and girls, foreigners, atheists, dissenters – most people it can reach, in fact. The murder of Khashoggi is just more of the same.

Fred Hiatt imagines a retired military man explaining to his daughter why he takes a paycheck from the Saudis.

“You see,” he says, “we need Saudi Arabia’s help to stand up to the really bad actor in the region — Iran.”

“Oh,” she says, hoping this answer will be more satisfying. “What makes Iran so bad?”

“Well, they don’t let their people express themselves freely, or practice the religion of their choice, or even dress the way they want,” the colonel replies.

We know what the next lines are before we read them. So Saudi Arabia does? Er, no.

Even if we still needed Saudi Arabia’s oil, which we do not; even if Saudi Arabia [were] a strong and principled ally in the region, which it is not; even if it helped push the Palestinians toward peace, or kept its promises in Yemen, or bought the weapons that Trump thinks it is going to buy. . . . No matter what Saudi Arabia offered, could its supposed friendship be worth shrugging off the ensnaring and killing of a critic whose only offense was to tell the truth?

Is that the country we want to be?

No, but I thought that long before the murder of Khashoggi.

Talk about shameless…

I broke the 200m WORLD RECORD this morning. It was my first indoor 200m and I have to admit that my 11.92 was significantly slower than I was doing outdoors in the summer. I still need… https://t.co/B2AVmn6aDq

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) October 12, 2018

More shameless voter suppression, this time in North Dakota.

The high court decided 6 to 2 Tuesday to leave in place a state law that requires residents to provide an ID displaying a residential address rather than a P.O. box number to vote. Republican lawmakers who pushed for the measure say the rule is designed to combat voter fraud.

But tribal officials and Democrats say it appears aimed at making it harder for thousands of Native Americans to vote, particularly those who live on reservations without conventional street names. The law specifically bans the use of P.O. boxes as an alternative form of address, rendering many tribal ID cards invalid.

But tribal officials have a plan.

Native American activists have responded with plans to create addresses on the spot for those who need them on Election Day.

Tribal officials will stand outside polling stations on Nov. 6 with laptops and access to rural addressing software and a shared database of voter names. North Dakota is the only state that does not require voter registration, meaning eligible voters can generally show up at the polls and cast a ballot so long as they have proper identification.

No doubt Brett Kavanaugh will go there and tear up all those ballots personally.