So nice, everyone wants Ivanka Trump to be the new United Nations Ambassador. She would be incredible, but I can already hear the chants of Nepotism! We have great people that want the job.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2018

Special meaning of “everyone” – everyone he talks to, everyone on Fox, everyone in his administration.

Actually, in reality, probably not even all of them. Trump’s abysmal theory of mind is quite capable of translating one person who nervously said (when asked) that it would be okay into everyone actively wanting it.

Because why would anyone actually want Ivanka Trump as UN ambassador? She’s a fashion marketer with no obvious intelligence and very obviously no expertise or knowledge. You might as well want any random person you pass on the street to be UN ambassador.

Princess Ivanka is neither intelligent nor informed, plus she’s deeply tainted by most of what we know about her – by her father, her acceptance of a job in a presidential administration that she is in no way qualified for, her acquiescence in her father’s disgusting policies and actions, her marriage to the corrupt Jared Kushner, and no doubt more. It’s not just that she’s not good enough, it’s also that she’s much too bad.

And then there’s Trump’s breezy disdain for the law against nepotism. Yes, people would say making Princess Ivanka the US ambassador to the UN would be called nepotism, because it would be nepotism. Nepotism is bad and we don’t want it and there are laws against it. Trump thinks he gets to flout and laugh at laws that should constrain him, and that makes him a dictator.

About that citizenship question on the census…

Wilbur Ross spoke with Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, before including on the 2020 census a question about people’s citizenship, the Justice Department said in a court document that appears to contradict what the commerce secretary told Congress.

The disclosure came in a lawsuit by more than a dozen states, cities and advocacy groups seeking to block the U.S. from asking the question, claiming it’s discriminatory and designed to reduce the accuracy of the count by cutting participation.

In other words, Ross “appears to” have lied to Congress. That’s a no-no.

Ross has denied speaking to Bannon, a vocal opponent of immigration, telling a congressional committee in March that he was “not aware” of any discussions with the president or anyone else in the White House about the citizenship question.

Remember when Steve Bannon was just one of the trolls? Those were the days.

John Kelly really doesn’t like women.

Remember the lies he told about Representative Frederica Wilson? It was just a year ago.

Kelly claimed Wilson had boasted of securing “$20 million” in federal funding to build a new FBI field office in Miami during the dedication ceremony for the building in 2015. He also called the congresswoman an empty barrel, saying her remarks focused more on her own actions than the heroism of the two FBI agents for whom the new building had been named.

But a Sun Sentinel video of the building dedication ceremony confirmed that she had not taken credit for the building’s funding.

Asked Monday if he felt like he needed to apologize for his comments about Wilson, Kelly said, “Oh, no. No. Never. Well, I’ll apologize if I need to. But for something like that, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.”

Apologize for telling disparaging lies about her? Absolutely not. A white military man in a powerful job apologize to a black woman for telling disparaging lies about her? Oh hell no.

And he doesn’t like Elizabeth Warren, either. She has the gall to talk to him as to an equal, to dispute him, to rebuke actions by the administration he’s part of. How dare she.

White House chief of staff John Kelly called Sen. Elizabeth Warren an “impolite arrogant woman” in a private email he exchanged last year with his top aide following a telephone conversation with the Massachusetts Democrat about the Trump administration’s travel ban.

“Absolutely most insulting conversation I have ever had with anyone,” Kelly, then serving as the secretary of homeland security, wrote to Kevin Carroll, who was then his senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, in an email from Feb. 8, 2017. “What an impolite arrogant woman. She immediately began insulting our people accusing them of not following the court order, insulting and abusive behavior towards those covered by the pause, blah blah blah.”

Not that it’s a pattern or anything.

Oh good grief.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are taking their show on the road.

You what? What show? They’re not performers.

The famous political couple, who individually charge well into six figures for an address, is launching a 13-city joint public speaking tour of the U.S. and Canada titled “An Evening with the Clintons” that kicks off Nov. 18 in Las Vegas.

Ew. Ew ew ew. The famous centrist couple, who have been way too cozy with the billionaire set all along, want you to give them even more money for the high privilege of watching them talk some more. Can you say “vanity project”?

The tickets are expensive; surprise surprise.

“Experience a one-of-a-kind conversation with two individuals who have helped shape our world and had a front seat to some of the most important moments in modern history,” the public relations copy for the tour reads. “From the American presidency to the halls of the Senate and State Department to one of the United States’ most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections, they provide a unique perspective on the past, and remarkable insight into where we go from here.”

That makes my toes curl with embarrassment. I know they like money, but couldn’t they try for a little dignity? They’re not a Vegas act.

The Clintons aren’t novices on the paid lecture circuit. From 2001 to 2015, they raked in more than $153 million in speaking fees for 729 events.

In other words, they’re greedy and they leveraged Bill’s presidency into an enormous pile of money…and now they want more.

Reuters reports:

Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women.

Garbage in garbage out, ya know. Misogyny in misogyny out. Underestimation of women in underestimation of women out.

The trouble is, they used resumes from the past ten years to train the computer models, and most of those came from – you’ll never guess – men.

Top U.S. tech companies have yet to close the gender gap in hiring, a disparity most pronounced among technical staff such as software developers where men far outnumber women. Amazon’s experimental recruiting engine followed the same pattern, learning to penalize resumes including the word “women’s” until the company discovered the problem.

Did they name the recruiting engine “Damore”?

Jordan Weissmann at Slate looks at the implications:

All of this is a remarkably clear-cut illustration of why many tech experts are worried that, rather than remove human biases from important decisions, artificial intelligence will simply automate them. An investigation by ProPublica, for instance, found that algorithms judges use in criminal sentencing may dole out harsher penalties to black defendants than white ones. Google Translate famously introduced gender biases into its translations. The issue is that these programs learn to spot patterns and make decisions by analyzing massive data sets, which themselves are often a reflection of social discrimination. Programmers can try to tweak the A.I. to avoid those undesirable results, but they may not think to, or be successful even if they try.

I feel as if feminism has been patiently explaining this since before Gutenberg, only to be sneered at and called politically correct (or a cunt). Biases against women are everywhere, they’re baked in, it doesn’t work to try to operate as if that all ended in 1971.

H/t Screechy Monkey

The Post has more on Trump’s refusal to say “boo” to Saudi Arabia:

President Trump said Thursday that “it would not be acceptable to me” to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the disappearance last week of a Washington Post columnist after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he was open to other actions but questioned the wisdom of not selling military weapons, saying Saudi Arabia could instead turn to Russia or China, hurting U.S. defense companies.

“What good does that do us?” Trump asked.

Spoken like a true narcissist. The issue isn’t doing us good, the issue is not supporting a regime that murders dissenters.

“We don’t like it, and we don’t like it even a little bit,” Trump said. “But as to whether or not we should stop $110 billion from being spent in this country, knowing they have four or five alternatives, two of them very good alternatives, that would not be acceptable to me.”

It’s all about the munnneee. They could shovel 90% of their population into incinerators and Trump would still talk about the munnneee.

More on that being-stolen right in front of us election in Georgia:

It isn’t often you get to watch an election being stolen in real time, but that might be what is happening right now in Georgia.

When it comes to the nationwide, comprehensive, carefully planned Republican effort to suppress the votes of people who are likely to vote Democratic, particularly racial minorities, there is a menu of techniques Republicans employ — voter ID laws, voter purges, limiting early voting, closing polling places in heavily minority neighborhoods, and racial and partisan gerrymandering.

But Brian Kemp’s blatant theft is in a class by itself.

Paul Waldman recaps Ben Nadler’s reporting from yesterday then asks sarcastically who could have foreseen this.

We know who: the Republicans in the state legislature who passed the law and the Republican who’s implementing it. In fact, they passed their “exact match” law in 2017 after Kemp settled a lawsuit charging that a previous version of “exact match” was racially discriminatory. Kemp agreed to stop using it, but then the Republican-led legislature stepped in and wrote a new version of it into law so that the suppression could continue.

It’s a simple formula: the more difficult you make it to vote, the more you filter out people who lack time, resources, money, influence, social capital – in other words poor people, people of color, recent immigrants, single parents – people who don’t benefit from this system that tilts so strongly toward the prosperous and powerful, and thus vote for the party that does a little (a very little) more to try to make life less awful for those people.

We have to keep saying this: Suppressing the votes of Democrats is the whole point of these laws and procedures. Republicans claim to worry about “voter fraud,” and journalists dutifully repeat those claims because when one party says something over and over, you’re supposed to treat it as though it is serious. But everyone knows it’s nonsense. Voter fraud is almost nonexistent, and Republicans aren’t motivated by some deeply held abstract principle about the integrity of elections that they apply whether it helps them or not. It’s just a lie.

It’s also an example of how Republicans, who complain all the time about the stifling hand of big government, use their power to weaponize bureaucracy against people they don’t like. They impose “work requirements” on programs such as Medicaid, forcing recipients to navigate a bureaucratic maze in order to maintain their benefits — and if you make a mistake on a form, you can lose your health insurance. Did someone input an “i” in your name when it’s actually an “l”? Sorry, we’re suspending your registration. Haven’t voted in a couple of elections? We’re purging you from the rolls.

The final and perhaps cruelest piece of this puzzle is that Republicans have closed off the legal avenues for voters to challenge these discriminatory policies. In 2013, the Republican majority on the Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, in a case involving Shelby County, Ga. In a bit of head-spinning illogic, Chief Justice G. Roberts Jr. wrote that “largely because of the Voting Rights Act,” racial discrimination in voting had been greatly reduced, and therefore it was time to gut the Voting Rights Act. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissent, destroying the Voting Rights Act because it had succeeded in limiting discrimination was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Because of the Shelby County v. Holder decision, legal challenges to Kemp’s actions are unlikely to succeed.

Which probably explains why Kemp feels so comfortable doing all this in plain sight.

Writer and broadcaster, Sophie Cook on spelling women as womxn – "X is just making it a bit more inclusive… they had the right intentions but it turned out being a slightly clumsy effort."@sophiecooktalks | #newsnight pic.twitter.com/lKpcK1HnRG

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 10, 2018

X is jus making it a bit more inclusive, so it includes women of color, it includes trans women…

[through clenched teeth] “Women” already includes women of color, and it includes trans women for people who believe the formula “trans women are women.” The word “women” does not need to be “a bit more inclusive,” just as women don’t need to be colonized by men telling them to be more intersectional and inclusive by shutting up about women and talking about everyone else instead.

It’s both weird and alarming that the very word “women” is now being framed as selfish and exclusive.

A pull quote I strongly disagree with.

"Feminism without intersectionality—in other words, without sensitivity and equal attention to other nexuses of discrimination and oppression, such as race and sexuality—is worthless."@CharoShane on why we must hold feminism to a higher standard.

https://t.co/yGK1rzk8bL

— Literary Hub (@lithub) October 11, 2018

“Feminism without intersectionality—in other words, without sensitivity and equal attention to other nexuses of discrimination and oppression, such as race and sexuality—is worthless.”

Bollocks.

Feminism is feminism. It’s about resistance to and elimination of the subordination of women. Its attention is for that. Intersectionality is about awareness that there are other forms of oppression and subordination, all of which can affect women; it is not about giving equal attention to all forms of oppression and subordination.

I keep saying this, but I suspect it needs to be said more times than there are atoms in the universe: isn’t it interesting how it’s only feminism that is constantly shouted at for not shifting its attention to everything except its own oppression. Isn’t it just a classic illustration of why feminism is needed in the first place. Isn’t it interesting the way the entire world expects women to be the caretaking class and thus feminism to be the self-abnegating rebellion.

In short, fxck off.

The BBC is on the “womxn” issue.

Womxn – to the untrained eye it may look like a typo.

But when the Wellcome Collection – a museum and library in London – sent a tweet promoting an event using the word it led to a Twitter backlash from hundreds of women, and an apology from the organisation.

Like women, womxn refers to females, but it is an attempt to get away from patriarchal language.

The hell it is. That was “womyn,” which was floated decades ago and was largely ignored. No, this is not about getting away from patriarchal language, it’s about making women more “inclusive,” which is quite a different thing. It’s about “including” men in the category “women.” That’s not anti-patriarchal.

Dr Clara Bradbury-Rance, fellow at King’s College London, said the spelling “stems from a longstanding objection to the word woman as it comes from man, and the linguistic roots of the word mean that it really does come from the word man”.

No, that’s “womyn.” A third spelling just confuses the matter.

The word is also supposed to be inclusive of trans women, and some non-binary people.

Men, in other words. (“Women” already includes trans women according to the “trans women are women” doctrine, so a new word for women is not needed.)

But the term led hundreds of people, many women, to mock and criticise the Wellcome Collection.

Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman said the museum’s “new gender categories are ‘men’ and ‘other'”.

Suzie Leighton said she would not be referred to as a womxn until men became mxn.

So did a lot of us. The omission is pretty striking. Isn’t it just so odd how it’s always women who are told to move over and give way and share and change and tweak in order to accommodate others (i.e. men) and never men who are told to do all that to make room for women?

The Wellcome Collection said it used the word womxn “with the intention of being inclusive”.

One of the groups that the term was supposed to include was trans women. But campaign group Trans Media Watch said it would never use that term.

Chair Jennie Kermode said: “We would generally just write women in the usual way because we feel it’s important for people to recognise that trans women are women.”

See? What I said.

The Beeb apparently hasn’t seen the Her Stories one yet.

Well that’s disgraceful.

The US is one of just 13 countries to have voted against a United Nations resolution condemning the death penalty for having gay sex.

Although the vote passed, America joined countries such as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in opposing the move.

The Human Rights Council resolution condemned the “imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations”.

Ah so maybe it wasn’t the same-sex relations part that was the problem, maybe it was blasphemy and apostasy. Trump does pretend to be goddy these days.

Despite America’s opposition, the vote in Geneva passed with 27 of the 47-member Human Rights Council in favour.

There are currently six countries where the death penalty is used for people in same-sex relationships: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia. This number rises to eight if the Isis-occupied territories of Iraq and Syria are included.

Good company.

Heather Nauert, State Department spokesperson, told The Independent: “The headlines, reporting and press releases on this issue are misleading. As our representative to the Human Rights Council in Geneva said on Friday, the United States is disappointed to have to vote against this resolution. We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does.

“The United States voted against this resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances and calling for its abolition.”

Still disgusting.

This happened.

Corker, Menendez and more than a dozen more senators send a letter to Trump that could pave the way for sanctions over Khashoggi disappearance. Full letter and background here pic.twitter.com/bJBeb1ZxmB

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) October 10, 2018

CNN reports:

President Donald Trump is facing new pressure to investigate the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and determine whether to impose sanctions on those responsible after receiving a letter from a bipartisan group of senators Wednesday.

The letter, which triggers an “investigation and Global Magnitsky sanctions determination” was penned by the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairman Sen. Bob Corker and ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez, along with the leaders of the appropriations subcommittee for the State Department, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy.

“The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the President, upon receipt of a request from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression, and report to the Committee within 120 days with a determination and a decision on the imposition of sanctions on that foreign person or persons,” the letter states.

“We request that you make a determination on the imposition of sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act with respect to any foreign person responsible for such a violation related to Mr. Khashoggi,” it adds.

Corker says it’s a forcing mechanism. He also says it’s not meant to be a shot across Trump’s bow, but it is meant to be a shot across Saudi Arabia’s bow.

Oh no, even as the Wellcome Trust takes it back, it’s spreading. It’s Invasion of the Word-snatchers.

I have just received a press release that says “womxn” 15 times.
It’s about a campaign “for womxn, by womxn” to help refugees, sex trafficking victims + “pregnant womxn”.
It’s sponsored by H&M. @hm

Christ almxghty.

Did you agree to this nonsense @MaternityAction ??@ellashome pic.twitter.com/et5a1LGmqX

— Lucy Bannerman (@TimesLucy) October 10, 2018

Twice in the headline. Four times in the first paragraph. Three times in the second paragraph.

No. No. No. NO. We are not “cis” and we are not “womxn.”

NO.

The Post has more on Paltrow’s wellnessbabble.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand, Goop, has promoted “energy stickers” made from “the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits” — even though the stickers had nothing to do with spacesuits at all.

And coffee enemas.

And vaginal steaming.

And the jade eggs.

Why stop there? Why doesn’t she move on to gasoline ear-irrigations? Vaginal cauterization? Cyanide enemas? The all-coffee diet? Serenity through blood-letting? Leeches for the flu?

But when asked whether the products Goop sells online are based on pseudoscience, Paltrow told BBC News no.

“We disagree with that wholeheartedly,” the actress and business executive said Tuesday on “BBC Breakfast.” “We really believe that there are healing modalities that have existed for thousands of years, and they challenge maybe a very conventional Western doctor that might not believe necessarily in the healing powers of essential oils or any variety of acupuncture — things that have been tried and tested for hundreds of years. And we find that they are very helpful to people and that there’s an incredible power in the human body to heal itself.

There’s so much horseshit in that – hey maybe she could harvest it and use it in a poultice to cure Crohn’s.

It doesn’t matter how “wholeheartedly” she “disagrees” that her claims are bullshit. This isn’t poetry, it’s medical science, and amateurs don’t get to just make shit up and then use their passion as a form of argument. For the same reasons it doesn’t matter whether or not they “really believe” – they’re still wrong. “Healing modalities” is a significance-pump. The fact that the “modalities” have existed for thousands of years does not mean they have curative powers. Calling medical doctors “very conventional Western” is just manipulation. “Healing powers” could mean anything, including “it doesn’t kill you and it’s comfortable in the meantime.” And then in summation she jumps to the usefully vague “helpful,” which isn’t really the issue. If Goop’s advertising said no more than “Buy this, it’s pleasant and helpful,” there would probably be no lawsuits.

“And so, I think, anytime you are trying to move the needle and you’re trying to empower women, you find resistance, and we just think that’s just part of what we do, and we’re proud to do it.”

Oh fuck off, Gwyneth. Peddling woo does not empower women.

Goop’s $145,000 penalties stemmed from a consumer protection lawsuit filed by 10 prosecutors across California who accused Paltrow’s company of advertising products with medical claims that “were not supported by competent and reliable science.”

The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office detailed some of Goop’s claims in a news release about the settlement:

Goop advertised that the Jade and Rose Quartz eggs — egg-shaped stones designed to be inserted vaginally and left in for various lengths of time — could balance hormones, regulate menstrual cycles, prevent uterine prolapse, and increase bladder control. Goop advertised that the Inner Judge Flower Essence Blend, a blend of essential oils meant [to] be taken orally or added to bathwater, could help prevent depression.

What I’m saying. Those claims go well beyond “pleasant and helpful.” And they are not just conversation, they are used to sell the product. She’s not giving it away. It’s not cheap, either.

She’s like Trump, though; the more criticism she gets, the more people flock to her.

More than 53,000 voter registration applications are sitting on hold with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office. Most people on that list are black; many don’t know their registration is stalled.

Tuesday is Georgia’s deadline to register and be eligible to vote in the November General Election.

Kemp, who’s also the Republican candidate for governor, is in charge of elections and voter registration in Georgia.

His Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, and voting rights advocacy groups charge that Kemp is systematically using his office to suppress votes and tilt the election, and that his policies disproportionately affect black and minority voters.

Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams (John Amis/Associated Press)

Kemp is one of those “Beware voter fraud!!” types. Voter fraud is not an issue (because it’s extremely rare); voter suppression is.

[Kemp’s] campaign spokesman Ryan Mahoney said in a statement that because of Kemp, “it has never been easier to vote in our state” and pointed to a new online voter registration system and a student engagement program implemented under his tenure.

“Kemp is fighting to protect the integrity of our elections and ensure that only legal citizens cast a ballot,” Mahoney said.

But that’s not a fight that needs to be fought.

An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity in the process. Georgia’s population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp’s office is nearly 70 percent black.

Kemp’s office blamed that disparity on the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams in 2013.

Kemp accuses the organization of being sloppy in registering voters, and says they submitted inadequate forms for a batch of applicants that was predominantly black. His office has said the New Georgia Project used primarily paper forms and “did not adequately train canvassers to ensure legible, complete forms ….”

His office says “the law applies equally across all demographics,” but these numbers became skewed by “the higher usage of one method of registration among one particular demographic group.”

The one that has been systematically disenfranchised for the entire history of this infuriatingly hypocritical country.

Remember the Wellcome Trust and “womxn”? From two days ago? With so much to laugh at in the list of 100 Narcissistic Non-negotiable Demands yesterday it’s easy to lose track.

It got a lot of [cough] disagreement so it explained its reasons.

We’ve had some questions about why we’re using the word womxn for this event. We’re using it because we feel that it is important to create a space/venue that includes diverse perspectives. It was agreed during our conversations with collaborators as the programme developed.

— Wellcome Collection (@ExploreWellcome) October 9, 2018

I’m kidding, of course. “We’re using it because we feel that it is important to create a space/venue that includes diverse perspectives” explains nothing. For one thing why didn’t they include even more diverse perspectives by changing not just one pitiful letter but all the letters? Why not change “women” to “rbsnx”? But more seriously, what do they even think they’re talking about? Why do they think changing the spelling of the word that names half the population (while not doing that to the word that names the other, dominant half of the population) does anything to include diverse perspectives? What makes them think the word “women” excludes diverse perspectives? Are they even adults?

Replies were scorching.

WomEn are over 50% of the human population. That provides more diverse perspectives than you're ever going to get from any other group. Stop arselicking misogynist identity politics to look cool and right-on – all you're actually looking is dishonest, inane, sexist & ridiculous.

— YoungCrone MA, BA (Hons), Grade 5 Treble Recorder (@ThrupennyBit) October 9, 2018

So your categories are Men; miscellanous other ? You should have a serious think about what you’re actually trying to communicate here and to whom.

— Tracy King (@tkingdot) October 9, 2018

This is ridiculous. And you are supporting it by linking to Urban Dictionary? Seriously? As far as I know, the word 'women' has always included women of colour. Correct me if I'm wrong. "Womxn: More intersectional than womyn because it includes trans-women and women of color."

— Claire King (@ckingwriter) October 10, 2018

Why do you change "women" but not "men"? Why not mxn? Don't men need to be diversified also?

—1) (@KathaPollitt) October 10, 2018

So an hour ago they fixxxed it.

We invite challenges to our thinking and we listen to our audience, which is why we’ve taken the decision to remove the word womxn from our website and communications about the Daylighting event. We’re sorry that we made the wrong call. pic.twitter.com/0ukSBfQabA

— Wellcome Collection (@ExploreWellcome) October 10, 2018

I still want to know why “with the intention of being inclusive” is their explanation. I still want to know exactly why the word “women” is seen as exclusionary. I still want to know why this weird covert handwaving campaign to shove women aside is so popular with people who see themselves as woke.

1. (Katha Pollitt [↩]

I’m not the only one who found that List of 100 Ways You Have to Grovel to the Trans Community grotesquely narcissistic and entitled. I’m seeing a lot of others on Twitter.

Christ in a carrier bag. Is this a spoof? 100 Easy Ways to Make the World Better for Trans People https://t.co/41Ebp4Q54u

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) October 9, 2018

The manifesto of trans-narcissist-totalitarianism:
https://t.co/ULZLzRvHgB

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) October 9, 2018

"Do not question anything ever, do not ask us anything, only question yourself and think about constantly about trans issues always, change the way you think, and then BUY US THINGS"?!

What the hell. It's like an incoherent rebellious teenager's list of demands. pic.twitter.com/fVDKVKKbeA

— Kate (@CussingQuim) October 9, 2018

Flowers, dinner, cash – a car, a house, a yacht – any little token will do.

Cult thinking. Trans activism reminds me a lot of Scientology and the methods used to squash dissent and encourage a sense of persecution and paranoia.

— Jessiemac (@emwijessie) October 9, 2018

Christ, imagine if other groups could just list such needy demands. Do this. Say that. Spend the other. I want. I'm special. See me. Who'd be friends with a trans person, if this was what it was like? (Of course it's not. The author is a nightmare, plenty of trans people aren't)

— Helen Joyce (@HJJoyceEcon) October 9, 2018

But there’s a feedback loop going on. The dogmatism and narcissism attract people who like that kind of thing, so they compete with each other for who can be most dogmatic and narcissistic, which attracts even worse dogmatic narcissists, and on it goes.

I had a brain haemorrhage by 4/100 so I decided to rewrite it as 100 ways to make the world better for women https://t.co/G1SYNQelUx

— Allison Downing (@misswallison) October 9, 2018

Gwyneth Paltrow reassures us that she is not talking bullshit by talking bullshit.

Earlier this year, the lifestyle corporation fell under scrutiny once more when nonprofit group Truth in Advertising accused Goop of exploiting women with products which claim to combat health problems.

And now Gwyneth has opened up about the controversy.

When asked by the Radio 4 Today Programme about the flack the company has faced about some of the health benefits the products claim to have, Gwyneth replied that she thinks the criticism is important.

“If we’re not criticised we’re not doing our job. What we’re here to do is trailblaize and try to move culture forward,” she said.

“If we’re not criticised we’re not doing our job”? What’s she talking about? If you’re a corporation that purports to sell products that promote “wellness” then why is criticism required to do the job? Why not just sell the correct stuff to promote “wellness” instead?

And then the trailblazing. Why should a movie star be “trailblazing” on medical products? She has no relevant education or training. She’s an actor. And what does she mean by “move culture forward”? Isn’t it, rather, backward? Back to a time when no one knew very much about medicine so guesswork was all they had?

When asked about the specific law suit the company faced she explained:

“In that case there was just a verbiage issue. As you grow as a company, you learn about claims. If you look a product that says this may help with wrinkles you can’t say this will eradicate wrinkles.

That is, you can’t if it doesn’t. If she weren’t peddling woo she wouldn’t have to be careful about the “verbiage” in that way. She can’t say it eradicates wrinkles for the simple reason that it doesn’t. Saying it “may help with” is legal because it’s empty…but, sadly, persuasive to the inattentive.

The interview went on to discuss the Carnelian crystal that claims to help treat infertility.

Gwyneth pointed out that though she’d never tried it she believed there are “ancient healing modalities that have existed the power of oils and crystals for thousands of years that people find really effective.”

Who cares what she believes? This isn’t Tinkerbell. And calling them “modalities” doesn’t make them work any better.

It wasn’t long before people took to Twitter to let their thoughts on the interview known.

Gwyneth Paltrow on BBC Radio 4 basically saying Goop is still learning how to write product descriptions for their bullshit products which won’t result in lawsuits they lose.

— Mike (@6byNine) October 9, 2018

“There was just a verbiage issue”
Gwyneth Paltrow on being caught out making false claims on her mumbo-jumbo products

— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) October 9, 2018