Author: Ophelia Benson

  • One, therefore all

    Jump to conclusions much?

    Trump vowed on Thanksgiving to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations in a blistering late-night, anti-immigrant screed posted to social media.

    The extended rant came in the wake of the Wednesday shooting of two National Guard members who were deployed to patrol Washington, D.C., under Trump’s orders, one of whom died shortly before the president spoke to U.S. troops by video on Thursday evening.

    A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War is facing charges for the shooting. The suspect emigrated as part of a program to resettle those who has helped American troops after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    One Afghan national faces charges for a shooting. One. Not a hundred, not fifty, not ten, but one. Does it make sense to ban all Afghan nationals as a result? It seems unlikely, seeing as how Trump doesn’t rush to deport, say, all Americans, even though there have been mass shootings carried out by Americans in recent years.

  • You’re canceled no YOU are

    The Society of Authors is hemorrhaging members.

    A number of writers have quit the Society of Authors after the literary union was accused of failing to defend members, The Telegraph can disclose.

    The literary union, which has around 12,000 members, has been at the centre of a series of “cancel culture” rows involving Sir Philip Pullman, Kate Clanchy and Rachel Rooney.

    Critics have also accused the union of failing to defend prominent authors, including JK Rowling, who were attacked over their gender-critical views.

    Which is to say, their views that men are not women.

    Now members of the society’s management group have quit over its perceived failure to speak out against cancel culture. The union has also been accused of failing to bring in reforms to ensure it does not become partisan in national debates such as the trans rights controversy.

    Is the problem being partisan? Or is it being on Team Irrational while abusing members who know that men are not women? The “trans rights controversy” boils down to Deranged Fiction That Pretends Men Can Be Women versus sane people. Is that really partisan? If a coterie of nutcases decided humans can fly by deploying their wings, would it be partisan to say no we can’t?

    There has been growing frustration that the Society of Authors has refused to apologise for its role in a spate of literary cancellations in recent years.

    Among them was the case of [Kate] Clanchy, who was ostracised by fellow writers and effectively dropped by Picador, her publisher, after she was accused of using racist language in her book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me.

    The Orwell Prize-winning author has claimed that she was told to apologise by Chocolat author Joanne Harris, the society’s then chairman.

    Sir Philip, the author of His Dark Materials, sought to defend Ms Clanchy in his capacity as president of the society by comparing her critics to the Taliban.

    Ms Harris then apologised for Sir Philip’s remarks, stating that the society deplored “racism and prejudice in all its forms”.

    Including the forms that are non-existent.

    It’s interesting and sad that Pullman was right about this one and so wrong about trans ideology.

  • Sweeping plans

    Aaaand there it is – the Central Park 5 writ large.

    Trump says U.S. to ‘permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries’ after DC shooting

    [Note the bonehead mistake. You can’t “permanently pause” something. It’s one or the other, not both. A pause is temporary by definition.]

    Trump on Thursday announced sweeping plans to tighten immigration rules, including a suspension on migration from “Third World Countries” and cancellation of all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens” in the country.

    Of course he did. One, he’s too dense to grasp that one murder doesn’t establish anything about all people from whatever he chooses to consider third world countries. Two, he’s more than evil enough to punish millions or billions of people for an act by one person.

    The president said he would also terminate “millions” of admissions under his predecessor Joe Biden and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.”

    Trump added he plans to end all federal benefits and subsidies for noncitizens, “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility,” and deport any foreign national he described as a “public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

    What will the test be for people “incapable of loving our Country”? By many measures he’s incapable of loving the US. It’s way too various for his taste.

  • Because 100% of convictions are solid?

    Oh Thomas.

    Is he not aware that wrongful or targeted or political prosecutions and imprisonments have been a leftwing cause for generations? Is he not aware that the police can get it wrong, that prosecutors can get it wrong, that judges can get it wrong, that juries can get it wrong? Can and do?

    Yes, bro. Some “convicted criminals” are our heroes.

    Does the name “Nelson Mandela” ring a bell?

    Sacco and Vanzetti?

    Joe Hill?

    Is Thomas Willett a spy for the secret police?

  • Only if

    The invader reminds us he’s not doing all this for the hell of it. If he doesn’t profit what was any of it for?

    Vladimir Putin has said that the outline of a draft peace plan discussed by the US and Ukraine could serve as a basis for future negotiations to end the war – but insisted Ukraine would have to surrender territory for any deal to be possible.

    It’s like when you rob a bank, or a woman walking down the street. You do it because you want their money. If you don’t get any money, you’re not going to stop, are you. You’re there for a reason.

    Speaking to reporters during a working visit to Kyrgyzstan, Putin said Russia would halt its offensive only if Ukrainian forces withdrew from unspecified areas currently under Kyiv’s control. “If Ukrainian troops leave the territories they occupy, then we will stop fighting,” he said. “If they don’t, we will achieve our aims militarily.”

    Of course he said that. He’s not there because he got confused. He’s there to grab as much of Ukraine as he can. Stalin would be proud of him. Trump is proud of him.

  • The mountain labored and

    The anticipation is intense.

    It’s SO VERY Euan to 1 use a tiresome cliche and 2 get the tiresome cliche wrong. Where exactly do you place the dot on the T? Except it’s not the T, it’s the t, because the dot on the i is not on the I. Two stupid blunders in one six-word semi-sentence.

    Also, he’s cheerfully telling us his previous work was sloppy. You don’t say.

  • Who just went along with it

    Michael Deacon at the Telegraph asks an important question:

    How did something as self-evidently bonkers as trans ideology gain such a powerful grip over our society?

    Or to put it another way, how did and do so many adults manage to believe, or act as if they believe, such a self-evidently bonkers claim?

    (Which claim? The claim that sex is not in the body but the mind; that people can be the opposite of the sex they obviously are; that sex is a matter of idenniny as opposed to fact; that genitalia have nothing to do with which sex a person is. That claim.)

    Over our politics, our universities, the BBC and countless other institutions? Funnily enough, the people I blame most are not the fanatics who actually believe in this nonsense – for the simple reason that there are, in reality, very few of them.

    No, I think the real blame lies with a group of people who are rather more numerous. That is: the cowards who just went silently along with it all, or even pretended to believe in it, because they didn’t dare speak out.

    But we don’t know, do we. It’s another black box. We don’t know how many are just obeying as opposed to genuinely believing. We can’t tell. The perps have arranged it so that we can’t tell.

    To be clear, I’m not having a go at ordinary people in ordinary jobs. I’m talking about the cowards who are rich and successful: big-name figures in everything from publishing to pop. Such people could, like JK Rowling, have used their influence to help defend women’s rights and everyone’s free speech. Overwhelmingly, however, our elites kept their mouths shut and their heads down.

    Or they in fact busied themselves shouting at JKR and all the rest of us evil refuseniks.

  • If at first

    A long title:

    Trans activists trying to ban feminist book for a SECOND time by claiming its return makes national library ‘unsafe and hostile’ for staff

    Well it didn’t work the first time, so might as well try again, right? The project of silencing feminist women is not for the faint-hearted!

    Trans activists are trying to force the National Library of Scotland to ban a feminist book for the SECOND time by claiming its return has made the building an unsafe and hostile space for staff.

    The Mail has seen an open letter signed by publishers, academics, as well as book festival staff demanding that the library’s board, who after a public outcry reinstated ‘The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht’, immediately ‘change course’.

    Because I say, look here, it won’t do you know. It isn’t on. Women cannot be allowed to defend their rights just because their rights are being stifled. Where would it end?

    It states:’ ‘We stand in solidarity with queer and trans staff at the National Library of Scotland, who in recent months have been subject to harassment and bigotry in their workplace.’

    Evidence?

    It won’t surprise you to learn that no evidence is offered.

    ‘We call upon the Library urgently to change course, to make a strong public commitment to ensuring that all staff and visitors are able to access the Library without fear. We condemn the series of decisions by the board and senior leadership that have led to a hostile environment for queer, trans, and allied staff of and visitors to the library.’

    So they’re saying that the presence of a single book in the library – one of many thousands of books – makes it impossible for some staff and visitors to enter or use the library without fear. How can that be true? How does it even make sense? Books don’t sit there pulsating and exuding contaminating vapors, you know. Books sit on the shelves or the tables, until someone picks them up and reads them. They are physically inert, and they are also reproducible. Removing one from a library is a symbolic act, not a literal removal of a jug of poison. These goons want the book removed pour encourager les autres.

    Co-editor of the book Lucy Hunter Blackburn said: “This letter is an outrageous and unwarranted attack on a major cultural institution. It makes a number of bizarre and unsubstantiated claims about the effect of including the book in the exhibition and unfounded and insulting comments about the book and its writers more generally.”

    Like the bizarre and unsubstantiated claim that the book emits poisonous vapors just by being on the shelf.

  • A single book about being from another solar system

    Oh honestly.

    I haven’t read a single book by a delusional person about what it’s like to be a tree or a toad or a 747 or a library or New Jersey. Should I feel ashamed? Should I rectify the error? No and no. We don’t have to read about every possible delusion there is. What’s necessary is to grasp that delusions are delusions, which means they’re not the beginning of a new way of being human. They’re just delusions. In the end they’re pretty boring.

  • Had they been aware

    BBC Sport admits:

    Briton wins world’s strongest woman after trans athlete disqualified

    Not the clearest title ever. The Briton didn’t win a woman; the Briton is a woman and she won the strongest woman contest after a male athlete was disqualified.

    Britain’s Andrea Thompson has been crowned world’s strongest woman after it transpired the original winner was a transgender woman who was not eligible to compete.

    Well it didn’t just “transpire” now did it. Many if not all the people in charge must have known, and the man in question certainly knew. Andrea Thompson knew, and she was shown all over social media standing on the podium below the cheating man, and proceeding to say “this is bullshit” and walking away. It wasn’t transpiring, it was cheating, enabled by people who allowed the cheating. Enough with the bullshit.

    Thompson, 43, was awarded the title by event organisers Strongman two days after the event was held in Arlington, Texas from 20-23 November. Strongman only permits [should be permits only] competitors to take part in a category which matches their biological sex recorded at birth. Thompson had finished second to the American athlete after the six weightlifting events in the Woman’s Open category.

    Strongman said in a statement its officials were “unaware” the original winner was “biologically male and now identifies as female” and had now “disqualified the athlete in question”.

    “Had we been aware, or had this been declared at any point before or during the competition, this athlete would not have been permitted to compete in the Woman’s Open category,” the statement added. “It is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.”

    Yes it is. Now everyone do that.

  • When you see

    A “child”?

    This is the “child” he’s talking about:

    That is not a child. A minor, yes, but a child, no. He’s large, he’s aggressive, he’s male. He’s what’s colloquially known as a shit – a guy who goes out of his way to hassle and pester and get up in the faces of women who refuse to agree that he’s one of them.

  • A devout noticer of reality

    No more “birthing persons” thank you very much.

    Kate Forbes has ordered her civil servants to stop using the term “birthing person” instead of “woman” in SNP government documents.

    The Deputy First Minister, a devout Christian, objected to the phrase being used in a briefing that dealt with official pregnancy and maternity guidance.

    Her religion is irrelevant. Trans ideology is itself a kind of religion; irrational belief is not a compelling reason to reject a different irrational belief.

    The SNP’s civil servants initially tried to withhold the term Ms Forbes had objected to but it was published following an appeal under the FoI legislation.

    Scottish Government maternity guidance published the month after Ms Forbes’s intervention used the terms “woman/women” instead, noting that “this is the way that the majority of those who are pregnant and having a baby will identify”.

    The majority? Try “all but a few loonies in thrall to a loony ideology.” It’s not a mere majority who know that men can’t gestate babies, it’s almost every adult on the planet.

    Susan Smith, a director of the For Women Scotland (FWS) feminist group that won the case against the Scottish Government, said: “Pregnancy and maternity represent a protected characteristic under UK law with distinct rights attached.

    “It is absurd that insulting and reductive alternatives were ever used to refer to women or mothers: ‘Birthing people’ is an especially dehumanising phrase.

    “We are pleased that the Deputy First Minister recognises this, but it is very troubling that this ideological language was ever allowed to infect Government and we trust that, in future, this change will be reflected across all departments.”

    This ideological insulting deranged language.

  • Oh no not denied pronouns

    Is that right?

    Really? The BBC of all institutions is mean to trans people? You’re going with that?

    And how does the example illustrate his point? Where would a pronoun be an improvement in that caption? He’s saying that “Linehan cleared of harassing a transgender activist” should be replaced with “Linehan cleared of harassing a she/her”? Does he not understand what pronouns are? They’re there to simplify things by replacing two or three or more informative words with the much briefer “her” or “him” – but the cluster of informative words has to come first. Willoughby quoted a single 17 word title; there is no space or need to shorten “transgender activist” to “her”.

    Maybe tomorrow we’ll discuss what a sentence is.

  • Loyalty to the law

    Trump on “Truth Social” two days ago:

     

    Why yes, exactly. The US military doesn’t swear an oath to you, it swears an oath to the Constitution.

    You didn’t read it, did you. Somebody told you to post it and you did. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  • Don’t rely on the Nuremberg defense

    More on Trump and Hegseth versus the laws of war:

    The FBI is seeking to schedule interviews with the six Democratic lawmakers who, in a controversial video posted last week, urged service members and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders.

    …

    Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced it will investigate Kelly, a retired US Navy Captain, for misconduct, and warned it may even recall him to active duty to face a court martial or administrative punishment for his part in the video.

    “The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false. Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said after news of the investigation.

    Yo Pete, guess what, encouraging our warriors to carry out illegal orders undermines every aspect of the laws of war.

    Service members are required to follow only lawful orders in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Following an order that might violate the law could open service members up to prosecution, as legal precedent holds that receiving an order alone isn’t a defense, colloquially known as the “Nuremberg defense” as it was deployed by senior members of Adolph Hitler’s leadership team during legal proceedings after World War II.

    Yo, Pete, do you really want to go down in history along with senior members of Adolph Hitler’s leadership team? Really?

  • Lawful, repeat, lawful

    No YOU’RE the sedition.

    The FBI is seeking to interview Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and five other congressional Democrats in connection with their appearance in a video encouraging members of the U.S. military to refuse to follow illegal orders, those lawmakers confirmed Tuesday.

    President Donald Trump last week blasted the video, accusing Kelly and the other lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” calling them “traitors,” and saying that, “In the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death.”

    How old? Like, 5 centuries or so? Kindly research the My Lai massacre.

    The other lawmakers on the video were Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, as well as House Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, both of Pennsylvania.

    Slotkin said the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division “appeared to open an inquiry into me in response to a video President Trump did not like.”

    “The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place,” Slotkin said in a tweet. “He believes in weaponizing the federal government against his perceived enemies and does not believe laws apply to him or his Cabinet. He uses legal harassment as an intimidation tactic to scare people out of speaking up.”

    …or his Cabinet unless someone in his Cabinet pisses him off. He believes laws apply to whatever he says they apply to at a given moment.

    Earlier Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out online over Kelly’s display of his U.S. Navy medals after the Pentagon began investigating him for encouraging service members to refuse to obey unlawful orders.

    “So ‘Captain’ Kelly, not only did your sedition video intentionally undercut good order & discipline … but you can’t even display your uniform correctly,” Hegseth snapped in a post on X, which replied to a tweet by Kelly showing his medals. “Your medals are out of order & rows reversed. When/if you are recalled to active duty, it’ll start with a uniform inspection,” said Hegseth, a former Fox News host and a former major in the Army National Guard.

    That’s Hegseth all right. Pitch a fit about how the medals are arranged. Once a tv talking doll always a tv talking doll.

    The Pentagon on Monday said it was investigating “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, who is a retired Navy captain, for his role in the video. The Pentagon said Kelly could be recalled to active military duty and face a possible court-martial for potential violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

    The UCMJ requires service members to obey “any lawful general order or regulation.”

    That’s their point. It’s about obeying lawful orders.

  • Lower that arm, bro

    Wo. It’s happened at last! Let the deluge begin! There’s a long list to get through!

    The woman on his right, our left, is all over twitX saying “This is bullshit” and walking away – and for once the bosses listened and agreed. She is the champion.

  • A fundamental flaw in what it intends to discover

    The whistleblowers provide much food for thought.

    This passage about halfway through for instance:

    The puberty blocker trial has a fundamental flaw in what it intends to discover. Young people experiencing intense distress about pubertal changes will understandably feel great relief when offered a way to halt them, and this relief may seem like successful treatment. However, the trial overlooks how the very prospect of medical intervention affects their mental state during assessment, and it fails to consider what this communicates: that their distress is unbearable instead of something they might be supported to work through. Many of these young people already struggle with their identity and experience a sense of not fitting in with most of their peers. Keeping them in developmental stasis for two years while their peer group matures around them does not provide a neutral pause; it further isolates them from a normal developmental path. While their friends face the social and psychological challenges of puberty, forming new relationships and shaping their adult identities, these young people remain frozen at an earlier stage. This divergence from their peers may worsen their difficulties rather than help, reinforcing their feeling that they cannot manage what their peers are handling, at the very moment when connecting with peers matters most.

    And the thing is, these young people who remain frozen won’t be able to understand that fact until it happens. Their brains aren’t old enough yet. Infants don’t understand fairy tales, and 15-year-olds don’t know how they will think and feel at age 20. It’s a black box to them. So when the choice is between let maturation proceed even though it feels awkward and wrong, or halt maturation even though that will feel like a horrific mistake in 5 or 10 years, option number one seems at least less risky.

  • Was the phone just minding its own business?

    Some good news and some bad news.

    Graham Linehan has been cleared of harassing a trans activist on social media at Westminster Magistrates Court but convicted of criminal damage for knocking an activist’s phone out of his hand when he thrust it in his face.

    It seems to me that if someone thrusts a hard object (i.e. not a wooly hat or similar) in your face you have every right to bat that hand away. It’s called self-defense.

    A top-flight legal team, provided by the FSU, who persuaded Judge Clarke that @Glinner’s comments on the trans debate did not satisfy the legal definition of harassment.

    The judge said that she did not believe that the alleged ‘victim’ “was giving entirely truthful evidence”, whereas Graham was a credible witness: “While firm in his view on the sex and gender debate, he was not seeking to mislead the court.”

    The Court rejected the CPS’s arguments that Graham’s gender-critical posts were “unacceptable”.

    This part of the result is a real victory for free speech. However, we’re concerned about the decision to convict Graham of criminal damage.

    Gender-critical events across the country have been the target of aggressive protests by trans activists seeking to exercise a heckler’s veto. Some of these protests have descended into violence.

    Graham was attending such an event last year when he was confronted by one such protester who aggressively shoved a phone into his face. Graham reacted instinctively, knocking the phone out of his hand. Rather than investigate the incident impartially, the authorities took the side of the trans activist.

    We think allowing activists to disrupt events in this way undermines free speech because it allows extremists to shut down perfectly lawful speech that they disagree with.

    Graham is going to appeal this verdict and the Free Speech Union will pay his legal costs in full.

    Our right to smack away hard objects roughly shoved in our faces is at stake.

  • What you are basically saying

    The last 30 seconds or so are illuminating (in a narrow sense of illuminating).

    What you’re basically saying is that transgender identities don’t exist, so that somebody who has a penis and testicles can’t identify as a woman – and – I mean – where does that come from, where do you find that view – because there are millions, millions, of transgender women living in the world – there’s something like, in one count, up to eight million transgender people living in the US – but yet you’re saying it’s impossible that somebody who has a penis identifies as female – I mean [flailing] uh er how do you get to wipe out a whole section of the population by saying transgender identity can’t. be. real.

    But of course she has it all confused. He’s not saying “somebody who has a penis and testicles can’t identify as a woman” – that gets it precisely wrong. Of course anybody can “identify as” anything. The point is, identifying as does not make it true. I can identify as a King County Metro bus transfer, but that doesn’t make me a King County Metro bus transfer.

    People can think whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean whatever they think is true.

    Men can identify as women, dress up as women according to their lights, call themselves women, imagine they are women, look in the mirror and say “woman” – but none of that makes them women. Neither does anything else.

    Webberley is saying that not believing deluded people’s wild claims about themselves=wiping those people out. Well it doesn’t. The people remain. We don’t have to buy into their delusions to keep them from floating away on the breeze.