Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Guest post: Alabama recognizes

    Originally a Miscellany Room alert from Sackbut.

    Ivey sets Alabama Girls in Sports Day—and targets trans athletes

    Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a proclamation Monday establishing October 10, 2026, as “Alabama Girls in Sports Day.”

    The proclamation begins by touting the positive impact athletic participation can have on young girls and celebrating female athletes’ achievements throughout sports history. However, it then fuels the growing antagonism toward transgender women’s participation in sports—an issue that has become a popular talking point among Republican politicians in recent years.

    “Alabama recognizes that there are fundamental biological differences between males and females that create meaningful competitive and safety considerations in athletic competition, particularly in women’s and girls’ sports, and we will continue standing up for women’s opportunity to compete fairly, safely and on a level playing field,” the proclamation reads.

    The document also specifies that October 10 was chosen because of its relationship to the Roman numerals “XX,” which reflect the “two X chromosomes that are characteristic of the female sex.”

    In a separate statement, Ivey declared that “if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if He made you a girl, you are a girl.”

    “We will continue standing up for the opportunity for girls to compete fairly and safely,” Ivey added.

    I think the measure is reasonably worded. The choice of October 10 is perhaps over the top “cute”. Ivey has instigated or supported a number of reasonable measures. However, in general, she and the Alabama legislature have a terrible track record, and many measures, even reasonable ones, are clearly designed to “own the liberals” for political purposes in this deeply conservative state.

  • One forward, one back

    They try to shut us up but they don’t always win. The Times, February 20, 2025:

    The Liberal Democrats have been forced to allow women’s rights campaigners who believe in biological sex to have equal footing with other groups after claims that they had been “vilified and censured” for their beliefs.

    Sir Ed Davey’s party have agreed to “draw a line under this period of intolerance” and allow Liberal Voice for Women (LVW) — the gender-critical section of the party — to be allowed to hold events, have exhibition stands and place adverts after a previous ban.

    Almost as if women are real people!

    The party has been forced to back down after an extended legal fight through which LVW members claimed they had been victims of discrimination.

    Not very liberal or very democratic of the party, was it.

    Zoe Hollowood, the chair of the Liberal Voice for Women, said: “For too long gender-critical members have been vilified and censured in the party for their ordinary belief in the immutability and importances of sex.

    The “belief” is about as ordinary and humdrum as you can get.

    Hollowood said LVW wrote numerous letters to the party leaders over 2022 and 2023 detailing acts of discrimination by the party. However, their concerns were dismissed or ignored. The party finally acted when advised it would lose a costly legal case if it continued to ban the group from having a stall, she said, with the party’s treasurer overturning the decision to ban it.

    Oh, money? We’d lose money? Well in that case we take it all back. Soz.

    Hollowood added: “Many political parties are struggling with the tension between members with gender-critical beliefs and trans activist members. The Green Party for instance is facing several legal cases for expelling gender-critical members and is reportedly at risk of bankruptcy.”

    Yes, about that…

    A gender-critical women’s group has been barred from the Green Party conference after being told it would make trans members “feel unsafe”.

    Time for another court case, eh?

  • That was so binary-implicit of you

    Emeritus professor of philosophy at Springfield College says what now?

    Oh dear, is binary-implicit a thought-crime now? That’s the hot new way to erase women from all the conversations? Does it also apply to men?

  • No you ain’t

    Again…it’s so very self-refuting. If it were true he would never say what he’s saying when he says it. Saying it, especially saying it over and over again, in those silly words, underscores how wrong it is.

    Intelligent persons DO NOT SAY “I’m a high-IQ person”.

  • Bums on seats

    And?

    Three men were elected as MPs. Equality with what? My educated hunch is that Brazil’s parliament is not 50% women.

    Let’s check.

    My hunch was not wrong.

    Women hold 88 seats (about 17.2%) in the Chamber of Deputies and 18 seats (about 22.2%) in the Federal Senate of Brazil’s National Congress.

    More trans women would not improve that ratio.

  • Let them

    It turns out people in LA and San Diego don’t much like it when Trump tells Iran to take those cities out.

    California leaders condemned President Trump on Monday night after he appeared to suggest that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego if it develops a nuclear weapon.

    Speaking at a Republican political rally in Nebraska, the president sought to justify the Iran war as necessary for “keeping the world safe.” He then suggested there could be strikes on the United States, including the Democratic-led Californian cities.

    “They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

    It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant, but his comments were met with anger from officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the president “deranged and dangerous.”

    I blame the subjunctive. The only way it can possibly be unclear what Trump meant is if you’re taking into account the possibility that he was using the present subjunctive there – let them take out as is let them eat cake. Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. The present subjunctive is rarely used in modern English (especially by people like Trump who have somewhat meagre language skills) – it uses “let” not in the everyday sense as in “Oh let him have it, he’ll never shut up unless you do” but in that other, weird sense that is the present subjunctive. See also “May her memory be a blessing”.

    Trump of course wasn’t using it that way, but then he wasn’t really using it the more familiar way, either, because who is the agent here? Who is doing this letting? Why is he telling us to let them take out LA and SD? Surely that’s his job, not ours. Really he should have said “I hereby give them permission to take out Los Angeles and/or San Diego.”

    “After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” Mr. Newsom posted on social media.

    Mayor Todd Gloria of San Diego wrote on social media that his city was not “collateral damage” and not “expendable.”

    “Keep our city out of your reckless war talk,” he added.

    In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said that the president’s comments were “dangerous” and could “potentially compromise” the city’s safety.

    “The role of a president is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it and encourage attacks on American lives,” she said in a social media statement.

    Well, yes, you’d think so. FDR didn’t invite Hitler to take out New York and DC. But hey, autres temps, autres mœurs.

  • Solipsism on hormones

    So I want to talk about public restrooms for a moment.

    [long pompous wait while he pretends to think]

    I’d say it’s been about [long meaningless pause while he counts] six months since I started using like whatever bathroom I find appropriate for me

    And that’s where I hit the stop button for good. It doesn’t matter what bathroom/toilet he finds appropriate for him. What matters is which bathrooms/restrooms he must stay out of for the safety and privacy of other people. It’s not about him; it’s about other people.

    That very simple very basic very obvious point seems to escape people like this bozo entirely. Who cares what rest rooms are appropriate for him? At least who cares about what he wants while he’s so blithely ignoring what people who don’t have a willy want and need?

    I’m so tired of toddler ethics.

  • We get to do that

    Gloating.

    We’re allowed to dislike religions. We’re allowed to discuss our dislike of religions. We’re allowed to dislike some religions more than others. We’re allowed to dislike Islam.

  • Lying for Islam

    Oh please.

    Green Party guidance has claimed anti-LGBT laws in Middle Eastern countries are the fault of the British Empire.

    The Muslim Greens, an affiliate group of the Left-wing party, made the claim in guidance that outlines how members can identify Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate as part of its code of conduct.

    The guidance, published on the Muslim Greens website, is intended for the Green Party in England and Wales. On the website, the group says “queerphobic legislation in many Muslim-majority countries is deeply tied to colonialism”.

    Because Islam is so very progressive in every way, right?

    It claims that suggesting Muslims are “uniquely queerphobic because of Islam denies acknowledging how modern-day queerphobia is strongly rooted in the British Empire”.

    It states that the idea that Islam “is in some way based around hating and marginalising queer communities” is itself Islamophobic and a form of anti-Muslim hate.

    We’re allowed to hate Islam. There are all too many real life opportunities to observe Islam being hateful. Just Google “stoning women” to see the abundance.

    A Green Party spokesman said: “This is comprehensive, well thought-through and evidenced guidance produced by Muslim Greens for Green Party groups and local parties to help them understand all aspects of Islamophobia and its link to other forms of discrimination and racism.”

    But Islam is not a race. Islam is a religion, with religion’s boundless entitlement to tell people what to do and what rights they can have and when they should stone women to death.

    “It explains the rise and normalisation of Islamophobia in Britain, the role of successive governments and mainstream media in fuelling anti-Muslim hate, and the importance of education and understanding history.”

    Ah see now you’re mixing them up. Islam is a religion; Muslims are people. Hating a religion is not synonymous with hating its followers/victims. It can lead to that, sure, but it’s still not the same thing. We have to be free to resist religions, and that means we have to be free to tell the truth about them. Islam is a bad one.

  • Confronted with an adult

    This is interesting.

    The bit I find particularly illuminating is that Collins points out that Trump spends nearly all his time surrounded by people who flatter flatter flatter him. That’s his life. So these few moments when there are people who don’t flatter him, and who ask him serious questions instead, is like a bucket of ice water poured over the head.

    And then you add in the fact that mentally he’s about 3 years old, and it all becomes clear. Mommeeeeeeeee who is this horrible woman who is asking me these mean questions??? He was in a nice warm bath and suddenly he’s in a blizzard with sleet freezing his eyes shut. No wonder he barfs insults at her nonstop!

  • Kimchi croissant world

    TERF Times writes:

    As Green convert and former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle fortified himself for conference with a ‘kimchi croissant with Gaza Cola’, a small group of the party faithful stood outside.

    These are the women from Green Women’s Declaration, who were excluded from the main hall after party officials told them its presence would make ‘trans members feel unsafe.’

    But the group didn’t appear to be armed with much more than leaflets with incendiary points such as ‘Sex is real’, ‘Lesbians are same-sex attracted females’ and ‘protect women from abuse, discrimination and harassment.

    Besides, what about women feeling unsafe? Why all this hand-wringing and sobbing over the unsafelike feelz of the tiny number of people who claim to be the sex they’re not, combined with the dead silence about the feelz of half the fucking population? Why do purported trans feelz matter infinitely while the feels of actual definite women don’t matter in the slightest?

    GWD exists to combat what it calls the party’s “chilling atmosphere of censure”, support members who speak up for reality and restore sex-based protections to Green politics. Its declaration has been signed by more than 1,600 party members and supporters: a substantial constituency to treat as though they are a threat to public order.

    Yet earlier this week, the Green Party Executive, which includes tit whisperer Zack Polanski, said the feminist activists had been barred because:

    “GPEx took this decision because it believes that having GWD present at conference would make our trans members feel unsafe, based on the prior conduct of some GWD members.”

    What prior conduct? You mean defending their rights?

    No particulars of this alleged misconduct were offered. One of those pictured with seditious literature outside the venue was Emma Bateman. After being elected as chair of Green Party Women, and suspended three times, she is taking the party to tribunal. Writing on her Crowdfunder she explained:

    “Since at least 2018, I and others have been warning the Greens that their anti-women policies would not wash with voters. The party chose to burn us as heretics, and they are still pouring on petrol eight years on.”

    It seems the Green Party functions as a free-range nature reserve, where every species of weirdo is protected except the adult human female who knows her rights matter.

    The fear of TERFs is the norm at the top. Earlier this year, Polanski called the EHRC guidelines on single-sex spaces “deeply regressive” and claimed they were “pushing trans people out of public life”. The Green Party also officially supports gender self-ID: a policy which would make women’s boundaries, safety and dignity depend on the goodwill of any man who fancies crossing them.

    And they think this is progressive, and we pesky mouthy women are reactionaries.

    Jude English, one of GWD’s directors, told The Telegraph earlier this week: “We are saddened that we must go to court to defend our character and values against a party we have served for years.”

    She added that senior figures in the Green Party “do not yet understand that the Human Rights Act includes the rights of women as a sex class and the Equality Act confers on them as individuals a duty to uphold our human rights”.

    And it’s not just that they don’t understand, it’s also that they passionately defend their misunderstanding and bash women who do understand.

  • Delete the part about Poland

    Trump mythologizing over here, Polanski mythologizing over there.

    Zack Polanski’s tale of ancestral migration from Europe has faced questions after it emerged all four of his grandparents were born in Britain.

    Speaking at the Green Party conference last October, the Green Party leader said he was proud of his Jewish heritage and told party members his ancestors “faced the Nazis” in Poland before arriving in England.

    However, Mr Polanski’s recent ancestors were reportedly all in Britain before the Second World War, which raises the question of which of them fled the Nazi regime.

    Mind you, there was plenty of Antisemitic violence to flee before the Nazis, but still, you don’t get to claim Nazis before there were any Nazis.

    He said: “I am literally the product of migration. It’s why defending migrants matters so much to me.

    “I want to tell you about a common Jewish experience. It’s a tale as old as time. My Jewish ancestry – it’s confusing and it’s muddling because we were constantly on the run. But from what I can gather, my ancestors started in Latvia in a Jewish town, but they fled because of pogroms.

    “They fled to Ukraine where they faced more pogroms. Then they ended up in Poland where they faced the Nazis. Then they arrived in England and met anti-Semitism here too.”

    Except for the Nazis part.

    Public records of births, marriages and deaths confirm Mr Polanski’s great and great-great-grandparents came from Latvia and Russia, which Mr Polanski has previously said.

    But, according to the Daily Mail, historical Census records from 1891, 1901 and other public resources, suggest they settled in the UK in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

    His four grandparents all come from the North and both of his parents were born in Manchester.

    So it’s mostly true but not entirely true. His Mancunian parents were very lucky; they were out of Hitler’s reach.

  • Dispatches from the playpen

    Trump has been showing off his renowned intellect this afternoon.

    Six of Trump’s Sunday afternoon posts included pictures of the Kennedy Center’s apparently deteriorating interior—which he called “crumbling,” “dilapidated” and “grotesque”—as well as sharp words for Christopher Cooper, the federal district judge who ordered his name removed from the venue.

    “The Kennedy Center is crumbling, and a great danger to anyone who walks inside,” Trump said in one post, claiming it will “only get worse unless the Radical Left Judge, with his Trump Hating lawyer wife, allows me to do what must be done!”—an apparent reference to the Kennedy Center’s latest attempt to place Trump’s name on the venue, which Cooper blocked.

    Nope, that can’t be right. Rulings aren’t handed down by married couples, even if both of them are judges, let alone if one of them is a mere Trump Hating lawyer.

    He also posted a handful of Greenland memes, one of which shows a large Trump looming over a mountain, while the other shows Trump looking at a group of penguins (which do not live in Greenland) holding American flags.

    This, remember, is not one of Trump’s grandchildren, nor is it the family dog. This is the prezzident himself, posting childish jokes on soshul meeja all afternoon.

    Trump also posted a screenshot of a post billionaire Elon Musk made on X earlier in the day, in which he said “No more AI,” calling Trump’s preferred “SI” acronym “better.” Trump also posted a black-and-white photo of himself, captioned, “Super Intelligence.” The president has pushed for artificial intelligence to be renamed super intelligence, and last week, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies and departments to only use the “SI” moniker in official communications moving forward.

    Oh, jeeezus. Changing the name won’t change the realities. If AI might get away from us and start doing its own thing, calling it Betsy will not help.

  • After being banned

    Green women but not those Green women.

    Two directors of the Green Women’s Declaration have spoken out on GB News after being banned from entering their party’s conference in Brighton.

    Speaking to the People’s Channel about why they were banned, Zoe Hatch and Jude English declared that they are “no longer allowed” to voice their agreement with the Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces.

    Banned for knowing that men are not women. So very progressive.

    Recalling her long-term membership with the Green Party, Ms Hatch told GB News: “I’ve been a long standing Green Party member, I joined because I was really, really concerned about the environment and concerned about my children’s future.

    “And it came to my attention when I was on The Executive, I was there when they wanted to expel Shahrar Ali, and I couldn’t be part of that, so I resigned from that.”

    Ms Hatch then became one of seven chairs of Green Party Women, which represents female members, but revealed that they have all been either “suspended or expelled” for expressing support for the Supreme Court ruling.

    She said: “We’ve all been suspended or expelled because we believe and we really just agree with the Supreme Court judgment around single sex provision for women, which I think the majority of the British public do as well.

    Well let’s hope so. Let’s hope most of the British public doesn’t think men can be women.

    Having formed the Green Women’s Declaration in response to the action against Green Party Women, Ms Hatch explained that for two years in a row, they have applied for a stall inside the party conference, to which they were then banned from attending all together.

    She told GB News: “We applied for a stall last year and again this year, because we are Greens and we want to interact with the rest of the party conference.

    “We’re a policy and advocacy group around this particular issue for women’s rights, and we’ve been banned from attending, but we haven’t been given any justifiable or good reason or any explanation at all, actually, for why we haven’t been denied the right to a stall or even any advertising in the brochure this year.”

    I suppose that’s because they don’t want to come right out and say they don’t give a damn about women.

    Having formed the Green Women’s Declaration in response to the action against Green Party Women, Ms Hatch explained that for two years in a row, they have applied for a stall inside the party conference, to which they were then banned from attending all together.

    She told GB News: “We applied for a stall last year and again this year, because we are Greens and we want to interact with the rest of the party conference.

    “We’re a policy and advocacy group around this particular issue for women’s rights, and we’ve been banned from attending, but we haven’t been given any justifiable or good reason or any explanation at all, actually, for why we haven’t been denied the right to a stall or even any advertising in the brochure this year.”

    It’s easy once you know how. You just lie. You claim to support women’s rights but you don’t actually.

    Ms Hatch concluded that a proposed women’s rights section was previously deemed “transphobic” by the party.

    She told GB News: “Last year we put forward a whole women’s rights section and it was deemed transphobic just because it was talking about women’s rights and it was ruled out of order, but there was no justifiable reason.”

    Sure there was. The justifiable reason was that they told you it was transphobic. End of story.

    Women ain’t got no home in this world any more.

  • And lots of us

    Heh

  • Difference is one thing, and stoning is another

    Well yes but it’s not that simple.

    One of these things is not like the other. “Brown” is of course not a good reason to vote against a candidate.

    “Muslim” is not inert that way. Islam has content, to put it mildly. Islam treats women as inferior and subordinate and deserving of ferocious control and punishment. There are liberal Muslims who reject all that, but it’s not clear that Mothin Ali rejects any of it.

    It’s not just automatically cool and multicultural and liberal in the broadest sense to treat Islam as just ordinary theism with a few quaint customs added on. Mo was not joking.

  • As any other form of racism

    The vote:

    The Green Party has declared that “Zionism is racism”, after a motion was passed by members at its conference against the wishes of several MPs.

    The move means that Zionism, the movement that led to the creation of Israel as a Jewish state, will be “treated as any other form of racism” by the party.

    So if Jews wanting a Jewish state in the wake of the Holocaust is racism, what was the Holocaust? Anti-racism?

    An amendment to the motion designed to protect Jewish Greens who attend venues that identify as “Zionist”, such as synagogues or community centres, from disciplinary proceedings for racism was also rejected, with more than 1,000 members voting against it. This means Jewish members of the party will risk being reported to the party for racism if they attend these venues. 

    Sounds cozy. Fellow Greens watching you, monitoring you, ratting on you. Solidarity forevaaa.

    Elise Benjamin, a founding member of the Jewish Greens, turned her “inclusion card” — a yellow slip of paper given to members so they can alert moderators if they experience discrimination at the conference — into a yellow star. Under Nazi rule, Jews were forced to wear a yellow star of David on their clothes when in out in public, to identify them.

    She told the Jewish Chronicle: “My family were murdered in the Holocaust… now people here have celebrated a vote that will make Jews unsafe.”

    …

    Caroline Lucas, who was the Greens’ first MP, representing Brighton Pavilion from 2010 to 2024, said the motion was “divisive” and could be “seen as a sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome” in the party.

    “I do have serious concerns about this motion,” she said this week. “There is no single definition of Zionism, and irrespective of the intentions of the people who put that motion forward, I think there is a real risk that it’ll be divisive and could be seen as a sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome in the party. I will not be supporting it for that reason.”

    It could so very easily be seen as a sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome in the party. In fact I’m seeing it that way myself right now.

  • That’s called “predicting”?

    Always classy.

    Trump rallied Saturday for Republicans in Ohio’s competitive races for Senate and governor, predicting that the party will defy expectations in a choppy midterm election climate.

    “I think we’re going to have a big surprise, because they don’t know what’s happening,” Trump said while speaking onstage inside a high school gymnasium near Dayton.

    “Just get out and vote,” Trump added. “If you do that, we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big. And we’re going to shove it up their ass.”

    Making us proud every day.

  • Trump personally instructed

    Huh. It turns out the taxpayers are paying for ads glorifying Trump.

    Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter.

    The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet the Press,” which Mr. Trump is known to watch.

    Mr. Trump was eager to see the laudatory ads on the air and told Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to come up with the money from within the government, the people said.

    In other words our money.

    The taxpayer-funded ads have been criticized by Democrats and even some Republicans as a possible violation of federal laws against using taxpayer dollars for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” And they come as the president is also directing spending from his super PAC — MAGA Inc., which entered the fall with $400 million — for which he has been raising money since he won re-election in 2024.

    It was not clear why taxpayer funds, and not money from the super PAC, were used for the spots.

    Sure it was. He wants to keep his money and spend our money. Simple.

    The White House has called the ads public service announcements and said they are appropriate because there is no “call to action” to vote for any candidate. Some of his aides also noted that Mr. Trump is not running for office now, in an attempt to blunt criticism of the ads as violating federal laws about the use of public money.

    When pressed by a reporter on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said: “If somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money.”

    “But these are ads for the country,” he added. “You have to understand. I’m not promoting a candidate. I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.”

    Right right right, he’s not promoting himself at all.

    Asked to comment for this story, the White House press office sent an unsigned statement saying, “These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders and abroad.”

    Huh. Well then they’re not working.

  • The maneuver

    The standoff drags on.

    When President Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House, it took Washington by ​surprise. Now, there is a move in the US Congress to avoid a second such surprise with legislation to prohibit him from demolishing ‌the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

    The maneuver comes on the heels of a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to provide at least 30 days’ notice before taking steps to demolish the building. Trump himself had told reporters in mid-September that unless his name was on the Kennedy Center, “It’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down.”

    All very well but if he decides to knock it down he will knock it down. Congress can legislate to prohibit him all it wants but that won’t stop him. Nothing stops him.

    Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley ​of Oregon and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska authored the brief, 15-line bill, along with Democratic Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine.

    “A memorial to honor ​a president of the United States designated by an act of Congress may not be demolished unless authorized by an ⁠act of Congress,” the bill states.

    Merkley and Murkowski attempted to rush the bill to passage late on Monday in the Senate, only to have Republican Senator Mike Lee ​of Utah block it. An aide to Lee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Now they and Pingree — all senior appropriations committee members who oversee spending on federal ​buildings and parks — are eyeing new moves, such as slipping it into must-do legislation Congress is likely to fight over at the end of the year.

    “We were just trying to put whatever guardrails up that we could,” Pingree said in a telephone interview, given the controversy over the temporary closing of the Kennedy Center by its board, which is controlled by Trump appointees, ​and Trump himself raising the idea of tearing down the building on the banks of the Potomac River — unless his name was added to the edifice.

    Quite. Whatever guardrails they could, which won’t withstand Trump’s complete indifference to guardrails.

    Even if ​the bill fails to pass, Pingree said, it provides “a strong statement from Congress,” given its bipartisan backing by senior lawmakers opposing a tear-down.

    “It’s unbelievable that he thinks he has the right ‌to do ⁠that,” Pingree said.

    It’s all too believable. Disgusting, but entirely credible. He thinks he has the right to do absolutely anything.

    Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland ⁠said in ​an interview that while Congress clearly has say over how money is spent on the Kennedy ​Center, he hoped Trump’s advisers would rein him in. “I’m not interested in escalating the conflict,” Raskin said when asked about possible legislation, before the bipartisan bill was introduced.

    But he added: “We did not create a center for John F. Kennedy ​and any other president monarchicly minded enough to want to scrawl his name in graffiti on the building.”

    Yet here we are.