More tendentious naming and framing.

Radcliffe “voices his support for the transgender community” – and voices his hostility to the feminist community, but of course the headline doesn’t say that, because We Have Chosen Our Side, and it ain’t women.

“Transgender women are women,” Radcliffe said. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people.”

No it doesn’t. It’s kind of the opposite, really. Humoring people this way doesn’t really promote their dignity. It’s not promoting the dignity of people to pretend they are furries or Star Wars characters or Cleopatra, so why is it promoting their dignity to pretend they are women when in fact they are men? If adults want dignity, they have to … Read the rest

A comedian named Sarah Keyworth writes a letter to JK Rowling and asks everyone to share it.

From that letter:

There is no attack on what it means to be a woman, or a lesbian. There is simply a movement to expand what those words mean.

But that is an “attack” on what those words mean, isn’t it. It is a campaign to change the meaning of a word that picks out…well, what does it pick out. Let’s see.

1. Half or rather more than half of all humans
2. The sex that gives birth to all humans
3. The sex that has historically been dominated by the other half
4. The “weaker” sex – the sex that in a dimorphic species is overall

… Read the rest

Trump’s Fox News spokesperson says they can’t do a thing about all that fencing, it’s not their decision, they have nothing to do with it, they’re helpless.

When asked about the barriers around Lafayette Square during her White House briefing, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the matter was not in White House control.

“That’s not something that is in White House control,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says when asked how long the new fencing at Lafayette Square in Washington, DC will stay up. https://t.co/TSxOg627pP pic.twitter.com/t9LFNoBAH8

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 8, 2020

Trump has absolute powers of all kinds, he keeps telling us, but when it comes to all this hardware, no, it’s a higher power that decides … Read the rest

I didn’t know this.

Just a reminder that Winston Churchill was a racist who presided over a man made famine which killed millions, https://t.co/IUsaaCxIx4

— Gita Sahgal (@GitaSahgal) June 8, 2020

So I found a Guardian article by Michael Safi from March 2019.

The Bengal famine of 1943 was the only one in modern Indian history not to occur as a result of serious drought, according to a study that provides scientific backing for arguments that Churchill-era British policies were a significant factor contributing to the catastrophe.

The study looked at moisture in soil for several famines and found an outlier.

However, the 1943 famine in Bengal, which killed up to 3 million people, was different, according to

… Read the rest

George Conway points out that Trump is now busy failing to deal with not one but two crises.

Lacking in humanity, Trump has had no idea how to handle either one. He has responded to the police-brutality protests only by making matters worse. Faced with circumstances warranting calls for calm and restraint, he answered with almost sadistic invitations for more violence, fulminating about “THUGS” and extrajudicially “shooting” looters, issuing threats about “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” and celebrating “Domination” and “Overwhelming force.”

I’m not sure what that “almost” is doing in front of “sadistic,” unless it’s just the usual “must be careful in major mainstream newspaper” type of qualm. Maybe an editor inserted it. Trump’s sadism is … Read the rest

Gender Heretic wrote up the JK Rowling shock-horror.

…the calls of “TERF!” and “transphobe!” did not begin with anything Rowling said about trans people.

No, Rowling’s great sin was to push back against the erasure of the word “women” and its replacement with “people who menstruate.”

Let’s think about that. Let’s think about why feminist women would object to the fact that we are being deleted from public conversation. Why would we object to that? Is it because we’re Karens?

I don’t think so. I think it’s because, if we can’t say “women” when we talk about women’s issues now, how can feminism even exist? Shouldn’t feminism be deleted from public conversation too? (Many are working on that very … Read the rest

The Independent wants to make it very clear how strongly it disapproves of JK Rowling’s…badditude. It can’t explain more clearly than that, but why would you need it to? Badditude is bad.

Harry Potter fans are tearing into JK Rowling after she posted a series of “transphobic” tweets.

Are the tweets “transphobic”? Or are they transphobic? Does the Indy take the claim seriously or not?

Theauthor was met with a backlash after calling out an article’s use of the phrase “people who menstruate”. While many Twitter users supported Rowling for her tweet, there were plenty – including numerous celebrities – who criticised her comment as “anti-trans” and “transphobic” arguing that transgender, non-binary and non-gender conforming people can also menstruate.

… Read the rest

Guest post by Leo Igwe PhD, CEO of AFAW (Advocacy for Alleged Witches)

Malawi is one of the countries in Africa where witch persecution is pervasive. Alleged witches suffer egregious human rights abuses including stoning, lynching and murder. In the late 2000s, courts jailed alleged witches. And some court officials claimed that the imprisonment was for their safety. Local humanist and human rights activists campaigned and helped release many alleged witches from state prisons. But recent news suggests that little has changed regarding the plight of alleged witches in the country. Accused persons are still taken into custody but this time by the Sing’anga, as traditional priests/priestesses and witch hunters are called in the country.

Witch hunts in Mzimba

On … Read the rest

Colin Powell is not impressed with Trump.

“I certainly cannot, in any way, support President Trump this year,” Powell said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I’m very close to Joe Biden on a social matter and on a political matter. I’ve worked with him for 35, 40 years, and he is now the candidate, and I will be voting for him.”

Powell’s support for Biden, who clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, marks a continuation of his drift from the Republican Party. The retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump in 2016, and voted for President Barack Obama in 2012. He endorsed Mr. Obama

… Read the rest

Fences. Fences fences fences. Trump wants ALL the fences, to keep the scary hordes away from him and his plastic fantastic daughter-wife.

Protesters arriving in the nation’s capital for the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations found the White House encircled by more than a mile of tall metal fencing.

The previous day, work crews had erected enough fencing — reinforced by white concrete barriers — to bar entry to Lafayette Square and to outline half of the Ellipse, the sloping green lawn that abuts the executive residence. But between Friday night and Saturday afternoon — on a day expected to draw tens of thousands to protest in the District — they added enough fencing to block the rest of

… Read the rest

This happened today.

#Bristol statue of Edward Colston has been pulled down and pushed into the harbour during the #BlackLivesMattter march pic.twitter.com/ME1yxAhw7G

— BBC Radio Bristol (@BBCRB) June 7, 2020

Bristol was the biggest slave trade port in Britain.

There are many cries of “Disgraceful!”

I would ask people making this argument one question, politely. "Do you want it put back up then?" https://t.co/4jsUnERNhj

— Tom Sutcliffe (@tds153) June 7, 2020

The thing is, toppling statues of tyrants has a long history. It’s just silly to call it “vandalism” as if there were nothing more to it.

Does selling slaves count as tyranny? I think the question answers itself.… Read the rest

The Times (NY) is more circumspect…thus I suppose living up to its reputation for establishment conservatism, but that buys into the absurd new arrangement whereby thinking men become women by saying so is left-wing while thinking women and only women are women is right-wing. To be clear: thinking women and only women are women is not right-wing. It’s tautological, but it’s not right-wing.

J.K. Rowling, the creator of the popular “Harry Potter” series, came under fire from L.G.B.T.Q. groups after she took aim at an article that referred to “people who menstruate.”

The online op-ed article posted last month, with the title “Creating a More Equal Post-Covid-19 World for People Who Menstruate,” highlighted some of the risks faced by

… Read the rest

Talk about ideological capture…

One of the headlines on Google News led to this alluring sample under Further Coverage:

TERF tweets; Anti-Trans Tweets; transphobic comments. It’s only Fox that doesn’t poison the well. This isn’t The Nation or Mother Jones, it’s USA Today and Variety – not exactly hotbeds of lefty thought. They all just take it for granted that her tweets were “transphobic.” What did she say again?

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

The idea

… Read the rest

Uh huh. Man who roleplays as stereotypical HOTTTT woman tells feminists they’re not feminists.

https://twitter.com/MunroeBergdorf/status/1269561911693193216

Also – nobody knew the difference between women and men until colonialists made it all up.

https://twitter.com/MunroeBergdorf/status/1269563177131487234

Imagine white people laying down the law about BLM. Imagine white people who roleplay as black people – a crowd of Dolezals – laying down the law about BLM. Imagine thinking that was progressive.… Read the rest

This is brilliant.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1269421143712120834… Read the rest

Ok I’m going to have to inflict on you a transcript of that slice of Princess Daughter’s pretend commencement speech she bestowed on us this morning. If you can’t bear to listen to her yourself for even a second, you should bear in mind that she deploys a weird zombie-like whispery voice and that she accompanies it with much head and face and mouth work.

I am confident [flashing of shiny white teeth] that even if your path is different from the one you imagined, ultimately [seductive turn of the head], it can be better than we [sic] could ever have planned. In my own life I’ve found that my greatest personal growth has arisen from times of discomfort and

… Read the rest

Another Trump Derangement Syndrome incident Monday:

This grown a*s man just did this to a little girl who was posting flyers in support of George Floyd. This is sick. No grown man has the right to touch children, ever. https://t.co/gxUZ3fFpmf

— Frank Giugliano (@nyccookies) June 4, 2020

NPR reports:

A 60-year-old man has been arrested in Maryland following allegations that he assaulted a group of three young adults who were hanging flyers in support of George Floyd and an end to racial injustice.

The confrontation drew widespread outrage when video of the encounter was posted online. Authorities with the Maryland-National Capital Park Police said Friday that Anthony Brennan III of Kensingston, Md., has been charged with second-degree assault

… Read the rest

Princess Ivanka is having an angry.

Our nation’s campuses should be bastions of free speech. Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia.

Listening to one another is important now more than ever!https://t.co/VW6W8TIL9c

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) June 5, 2020

Oh no, did somebody cancel her? From what? Who wants to hear her in the first place?

The people of Wichita, maybe.

Ivanka Trump has hit out at complained about “cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination” after plans for her to give a virtual commencement speech to students in Kansas were canceled amid criticism of Donald Trump’s response to anti-police brutality protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

The really interesting question here is why … Read the rest

Now Barr is trying to pretend he wasn’t actually involved in that whole thing. He was there and all, but he wasn’t, like, saying go spray that person and that one and that one. He did ask who will rid him of this turbulent crowd, but he didn’t say how. He was just musing aloud, really. Expressing the wistful hopes and dreams of a loyal public servant.

Attorney General William P. Barr sought to dissociate himself Friday from police’s move earlier this week to push back a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators using horses and gas, claiming that he did not give the “tactical” order for law enforcement on the scene to move in.

He’s a civilian, ok? He … Read the rest

Trump took a little jaunt to Maine yesterday.

President Donald Trump traveled to Maine Friday to tour a facility that makes medical swabs used for coronavirus testing, but the swabs manufactured in the background during his visit will ultimately be thrown in the trash, the company said.   

So they’re Potemkin swabs? What’s the point?

Puritan Medical Products said it will have to discard the swabs, a company spokeswoman told USA TODAY in response to questions about the visit.   

It is not clear why the swabs will be scrapped, or how many.The company described its manufacturing plans for Friday as “limited” – but the disruption comes as public health officials in Maine and other states have complained that a shortage

… Read the rest