Are words magic? Or no?

On Tuesday the White House broke with decades of precedent and blocked Associated Press reporters from attending two of President Trump’s media availabilities. The AP said it was blocked because it hasn’t changed its stylebook entry for Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.”

The newswire’s executive editor, Julie Pace, immediately condemned the action. And in a followup letter on Wednesday to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, she signaled a likely legal challenge.

The actions “were plainly intended to punish the AP for the content of its speech,” Pace wrote, adding that “the AP is prepared to vigorously defend its constitutional rights and protest the infringement on the public’s right to independent news

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on All your words are wrong.

I think one of the big problems we have as a global society, is this idea of “basic respect” minus the idea of “basic respectability”.

You see it with the Republicans in America. They’re not respectable people.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently disrespectable about being poor, about going through rough times or anything like that. What is disrespectable is – relying on federal aid and then voting to take it away from other people.

This is why the leopards have been feasting, the Republicans who are now crying about how their funding has been cut – knew it was going to happen, they … Read the rest

This guy…

[NC is Naomi Cunningham, the barrister representing Sandie Peggie; DU is Upton]

DU: No, for guidance how to achieve real safety at work – at that point had only had assurances re the next shift or so.

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) February 12, 2025

“Real safety” ffs – he’s a man, intruding on the women’s changing room, claiming to seek “safety” from a woman who doesn’t want a man in the women’s changing room.

NC: Which you do by going straight to ED, seeking her out; making up incident on 28/12 re socks/plaster room; embellishing incident w/Rohanna. All for punishment.

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) February 12, 2025

NC: You made up that SP asked about chromosomoes
DU:

Former Fox News personality says Ukraine just has to submit.

Donald Trump’s newly appointed defence secretary told allies on his first international trip that the US was no longer “primarily focused” on European security and that Europe would have to take the lead in defending Ukraine.

Pete Hegseth, speaking to defence ministers at a lunchtime meeting in Brussels, said Europe had to provide “the overwhelming share” of future military aid to Kyiv – and recognise that restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was unrealistic.

The Pentagon chief said he was “here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe”, though the language was notably

The winnowing continues.

The next stage of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the federal workforce is underway.

Agency leaders have been told to begin preparations for large-scale layoffs, known as reductions in force, or RIFs, under an executive order President Donald Trump signed Tuesday. They will work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to carry out the mandate, expanding the role of the billionaire’s team in reshaping federal government operations.

Titled “Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” the executive order also severely limits federal departments’ ability to bring on more staffers and mandates that agency heads closely coordinate with their DOGE representatives on future hiring plans. Once the hiring freeze that Trump put

The BBC repeats the lie yet again.

A transgender doctor is “only asking for basic respect” when it comes to having their gender identity accepted, an NHS employment tribunal has heard.

But it isn’t “basic respect” he’s demanding. It isn’t “basic respect” to pretend a man is a woman. It’s way beyond basic, and it’s not actually respect.

How about we start demanding some basic respect? Step one would be to tell these bullies to stop ordering us to pretend they are the opposite sex. We all have our own lives and concerns and goals, and we’re fed up to the back teeth with being told to waste a ton of intellectual energy on entitled brats who want us … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty at Miscellany Room.

On the “berdache” thing,

A couple points to note about “gender roles” in indigenous cultures:

The most important distinction between indigenous cultures and modern Western culture is the deep social and psychological distinction between collectivism and individualism. Virtually all indigenous cultures were (and are, in the case of those that still exist) collectivist, which is to say that everyone within them was/is raised to conceive of themself as a part of a whole — that the tribe or community itself consists of the “individual” and that each of us serves a small role within it. In a tribal collective, we are only a small part of the “person” that is … Read the rest

Hahahaha Trump whined back in 2012 about Obama’s habit of…

wait for it

…issuing executive orders.

Snopes:

Claim:

In 2012, future U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, “Why is Barack Obama constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs of authority?”

Rating:

Correct Attribution

It’s fine when a white guy does it.

… Read the rest

What I keep saying. It’s all about the narcissism.

We've probably all had a nightmare colleague like this entitled manbaby. All you can do is remain professional, do your job and as far as possible within those parameters limit your interactions. But for narcissists that's not good enough. You have to be validating their… https://t.co/Al8SwwNzfq

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) February 11, 2025

Trivial??? How very dare you??!!… Read the rest

Executive branch v courts:

Trump and key members of his administration are lashing out at judges who have blocked some of his second-term agenda, suggesting they don’t have the authority to question his executive power.

Parenthetically, why do journalists so often say “suggesting” instead of “saying”? I suppose it’s an excess of caution for the sake of peace, but at the price of enfeebling the journalism. Trump and his people are saying these things very loudly and explicitly, so to call it “suggesting” is both absurd and cowardly.

So far, the courts have pushed back on Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship, freeze federal grants, and the overhaul of federal agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Peak Smug Male Jumps In to Lecture Women Who Know More About It Than He Does And Have Vastly More At Stake Than He Does chapter 87 billion.

On a serious note, this is the problem with the Trans debate. There's no need to be hostile or impolite to people who identify as a different gender. All that's needed is to politely but firmly say "no, we can't allow you to do that because we have a duty of respect to others".

—1) (@DPJHodges) February 10, 2025

Oh, gee, thank you, Peak Smug Male; as if we hadn’t already done that and only been punished for it anyway.

“We have to protect women’s safe spaces, and they most

But sir…

DU – disagree I'm demanding, I can't make people comfortable. Spoke to DS and didn't escalate because I can't.
NC – insisting SP share a room without signs of discomfort. That insistence is bullying and abusive
DU – I've not insisted and it's not a falsehood and it's not B+H

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) February 10, 2025

“You are a man.” “Disagree.”

You can’t “disagree.” It’s not an opinion or a guess, it’s a fact. It’s a very very basic fact that everyone knows pretty much from birth. You can’t just wave it away with “I disagree” because it’s not subject to “agreement.”

DU – no
NC – the torturer insists 4 fingers are 5, the ultimate torture

Dashing into dictatorship:

While Trump and his henchmen deconstruct the administrative state, his lawyers are embracing the logic of dictatorship. The core argument emerging in their legal filings and executive orders — one without support anywhere in the Constitution or the law — is that simply by being elected, Trump has the power to do whatever he wants.

…

Trump’s imperial ambitions have made for some laughably thin legal theories. As Just Security noted, the government’s argument in defense of Trump’s birthright citizenship EO does not reference any citizenship statutes nor point to any authority that would give Trump the right to undo birthright citizenship via the stroke of a pen. Instead, after quoting the relevant part of

It’s useful to have philosophy people on the scene.

The reference to the 'how many fingers?' torture bit towards the end of 1984 is very interesting. There's a similar case in Severance, where Holly has to read out an apology script over and over again, 'until she means it'. It's a kind of set piece in epistemology texts, about…

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) February 10, 2025

The reference to the ‘how many fingers?’ torture bit towards the end of 1984 is very interesting. There’s a similar case in Severance, where Holly has to read out an apology script over and over again, ‘until she means it’. It’s a kind of set piece in epistemology texts, about ‘doxastic in/voluntarism’. Can I

The Upton fella is having his turn at the tribunal.

NC The Q is coming. U know some women will be unhappy
DU Not saying that. Some ppl have biased, misinformed unpleasant and bigotted or transphobic views about T ppl and was aware I might work w some of these ppl.
NC The reason is obvious. It's that yr male and wld expe as an

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) February 10, 2025

NC points out that he knew some women would be unhappy having him in the room where they changed their clothes. He replies that some people – not women, of course, but the evasive “people” – have BIASED, MISINFORMED, UNPLEASANT OR BIGOTED OR TRANSPHOBIC VIEWS ABOUT TRANS PEOPLE.… Read the rest

Some fads are more destructive than others.

More than 1,000 patients a year are sent for transgender chest surgery on the NHS. Data obtained by The Telegraph show for the first time the number of referrals for taxpayer-funded “masculinising” mastectomies from specialised gender clinics.

As many as 80 per cent of people using those services are females between the ages of 17 and 25. The 1,000-plus referrals could be the tip of the iceberg, because many people have transgender surgery privately to bypass long NHS waiting lists.

100 percent of people getting “masculinising mastectomies” are females, because males already have the end result of a “masculinising mastectomy.”

Zhenya Abbruzzese, co-founder and senior adviser at the Society for Evidence Based

But a fact is the very thing it isn’t. It’s the opposite of a fact. It’s a fiction, and a lie. It’s fatuous to claim that X is a fact when X is obviously not even slightly a fact. Stop doing it. Everybody stop doing it. Everybody stop pretending your increasingly absurd daydreams are “facts.” They’re not.

I want to be VERY clear: There is no LGB without the T. If you think there is, you are wrong. This is a fact. It is not up for debate.

— Andy Herren (@AndyHerren) February 7, 2025

… Read the rest

Trump welcomes refugees. Some refugees. A particular brand of refugees.

Trump’s offer to rehouse white South Africans as refugees fleeing persecution may not spur quite the rush he anticipates, as even right-wing white lobby groups want to “tackle the injustices” of Black majority rule on home soil.

Trump on Friday signed an executive order to cut U.S. aid to South Africa, citing an expropriation act that President Cyril Ramaphosa signed last month aiming to redress land inequalities that stem from South Africa’s history of white supremacy. The order provided for resettlement in the U.S. of “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination” as refugees.

Afrikaners are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers,

Uh huh.

Let's be clear. The sequence of anti-trans measures brought in by Trump echo the antiSemitic Nuremberg laws of the Third Reich.
They are also in line with express demands of the GC movement such as the Women's Declaration which most leading GCs signed.
If it walks like a Nazi.

— Roz Kaveney (@RozKaveney) January 31, 2025

I beg and beseech them to repent and accept what they have helped bring about before they are more complicit in the unforgivable than they already are.

— Roz Kaveney (@RozKaveney) January 31, 2025

… Read the rest

Hadley Freeman tells an important truth:

I assume that, by now, most Sunday Times readers are au fait with gender ideology, which contends that a man magically becomes a woman simply because he claims to feel like one. Left-wing papers and politicians gasped in horror at Trump’s bill, and the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted only “bigoted” people would see males in women’s sport as a presidential priority. But President Biden opened women’s sports teams to males on his first day in office. This led to the deluge of videos of males clattering their female opponents, which ultimately curdled public opinion. You can’t argue that the question of males in women’s sports teams is the civil rights issue of our