The “nope” to a court order is a red flag.

The Justice Department argued that the documents need not be released because “it did not rely on such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or determine a recommendation for his sentencing.” Moreover, “Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Even if the district court’s order to release the Flynn-Kislyak transcripts goes further than justified by the sentencing matter before the court, I would’ve thought that, in a government of laws, the only way to avoid compliance is to take an appeal to a higher court.” The

A column I wrote for the April/May issue of Free Inquiry is online. It’s about “authenticity.”

The idea of an “authentic self” has, oddly, become a theme of political discourse as well as Oprah-style uplift. We’re being told that people have a right to live as their authentic selves, which often means as opposed to their outward appearance, that mere physical dross. It’s a weirdly religious idea, reminiscent of the contemptus mundi of medieval monks, but it’s presented as political rather than religious. What I keep wondering is how it’s possible to make a sane politics out of the denial of material reality.

The irony is that what is meant by the authentic self in the current dialect is

Breathtaking.

Kathleen Stock has a thread this morning.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1135159042513526785

Quoting the rest for ease of reading.

Rather, they’re concerned with what Austin would call perlocutionary effects of my arguments. That is, the indirect effects of my arguments on feelings, thoughts, and actions of others, whether or not these are grounded in charitable or accurate interpretations of my views. In vain do I ask critics to engage with my writing (pinned) in a fair, non-snarky manner typical of their philosophical engagement with others. I’ve come to realise most won’t do this, because for them it’s not the point. The point is, my views allegedly lead to harm: fear/anxiety, people allegedly leaving the profession, and possible violence to trans people by others.

“I never said that. It’s all lies.”

“But sir, it’s on the tape.”

“Lies. It’s all lies.”

“But…the tape…”

“Lies.”

Our Don is at it again.

[I]n a series of early morning tweets on Sunday, the US president said he “never called Meghan Markle nasty” and that the “Fake News Media” had invented his remarks.

He said it was “Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will CNN, NY Times and others apologize? Doubt it!”

The Sun posted a recording of the original interview to prove that its reporting was accurate.

Never you mind about the recording! Just never mind! It’s all lies!!… Read the rest

Kim Jong Un may or may not have executed one of the negotiators of the whatever that is between the US and North Korea.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the US is looking into reports that North Korea executed a top official after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, earlier this year.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s special envoy to the US, was executed after Kim Jong Un and Trump were unable to reach an agreement at their second summit in February.

CNN also tried to verify the reports and was unable to.

The [South Korean] paper — quoting unnamed North Korean sources —

Jim Wright was disgusted.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in preparation for Trump’s visit to Japan, the White House wanted to ensure USS John McCain would not be visible to the so-called Commander-in-Chief during his visit to USS Wasp.

The McCain is undergoing repairs following its collision last year, a collision caused by gross incompetence of the ships officers and which killed seven Sailors. The White House was afraid Trump would be upset if he saw the ship’s name, because he hated John McCain, but since the ship is damaged and can’t be moved they had to come up with a way to make sure that didn’t happen. So, the Navy ordered a tarp hung over the

What happened here?

What caused The University of Iowa’s Women’s Studies Program to become the Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Program?

They narrate the history, briefly, but they don’t explain the reason.

The Women’s Studies Program was established at The University of Iowa in 1974 and is one of the first programs in the United States. Our initial strength in joint appointments in the social sciences made the program unique within an interdisciplinary field most often drawn from the humanities. Our recent appointments give us strength in both social sciences and the humanities and enable us to continue to develop the breadth of interdisciplinary strength we believe to be the cornerstone of a strong gender, women’s and sexuality studies

Illinois is taking care of business.

A bill that establishes a “fundamental right” for women to get an abortion in Illinois cleared the state Senate late Friday night, sending the sweeping measure to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who already has signaled his support.

As the clock approached midnight Friday, the Senate voted 34-20 in favor of the abortion legislation, which comes amid an increased sense of urgency among advocates looking to protect abortion access as a series of states have passed laws essentially banning the practice.

Laws which the Supreme Court will uphold in part or in full, thus taking us back to the pre-Roe days when a few states allowed abortion but most did not. This is … Read the rest

Department of There Are Sick Fuckers Out There:

https://twitter.com/TheHipsterRebbe/status/1134623895347220480

What is the “it” that leads to violence, medical mistreatment, and suicide? I guess it’s fanatical TERFitude that slows the progress of normalization of trans and nb people. So, women arguing that however marginalized trans people may be, it still doesn’t follow that men are literally in every sense women, and that women too are marginalized and abused and need to be able to continue to name that oppression – arguing that leads to violence, medical mistreatment, and suicide? Is that right? What is the chain of causation? Do the kind of people who are violent toward trans people spend a lot of time following feminist arguments? Is there any evidence … Read the rest

So now the Executive Branch is defying the Judicial Branch as well as Congress. That’s a dictatorship.

Federal prosecutors on Friday declined to make public transcripts of recorded conversations between Michael Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December 2016, despite a judge’s order.

…

Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public.

…

The government’s unusual response came after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington ordered earlier in May that the Justice Department make public various materials related to the case, including transcripts of any audio recordings of Flynn, such as his conversations with Russian officials.

An “unusual … Read the rest

Steve Bannon meets Catholic reaction meets Danish bank meets fraudulent signature – and then Godzilla appeared! No but really:

The Italian government has delivered a potentially fatal blow to Steve Bannon’s plans to transform a medieval monastery near Rome into a training academy for the far-right.

It makes sense, doesn’t it. You want conservative? I’ll give you conservative: how about a medieval fucking monastery?! That’s right! I said medieval monastery!

But then it all fell apart.

Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000)

Today’s TERF outrage is the NY Times itself, daring to hint ever so gently that binders might not be all that beneficial to the people who wear them.

Binders are not classified as medical devices, but some doctors and parents have concerns about their safety. (Common-sense binding guidelines include: Don’t use Ace bandages or duct tape, don’t bind at night, limit a binder to eight to 10 hours a day, don’t shower in it, don’t wear two, and don’t wear one that is too small.)

Hmm. Doesn’t all that, taken together, make it appear that wearing them at all isn’t a particularly good idea?

For transgender or gender-nonconforming teens who cannot afford binders, which start at around $30, there are

My, that’s cynical.

Attorney General William P. Barr said in an interview broadcast Friday that he returned to the Justice Department to protect the institution during a period of “intense partisan feeling” and is not bothered by criticism from Democrats about how he’s handling the job.

To protect the institution? But…he’s not. He’s not doing that. That’s not what he’s doing. He’s protecting Trump. He’s protecting Trump who shits on the institution every chance he gets.

Barr, 69, who served in the George H.W. Bush administration, said he knew it would “only be a matter of time” before he was attacked for his actions, given he is serving during a “crazy, hyperpartisan period of time.”

“Nowadays, people don’t care

That absurd “the TERFs have FORCED me to quit philosophy” piece is, somewhat to my surprise, getting a lot of attention today, especially (it seems) from philosophers. I was thinking yesterday it would be just another rant that few people would notice, if only because the quality is so dire. But Brian Leiter shares information that indicates otherwise:

A number of philosophers have written me about this noxious, and I suspect fraudulent, display, and I apologize that I can’t respond to everyone as I’m participating in an intellectual event, and so trying to avoid engaging with the usual social media grandstanding and narcissism as much as possible. But I will share one set of comments from a philosopher elsewhere,