Playing the pretend-knowledge trick: I am an expert in this made-up Thing (field? discipline? ideology? campaign?) so I get to say anyone who disputes said made-up Thing has no right to do so because No Expertise.

Like trans-activist Ugla Stefanía Jónsdóttir for instance:

Experts on trans rights and people who have been working in the field for decades are being pitted against almost anyone with a negative opinion about trans people – regardless of who they are. This seems to be a trend among anti-trans campaigners; they’re given a platform despite their lack of knowledge or experience of the discussion they’re taking part in. As an example, in a controversial move, Scottish MP Joan McAlpine has just invited Canadian writer

I hadn’t heard of Miriam Toews until I read this New Yorker profile of her.

Toews, who is fifty-four, is one of the best-known and best-loved Canadian writers of her generation. She grew up in Steinbach, a town founded by Mennonites in the province of Manitoba, for which the colony in Bolivia was named. (“Toews,” which rhymes with “saves,” is as recognizably Mennonite as “Cohen” is Jewish.) Her fiction has often dealt with the religious hypocrisy and patriarchal dominion that she feels to be part of her heritage, and with a painful emotional legacy, harder to name but as present as a watermark. Her father and her sister both died too young, and she sees a certain Mennonite tendency

Biden is so full of shit.

“History will treat this administration’s time as an aberration,” Biden told an Iowa ballroom-full of supporters last week. “This is not the Republican Party,” he continued, noting his longstanding ties to “my Republican friends in the House and Senate.”

If this is not the Republican Party, why is it occupying all those Republican seats and passing all those Republican votes and protecting Donald Trump no matter what he does? If it’s not the Republican Party why don’t they all quit, or vote with the Democrats to hobble and then impeach Trump?

Indeed, as The New York Times has reported, “in the Obama White House, he was known as the ‘McConnell whisperer’ for

The barmaid hits a nerve.

… Read the rest

Lindsey Graham told Don Junior to break the law. Seems a bit flaky for a US senator.

[W]e ought to reserve some surprise for occasions like Monday, when the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, himself a lawyer, told a private citizen to defy a Republican senator and to break the law. And that’s what Graham did when he advised Donald Trump Jr. to ignore a subpoena from the Senate Intelligence Committee, run by his Republican colleague Richard Burr. We should pause to be horrified. For the record, in the past Graham claimed that both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton could be impeached for defying subpoenas. But that was in the b.t. era: before trump.

…

Burr has questions,

Newsweek reports:

Alabama’s bill banning virtually all abortions in the state is a “violation of human rights,” Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Which is true as far as it goes, but it’s more specifically a violation of women’s rights. If Amnesty talked about police shootings of black people it wouldn’t call that “violation of human rights,” it would call it a violation of black people’s rights, because it’s that specific issue. Somehow though the rules are different when it comes to women.

“Alabama’s vote is the latest in a string of abortion bans specifically designed to strip away people’s reproductive rights. These bans will be deadly, endanger pregnant people’s lives and criminalize doctors and health care providers for simply

Amnesty’s brilliant decision to use Alabama’s murderous ban on abortion as an opportunity to ignore women by saying

Abortion bans like the one passed in Alabama are a violation of human rights. These bans will be deadly. They will endanger pregnant people’s lives.

is not going over well. Replies are uniformly furious.

Amnesty – you are part of the problem.

You are erasing women. It’s is women’s rights that are being attacked.

Name the problem. Or be part of the problem.

— Andy (@lecanardnoir) May 15, 2019

"pregnant people" FFS.

Women. Say it: "women".

— Alan Henness (@zeno001) May 15, 2019

They will endanger WOMEN's lives. WOMEN. It is not a dirty word.

— AquatintDeliberatelyDefiantandDistasteful (@Aquatint) May 15, 2019

https://twitter.com/ThatMidwife/status/1128744618462470146… Read the rest

Guest post by Josh Slocum

The contemporary worship of the concept of being “inclusive” is in direct opposition to drawing boundaries. Personal boundaries, conceptual boundaries, physical boundaries.

It’s not merely a soft-hearted plea to be more helpful to others. It’s a disguised attack on the right of people to have any personal, emotional, or intellectual space. It’s an attack on the idea of judgment and discernment.

It’s an attack on the most basic foundations of being a healthy, confident person.

It’s also female socialization weaponized. Women are trained to deny themselves and their own needs. They’re encouraged to see virtue in the act of relaxing boundaries to give to others. This leads to many women believing that it’s immoral … Read the rest

I posted about Councillor Gregor Murray a couple of times last year, in reference to his habit of calling women “utter cunts” and “roasters” and similar. Now it’s gotten him suspended for two months.

Gregor Murray, who represents [Dundee’s] North East ward, was called before the Standards Commission for Scotland on Wednesday but did not appear in person.

The hearing panel found the councillor – who quit the SNP this week amid claims of “institutional transphobia” in the party – also broke ethical standards by using abusive and vile language to and directed at members of the public.

The councillor was alleged to have used “terms that were insulting and offensive during twitter exchanges with a member of the

God damn Amnesty.

Abortion bans like the one passed in Alabama are a violation of human rights.

These bans will be deadly.

They will endanger pregnant people’s lives.

They will re-victimize survivors of rape and sexual violence by denying them their rights.

We must not go back.

— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) May 15, 2019

… Read the rest

Another heretic shunned, this time by the group The Atheist Community of Austin.

Statement from the ACA Board of Directors

Recently, the ACA Board of Directors was made aware that guest co-host Stephen Woodford (YouTuber “Rationality Rules”) had made ignorant and transphobic videos and statements on his social media platforms in the weeks leading up to his appearances on ACA shows. We would like to make it clear that we do not share or condone his opinions or attitudes, and that we fully and actively support equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community.

We acknowledge that the ACA did a poor job showing our support by allowing Mr. Woodford to make appearances on our shows without either addressing his controversial

Have you been wondering how the Red Hen restaurant has been doing since that day it asked Sarah Sanders to leave? Have you been wondering if the Trumpers have shut it down? They did try, but they failed.

Yet, as I kept opening the letters, I saw a pattern. For every hateful message, there was one of gratitude. For every angry accusation that our actions were driven by the inability to accept Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, there was a note of thanks from someone lamenting Trump’s rollback of protections for marginalized people. What’s more, for every wish that our business die a painful death, there was a dollar bill or a generous check or an order for a gift

Lindsey Graham is another very bad man.

Tens of thousands of social media users joined a call for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s resignation on Tuesday, after the South Carolina Republican publicly offered advice to Donald Trump Jr. about his recent congressional subpoena.

The president’s eldest son was subpoenaed in April to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, after twice backing out of planned testimony before the committee.

The subpoena prompted Graham—one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies—to tell Trump Jr. on Monday to refuse to answer the panel’s questions.

“You just show up and plead the Fifth and it’s over with,” Graham told reporters, according to The Washington Post.

Witness tampering … Read the rest

Yesterday Fresh Air was an interview with Phoebe Waller-Bridge who created and wrote “Fleabag.” There was one especially interesting bit…

GROSS: So you went to a Catholic school for girls. How did the sex segregation work for you? And was this – like, how old were you when you were in Catholic school.

WALLER-BRIDGE: I went there when I was 11. My mum had felt it was very important from day dot that we had boys around (laughter), as well as our brother. And – ’cause my brother had his sisters around the whole time. And we had him. But it’s something about actually socializing. And so mum was really, really good about making sure that we had boys and

Is Trump hoping to start a war with Iran?

DoJ investigating Trump’s opponents. A European neo-fascist getting red carpet treatment in Oval. War plans for Iran. All out trade war with China. These are all things happening right now.

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 14, 2019

Are they working on the pretext even now? There’s a hole in a Norwegian oil tanker anchored off the UAE.

The damage appeared relatively minor, and no one has been officially blamed.

And yet, there are growing fears that this mysterious, obscure incident could become a catalyst — accidental or otherwise — that inflames the already knife-edge tensions between the United States and Iran.

Or, rather, between Trump and those scary Mooooslim guys … Read the rest

Rosenstein is dropping the mask.

Former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein on Monday defended his role in the firing of James B. Comey from the FBI and criticized the bureau’s former director as a “partisan pundit” — offering one of his most detailed public accounts of the hectic events that led to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel.

Partisan? Partisan in what sense? Comey was a lifelong Republican until Trump and the Republican enablers of Trump turned him off that party without turning him on to the other one. It can’t be called “partisan” for Republicans or conservatives to be disgusted by Trump and the party loyalty to Trump. Trump is a bad man… Read the rest