Jonathan Chait looks at the question of why our minds boggle so stubbornly when we’re presented with the truth about Trump’s captivity to Russia.

The cause of this incredulity, I have come to suspect, lies in the vast distance the mind must travel between the normal patterns of American politics and the fantastical crimes being alleged. The Russia scandal seems to hint at a reality of fiction or paranoia, a baroque conspiracy in which the leader of the free world has been compromised by a mafiocracy with an economy smaller than South Korea’s.

The flaw lies in the assumption about what constitutes “normal.” In this case, the baseline should not be previous American elections, but other foreign elections in which

Jeezus, Beeb, work on your headlines.

Oh well in that case maybe we care.

They must have thought again (or someone yelled at them), because if you click on the headline you get the story with a less narcissistic version…but the first one still appears in Top Stories.

Go back to headline school.… Read the rest

Speaking of women…

Congressional Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday that would classify reproductive rights as human rights and require the U.S. State Department to include access to reproductive health care in its annual human rights report, a practice that ended when President Trump took office.

The “Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights Act” was introduced by Democratic caucus vice chair Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) and announced at a press conference Thursday along with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and U.S. Senate co-sponsors Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The bill is similar to a bill by the same name introduced by Clark last year in response to the State Department’s sudden decision to drop the sections on reproductive rights from

I saw this

https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/1104344845257199616

so I looked at the source, authors Lyric Thompson and Rachel Clement. There are some odd things.

The degree to which Sweden’s practice lives up to its policy has been critiqued. On rights, it has been criticized for a binary focus on women rather than gender. The policy largely ignores the rights and needs of LGBTQ individuals, with the exception of LGBTQ sexual reproductive health and rights being noted in the health component of the agenda. Positioning LGBTQ people as a key population in health interventions, rather than as part of their broad rights-based agenda is overly limiting and a missed opportunity for a feminist approach.

That looks like the all too familiar move from … Read the rest

And there’s the “never let this woman speak anywhere ever again because we say so” thing.

Transgender advocacy groups and supporters have demanded that Leeds Lit Festival ban Dame Jenni Murray from speaking amid accusations of transphobia.

An open letter, signed by TransLeeds, Non-binary Leeds, Yorkshire Mesmac and 13 other groups, says Dame Jenni is ‘an active transphobe’ and that ‘there is no debate as to whether trans women are women’.

Oh but there is debate, it’s just that the narcissistic wing of trans activism wants to wipe it off the map. Saying “there is no debate” is an attempt to enforce the absence of debate by demanding that all dissenters be forcibly prevented from dissenting where anyone can … Read the rest

Some photos from yesterday’s International Women’s Day rally in Melbourne:

Poster held by a guy with shaved head and beard; very appropriate at a feminist event. About like white people at a racial justice event holding posters saying SHUT UP AND PICK SOME COTTON.

Someone in front of Real Jobs guy has a poster saying, I surmise, “SOME WOMEN HAVE PENISES GET OVER IT”.

… Read the rest

News from Pakistan:

Afzal Kohistani had warned for years his life was in danger after he brought public attention to the apparent killing of women seen clapping and singing in a video of men dancing.

…

Mr Kohistani was shot dead on Wednesday in the city of Abbottabad, in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He first emerged into the public eye in 2012 by calling for justice in a case involving his family in remote Kohistan district.

Two of his younger brothers were seen dancing in a wedding video that also showed four women singing and clapping. The four women, along with a fifth, were later killed for “breaching the honour” of their family, it is alleged.

Such “honour killings”

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy Robinson” takes his right-wing provocations to a new level by harassing journalist Mike Stuchbery in the middle of the night:

For the last few months, I have written about the methods used by “Tommy Robinson” to intimidate and harass those who dare to criticise him. I do this because he’s the most visible figure in a surging UK far right, feted by politicians and media figures alike.

Tonight he paid me a visit. Twice.

Stuchbery had tweeted that Yaxley-Lennon was about to be served papers for defamation.

The first we knew of it was a loud, frantic rapping on my door at around quarter to 11. The shouted voice that accompanied it was

Arkansas State Senator Stephanie Flowers spoke up.

Flowers, A democrat from Pine Bluff and the lone black face on the state’s eight-member committee, wanted more time to debate the merits of [the] “stand your ground law,” which argues that civilians have the rights to use their firearms when they feel threatened, because it disproportionately targets people of color.

“It doesn’t take much to look on the local news every night and see how many black kids, black boys, black men are being killed with these ‘stand your ground’ defenses that these people raise, then they get off,” she said. “So I take issue with that. I’m the only person here of color, OK? I am a mother, too. And

A particularly absurd Trump lie:

President Trump on Friday seized on a portion of a federal judge’s remarks during the sentencing of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in a financial crimes case to again criticize the Russia investigation and falsely declare a finding of “no collusion.”

Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Paul Manafort case stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was NO COLLUSION with Russia. But the Witch Hunt Hoax continues as you now add these statements to House & Senate Intelligence & Senator Burr. So bad for our Country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2019

Except the judge didn’t.

What Judge Ellis actually said Thursday was that Mr.

He tried and tried and tried to talk her into continuing the pregnancy, apparently unperturbed by the fact that he was trying to persuade her to endure ever-increasing discomfort and disability for months and then anguish for several hours to have a baby she didn’t want to have.

In an unprecedented move, an Alabama judge is allowing a man to sue a clinic because his ex-girlfriend terminated her pregnancy without his consent. The incident took place in February 2017, when he was 19 and she was 16, The Independent reports. (The age of consent in Alabama is 16.) At the time she terminated the pregnancy, she was six weeks along, making the embryo about the size of a

Aw, sweet. Scott Morrison tells women to be careful not to succeed too much:

Scott Morrison has spoken at an International Women’s Day breakfast at the Chamber of Minerals and Energy in Western Australia.

In the speech he does battle with a straw-person by suggesting that a certain strain of feminism is about tearing men down:

“One of the other female members of my cabinet, Kelly O’Dwyer, our minister for women, said at the Press Club last year gender equality isn’t about pitting girls against boys.

“See, we’re not about setting Australians against each other, trying to push some down to lift others up. That’s not in our values. That is an absolutely Liberal value, that you don’t

Ahhh that’s a good look – State Department tells journalist she will get a Women of Courage Award then says “oh wait no you won’t” when it discovers she’s critical of The Leader. Foreign Policy reports:

Jessikka Aro, a Finnish investigative journalist, has faced down death threats and harassment over her work exposing Russia’s propaganda machine long before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. In January, the U.S. State Department took notice, telling Aro she would be honored with the prestigious International Women of Courage Award, to be presented in Washington by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Weeks later, the State Department rescinded the award offer. A State Department spokesperson said it was due to a “regrettable error,” but Aro