The Times is covering the new Congress live. They’re talking about it in the usual horse-race terms, as if the only reasons to object to Trump were purely political reasons.

Maggie Haberman:

Even before she was elected speaker, Ms. Pelosi on Thursday morning started a historic day with a left hook, suggesting that a sitting president could be indicted. She made the comments in an interview with the “Today” show on NBC, when the host, Savannah Guthrie, asked if she agreed that the Justice Department guidelines against indicting a sitting president should be honored by the special counsel, who is investigating whether President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians seeking to put him in the White House.

“Left hook” – … Read the rest

The usual view is that freedom and equality are in tension; the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson argues that they’re interlaced.

Anderson is the chair of the University of Michigan’s department of philosophy and a champion of the view that equality and freedom are mutually dependent, enmeshed in changing conditions through time. Working at the intersection of moral and political philosophy, social science, and economics, she has become a leading theorist of democracy and social justice. She has built a case, elaborated across decades, that equality is the basis for a free society. Her work, drawing on real-world problems and information, has helped to redefine the way contemporary philosophy is done, leading what might be called the Michigan school of thought.

Better days.

https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1080887666130989057… Read the rest

Two women entered a building.

Violent protests have paralysed the southern Indian state of Kerala after two women made history by entering a prominent Hindu temple.

Schools across the state are closed and public transport too has been suspended. One person was killed in clashes on Wednesday.

Here’s a bit of advice. If your god or gods think their Rules of Exclusion are so important that you should risk death to defend them, you need a new god or gods. Rules of Exclusion are a bad thing. Seeing people as contaminants, even if it’s only One Week Per Month contamination, is an idea that leads straight to horrors. Don’t have gods of that kind, because they’re bad gods.… Read the rest

Oh, we’re doing this again.

US agents have fired tear gas over the border into Mexico at migrants trying to enter the country illegally.

Around 150 Central Americans tried to make the crossing near the town of Tijuana to the south of California on New Year’s Day.

One US official described the migrants as a “violent mob”.

Was his name Ronald Stump?… Read the rest

Here they are – a few of the MILLION who formed the chain.

https://twitter.com/rosatullyyy/status/1080551190545485826… Read the rest

How not to help girls and women escaping from forced marriage:

The Foreign Office is seeking to recoup the cost of repatriating young women who have been forced into marriages overseas, it has been revealed, prompting charities to criticise the government for making women “pay for their protection”.

An investigation found that many of the 82 victims of forced marriage repatriated in 2016-17 had to pay for living costs incurred between making distress calls and returning home, as well as their airfare, while others received loans from the Foreign Office.

They had to give up their passports as a condition of the loan until they repaid the debt, with a surcharge added to unpaid bills after six months.

That. … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on $1000 a ticket.

As an American (sigh), my experience here in the Midwest is that the people who vote for Trump (and those who didn’t) pretty much regard the president almost as a king in terms of power (he isn’t; the Constitution left him weak, but 20th century presidents grabbed tons of power and Congress let them do it). The Trump voters actually think that stuff is good, and will make America Great Again, by which they mean 1950s for women and children, and 1880s for business [women baking cookies all day and vacuuming in pearls; children being whacked in school when they act up (not their children, because their children are brought … Read the rest

Elinor Lipman has another of her brilliant short topical poems:

Who said my wall’s a "metaphor"?
I’ve never heard that word before.
To me it sounds elite and funny.
At Penn, I only studied money. #StableGenius

— Elinor Lipman (@ElinorLipman) January 2, 2019

… Read the rest

Back in September…

India’s supreme court has ruled against a ban on girls and women of menstruating age from entering a prominent Hindu temple in southern Kerala state, upholding rights to equality of worship.

The authorities at the Sabarimala temple, which attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every year, have said the ban on women and girls aged from 10 to 50 was essential to the rites related to the temple’s chief deity, Ayyappan, who is considered eternally celibate, and were rooted in a centuries-old tradition.

Yes, so much suppression and exclusion of women is rooted in a centuries-old tradition. It’s been a centuries-old tradition to treat women as the property of men and as fundamentally insignificant for millennia. … Read the rest

News from Kerala:

Women in the southern Indian state of Kerala have formed a 620km (385-mile) human chain “in support of gender equality”, amid a row over access to a prominent Hindu temple.

The Sabarimala shrine was historically closed to women of “menstruating age” – defined as between 10 and 50.

Because they’re dirty? Because they can be impregnated? Both? Is there any difference?

It’s interesting, isn’t it, as an aspect of human nature, that the thing most humans probably value above all others, to wit the ability to keep the species going, the tribe going, the village going, the family going…is also the thing that is seen as dirty, disgusting, contaminating. Women are magical because they can make … Read the rest

Twitter bans Meghan Murphy for saying true things about Jonathan Yaniv, but refuses to do anything about a rapist who uses Twitter as a tool for collecting victims. Interesting priorities.

The Twitter account for a rapist photographer has finally been removed after a judge had to order the company to take action.

Nigel Wilkinson was recently convicted for a second time after drugging and raping young men he had lured with free photoshoots.

After Twitter initially failed to remove his account, the judge in the case issued the order forcing the firm to take it down.

…

In 2016, he was jailed for 11 years and six months for a series of sex offences.

The court heard he preyed

So much woke bro.

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1079872396230868993

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080101494895112192

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080159100992921604

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080173592589914112

Funny how hating women is the new right-on, isn’t it.

Jan 2: updating to add: account suspended. Those tweets will never appear again!

… Read the rest