The logic of it.

Well done @AlexSharpe64 @BBCWomansHour for articulating the utterly sensible argument that cis women have nothing to fear from changes to the GRA. As Alex clearly stated, trans women have always been present in women’s toilets, refugees etc. That’s because trans women are women.

— Sally Hines (@sally_hines) November 26, 2018

By the same token, men have always been present everywhere. And? Does it follow that women have nothing to fear from men? Hardly. It’s not a vanishingly rare occurrence for men to use their superior size and strength to get violent with women. Even if you think it’s uncomplicatedly true that trans women are women, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that some men will pretend … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Questions are rarely settled without debate.

Is it just me, or have certain tennets of trans ideology met with more rapid acceptance than one might expect? I know I’m noticing the effects of my own aging on my perception of time (incipient curmudgeonly relativistic time dilation), but things seem to have moved very quickly. The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but there are wheels that have been squeaking for a lot longer (say WOMEN, for example) that have not gotten their timely share of “lubrication.” To further mix metaphors, the extreme trans activists come across as queue jumping dogs in the manger, preventing women from retaining (or gaining in … Read the rest

The AP reports:

12:15 p.m.

Central American migrants, mostly men, appear to be trying to breach the border crossing between Tijuana and California.

U.S. Border Patrol helicopters flew low overhead, while U.S. agents held vigil on foot beyond the wire fence. The Border Patrol office in San Diego said via Twitter that pedestrian crossings have been suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry at both the East and West facilities.

Trump meanwhile was running his mouth. Of course he was.

Would be very SMART if Mexico would stop the Caravans long before they get to our Southern Border, or if originating countries would not let them form (it is a way they get certain people out of their

Kenan Malik points out that discussion is more productive than silencing:

On perhaps no issue has the question of what can or cannot be debated been more sharply contested than that of transgenderism. How should society, and the law, look upon people who were born male but see themselves as female? Trying to answer that question has led to bitter confrontations between trans activists, determined to secure full rights for trans people, and “gender critical” feminists worried that the notion of what it is to be a woman is being transformed to the detriment of women’s rights.

The thing is, those two items don’t have to be in tension, and they shouldn’t be. Gender critical feminists don’t want … Read the rest

This is a strange one.

pic.twitter.com/WvAdUoWCuK

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) November 24, 2018

Impressive biceps for women.… Read the rest

Twitter has now permanently banned Meghan Murphy. For what? For having an Unapproved View on sex and gender. What next? Banning, say, Walter Shaub and Norm Eisen for being critical of Trump? Banning Human Rights Watch for reporting on violations of human rights? Banning scientists for talking about global warming?

Why is it Twitter’s job to enforce orthodoxy on trans dogma? Why is that Twitter’s job when it’s not Twitter’s job to do anything about years-long harassment campaigns against women?

So, we need to make her thoughts even more widely available on Twitter.

"I choose to consider facts and take what I consider to be ethical positions based on those facts, even if those facts and positions don’t fit whatever

There was a horrendous E. coli outbreak last year.

The culprit turned out to be E. coli, a powerful pathogen that had contaminated romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, and distributed nationwide. At least 210 people in 36 states were sickened. Five died and 27 suffered kidney failure. The same strain of E. coli that sickened them was detected in a Yuma canal used to irrigate some crops.

For more than a decade, it’s been clear that there’s a gaping hole in American food safety: Growers aren’t required to test their irrigation water for pathogens such as E. coli. As a result, contaminated water can end up on fruits and vegetables.

After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food,

I missed this last August. I was alerted to it just now by Walter Shaub.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1066406575647195137

Waiver? thought I. What waiver? So I looked it up.

Oh. That waiver.

It is “in the public interest” for the White House’s top communicator to be excused from federal ethics laws so he can meet with Fox News, according to President Donald Trump’s top lawyer.

Bill Shine, Trump’s newly minted communications director, and Larry Kudlow, the White House’s top economist, who worked at CNBC before his White House post, have both been excused from provisions of the law which seeks to prevent administration officials from advancing the financial interests of relatives or former employers.

So, administration officials, go ahead and advance the … Read the rest

Hillary Clinton says the way to stop xenophobia is to be more xenophobic.

Europe must get a handle on immigration to combat a growing threat from rightwing populists, Hillary Clinton has said, calling on the continent’s leaders to send out a stronger signal showing they are “not going to be able to continue to provide refuge and support”.

Definitely. Combat that threat from rightwing populists by being a rightwing populist. Totally makes sense.

Clinton urged forces opposed to rightwing populism in Europe and the US not to neglect the concerns about race and identity issues that she says were behind her losing key votes in 2016. She accused Trump of exploiting the issue in the election contest – and

Katha Pollitt asks some pointed questions about the beliefs of others.

For almost three years now, reporters have been begging tired farmers and miners eating their pancakes at Josie’s Diner in Smallville, Nebraska, to say they’ve seen the light. They never do. White evangelical women sneaking away from the Republican Party make for a good story—but they didn’t stop Ted Cruz from getting 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in Texas.

After Trump took the White House, and even after political scientists and pollsters figured out that many Trump supporters were not out-of-work Rust Belters but just your basic well-off Republicans, there was an orgy of self-criticism among Democrats and progressives. Somehow, those voters were our fault; we

Elevating the discourse:

Conservative commentator Anna Paulina had her wires crossed on Fox News, and somehow, her Thursday segment only got worse from there.

She was brought on to discuss investigating Hillary Clinton.

Let me interrupt for just a second to ask: why? Why talk on a purported news show about “investigating” Hillary Clinton?

But Paulina opened on the southern border and a bizarre history of century-old legislation that federalizes reservist troops. Another guest tried to quell the confusion before careening back to Clinton’s emails — a favored Fox News topic.

Though his show prompted the discussion about Clinton, host Rick Leventhal said it was incredible that Clinton still captured attention.

“She won’t go away,” Paulina said. “She’s like