Oh yes, if only we hadn’t internalized pesky “grievance studies” we’d be just fine with a president who calls women “Horseface” and “Pocahontas” and fat and ugly and all the rest of the bully-boy crap he vomits out.

The reason we are obsessing so much over Trump calling a woman "horseface," and all his other similar jibes against women and minorities, is because our culture has internalized an awful lot of grievance studies. It's a straight line from the scholarship.https://t.co/ZzjIIUgdMt

— James Lindsay, full varsity (@ConceptualJames) October 17, 2018

False dichotomy, chum. It’s not a choice between “language is everything” and “language doesn’t matter.” Trump’s venomous name-calling is not all there is to Trump, but it’s not nothing, either.… Read the rest

The what?

https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1052662266988883968

The actual MATERIAL violence that we as cis women pose to trans women? What the fuck is Zoé Samudzi talking about? Since when do women commit violence against people with male bodies? Her all-caps on MATERIAL make clear she doesn’t mean rhetorical or psychological violence but the real, physical, punch-kick variety. Women are not violent toward trans women. It’s some kind of wokeness or more radical than thou-ness that generates these ludicrous counter-factual panics, but that’s so radical it’s reactionary…as is so often the case when people start “standing with” their trans sisters.

https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/1052663652891803648

Yes these terrible frightening women who say that women are women and men are not women – how very arrogant and playing-god-like.… Read the rest

I missed this one last week.

“I think Ivanka would be incredible,” POTUS says when asked about his daughter as UN Ambassador. He bemoans that it would cause accusations of nepotism. “I’m not sure there’s anyone more competent in the world.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 9, 2018

Trump thinks his daughter, who worked as a model for a time and then moved to selling clothes made by badly underpaid Chinese workers, is likely the most competent candidate for UN ambassador IN THE WORLD.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on On both sides.

Science isn’t magic. It isn’t some innate sense that people are born with that is “science” – it isn’t natural and it isn’t instinctual. It requires quite rigorous training to get good at it.

And a lot of it is all about taking the shit you think you know, the stuff you think is just “common sense” and testing it.

Scientists don’t get stuff right by applying their gut-feels to it, part of the training they undergo is learning not to apply gut feels to things, to actually come at the evidence in as unbiased a manner as possible because their brains will screw with their perceptions.

This is … Read the rest

Trump made a particularly absurd claim in his interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday.

He added: “I have a natural instinct for science…”

No. No no no. Oh no, not at all.

He has the opposite of that. Without even delving into details of his ignorance, we can say with great confidence that he has no such thing, for the simple reason that he constantly claims to know things that he can’t possibly know. That’s a dead giveaway. No one with “a natural instinct for science” does that. People with a natural instinct for science know how limited human knowledge is, how provisional most of it is, how necessary caution is, and so on.

Ironically, he made … Read the rest

A couple of years ago the Georgia secretary of state – he who is now running for governor while remaining secretary of state even though the latter job involves supervision of elections – released a video on how to do early voting, which is still on the secretary of state website. There’s a funny thing about that video…

The video, produced in six different languages and still linked on the secretary of state’s website, shows a white boy arriving at his voting location, presenting his photo ID and successfully voting. The black girl who shows up to vote does not have the proper form of ID and is turned away from the poll.

The video—showing a white man being

Trump is doing a fascist rally in Missoula tonight, and his goons are issuing threats.

“For all the prospective attendees to the Trump event. Come early,” [Will] Deschamps, who chaired Republican state activities from 2009 to 2015, wrote Tuesday on Facebook. “Also all you protesters, show up as well. This is a concealed and open carry state and we know how to use em.”

In other words: if you show up, we will shoot you.

Deschamps, a Marine Corps veteran, signed off with “USMC trained,” an apparent reference to firearms expertise.

He said Thursday that the post was not to be taken as a directive for people to confront protesters or take weapons to the rally.

“I have genuine

There’s disagreement – highly charged disagreement – over whether the label “TERF” is a neutral descriptive label or a loaded pejorative one. The BBC has let us know what it thinks.

https://twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/1052894983244668928

https://twitter.com/ThrupennyBit/status/1052895493242671104

Updating to add:

https://twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/1053262037223137281

Result!… Read the rest

Oh please.

Facing scrutiny for cultivating close ties with Saudi Arabia’s powerful and domineering crown prince, Jared Kushner has remained intentionally in the background this week as West Wing officials feared a more public role would prompt backlash, multiple people familiar with the matter say.

A more public role as what? He’s just some guy, he’s not a foreign policy genius. He has no business being in the foreground at any time.

Kushner instead has been operating behind-the-scenes to mitigate the fallout but leaving public explanations to others as his father-in-law’s administration confronts a full-blown diplomatic crisis over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.

“Operating” how? That makes it sound as if he’s a diplomat or a state department civil … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Mistakes were made.

Tune in this fall for the premier of “Law & Order: Trump Investigations Unit”

Detective: “Captain, the suspect was found at the crime scene, holding the murder weapon. He had the victim’s blood running down his arms. His DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails, showing signs of a struggle. Two weeks ago, he took out a life insurance policy on the victim naming himself as beneficiary. Multiple witnesses report that he had a screaming argument with the victim earlier in the day. A search of his personal computer revealed multiple Google queries for things like ‘how to get away with murder.’”

Captain Trump: “Well, let’s just see about … Read the rest

Pompeo is in Riyadh with his buddies.

President Trump dispatched Pompeo to the Saudi capital for talks with King Salman, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader.

“Secretary Pompeo conveyed the importance of a conducting a thorough, transparent and timely investigation,” said Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department.

…

In public, however, Pompeo never mentioned Khashoggi, a U.S. resident.

The secretary of state was all smiles, his hand outstretched, as he approached the crown prince.

“We are strong and old allies,” Mohammed told Pompeo before reporters were ushered out. “We face our challenges together — the past, the day of, tomorrow.”

Pompeo replied with enthusiasm: “Absolutely.”

Isn’t that sweet. … Read the rest

The “It’s ok to be white” vote:

The Australian Senate almost passed a motion affirming that “it’s OK to be white”. This probably sounds innocuous enough to the casual or incurious observer — and that’s exactly what the white supremacists who devised the slogan intended.

Well you’d have to be awfully casual or incurious to think statements that it’s ok to be [insert dominant group here] are innocuous. This one is a product of – you’ll never guess – 4chan.

The idea of using “it’s OK to be white” as part of a far right political project emerged around a year ago on the message board 4chan.

Always a home for trolls, over time certain boards on 4chan