Cop 1 told her to get out of the fucking car, she drove slowly away a few feet, cop 2 pulled his gun and shot her in the face.
I don’t think they’re supposed to do that, even when provoked. Yes you’re supposed to do what the police ICE tell you, but no they’re not supposed to shoot you for little or no reason. Some of the police ICE agents were saying get out of here, and she appears to have been doing that.
An ICE officer fatally shot a woman Wednesday morning in south Minneapolis, according to Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs.
…
McLaughlin claims the victim was “one of these violent rioters” who “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism.”
In a social media post, Democratic Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said the victim was “a U.S. citizen.”
Clearly McLaughlin has learned her rhetorical style from Trump.
Witnesses tell WCCO whistles sounded to alert neighbors of ICE’s presence at about 9:30 a.m. Witnesses say they saw a Honda Pilot blocked by multiple federal agents, who soon tried to open her door. The motorist then put her vehicle into reverse, then into drive. Witnesses said they then heard two to three shots fired. The Honda traveled another 20-30 feet before crashing into another vehicle.
A video posted to social media of the deadly encounter corroborates witness accounts.
The woman was removed from the Honda and paramedics were seen giving her CPR, according to witnesses. She was eventually carried away from the scene.
And was eventually dead.
So the question becomes why did they shoot at her? Why had they zoomed in on her in the first place? Did they just pick her at random, to intimidate les autres, or did they see her as a special danger in some way?
Their version:
Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, released this statement late Wednesday morning:
“ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism.
“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers. The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”
So the question becomes is that true? Did she really try to run over law enforcement officers?
I don’t know, but I have my doubts.
So does the mayor. [Expletives de-sanitized]
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said federal officials’ narrative that the ICE agent who killed a woman did so in self-defense is “bullshit.”
“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying. Getting killed,” Frey said.
Frey also told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”
“They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” he said.
It was an attack that stripped away the chintzy veil of victimhood that has long shielded the transgender movement, revealing well organised thuggery. Yesterday, Bash Back, the self-described “direct action project”, hacked the Free Speech Union (FSU) website and published the names of donors, alongside the sums they gave and the campaigns they supported.
The intention was unmistakable: to intimidate and punish private citizens after the FSU’s founder, Lord Young of Acton, commissioned a security report into the threat posed by the group. On Bash Back’s website, the activists make clear that more such actions are planned, welcoming visitors to “a new era of trans rage”.
Not new. The rage has been out front all along. Trans “activism” is male aggression on steroids.
Since its launch in the summer of 2025, the group has pursued a steady escalation of criminal activity. In July, Bash Back targeted the constituency office of Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, smashing windows and spraying graffiti branding him a “child killer”, after the Government restricted the prescription of puberty blocking drugs.
By autumn, vandalism had become routine. Masked activists attacked the FiLiA feminist conference, explicitly targeting a venue where women and girls were meeting to discuss male violence. The group then vandalised the headquarters of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, dubbing the statutory equalities watchdog a “hate group”.
Like that. Testosterone on a rampage.
Bash Back claims to target “organisations that promote transphobic rhetoric”, a category elastic enough to include opposition to puberty blockers for children, the defence of single-sex spaces, or a refusal to pretend that sex is a fiction. In guidance produced by the group, supporters are urged to “ensure your target can be hit repeatedly until they desist from their activities”, adding: “All of our targets have blood on their hands. We refuse to let them wash it off in peace.”
Except of course they don’t. That purported “blood” is 100% metaphorical. Saying “men are not women” does not cause bleeding.
Yet ministers continue to insist that those who adopt a transgender identity are uniquely vulnerable, even as activists operating in their name engage in criminal behaviour. Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has warned that trans people must not be used as a “political punchbag”, cautioning against abuse or targeting on the basis of identity. This rhetoric does not merely mislead; it helps to shape the response of institutions charged with maintaining public order.
In the eyes of politicians, and those at the helm of the institutions they direct, a change of pronouns and a switch of wardrobe possess a remarkable power: they can transmute criminal behaviour into vulnerability, aggression into fragility, and organised intimidation into something approaching a cry for help. This moral alchemy sits uneasily alongside the visible reality of coordinated campaigns of criminal damage, threats and doxxing. As JK Rowling has observed, contemporary trans activism increasingly involves intimidation directed at women, yet it continues to be treated as a civil rights movement.
Trans activism puts hatred of women front and center. It has all along.
Donald Trump and his team are considering “a range of options” in order to acquire Greenland — including “utilizing the U.S. Military,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNBC on Tuesday.
That’s not “acquiring”; it’s violently stealing. There’s no such thing as casually and cheerfully “acquiring” other countries, there is only invasion and imperialism.
Trump said Sunday that the U.S. needs Greenland for national security purposes, pointing to Russian and Chinese activities in the region near the Arctic island.
What the US needs or doesn’t need is irrelevant to whether or not Trump gets to annex Greenland by force.
There are situations where need is relevant. If a person using a cane or carrying a toddler gets on a full bus, someone has to give up a seat because the person using a cane needs it. That kind of need does have a moral claim on us. It’s easy to think of other examples.
Violently annexing Greenland is not that kind of situation.
Supporters of some Jan. 6 riot defendants have championed the idea of a reparations fund to reimburse the criminal defendants — most of whom were pardoned by President Trump shortly after he returned to office last year — for the cost of their prosecutions and expenses.
Mark McCloskey, an attorney whose social media page says he is “championing the cause of J6 compensation,” posted on his X feed in August: “To all the J6 political prisoners out there- I’m doing everything I can to [expedite] the establishment of a claims resolution procedure so we can get you back on your feet and get you some real justice.”
Sure, let’s do everything the other way around. Compensate the perpetrators and punish the victims: that’s justice Trump-style.
The Trump administration has already approved at least one civil settlement in connection with the mob that overran the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. The Justice Department approved an approximately $5 million settlement to the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while she breached a smashed window into the House Speaker’s Lobby.
It’s not clear if the administration is considering other financial settlements with Jan. 6 rioters. CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the new legislation.
When asked about the prospect of Jan. 6 reparation payments, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn told CBS News: “This reeks of audacity. Not only did they get a pardon, they are saying they deserve a payday for the crimes they committed.”
…
In a statement, Whitehouse said: “No matter how Trump’s MAGA goons now try to twist it, the January 6 attack on our Capitol was an assault on our democracy. Trump’s blanket day-one pardons for members of the January 6 mob were a slap in the face to the brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to protect the country.”
DTjr is seeking mineral rights interests in Greenland, so as to keep himself stocked up with cocaine for the rest of this life
Probably that’s right. A question that never seems to get asked by journalists and politicians is where the money comes from that drives the international drug trade. The answer is perfectly obvious, but as people don’t like the answer they don’t ask the question. The money comes from the pockets of the people, mainly in North America and Western Europe, who buy the stuff. No demand, no supply. The chaps in Colombia who grow cocaine wouldn’t bother if chaps like DTjr didn’t buy it. Here in Marseilles, very much a centre of drug traficking, the police are beginning to show an interest in the people in the more comfortable parts (where I live) who buy drugs, but they’re being far too timid about it. Probably the local equivalents of DTjr’s father don’t want their sons to be hauled off to prison. It’s much easier to blame everything on illegal immigrants from Algeria.
At the turn of the century I was very much involved in metabolic regulation, and found that the law of supply and demand works almost perfectly in healthy organisms. When you have as much glucose 6-phosphate as you need for your immediate purposes you don’t make any more, because the supply is inhibited when the demand is low. [If you can bear it, see Hofmeyr and Cornish-Bowden (2000) “Regulating the cellular economy of supply and demand” FEBS Letters476, 47–51]. Put simply, regulation according to demand works; regulation according to supply doesn’t, but politicians refuse to believe that.
The idea that one Nato country could attack another – a US invasion of Greenland – is so alien that the most famous article in Nato’s founding treaty does not distinguish clearly what would happen if two of its members were at war.
Article 5, the cornerstone of mutual protection, dictates that “an armed attack against one or more” in Europe or North America shall be considered “an attack against them all”. Simple enough if the military threat comes from Russia, but more complicated when it comes from easily the alliance’s most powerful member.
A whole lot more complicated, I’m guessing.
“If the US chooses to attack another Nato country, everything will stop,” Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Fredriksen, said on Monday. The military alliance may well continue to exist but its effectiveness will be called into fundamental question; the obvious beneficiary, an already aggressive Moscow.
Notice “may” and “will” as opposed to “might” and “would”.
If the diplomatic dance and the noises were not clear enough, then the re-emergence of the territorial lust for Greenland in the aftermath of the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has finally brought Nato itself sharply into focus, with the US explicitly challenging the historical sovereignty of Denmark, a fellow ally.
Nobody would realistically expect any of Nato’s 31 other members to defend Greenland militarily if the US sought to seize it, a point emphasised by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller overnight. The real world, he added, was “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power” – not treaties or mutual support.
Nor would they have any hope of doing so. The US has 1.3 million active military personnel, across all its services; Denmark 13,100. Nato figures show the US was expected to spend $845bn on defence in 2025, the other 31 allies a combined $559bn. The ease with which the US was able to capture Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, is a demonstration of the scale of sheer American power.
Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted.
In what sense does Greenland “rightfully” belong to the US? Please explain. Note: “Because Trump wants to” is not an explanation. Trump’s wants are not foreign policy or international law.
If Greenland belongs to the US then Trump’s Manhattan penthouse belongs to me. Hand it over, Steve.
“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Ohhhh, that kind of “rightfully”. I see. Nothing to do with rightful at all: he’s just saying we can grab it. He’s the teenager taking a 5-year-old’s chocolate bar and then yanking on her ponytail by way of farewell.
Next up: China starts running the US, as Miller applauds. He would applaud, right?
“We set the terms and conditions,” Mr. Miller said. “We have a complete embargo on all of their oil and their ability to do commerce. So for them to do commerce, they need our permission. For them to be able to run an economy, they need our permission. So the United States is in charge. The United States is running the country.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, denounced Mr. Miller’s remarks soon afterward, saying on CNN that “Mr. Miller gave a very good definition of imperialism.”
Also quite a good reenactment of Might Makes Right. Fun times.
Because the anti-Trump side cares about fairness, many of its most prominent figures hesitate to accuse Trump of corrupt motives until sufficient evidence emerges to support the accusation. That Trump has ordered the military to seize an alleged drug-trafficking Latin American head of state barely a month after he pardoned and released a convicted drug-trafficking Latin American head of state is suspicious, to say the least. But until and unless there’s something to back those suspicions, and perhaps recalling the readiness of Trump’s regulatory agencies to retaliate against Trump-critical speech, many on the anti-Trump side deem it unwise to voice them. The possibility that U.S. armed forces could have been deployed because Trump insiders bought into a shady scheme to grab Venezuelan oil seems far-fetched—yet it may be much more grounded in reality than any learned article concocting a Trump grand strategy.
What I wonder is why Trump doesn’t pause to think about someone doing this to him. The US isn’t the only country that has a military.
Trump thrives on the ineffectiveness of his opponents. The military operation in Venezuela is a warning that Trump’s imperial ambitions are growing. He’s building himself a triumphal arch in Washington. He craves gaudy acts to justify his monument to himself. He announced his operation first on his own wacky social-media platform, then on a phone call to Fox—as if his fan base were the only part of the nation to whom the president owed an explanation for his actions. Trump’s ego poses clear and present dangers to American democracy and American world leadership. An ineffective anti-Trump movement is an indulgence that American democracy cannot afford or accept.
So let’s not be ineffective, or ineffectual either.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday that he had issued a formal censure to Democratic senator Mark Kelly and initiated proceedings that could strip the Arizona lawmaker of his retired military rank and cut his pension, escalating a dispute that began when Kelly urged service members to resist unlawful orders.
Polite reminder: service members are required to resist unlawful orders. This is asking a lot, because service members are also required to obey orders from superiors, and unlawful orders are generally not labeled unlawful. All the same, that is the rule.
Meanwhile Pete Hegseth is a blob of cough-phlegm on everyone’s shoe.
Just days after a covert mission to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and strike the capital city, Hegseth announced that Kelly faces retirement grade determination proceedings, a rare administrative action that could see the former astronaut and navy captain demoted in his retired rank. Hegseth accused Kelly of making “seditious statements” that undermined military discipline.
Pete Hegseth is a tv personality. That’s it, that’s all he is.
In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers, all military or intelligence veterans, released a 90-second video speaking directly to service members about the consideration of the national guard being deployed across the country, calling on troops to uphold the constitution and defy what they characterized as illegal commands.
“Senator Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline,” Hegseth said in a statement posted on X, adding that Kelly “is still accountable to military justice” as a retired officer receiving military pay.
Unlawful orders, Punk.
After learning of the censure, Kelly called Hegseth “the most unqualified secretary of defense in our country’s history” and vowed to “fight this with everything I’ve got”.
“Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way,” Kelly said in a statement. “It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that.”
“If Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified secretary of defense in our country’s history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn’t get it.”
Hegseth’s statement claims Kelly’s conduct between June and December 2025 violated articles 133 and 134 of the uniform code of military justice, which the senator remains subject to as a retired officer drawing pension payments. The defense secretary argues Kelly “characterized lawful military operations as illegal and counseled members of the Armed Forces to refuse lawful orders”.
But the accusation on its face has been contested for months. Military law already requires that troops refuse unlawful orders, which is what Kelly and other members of Congress were echoing. And federal judges have ruled Donald Trump’s military deployments in Los Angeles and other cities violated the Posse Comitatus Act, suggesting the orders Kelly warned about may have actually been illegal.
But under a dictatorship the law no longer counts.
Bahahahaha Willz is enraged because the BBC reports on the prosecution of people who claimed that Brigitte Macron is a man and how awful it was for her, YET THEY DON’T DO THE SAME FOR MEN LIKE WILLZ!!!
Needing something is not automatically a right to have that something. That applies to everyone, not just everyone except Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has again proposed annexing Greenland, after Denmark’s leader urged him to “stop the threats” over the island.
Speaking to reporters, the US president said “we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security”.
We need a lot of things from the standpoint of a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean we get to have them, nor does it mean we get to take them by force.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had said “the US has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom”.
Frederiksen added that Denmark “and thus Greenland” was a Nato member and covered by the alliance’s security guarantee, and said a defence agreement granting the US access to the island was already in place.
The Danish prime minister released her statement after Katie Miller – the wife of one of Trump’s senior aides, Stephen Miller – posted on social media a map of Greenland in the colours of the American flag alongside the word “SOON”.
The Danish ambassador to the US responded to the post by Miller – a right-wing podcaster and former aide to Trump during his first term – with a “friendly reminder” that the two countries were allies and saying Denmark expected respect for its territorial integrity.
But right-wing podcasters know best. We are mere tenants in their world.
Greenland, which has a population of 57,000 people, has had extensive self-government since 1979, though defence and foreign policy remain in Danish hands.
While most Greenlanders favour eventual independence from Denmark, opinion polls show overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US.
Keir Starmer has publicly backed the Danish prime minister over Donald Trump after she demanded that the US stop its threats to forcibly take over Greenland.
Speaking after Mike Tapp, the migration minister, repeatedly dodged questions about threats by Trump and his allies to seize Greenland, Starmer told broadcasters that he supported Mette Frederiksen after she criticised US rhetoric.
“Well, I stand with her, and she’s right about the future of Greenland,” Starmer told Sky News.
We don’t know that it was just “rhetoric” that Frederiksen criticized. From here it looks more like threats or promises. Trump is threatening and promising to annex Greenland. He’s not just talking; that’s been made shockingly clear.
Speaking on Sunday, Frederiksen said: “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing to take over Greenland. The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom.” The third part of the kingdom is the Faroe Islands.
Shhhhh, don’t mention the Faroes, Trump will be wanting to grab them too.
“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you,” Trump said Sunday on Air Force One, echoing similar remarks made separately to The Atlantic magazine.
It has raised alarm in Denmark, which is responsible for the defense of Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory.
“I have to say this very directly to the United States: It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Sunday in a Facebook post.
“The Kingdom of Denmark – and thus Greenland – is part of NATO and is therefore covered by the alliance’s security guarantee. We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the United States today, which gives the United States wide access to Greenland,” Frederiksen said.
“I would therefore strongly urge the United States to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have said very clearly that they are not for sale,” she added.
Has anybody sat Trump down and explained to him that Denmark is an ally not an enemy? That going to war against allies is a rooky error? That everyone will laugh at him?
The U.S. president, who has previously refused to rule out the use of military or economic force to take Greenland, named Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland last month.
The appointment was condemned by both Denmark and Greenland. Landry has publicly endorsed Trump’s push to bring Greenland under U.S. control.
In a telephone interview this morning, President Donald Trump issued a not-so-veiled threat against the new Venezuelan leader, Delcy Rodríguez, saying that “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” referring to Nicolás Maduro, now residing in a New York City jail cell. Trump made clear that he would not stand for Rodríguez’s defiant rejection of the armed U.S. intervention that resulted in Maduro’s capture.
As if she were a toddler making too much noise while Daddy is reading the paper. As if he had any right whatsoever to make any head of government do what he orders. We know he has the guns and bombs to do it, but that is not by any stretch of the imagination the right to do it. If a pack of freedom fighters grabbed Trump and ran off with him, he wouldn’t conclude they had the right to tell him what to do.
During our call, Trump, who had just arrived at his golf club in West Palm Beach, was in evident good spirits, and reaffirmed to me that Venezuela may not be the last country subject to American intervention. “We do need Greenland, absolutely,” he said, describing the island—a part of Denmark, a NATO ally—as “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.”
Sure and I need Trump’s money and his penthouse overlooking Central Park, but that doesn’t mean I get to have them.
The prospect of Maduro’s government continuing to resist the U.S. raised the risk of a protracted fight for control of Venezuela that would require increased U.S.-military involvement and even occupation. Trump yesterday signaled his willingness to order a second wave of military actions in Venezuela, should he deem it necessary.
“Rebuilding is not a bad thing in Venezuela’s case,” he said. “The country’s gone to hell. It’s a failed country. It’s a totally failed country. It’s a country that’s a disaster in every way.”
In a speech in December 2016, Trump declared as president-elect that the U.S. will “stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about.” He had campaigned that year in opposition to “nation building,” arguing that the country needs to focus on rebuilding at home instead of in nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well sure but Venezuela is completely different. 100%.
When I asked this morning why nation building and regime change in Venezuela would be different from similar efforts he previously opposed in Iraq, Trump suggested posing the question to former President George W. Bush.
“I didn’t do Iraq. That was Bush. You’ll have to ask Bush that question, because we should have never gone into Iraq. That started the Middle East disaster,” Trump said.
Really? What a colossally stupid thing to say. We’re not talking about Iraq, we’re talking about Venezuela. We don’t have to ask Bush anything, because he’s not president and he didn’t invade Venezuela and kidnap Maduro yesterday.
As to common sense, I laughed out loud when I was reading Rene Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method,” and ran across his assessment of common sense. He wrote something to the effect of, “Common sense must be the most abundant thing in the world, because nobody ever wants more of it than they already have.”
Also reminds me of my favorite Rene Descartes joke: Rene Descartes is drinking in a bar. Eventually, the barman calls for closing time. Barman: “Would you like one more for the road?” Descartes: [hesitates] “I think not.” And =POOF!= he disappears.
The Sinn Fein leader criticised a “limited but loud” group in society that had sought to “divide, to demonise and marginalise” others . . . .
Golly, who does that sound like? T and their allies are a small, very vocal group, who have done nothing but divide society and demonize women and anyone who supports women’s rights, and have done their damnedest to marginalize anyone and everyone who dared to dissent from the trans religion. Heretics are to be excommunicated from society.
. . . rhetoric which she said sparked a growing sense of fear within Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community.
Wait a minute . . . WHAT “LGBTQ+community”? Forced teaming strikes again. There is no community of interest between LGB and T+++. T+++ are antagonist, downright hostile to LGB. And T+++ deserves to feel a little fear. After the campaign of terror they have conducted against the whole of society, for over a decade, they should be concerned. It’s the fear that bullies feel when their victims fight back.
“Any policy-making has to be cognisant of the legal and of the medical advice, the advice from a chief medical officer. You have to be because you’re dealing with children,” McDonald said, highlighting concerns about the drugs’ effect on bone density and cognitive and reproductive function as central to policy development.
Well, duh. By all means, think of the children. Think of the medical expertise that has called into question the trans medicalization of children, and the drugs’ deleterious effects on kids’ bone density, cognitive development, and sexual function. Be cognizant of legal advice, too, such as the UK Supreme Court decision, that sex means sex. Make policy based on those things.
On contentious topics such as trans people’s access to single-sex bathrooms or appropriate placement in prisons, McDonald advocated a case-by-case approach focused on safety: “The first concern has to be the safety of the person and the people who are being detained by the state. I think if you come through that prism on a case-by-case basis, that’s how you get that right,” she said.
Take your own advice. Focus on safety. Check. Take a case-by-case approach: okay, let’s do that. Here’s a “trans person” who wants to access single-sex bathrooms or prisons. Case-by-case — in this case, which sex is the “trans person”? Is the trans person of the male sex? Ok, in this case he should use the men’s room or be sent to the men’s prison. If there’s an issue of safety, (1) have the man (“transgender woman”) call upon allies for support if he fears being attacked in the men’s room, or (2) have the department of corrections make a separate unit for trans-identified male prisoners, just as they put child molesters or former law enforcement prisoners in protected units. Presto! Case-by-case determination. Is the “trans person” of the female sex? Okay, in this case, the “trans person” should use the women’s bathroom or be incarcerated in the women’s prison. There you go: case-by-case decisions, with safety as the main consideration. Job done.
Call me conspiratorial but I kind of think this is part of the point: A small number of strong men each holding their own sphere of influence, ceding the rest to the others to do as they want. https://t.co/7iVLByd7ao
Mary Lou McDonald has urged “calm, cop-on and common sense” on transgender policy, warning against division as Sinn Fein prepares to revise its gender identity stance.
The Sinn Fein leader criticised a “limited but loud” group in society that had sought to “divide, to demonise and marginalise” others — rhetoric which she said sparked a growing sense of fear within Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community.
Ah, ok, that kind of calm, cop-on and common sense – the kind that says men are women if they say they are, and women have to shut up and welcome them as sisters. I don’t really consider it common sense to think that men can be women, but whatever. (If it’s really common sense why hasn’t everyone always known it?)
“Any policy-making has to be cognisant of the legal and of the medical advice, the advice from a chief medical officer. You have to be because you’re dealing with children,” McDonald said, highlighting concerns about the drugs’ effect on bone density and cognitive and reproductive function as central to policy development.
Well which is it? Common sense, or being up to speed with the legal and medical advice? They’re hardly the same thing.
On contentious topics such as trans people’s access to single-sex bathrooms or appropriate placement in prisons, McDonald advocated a case-by-case approach focused on safety: “The first concern has to be the safety of the person and the people who are being detained by the state. I think if you come through that prism on a case-by-case basis, that’s how you get that right,” she said.
Wtf does that mean? Why would letting some men be in women’s prisons be the straight and narrow path to getting that right? How about no?
McDonald said her leadership style was to avoid rushing decisions. “I’m extremely assertive, I can take things on. I’m no shrinking violet at all, but I’m also a very thoughtful person, I reflect on things, and I assess things, and in my long political experience, I would say that, for the most part, the most essential ingredient in getting to the right position is actually around taking a bit of time and coming at things calmly.”
You bet. As the man’s hands tighten on your throat you must take a bit of time and come at things calmly. You must also be very smug about your own getting to the right position skills.
Trans people should have the same human rights as everyone else has. There are no special rights for trans people. Nobody has a right to be constantly affirmed as a planet or a porcupine or trapped in the wrong body. Men who pretend to be women are a threat to women’s rights in too many ways to list.
It’s interesting how careful Amnesty is not to spell out these purported rights that have been dealt a blow. What rights? There is no right for men to use women’s spaces or take jobs reserved for women or accept prizes for women or force people to call them women.
Trump on the one hand, Amnesty on the other. Bad times today.
