What it’s like in Trumpy Murka:

I think about guns because guns are what I talked about most for the last several months as I ran in our local Republican primary for county magistrate. Not gas prices. Not the “stolen” election. Not caravans at the southern border. Not abortion. Not the mundane, budget-related duties of the seat I was running for. I talked about guns. I am a Democrat who ran for local office as a Republican because in Anderson County, Kentucky, right down the road from the state capitol, Democrats no longer have a prayer of winning a partisan election, even if it is to serve in a nonpartisan job. This is die-hard Trump country now. Donald Trump won the county in both 2016 and 2020 with more than 70 percent of the vote. I figured that running on the Republican ticket, talking neighbor to neighbor with Republicans in a sensible manner about issues like guns would give me a fair shot.

It didn’t. She lost “spectacularly.”

The term “gun culture” gets tossed around. But what does it mean to live in a place rooted in Trumpian (angry, unabashed, aggrieved, armed-to-the-teeth) 2022 gun culture?

I think about guns because, two days before our May 17 primary, a friend removed my campaign signs from his yard. Around 9:30 that morning, while I was driving to Sunday school and church, he had heard the pop-pop of gunshots as men in trucks drove by, randomly yelling my name and Hillary Clinton’s and cursing about liberals.

I think about guns because, in mid-April, it was rumored that a local machine parts shop had a doormat in the store with the face of a longtime female magistrate on it. It read “Wipe Your Feet Here.” I wanted to see this doormat for myself and ask some questions: Did they have a supply? Was it for sale? Who created it? The first two friends I told begged me not to go. Did I know the owner carries a gun? If I went, they each cautioned independently, would I take a law enforcement officer with me. I thought this sounded ridiculous. “Just have the officer wait for you in the parking lot!” one insisted. When I arrived at the shop, without the police, I pulled in behind a grayish gold truck with a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on the back window, and sat there thinking, “I don’t belong here. What am I doing?” I left.

I think about guns because, later the same day, I made myself go back to the shop. The owner was not there, so I asked the woman behind the counter my questions. She was angry. She went in the back to get a man. What man? Would he be armed and angry? I left as fast as I could.

It sounds nightmarish. Granted some of this is her perception and questions about what might happen, but the guys in trucks shooting guns sound all too real.

People here openly carry their guns. Whether I am stopping by Kroger to pick up ice cream, grabbing a coffee on Main Street or stocking up on household supplies at Walmart, I am constantly aware that there are people around me carrying guns.

And that is much too real.

How stupid is this?

Why not also tear your hair over all the couples who split up before having children? All the couplings that didn’t result in pregnancies? All the billions of potential pregnancies that were just sexual assaults that didn’t quite get the job done? We don’t need more people. Better people, more generous people, more decent people, more unlike Ted Cruz people, yes, but more numbers, no. We’re racing toward the cliff of climate disaster, so maximizing the possible number of new people would be a cruelty.

The fantasy about “unborn children” sitting in there looking forward to the ice cream and kittens and dancing is as ridiculous as the fantasy about changing sex by saying you have changed sex.

The Washington Post duly takes the party line.

Sen. Hawley accused of transphobic questioning at abortion hearing

Not “Hawley called transphobic” but “accused of transphobic questioning” – which subtly implies that there is such a thing as transphobic questioning.

The subhead isn’t even a little bit subtle:

The Missouri Republican refused to acknowledge that some transgender men can get pregnant

No he didn’t. He refused to swallow the lie that some men can get pregnant.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on the legal impact of the end of Roe v. Wade, was accused by a congressional witness of employing a transphobic line of questioning.

Or to put it another way, a congressional witness marched proudly into the trap Josh Hawley had set.

Bridges, who had during the hearing defended access to abortion care for all people who are at risk of pregnancy, explained that cisgender women, trans men and nonbinary people can get pregnant.

She didn’t explain anything, she talked the usual line of childish fantasy, making Democrats look like idiots.

Bridges explained to Hawley that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe impacts cisgender women as well as other groups. Those things, she said, are not mutually exclusive.

Again, she didn’t “explain” anything, she just talked fantasy-riddled jargon, in a very smug manner.

Some experts on gender and reproductive rights use gender-neutral terms including “people with a capacity for pregnancy” and “pregnant people” when talking about these issues, which help illustrate that not only cisgender women have the ability for pregnancy — and cisgender women aren’t the only ones impacted by decisions to restrict reproductive health care.

And all women who know which end is up tell them to stop.

Trump tried to squeeze a witness.

Donald Trump attempted to contact one of the witnesses who has been speaking to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the panel said Tuesday.

Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the panel, delivered the revelation at the conclusion of the committee’s seventh public hearing on the Capitol attack.

According to Cheney, Trump tried to call the unnamed witness after the committee’s sixth hearing last month. The witness, who has not yet been publicly revealed as a participant in the committee’s investigation, declined the call.

Not surprisingly, this could be a crime.

If the justice department gathers evidence indicating that Trump was attempting to influence witness testimony in the January 6 investigation, prosecutors could pursue criminal charges against the former president.

This is not the first time that the issue of witness intimidation has been raised in connection to the select committee’s work. At the committee’s sixth hearing, Cheney revealed that at least two witnesses said they had been contacted by Trump allies urging them to stay loyal to the former president when speaking to investigators.

One witness told the committee: “What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know that I’m on the right team. I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect. … They have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceed through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”

It’s very Godfather.

Yet another one.

The organization has “women” in its name, but still, it obeys the orders Not To Say The Word.

Paid sick days give people seeking abortion care the time they need to travel to a clinic, receive care, and recover.

Learn how you can use paid sick days for medication abortion.

Newsweek reports on Professor People Capable of Pregnancy and her smug exchanges with Josh Hawley:

A University of California, Berkeley, law professor slammed GOP Senator Josh Hawley as “transphobic” during a Senate hearing Tuesday on abortion policy.

During the hearing, professor Khiara Bridges used the phrase “people with a capacity for pregnancy,” which is considered a gender-neutral term that encompasses everyone who is able to get pregnant, including transgender men and nonbinary individuals.

No it isn’t. People like Khiara Bridges may consider it that, or may pretend to, but it isn’t just generally or widely or universally “considered” that, not least because it’s bullshit. Women are the only people who are able to get pregnant; that includes women who call themselves men or nonbinary…or for that matter giraffes or apples or 1947 Cadillac sedans.

The debate over gender-inclusive terminology has become heated in recent weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As supporters of LGBTQ rights push for more inclusive language surrounding pregnancy, others have argued that terms such as “people with a capacity for pregnancy” slight women. In any case, there have been many instances of transgender men or nonbinary individuals—none of whom are women—becoming pregnant.

This is Newsweek talking. “None of whom are women.” Yes they are. If they get pregnant, they’re women. Semi-respectable news magazines saying otherwise doesn’t change that. It’s grotesque to see news outlets telling stupid teenagery lies like this.

She added, “I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing that.”

It opens women up to violence to call us transphobic and terfs and the rest of the approved vocabulary, too. Professor Smug should pay some attention to that.

When Josh Hawley is talking sense and the academic he’s questioning is talking unmitigated bullshit:

Holy moly. I wouldn’t have guessed this was even possible.

In about a week, a Massachusetts woman is expected to reach the eastern end of Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail, becoming the first female hiker to finish all 11 national scenic trails in the United States. 

Arlette Laan, whose trail name is “Apple Pie,” had about 200 miles left of the 1,200-mile-long trail as of last week. Once she reaches the trail’s eastern terminus in Sturgeon Bay, she’ll make history. 

Laan’s said “a lot of stubbornness” has helped her complete this journey, which began in 2003 when she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. 

She’s now done it.

Appalachian Trail: 2,190 miles

State(s): ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, GA

Arizona Trail 800 miles

State(s): AZ

Continental Divide Trail: 3,100 miles

State(s): MT, ID, WY, CO, NM

Florida Trail: 1,300 miles

State(s): FL

Ice Age Trail: 1,000 miles

State(s): WI

Natchez: 65 miles

State(s): MS

New England Trail: 215 miles

State(s): CT, MA

North Country Trail: 4,600 miles

State(s): MI, MN, ND, NY, OH, PA, VT, WI

Pacific Crest Trail: 2,650 miles

State(s): CA, OR, WA

Pacific Northwest Trail: 1,200 milesState(s): ID, MT, WA

Potomac Heritage Trail: 710 miles

State(s): DC, MD, PA, VA

That is 17,866 miles of trail this woman has walked!

Blimey.

JKR going all-in again.

Media Matters did a roundup of right-wing media fussing about Mentioning Slavery At Monticello.

The right-wing media ecosystem is expressing outrage following a New York Post story that Monticello, the estate of Thomas Jefferson, is teaching visitors that the principal author of the Declaration of Independence enslaved hundreds of people.

Note that the outrage isn’t because it’s not true. The outrage is because we’re just supposed to shut up about it. But why should we do that?

The conservative freakout seemingly started with a July 4 tweet from Jeffrey A. Tucker, who complained of “aggressive political messaging” at Monticello. Tucker, who is the president of the Brownstone Institute — formed in May 2021 to oppose COVID-19 precautions — also wrote a column the same day for the conspiracy theory website The Epoch Times complaining about his visit there. The New York Post picked up the story and interviewed Tucker for its July 9 article titled “Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the process.”

But Jefferson is the one who “trashed his legacy” by enslaving people.

Fox News devoted multiple cable segments, a digital article, and a podcast episode to expressing outrage over the estate teaching this history: 

On the July 10 edition of Fox & Friends Weekend, co-host Pete Hegseth said that the “people behind the foundation that runs it [are] all leftists” and that “they’re committed to telling the worst story of America.” Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy replied, “This is a diabolical plan on their part to populate these positions that have influence over how America tells its story.” 

On July 11, Fox & Friends First also aired a segment highlighting the Post story, featuring Carol Swain, who has previously defended white nationalists. During the interview, she claimed Monticello is trying “to destroy” Jefferson’s legacy. 

But this is his legacy. It’s their legacy. It’s the story of this country – a combination of revolutionary ideals and ruthless exploitation, removal, genocide, entrenched racism, imperialist wars. That’s it, that’s the legacy. Throwing a big hairy blanket over it can’t change that.

It’s a week! Another week! I didn’t know! I can’t keep up. There are so many of them, along with days and months: it’s impossible to keep up.

Are those the non-binary colors? Yellow white purple black? I didn’t know there were non-binary colors. What do they mean? Why those colors in particular?

Is it true that we don’t know “loads” about what non-binary lives are like? Is there anything to know? Are non-binary lives as such any different from other lives? If so, why? What is it about calling yourself “non-binary” that causes your life to be different from the lives of “binary” people?

Why does anyone need to take any steps to “include” them? What reason is there to think they’re not already “included”?

So many questions, so few answers.

Here’s a bit of Bow-tie Guy telling Fox News how sad it is that Monticello guides talk about slavery instead of Jefferson’s interest in architecture.

Jefferson was an interesting guy, no question, but one of the most profoundly interesting things about him (in my view) was the yawning canyon between his revolutionary rhetoric and his utterly commonplace Southern gentleman exploitation of enslaved human beings.

Fox News is outraged that the people at Monticello inform the visitors about slavery. It’s supposed to be a secret!!!

Today’s little Fox News gem was a segment on what a huge bummer it is to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello these days, what with all the focus on slavery and what not at what was built as a slave plantation.

A bow-tied, bespectacled guest for the segment was billed hilariously in one chyron as a “recent Monticello visitor.” Turns out there’s a little more to the story.

The guest was one Jeffrey Tucker. Who?

…

Tucker is a former Ron Paul acolyte who has worked with Lew Rockwell in various capacities, including at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. But there’s a bit more to it than that. A 20-year-old report by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the Neo-Confederate movement identified Tucker and Rockwell as founding members of the League of the South:

Both Rockwell and institute research director Jeffrey Tucker are listed on the racist League of the South’s Web page as founding members — and both men deny their membership. Tucker has written for League publications, and many League members have taught at the institute’s seminars and given presentations at its conferences.

Cool cool cool. Bow tie dude with longstanding roots in Yay Racism Yay Slavery does a turn on Fox disguised as a random tourist randomly touring Monticello home of random Thomas Jefferson who randomly impregnated random slave Sally Hemings who was randomly his wife’s half-sister. Why should the Monticello people talk about such things when they’re so very random and meaningless?

Tucker’s star turn on today’s Fox segment came just a few days after he served as a named source for a New York Post story headlined “Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the process.”

Yes that’s definitely Monticello’s doing; Jefferson had nothing to do with it.

The ACLU has an article (which it shared on Facebook) by a clinic escort on why abortion rights matter.

Last week, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, upending 50 years of legal precedent and sparking protests across the country. It’s easy to think Roe fell with the stroke of Justice Samuel Alito’s pen, a legal battle lost in a courtroom. But as a clinic escort for the last decade, I’ve watched the fight for abortion access play out in real time on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics in Missouri and Illinois.

As a volunteer clinic escort, it’s my job to help patients get from their car door to the clinic door safely; to provide a shoulder to lean on and a gentle, welcome distraction. It might seem strange that a person would need accompaniment when walking such a short distance across a parking lot, but patients seeking health care from these clinics endure a lot of hostility in just a few yards. Anti-abortion protesters do everything they can to discourage patients from getting the care they need: yelling, pleading, praying, and even posing as clinic employees at the front gate of the clinic, next to a sandwich board that says “Check in here.”

Well done her for doing the work (her name is Mariceli Alegria), but you know what’s coming. The answer is no: the word “women” is never used to name the people who need abortion rights. Not even once. It does appear once in the article, but not to name abortion-needers.

The first time I encountered the roar of anti-abortion protesters outside a clinic, I wasn’t an escort. I was going to a Planned Parenthood in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where I’m from, for STI testing and birth control. The clinic I went to didn’t even provide abortions; those were few and far between, even 11 years ago. Still, there they were on the sidewalk — little old ladies, holding signs and angrily yelling. I didn’t understand why they were screaming at me just for being there, just for getting birth control. It’s worth noting that those women were white, while the Rio Grande Valley is almost 94 percent Hispanic/Latino.

That’s it, the only mention. Apparently it’s ok to use it to name the villains, but their targets are “patients” and “people” only. “Women” is a forbidden word, even at this moment when we’ve lost a crucial right.

The ACLU does this even as it emphasizes the importance of saying the words.

There’s also something very simple that we should all be doing in this moment: When talking about abortion, say the word “abortion.” Shying away from the word only perpetuates stigma. No one should feel shame for seeking abortion care, but that’s exactly what those protesters outside the clinics are trying to do. They’re not just trying to prevent patients from getting to their appointments — they’re trying to perpetuate abortion stigma that enables bad policies, harmful rhetoric, and misinformation. Exacerbating abortion stigma was a key tactic anti-abortion actors used that has led to this terrifying ruling from the Supreme Court. But we don’t have to stand for it. Abortion is health care, and we should talk about it like we would any other kind of health care we seek.

Absolutely, and you know what else we should talk about as we would any other kind of human being who needs rights? Women, that’s what.

In the almost decade that I’ve been escorting patients, I’ve occasionally encountered folks coming from other states. But in more recent years, and especially in the last six months after Texas passed SB 8, it’s become much more common. Now, those numbers are going to climb even higher, as people get pushed out of states that ban abortion and are forced to travel long distances for care. Regardless of how far people have to travel, Pro-Choice Missouri clinic escorts will continue to support patients in Illinois, now and always. I don’t get the chance to say this to patients while I’m escorting them into the clinic but I want them, and all abortion supporters, to know this: We love you, and we aren’t going anywhere.

We love you, but we’re for damn sure not going to use the word that names you. We’re going to call you folks and people and patients, but never ever ever EVER that word that has now been reserved for men in skirts. Mwah.

NASA has released the first image from the Hubble telescope.

On Monday, July 11, President Joe Biden released one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images in a preview event at the White House in Washington. NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the full set of Webb’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT (14:30 UTC) on Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Learn more about how to watch.

This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said on Facebook:

The deepest view ever obtained in the universe. Filled with galaxies. The several spiked objects are local stars in our own Milky Way. Ignore them. Everything else is an entire galaxy unto itself. Notice that many distort into arcs. These are distant galaxies that reveal the curvature of spacetime caused by the gravity of a cluster of galaxies in image’s center.

Ignore those pesky local stars elbowing their way into the shot.

Mole at the door has the sarcastic version.

Jill Suttie posted an article a few days ago on how access to abortion improves women’s well-being.

Though people may argue over whether this ruling is sound or not, it likely spells disaster for women’s health and well-being. That’s because research suggests women who have the right to choose whether or not to give birth are happier, healthier, and more economically stable than those who don’t. And their children benefit, too, by having a mother who can afford to nurture and provide for them better.

What a surprise, eh, that women who get to have some control over their lives are better off than women who don’t?

Item one is better mental health.

Many women are made to feel guilty about seeking an abortion; at times, the circumstances surrounding their choice can involve stress and negative emotions. Does getting the abortion hurt their mental health? Not in most cases. In general, women who get a desired abortion tend to have better mental health—even in the short term—than their peers who are denied one.

Maybe because if you don’t want to have a baby, at a particular time or at all, then being forced to have one will make you feel bad: thwarted, coerced, pushed around. Just a wild guess.

Item two is better physical health.

While some have argued that abortions have health risks, those pale in comparison to giving birth. Legal, medically supervised abortions are relatively safe for women. If we don’t keep them that way, women may seek to abort unwanted pregnancies on their own, putting themselves at greater risk for health complications.

Meanwhile pregnancy and giving birth are rough on the body, and genuinely risky. Stats have improved enormously since the bad old days but it’s still risky.

Read onhttps://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_access_to_abortion_improves_womens_well_being.

This guy (who has half a million followers) –

There is nothing even slightly “respectful” about telling a woman to “fall back” and let the men take over. (There’s also nothing respectful about telling women to support men like Matt Walsh – who is a conservative Catholic who opposes abortion rights.) It’s all the more insulting when the woman in question is a philanthropic self-made millionaire (former billionaire demoted because she gave so much money away).

Telling us to fall back – or shut up or go away or sit down or do the laundry – is what this is all about. We’re not going to fall back when men in skirts tell us to and we’re not going to fall back when godbothering sports commentators tell us to either. You fall back.

From The Telegraph:

The Church of England has said that there is “no official definition” of a woman.

Did it say anything about an official definition of a man?

Senior bishops have insisted that until recently, the answer to questions such as what constitutes a woman “were thought to be self-evident”. However, now “additional care” is needed.

Let’s talk about more official definitions. What’s the official definition of “God”? How about “soul”? Sin? Faith? Prayer? Miracle? Magic? Voodoo?

The stance comes as the institution struggles to remain relevant and progressive amid declining congregant numbers and in an increasingly secular society.

So they try to be progressive by telling women that men are also women?

Rev Angela Berners-Wilson, who became the first woman to be ordained as a priest in England in 1994, and who has recently retired, told The Telegraph in response to the Bishop of Europe’s answer: “I’m not totally happy with it. I mean, I do think certain things like men can’t have babies just to say the complete obvious thing.”

The completely obvious thing and the very consequential thing. The fact that women and only women can have babies is one of the reasons women are so ferociously monitored and controlled. The job is crucial, therefore it’s necessary to treat women as inferior and enslaved. Another way to look at it of course would be to say therefore it’s necessary to treat women as valuable and irreplaceable. That wouldn’t be as much fun though.

“But I think we need to be very sensitive and maybe we need to reexamine our boundaries.”

Very sensitive how though? Being very sensitive toward men who call themselves women entails being very insensitive toward women who know that men are men. Why is it only the men who get the extra sensitivity?

Jayne Ozanne, synod member and founder of the Ozanne Foundation in 2017 – which works with religious organisations around the world to tackle prejudice and discrimination of LGBTQI people – described the question as “passive aggressive”.

She said: “Mr Kendy’s question is sadly a prime example of a passive aggressive question that is designed to upset the LGBT+ community and particularly the trans members in our midst.

Speaking of passive-aggressive – there is no “LGBT+” community. The T is not part of the LGB.

And the question is not designed to “upset” anyone: it’s designed to find out who still knows what women are and what men are, and who is pretending to think it’s all a matter of self-definition.

Dr Jane Hamlin, president of Beaumont Society charity, which supports trans people, added: “I am puzzled why some people are so obsessed with defining ‘woman’. Why might this be an issue for the Church of England?

“Is it that women should be treated more favourably or less favourably? Why does it matter to the Church of England whether someone is a woman or not a woman? Surely it only matters to the individual themselves.”

Unless you’re in a hospital or a prison or running for office or trying to break into a field dominated by men or competing in a sport or…………..

And we’re back! WordPress tripped over its own feet but sainted webmaster fixed the problem.

Pink News tells us:

A gay couple are suing a California fertility clinic after they requested a male embryo but ended up having a baby girl.

Well they didn’t “have” a baby girl did they. Having a baby=giving birth. They didn’t do that; someone else did it for them. They paid a woman to gestate the baby and push it out.

According to CBSNews, Albert and Anthony Saniger were determined to be fathers to two sons. Before the couple wed in 2013 they had already chosen the names of their future kids and even created Gmail accounts for them.

The HRC Fertility clinic and fertility specialist Dr Bradford A Kolb reportedly assured the couple that they could make this happen. The couple were explicitly clear that they wanted a male embryo implanted in their surrogate.

Not just implicitly clear, mind you: explicitly clear.

Also “implanted in their surrogate” is a peculiarly ugly phrase.

In May 2020, the couple provided their sperm, and after two unsuccessful attempts their surrogate became pregnant in December. She gave birth to a baby girl in 2021.

The couple’s lawsuit claims that the fertility clinic “negligently, recklessly, and/or intentionally transferred a female embryo to the Sanigers’ gestational carrier.”

More ugly language: “their surrogate,” “the Sanigers’ gestational carrier.” Pink News talks about this woman as if she were an appliance.

At any rate, as many people are pointing out, the guys could just assign the baby male: problem solved.