Yesterday this happened:

1) Yesterday pm our spokeswoman @asknic was booked onto @bbc5live @StephenNolan late news show to discuss @Martina Navratilova's comments about trans participation in female sport. We were then disinvited after Rachel McKinnon publicly refused to participate if we were included. pic.twitter.com/ViBy36mJWc

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) February 18, 2019

That’s so McKinnon, isn’t it. “Talk to ME and not to anyone who fails to agree with ME and endorse what I say.”

But it’s sad to say it’s also so BBC…but it is. For years they talked to the Muslim Council of Britain but not anyone who disagreed with them. For years they talked as if the MCB represented all Muslims including secular liberal ones. For years they took one highly coercive illiberal side and stuck to it like grim death.

2) We discussed this decision with editor @philoholland explaining how this is a frequently used tactic to silencing opposing views. It contravenes BBC editorial guidelines to allow a guest to veto the appearance of another. pic.twitter.com/sH9hVOwwOk

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) February 18, 2019

But in defiance of their own explicit written policy, McKinnon was allowed to veto Fair Play for Women and be the only person interviewed. What a joke.

4) Topic introduced by Nolan with 'Martina's comment described as upsetting, disturbing and deeply transphobic'. No reference to the support she has also received. No reference that FPFW was disinvited to speak. Listen here. https://t.co/dhAgpXjO0A

— FairPlayForWomen (@fairplaywomen) February 18, 2019

It’s almost as if women are a despised and subordinated caste.

Oh, America. You’re so confused.

A Florida student is facing misdemeanor charges after a confrontation with his teacher that began with his refusal to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and escalated into what officials described as disruptive behavior.

The student, a sixth-grader at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, Fla., east of Tampa, refused to stand for the pledge in the Feb. 4 incident, telling the teacher that he thinks the flag and the national anthem are “racist” against black people, according to an affidavit. The teacher then had what appeared to be a contentious exchange with the boy.

Ok stop right there. The teacher had no business having any kind of exchange with the boy, because forced loyalty oaths are a fascist thing, not a liberal democracy thing.

People recite an oath when they become new citizens. That’s ok, that makes sense. They recite it once. They can go on reciting it as much as they like, of course, but it’s required only the once. People swear to things in court; that too makes sense, and has reasonable limits. Ordering children to swear a loyalty oath in school every single day is grotesque and intrusive and disgusting. It shouldn’t happen at all, but if it does happen (as it unfortunately does here) then children should have every right to abstain, period end of story. On paper they do have that right, because of a court ruling – so this teacher should have left the boy alone.

If living in the United States is “so bad,” why not go to another place to live? substitute teacher Ana Alvarez asked the student, according to a handwritten statement from her.

“They brought me here,” the boy replied.

Alvarez responded by saying, “Well you can always go back, because I came here from Cuba, and the day I feel I’m not welcome here anymore, I would find another place to live.” She then called the school office, as she did not want to keep dealing with the student, according to the statement.

That’s her experience, and that’s fine, but it’s not part of her job to force it on the students.

Officials said the situation escalated. The student yelled at the administrative dean and a school resource officer with the Lakeland Police Department after they came to the classroom, accusing them of being racist and repeatedly refusing to leave the room.

“Suspend me! I don’t care. This school is racist,” the student, who is black, told the dean as he walked out of the classroom with his backpack, according to the affidavit.

I can’t help feeling a lot of sympathy for that kid – he shouldn’t be forced to recite a very substantive loyalty oath that he doesn’t believe in, and he shouldn’t be punished or hassled for refusing to recite it. Why wouldn’t he yell at them when he wasn’t doing anything wrong?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida issued a rebuke in the wake of the controversy. “This is outrageous. Students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter the schoolhouse gates,” the group said on Twitter. “This is a prime example of the over-policing of Black students in school.”

The 11-year-old boy’s mother, Dhakira Talbot, was not immediately available for comment Sunday. But she told Bay News 9 that the teacher was wrong and that the school overstepped its authority by punishing her son, who was taken to a juvenile detention center and suspended for three days after the incident.

The school and the police say it’s not because of the pledge, it’s because of how he reacted to being thrown out of class over the pledge. Yeeeeeah that’s a distinction without a difference, folks.

In a statement Monday, Polk County Public Schools said the resource officer, not school officials, made the decision to arrest the student.

The school district said that students are not required to participate in reciting the pledge. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that schools cannot require students to salute the flag or recite the pledge, citing First Amendment rights.

But the substitute teacher was not aware that students are not required to recite the pledge, the school district said, adding that officials will look at improving training for substitute teachers and that Alvarez no longer works in the district.

Oh ffs – really? Schools make kids say that shit every single day but they don’t manage to tell teachers that the kids have a legal right to refuse?

What a pathetic mess.

It’s all over between us and Europe. They’re just not into us.

European leaders have long been alarmed that President Trump’s words and Twitter messages could undo a trans-Atlantic alliance that had grown stronger over seven decades. They had clung to the hope that those ties would bear up under the strain.

But in the last few days of a prestigious annual security conference in Munich, the rift between Europe and the Trump administration became open, angry and concrete, diplomats and analysts say.

Russia and China are happy about this though.

Even the normally gloomy Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, happily noted the strains, remarking that the Euro-Atlantic relationship had become increasingly “tense.”

And all because of a greedy punk from Queens.

The most visible pushback against Washington came from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — who delivered an unusually passionate speech — and from her defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen. They spoke about the dangers of unilateral actions by major partners without discussing the consequences with allies.

They cited Mr. Trump’s recent announcements that American troops would leave northern Syria and Afghanistan, as well as the administration’s decision to suspend one of the last remaining arms-control agreements: the ban on land-based intermediate range missiles.

…

Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke after Ms. Merkel in Munich, met stony silence when he tried to pressure allies to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, a sign of the continuing anger at Washington’s decision to scrap the deal unilaterally. European allies regard the pact as vital to European security and to the preservation of nuclear nonproliferation.

Even more, the Europeans are angry that renewed American sanctions hurt European companies far more than any American ones.

Hey, Make America Great Again. Isn’t that everyone’s goal? Europe included? Doesn’t everyone want to put our interests first?

Not one of the best but still worth seeing because it pissed off Trump.

Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2019

Interesting that he’s now demanding retribution.

The “object!” guy is at it again.

The MP who infuriated campaigners by objecting to a ban on upskirting has been heavily criticised after blocking another private members’ bill.

Sir Christopher Chope shouted “object” in a debate on laws protecting children girls from female genital mutilation.

His Conservative colleague, Zac Goldsmith, said his actions were “appalling” – Lib Dem Tom Brake said the MP had “reached a new low”.

Sir Christopher has argued his aim is to stop badly thought-out legislation.

He said he had not been objecting to the substance of the issue, but wanted to see all legislation properly debated.

Unfriendly observers point out that he doesn’t shout “object” at every opportunity; he chooses his targets carefully.

Last year he sparked fury when he objected to another bill to make “upskirting” a criminal offence in England and Wales – that became law last month, after the bill got government backing.

But his fellow Conservative Mr Goldsmith, who co-sponsored the bill, tweeted“please note that once again he did not object to those put forward by his friends”.

Among others criticising his actions on Twitter, were the Labour MP David Lammy, who suggested Mr Chope “embodies a brand of thoughtless, regressive conservatism which can ruin lives” while anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali said she had “nothing but disgust” for Mr Chope.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said on Twitter he was “very disappointed” that the bill had been blocked adding: “FGM is child abuse. I am determined to stamp out this despicable and medieval practice. We will do all we can to protect girls at risk.”

If Mr Chope will allow it.

Oooh, fun, and hardly insulting at all.

We’ve found the world’s worst board game: Girls v Guys. The boys get questions on subjects they know nothing about (fashion, makeup, pop) and the girls get questions on the stuff they know nothing about (sport, politics, biology, geography, culture, life). pic.twitter.com/2TpiOUqdoC

— Anna Mazzola (@Anna_Mazz) February 16, 2019

Guatemala is no country for women:

As fire swept through the classroom, the pleas from the 56 girls locked inside began to fade.

Most were unconscious or worse by then, as an eerie silence replaced their panic-stricken shouts.

The police officers guarding the door — who had refused to unlock it despite the screams — waited nine minutes before stepping inside. They got water to cool down the scorching knob.

Inside, dozens of girls placed in the care of the Guatemalan state lay sprawled on the blackened floor. Forty-one of them died.

It was one of the deadliest tragedies in Guatemala since the end of its civil war decades ago, and it happened inside a group home for at-risk youth who had been put there by the government, supposedly for their own protection.

Much like the way the Irish government handed generations of children over to the Catholic church “supposedly for their own protection” but in fact for their deprivation and brutalization.

Now, nearly two years later, the trials against public officials accused of failing to prevent the deaths have all begun.

But a review of more than two dozen case files of victims and survivors — along with interviews of family members, group home employees and public officials — reveals a pattern of physical, psychological and sexual abuse allegations at the facility stretching back for years.

Six children died there between 2012 and 2015. There were 25 cases of reported abuse. Relatives of some girls report they were forced into sex with adult men – they were government-raped, in short.

The deaths are a reflection of the cruel passage to adulthood for many young girls in Guatemala, a journey often marked by poverty, violence and desperation. The nation has one of the highest child pregnancy rates, and the homicide rate for women is among the worst in the world.

…

The girls, who had broken no laws and posed no threat to society, were victims even before the fire. As survivors of sexual abuse, violence or abandonment — often at the hands of their own families — the government had assigned them to the institution for their own safety. In theory, the world outside posed the greatest threat to them.

“These are girls who had been abused, sometimes raped, by members of their own family,” said Norma Cruz, the director of Survivors, a group representing the families of nearly two dozen victims. “These girls were placed there for their protection.”

Read on.

The Guardian does a Trump-tease.

There’s a reason he’s so fixated on Wall – the fact that he’s a racist shithead, yes, but an additional reason. Eric Lach at the New Yorker:

So why did he do [the emergency]? When a reporter pressed him on whether he would concede that he didn’t get the deal he wanted from Congress, Trump, of course, refused to concede. And, in doing so, he undercut what little concrete rationale his emergency had to begin with. “I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster,” he said. “And I don’t have to do it for the election. I’ve already done a lot of wall for the election. 2020. And the only reason we’re up here talking about this is because of the election—because they want to try to win an election, which it looks like they’re not going to be able to do.” So there it is, as straight as you can get it from this President: he didn’t need to do this, and it’s not about the election, but the only reason he’s talking about it is because of the election.

It’s a good day to remember that, according to Joshua Green’s “Devil’s Bargain,” Trump’s aides came up with the idea of the wall in 2014, not for policy reasons but for memory reasons. “Inside Trump’s circle, the power of illegal immigration to manipulate popular sentiment was readily apparent, and his advisers brainstormed methods for keeping their attention-addled boss on message,” Green wrote. “They needed a trick, a mnemonic device. In the summer of 2014, they found one that clicked.” Not with the public, or even with the Republican Party—but with Trump himself.

Wall. He can remember it. It’s just four letters, it’s a familiar word, we’ve all seen walls, some of us have them in our houses or apartments or cells. Wall. You don’t even need an article, you can just call it Wall as you might call it Don or Dan or Dun. Wall.

The BBC has an ick when it comes to abortion.

A group of healthcare bodies have today published a letter to BBC Action Line asking that they reverse their current stance on providing links to information about abortion. The letter is co-signed by British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas), Brook, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Family Planning Association (FPA), Marie Stopes UK, the Royal College of Midwives, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The issue emerged following last week’s episode of Call the Midwife in which one of the characters died as a result of complications from an illegal “backstreet” abortion.  At the end of the programme, the BBC Action Line website was advertised for viewers who wished to seek information and support for issues covered in the programme. A number of women who visited the website contacted the charity the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, bpas, to highlight that there were no sources of advice relating to abortion.

In response to bpas, who raised their concerns about the omission of abortion support, BBC Action Line stated that they had chosen to not include abortion because it is “contentious” and including this information could be seen as “supporting one side”:

“It isn’t possible for the BBC Action Line to offer support for abortion and similarly contentious issues without referring people either to campaigning organisations which take a particular stance on an issue or to organisations which provide it.

Doing so could imply the BBC supported one side or another in any contentious issue which it does not do in its coverage. However, as the current storyline in Call the Midwife also raises issues of miscarriage, pregnancy related depression and bereavement, it was felt that support should be offered for viewers who might be affected.”

Who decides that abortion is “contentious” and what are the criteria? Does the BBC also consider contraception “contentious”? Does it worry the BBC at all that being secretive about abortion is punitive toward women and women only?

Today, healthcare bodies have written to the BBC expressing their “disappointment” and asking that they amend this position:

“Abortion has been legal, in certain circumstances, in Great Britain for over 50 years, and 98% of terminations are funded by the NHS. Abortion is the most common gynaecological procedure in the UK, and one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Polling demonstrates that the vast majority of the public support a woman’s right to choose, including those with a religious belief. Abortion is not a “contentious issue”– it is a routine part of NHS-funded healthcare, provided by doctors, nurses, and midwives every day in hospitals and clinics across the country.

“The BBC Action Line response states that including links to information about abortion could imply the BBC “supported one side or another.” However, in barring information the BBC is in effect “supporting one side” by treating abortion as different to all the other medical procedures and conditions the BBC choses to include. This is highly stigmatising for the healthcare professionals we represent and the women we care for.”

The healthcare bodies have provided links to evidence-based, impartial information for the BBC to consider, and stressed that their complaint lies solely with BBC Action Line and is in no way related to the programme Call the Midwife, which they state has repeatedly handled this issue “extremely sensitively and courageously.”

Do better, BBC.

In that deranged press conference Trump said Obama told him “he was so close to starting a big war with North Korea.” He worked himself up to saying that, in stages. It’s a useful little paradigm of how he maneuvers himself into lies. Stage one, he asked Obama what the biggest threat was and Obama said “By far, North Korea.” Stage two, “And, I donwanna speak fer him…but…I believe he wouldv gone to war with North Korea.” Stage three, “I think he was ready to go to war.” Stage four, “in fact he told me he was so close to [nervous pause] starting a big war with North Korea.” He inches himself into the lie like someone inching into a too-hot bath. “He said it was a big threat; I think he would have gone to war; I think he was ready to go to war in fact wait a second he actually TOLD me he was.” You can see it happen as stage three seamlessly becomes stage four. “I think he was ready to go to war in fact he told me he was so close” – portrait of an inadequate man translating his opinion into a (false) memory of being told. He doesn’t have that mental thing, that doohickey, that reasonably adult thoughtful people have where we check what we think we know or remember in case we don’t.

He does it all the time; we see him do it in cabinet meetings and shouting at the press on his way to the helicopter. His talking is like a little train line that pulls new bullshit out of him as it trundles along the track of his melting brain. It’s weird and creepy because normal people don’t do that. It’s terrifying because of his job.

He needs to be 25d.

Anyway…the actual point of the Post story is that he’s claiming Shinzo Abe nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. In the process of making that claim he expressed his usual envy of Obama.

Responding to a question about the upcoming summit with North Korea on Friday, President Trump said that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Prime Minister Abe of Japan gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize,” Trump said. “I have nominated you, respectfully on behalf of Japan, I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Trump said he then thanked Abe but added that he did not expect to win the prize.

And that Obama got it, and didn’t know why, and he Trump probably wouldn’t get it, wahwahwah.

Interesting.

Spotted on Market Street in Manchester. One of several.

Not a brilliant angle but reads "trans kids burn terfs."

Incitement to violence? pic.twitter.com/8c1AawVxIQ

— FemaleCaravanner (@femalecaravan) February 14, 2019

Not a brilliant angle but reads “trans kids burn terfs.”

Incitement to violence?

Well let’s see what happens when we change “TERFs” to something else.

“White kids burn niggers”

“Straight men burn faggots”

“Men burn bitches”

Yes that doesn’t sound what you’d call benign, does it.

But, a voice from the back of the room calls out, trans kids are oppressed, so they’re not comparable to white kids or straight men or men in those examples. Ok, so does it sound more benign if we make the first term a subaltern?

“Gay kids burn niggers”

Better? No, I don’t think so. The coupling of the emphatic “burn” and the hate-label is enough. It’s not a literal threat in the sense of “We will burn you,” but it’s a menace. It’s not friendly.

This guy is a Labour councillor.

No not an incitement but an indication of how people feel about TERFs

— Neale GibsonAboAnber (the real one) (@nealeggibson) February 15, 2019

That they should be burned; oh well that’s all right then.

It’s weird how happy people are to let their hatred of women just hang out there for everyone to see.

Guess who:

He didn’t read intelligence reports and mixed up classified material with what he had seen in newspaper clips. He seemed confused about the structure and purpose of organizations and became overwhelmed when meetings covered multiple subjects. He blamed immigrants for nearly every societal problem and uttered racist sentiments with shocking callousness.

No, not him, the other one.

This isn’t how President Trump is depicted in a new book by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe. Instead, it’s McCabe’s account of what it was like to work for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The FBI was better off when “you all only hired Irishmen,” Sessions said in one diatribe about the bureau’s workforce. “They were drunks but they could be trusted. Not like all those new people with nose rings and tattoos — who knows what they’re doing?”

Ok who should be more insulted here, Irish people or members of the nose rings and tattoos community? I’m thinking it’s a toss-up.

The description of Sessions is one of the most striking revelations in “The Threat,” a McCabe memoir that adds to a rapidly expanding collection of score-settling insider accounts of Trump-era Washington. McCabe’s is an important voice because of his position at the top of the bureau during a critical series of events, including the firing of FBI chief James Comey, the appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller, and the ensuing scorched-earth effort by Trump and his Republican allies to discredit the Russia probe and destroy public confidence in the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

I think “score-settling” is too frivolous, not to say cynical. No doubt Comey and McCabe and others do have grievances, but they don’t need personal grievances to have urgent reasons to make clear how inept and destructive these crooks are. The grievances are supererogatory as reasons for warning us about Trump and Sessions and the rest.

McCabe is a keen observer of detail, particularly when it comes to the president’s pettiness. He describes how Trump arranges Oval Office encounters so that his advisers are forced to sit before him in “little schoolboy chairs” across the Resolute Desk. Prior presidents met with aides on couches in the center of the room, but Trump is always angling to make others feel smaller.

And himself feel enormous.