Here’s something to take our minds off the election for a few minutes – or maybe just my mind: an article by Ellen Granfield posted at Everyday Feminism that recycles some so 1990s ideas about science. Some bad so 1990s ideas about science.

It’s posted at Everyday Feminism, so Twitter trolls are screeching that this kills feminism dead. (Yo, Everyday Feminism isn’t even feminist, let alone representative of all feminism. Feminism has an anti-science irrationalist wing, but that’s far from all of feminism.) But it was reposted from The Establishment. The Establishment is that site where Aaron Kappel wrote that appalling piece bashing feminism because one woman asked him clumsy questions about his “identity as non-binary.” Publishing the piece discredits The Establishment and Everyday Feminism, but it doesn’t leave a mark on feminism in general.

So let’s see Ellen Granfield’s so last century thoughts on science:

Modern, mainstream science finds itself deeply embedded in a supposedly objective, quantifiable worldview – one that is at best faulty, and at worst, is a form of scientism which denies new findings.

There was the idea of continental drift, you see, which was ridiculed and then later accepted, which is

a stark reminder that the course of human history is not governed by objective truth of any kind, especially in the history of science; the truth is always shifting.

Emphasis hers.

Right. People are wrong about one thing for a short period of time, and it turns out they’re wrong – and that demonstrates that ALL IS RANDOM AND SHIFTING.

I kid. No it doesn’t.

Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discuss this phenomenon vis a vis paranormal discoveries in their book The Forbidden Universe, which contends that “the view of the universe emerging from the latest scientific discoveries, particularly of quantum physics and cosmology, can be seen to vindicate the ancient Hermetic belief in an evolving, living, conscious universe.”

Seriously, it’s not 1993 any more.

One of the most obvious examples of scientism today is the theory of evolution, which is still upheld as the dominant explanation of how life generates itself. The problem is that biologists still can’t answer the most basic of questions involved, including the origin of life itself, sexual reproduction, or how species originate.

Oops.

The political fight over curriculum between religious Fundamentalists and neo-Darwinists has pushed any meaningful discussion of this topic off the table, as mainstream science remains stubbornly fearful of giving up ground if they admit that there are serious controversies raging around the theory of evolution as the catch-all explanation for our current existence.

It leaves no room for the possibility of Intelligent Design Theory, which posits “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause.” IDT is often made synonymous with creationism – neo-Darwinists argue that it’s just Creationism in disguise – but there are many scientists and philosophers alike that believe IDT is just as compelling a theory as evolution for “the way things are.”

This doesn’t discredit all of feminism, because it’s not all of feminism what wrote it or published it, but it sure as hell does discredit Everyday Feminism and The Establishment – if they had any credit to dis, which in my book they didn’t. In short, boo on them for publishing that garbage.

There’s a lot more, and it’s even worse. There’s some ranting about science’s rude insistence that the heart is a pump and only the brain has intelligence, and the importance of intelligence in the cosmos as a whole, and similar profundities. (Nothing about brain cells in the gut, though. Is she gutphobic?) Very distracting stuff.

H/t Helen Dale

A Facebook friend posted some very useful information that needs to be widely known, and gave me permission to share it here. Guest post by EP.

Dear local friends – there was a letter sent home with the kids today about Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Please, PLEASE do not participate. Although the info presented seems lovely, this is deliberate and cynical marketing ploy. The scheme is run by Samaritan’s Purse, one of the most criticised religious charities in the world. The founder, Franklin Graham is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters and donators. His Twitter feed just spews racism, homophobia, misogyny and plain old madness constantly. He is a vocal supporter of the idea of building a wall between Mexico and America and of the idea of not allowing Muslims into the USA. Other delightful things Samaritan’s Purse do or have done:

• Was involved in the training of contra rebels in Nicaragua.
• Was involved in the training of Israeli groups which invaded Lebanon.
• Is one of the biggest opponents of gay marriage and LGBT rights in the USA and was (is) one of the biggest financial backers of the anti-gay marriage campaign.
• Openly and continually describes Islam as an evil, satanic religion.
• Describes Hindus as ‘bound by Satan’s power’ in its literature.
• Claims that domestic violence is caused by women not submitting to the will of men.
• Is indicated (although not yet proven) in the illegal removal of children in disaster zones to be trafficked to the States and elsewhere to be adopted by rich white Western Christians.
• Spent every cent/penny they raised to help the crisis in Haiti on holding a huge evangelical event that locals were co-erced into attending on the false promise of aid. They also did the same with the Nicaraguan hurricane in 1999, and used money for prayer meeting in El Salvador that had been earmarked to build homes for desperately poor locals.
• Many organisations, including Christian ones, will have nothing to do with them. This includes Save The Children and the major teaching unions of the U.K. (The NASUWT is particularly worried about the scheme being run in schools). DHL refuses to deliver any of their leaflets or shoeboxes.

And apart from all of that, it’s racist and deluded to think this scheme helps. It’s incredibly offensive to decide that people in other cultures need to change their religious beliefs to yours. In fact, converting someone to Christianity could put their life at risk in other countries. Most of the contents of the shoeboxes are culturally irrelevant or inappropriate: children do not need winter accessories in countries where there has never been snow. Little girls do not need hair accessories and cheap toy make-up sets in cultures where all children have very short hair or hair types where hair clips made for Caucasian hair won’t work, and where cosmetics are frowned upon. It also takes away work from local people who make or sell many of the items included, such as toothbrushes or school supplies. These sellers and makers are often widows, single mothers or older women, and the shoeboxes take away their chances of making what little money they can. And the idea of trying to bribe children to believe things they wouldn’t otherwise with conditional gift-giving is abusive in any language and any culture.

Pliny the In Between:

Well this is like a cool drink of water in a wide desert – Samantha Rea rebuking Juno Dawson in the Independent.

There were furrowed brows last week, in response to a column by author Juno Dawson in Glamour magazine. Dawson identifies as a transgender woman. In a column entitled, “Call yourself a feminist?”, she refers to feminist academic Germaine Greer as a “TERF” explaining that the acronym means, “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”

Dawson tells readers that TERFs are: “A subgroup of feminists who steadfastly believe me – and other trans women – are not women.” Explaining how this is an issue, Dawson says: “The key battle ground between TERFs and trans women is the issue of toilets. Yes, my right to do a little wee or poo is, apparently, major political battleground.”

Notice that she politely ignores the syntactical trainwreck of “who steadfastly believe me – and other trans women – are not women.” I didn’t ignore it. It chaps my hide that editors let that pass, and then called Dawson an excellent writer in Twitter discussions. Come on.

The term [TERF] is actually an exonym – a term used to describe a third party that the third party neither recognises, nor uses itself. It’s generally seen as a slur, and since the publication of Dawson’s column, women have objected to the label via social media, and in personal blogs. The controversy should be no surprise to Dawson or Glamour, as the term has been contentious since it was coined.

Yes, but the people who like to use it pretend that it’s already normalized, and contentious only to the evil.

The negative connotations mean that those with similar views and concerns to those labelled “TERF” will be reluctant to speak up, for fear of being similarly tarnished. Women who are maligned by this label are also then isolated by it.

Dawson’s description of TERFs as a “subgroup” of feminists compounds the idea that these are the views of a few hardline zealots, and therefore unrepresentative of women generally. In reality, many women are afraid of men following them into women’s toilets. There’s no way of knowing if the man identifies as a woman, and just needs a wee – or if he’s about to sexually assault them.

That’s because such assaults do in fact happen, and voyeurism is downright common.

But it’s not just about toilets. Expanding the entry criteria so those who identify as women can access women’s rape crisis centres, domestic abuse shelters, and other spaces where women may be vulnerable, means an increased risk of assault, because men – not just transgender women – will have easier access, being able to walk into these spaces unchallenged.

And it’s not only that. It’s also seeing those who identify as women explaining both feminism and womanhood to those who were simply born women and left to deal with it however they could.

Getting too aggressive with the term “TERF” can inhibit personal conversations between women about subjects such as periods, pregnancy, childbirth, the menopause, miscarriages and stillbirth. Already, women are finding themselves censored and corrected when recounting their own experiences. Breastfeeding becomes “chest feeding,” vaginas become “front holes,” and there are no pregnant women, but “pregnant people.” Instead of talking freely among themselves, women’s language can sometimes end up policed, even though the source of women’s oppression often has everything to do with their bodies and their reproductive systems.

“Can sometimes end up policed” is quite an understatement.

Suggesting that such concerns are exclusive to a subgroup of feminist fanatics is disingenuous and shuts down the potential for open conversation and understanding. Dawson’s assertion that women are simply upset about “my right to do a little wee or poo” deliberately undermines the validity of women’s concerns, mocking their genuine fears.

In writing this column, Dawson continues the age-old tradition of dismissing women’s fears as hysteria. The title even questions women’s credibility as feminists. “Call yourself a feminist?” it asks. I’d like to ask the same question of her.

I’d like to tell her to sit down and be quiet.

Ah the joys of religious state schools in the UK. The Daily Mail (sorry) reports that the government ordered four Islamic schools to shut down after bad Ofsted reports, but they appealed to the courts so pending the outcome they remain open. Oh well, it’s only students.

One allegedly taught girls that men can beat their wives. Another distributed leaflets saying music is an ‘act of the devil’.

They could continue operating for months, if not years, after launching legal appeals against closure. The four fee-paying independent establishments include a girls’ boarding school, Jamia al-Hudaa in Nottingham, that was ordered to close last month after Ofsted found books in the library by individuals banned from entering Britain.

Ministers told the 237-pupil school it must close its boarding facilities immediately and stop accepting new pupils.

But the school said “shan’t” and is fund-raising for a legal appeal. But this is a state school, not a private school. But religious schools can be state schools in the UK, and this is the dog’s breakfast that results.

One former student says she is disgusted that it can continue to operate, saying it was ‘like a prison’ where girls were isolated from the outside world. She says girls were taught they can be beaten and raped by their husbands, in order ‘to make Allah happy’ and that music is the voice of the devil.

…

Several Islamic schools were ordered to close by the Department for Education after a series of critical Ofsted reports. But the four appealed to the courts, which allows them to continue operating until a ruling is made.

At Darul Uloom in Birmingham, inspectors found a large number of leaflets ‘containing highly concerning and extremist views’. It remains open five years after concerns were first raised, when a preacher was filmed making racist remarks about Hindus and ranting that ‘disbelievers are the worst creatures’.

They provide a first-person account of life at one school:

A Former pupil at Jamia al-Hudaa school in Nottingham says she was taught that women can be raped and beaten by their husbands and that music is the voice of the devil.

Sara Adam – not her real name – says the girls’ boarding school was ‘like a prison’ where girls are ‘entirely isolated from the outside world’ and simply ‘trained to become subservient housewives’.

She said: ‘We were not taught geography, history or music and in art we just did knitting. We were banned from drawing anything with eyes.’

It might as well be a school for slaves.

‘There was no sex education and we were taught that evolution was a belief of devil worshippers and atheists. Most of our day was spent doing Islamic studies.’

Miss Adam, who does not want her face pictured for fear of retribution from within her community, left Jamia al-Hudaa more than a decade ago. But the school, which has 237 pupils, continues to operate under the same leadership, despite whistleblowers repeatedly raising concerns.

Last month Aliyah Saleem, now 27, told the Mail how she was expelled from the school for owning a disposable camera.

She said she was taught that Jews and Christians ‘make God angry’.

Miss Adam recalled how when she was a pupil, two girls aged 14 and 16 were put into solitary confinement for three weeks after teachers suspected they were lesbians.

…

Teachers would carry out regular spot-checks of the girls’ dormitories, and ‘lift up our mattresses and look underneath like they do in prisons’.

‘They found my personal diary,’ Miss Adam said. ‘I was told off by teachers because in the summer holidays before I joined the school, I wrote that I fancied a boy I saw on the Disney Channel.

‘The teacher said it was forbidden to like boys at my age – especially if they are “kuffars” [a derogatory term to describe non-Muslims].’

Her diary was eventually returned with a third of the pages torn out.

Miss Adam said: ‘We were basically trained to be mindless zombies who submit to their husbands. I was lucky because, after calling my parents every night in tears, they eventually pulled me out of the school.

‘It is disgusting that a school like this is still open – and my fear is there are many more.’

The sociolinguist Deborah Cameron has a fascinating essay on the question of whether or not “TERF” is a slur. You should read it.

Near the end she writes:

If a word is just a neutral description, you might expect it to be used mainly for the purpose of describing or making claims about states of affairs. If it’s a slur, you’d also expect it to be used for those purposes, but in addition you might expect to see it being used in speech acts expressing hatred and contempt, such as insults, threats and incitements to violence. (By ‘insults’ here, incidentally, I don’t mean statements which are insulting simply because they use the word in question, but statements which say something insulting about the group, e.g. ‘they’re all dirty thieves’.)  

There’s evidence that TERF does appear in insults, threats and incitements. You can read a selection of examples (mostly taken from Twitter, so these were public communications) on this website, which was set up to document the phenomenon. Here are a small number of items from the site to give you a sense of what this discourse looks like:

you vile dirty terf cunts must be fuming you have no power to mess with transfolk any more!

I smell a TERF and they fucking stink

if i ever find out you are a TERF i will fucking kill you every single TERF out there needs to die

why are terfs even allowed to exist round up every terf and all their friends for good measure and slit their throats one by one

if you encounter a terf in the wild deposit them in the nearest dumpster. Remember: Keeping our streets clean is everyone’s responsibility

Precisely because it was set up to document uses of TERF as a slur, this site does not offer a representative sample of all uses of the term, so it can’t tell us whether insulting/threatening/inciting are its dominant functions. It does, however, show that they are among its current functions.  It also points to another relevant question:

What other words does the word tend to co-occur with? 

It’s noticeable that on the website I’ve linked to, TERF quite often shows up in the same tweet as other words whose status as slurs is not disputed, like ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’. Other words that occur more than once or twice in these tweets include ‘disgusting’, ‘ugly’, ‘scum’ and a cluster of words implying uncleanness (‘smell’, ‘stink’, ‘garbage’, ‘filth’)—which is also a well-worn theme in racist and anti-Semitic discourse.

I saw an example of that kind of thing before reading the essay.

holiday holomodor ‏@yodelatme

The meaning of TERF is “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist,” which is what you are. Stop pretending it’s an offensive slur.

“Wow, you called me what I am, a transphobic piece of garbage! I’m so offended! This is abuse!” Seriously, fuck off.

Perfect, isn’t it? First tweet: how dare you pretend TERF is an offensive slur. Second tweet: you are a transphobic piece of garbage.

Meghan Murphy is another not impressed by Juno Dawson’s lecturing feminists from the vantage point of a whole entire year living as a woman.

It was only last year that Dawson “came out” as a transwoman, but this hasn’t stopped the writer from dictating how women should be approaching their ongoing fight for liberation from male oppression. In fact, the entire column essentially describes the ways women are doing their own movement wrong, indeed rejecting basic feminist tenets and failing to recognize that maybe — just maybe — feminists who’ve been at this for many decades now have thought this through a little more than Dawson has.

Imagine some white guy (it has to be a guy) goes on that show Henry Louis Gates did where people learn new things about their family backgrounds – and this guy learns he had a black great-great-grandmother. Now imagine he writes a column for some lads mag explaining the anti-racism movement and how much nicer it is now that it’s not all militant and angry and unglamorous.

Have you imagined it? It would seem startlingly presumptuous and clueless, wouldn’t it. Yet Juno Dawson has no qualms about doing the equivalent to women. I guess women who had the misfortune not to start out male are just too stupid to do their own politics correctly.

Then there’s the “TERF” thing.

[Y]es, the feminist movement is indeed “exclusionary,” if you must describe a political movement towards the liberation of women in such a backwards way, but no more than any other movement. Political movements naturally work towards specific aims — if they did not, and instead attempted to broadly address every single issue on the planet, including every person and all of their ideas, that “movement” would surely be an unsuccessful one.

Also it wouldn’t be about anything, it would just be life. A political movement that addresses all issues addresses none, because it would cancel itself out.

Socialists “exclude” capitalists from their activism just as feminists exclude anti-feminists from theirs. We do not prioritize the issues or concerns of males in this movement because this movement is not for men — it is for women.

But that can’t be allowed, can it. Everyone else can have a movement that’s about their issue, but women can’t, because women…well frankly because women don’t matter. Everyone else does – the men, that is – but not women. Women aren’t really people. They’re simulacra.

“I feel perpetually on the back-foot, constantly grovelling, almost apologetic for my inclusion in womanhood,” Dawson complains, amazingly without realizing that women and girls are being forced into the very same position by trans activists who claim we should sit down, shut up, move aside, and quite literally deny our realities in order to accommodate people’s new “identities.”

Well you see it’s like this. Women who are just born women are (see above) not really people. It’s only men who decide to identify as women who can be women and still be people. Therefore Dawson’s plight is tragic while the same thing happening to women is just wallpaper.

Oh hai, Comey says he was just kidding. The people who voted after his intervention and before his just kidding? Oh well!

The F.B.I. informed Congress on Sunday that it has not changed its conclusions about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, removing a dark cloud that has been hanging over her campaign two days before Election Day.

James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, said in a letter to members of Congress that “based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

…

In the immediate term, the letter removes a cloud that has hung over the Clinton campaign for a week since Mr. Comey announced his agents were reviewing new emails that might be related to an investigation into Mrs. Clinton that ended in July. But Mr. Comey’s move is sure to raise new questions from Democrats. Most importantly: Why did Mr. Comey raise the specter of wrongdoing before agents had even read the emails, especially since it only took days to determine they were not significant.

Why indeed.

The Guardian reports on a study that found men don’t love stag parties but go along with them because of bullying. That doesn’t surprise me – the way men bully other men is horrifying.

…a study suggests that men do not enjoy the debauchery or the “extreme shaming, humiliation, and deviance” that are part and parcel of most modern stag dos.

According to the report, men succumb to peer pressure to celebrate one final night of “freedom” with the groom-to-be, despite the fact that the hedonistic experiences can leave them feeling scared and degraded.

So the experiences can’t be all that hedonistic, can they.

The researchers found instances of men being pressured into doing things they did not enjoy but nonetheless going along with to keep up with the other men in the group.

They record one groom-to-be who said he had no desire to see “half-naked dancing women, let alone pay them” in a lapdancing club that his best man insisted they go to. However, he went along with the group and spent a dismal evening “declining offers from various women for private dances, but did not reveal his desire to leave to the best man or the rest of the group”.

This is one way men have it far worse than women. Ironically that’s because it doesn’t really work to try to shame a woman by calling her a woman, whereas it works all too well to shame a man that way, so the worse is ultimately ours after all…But all the same, it’s a nasty form of bullying and shaming that we aren’t subject to.

At least, not from our friends. In the outside world of course there’s a lot of pressure on women to be not woman-like, and that sends a loud misogynist message. But we don’t have to choose between acting like an asshole and being taunted as a pussy or worse.

Or maybe I just mean I feel sad for men who have friends like that.

According to the research, “extreme shaming, humiliation, and deviance often plays in the stag party experience for all those involved, not just the stag”.

The authors report how they witnessed one man on a stag weekend with his friends being subjected to sustained ritual humiliation. His drinks were spiked with shots of spirits leaving him so incapacitated that he passed out in the bar, soiled himself and was tied up with cling film in their accommodation while still unconscious.

The study concluded that men on stag dos are “performing” a role rather than taking any real pleasure in their extreme antics. “We argue that these men are merely reproducing exaggerated forms of behaviour that are expected of them and that they expect of themselves in a pocket of available time to celebrate,” it said.

Poisoning someone with alcohol is not “antics.” Alcohol poisoning can be fatal.

You know what’s fun? I’m told? Dancing. Try that! Skip the naked women and the roofies, and just dance til you drop.

Speaking of Indonesia…I’m hearing from friends that their Indonesian friends are disappearing from Facebook.

A couple of weeks ago…

Two [Indonesian] men have been arrested after a photo of them kissing was posted on Facebook.

The 22-year-old student and 24-year-old office worker from Indonesia were arrested after uploading the picture which was captioned: “With my dear lover tonight. May our love last forever”.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia but the two men are expected to be charged for breaking anti-pornography laws.

…

The identities of the two men have not been disclosed and although they are currently not in police custody they could be jailed if they are found guilty.

That’s “liberal” majority-Muslim Indonesia. Not all that liberal…

Ari Berman points out that There Are 868 Fewer Places to Vote in 2016 Because the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act.

What does it mean when there are fewer places to vote? Longer lines. What do longer lines do? Suppress voting.

When Aracely Calderon, a naturalized US citizen from Guatemala, went to vote in downtown Phoenix just before the polls closed in Arizona’s March 22 presidential primary, there were more than 700 people in a line stretching four city blocks. She waited in line for five hours, becoming the last voter in the state to cast a ballot at 12:12 am. “I’m here to exercise my right to vote,” she said shortly before midnight, explaining why she stayed in line. Others left without voting because they didn’t have four or five hours to spare.

The lines were so long because Republican election officials in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, the largest in the state, reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, from 200 to just 60—one polling place per 21,000 registered voters. Previously, Maricopa County would have needed federal approval to reduce the number of polling sites, because Arizona was one of 16 states where jurisdictions with a long history of discrimination had to submit their voting changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This part of the VRA blocked 3,000 discriminatory voting changes from 1965 to 2013. That changed when the Supreme Court gutted the law in the June 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.

Dirty, isn’t it.

Arizona, the poster child for voting problems in the primary, closed the highest percentage of polling places in the study. “Almost every county in the state reduced polling places in advance of the 2016 election and almost every county closed polling places on a massive scale, resulting in 212 fewer polling places,” says the report (emphasis in original). Tucson’s Pima County—the second largest in the state, which is 35 percent Latino and leans Democratic—“is the nation’s biggest closer of polling places,” from 280 in 2012 to 218 in 2016.

Many of these counties have been hot spots for voting discrimination. Cochise County, on the Mexico border, which is 30 percent Latino, was sued by the Justice Department in 2006 failing to print election materials in Spanish or have Spanish-speaking poll workers, in violation of the VRA. Today, the county “is the nation’s biggest closer by percentage,” having shuttered 63 percent of its voting locations since Shelby. There will be only 18 polling places for 130,000 residents in 2016, down from 49 polling places in 2012.

Texas has closed more than 400.

Medina County, a heavily Republican area in South Texas, closed a polling place in the town of Natalia, which is 75 percent Latino and the only Democratic-leaning part of the county. “We’ve had a polling place for at least the last six decades,” Emilio Flores, a local activist and registered Republican, told me. When Flores asked the county elections administrator, Patricia Barton, how low-income and disabled Latino voters were supposed to vote without a polling place in their town, he said she told him, “If you think it’s such a big issue, why don’t you shuttle them yourself?” Last week the county commission approved a polling place in Natalia for Election Day after local activists like Flores raised alarms, but Medina County will have only eight polling places in 2016, down from 14 in 2012.

…

In June 2013, Percy Bland was elected as the first black mayor of Meridian, Mississippi, where the Ku Klux Klan abducted the civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner during Freedom Summer in 1964. A month after Bland’s election the Supreme Court gutted the VRA, and in 2015 the majority-white board of elections in Lauderdale County closed seven polling places over objections from the mayor. That included eliminating a polling place at the historic Mt. Olive Baptist Church, a major site during the civil-rights movement, as the place where the singer Pete Seeger announced that the bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner had been discovered after they were missing for 44 days. “In an effort to honor the legacy of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in order that we enjoy our civil rights, we proudly offer our historic facilities [as a polling site],” said church spokesman Ronald Turner.

“Things have changed dramatically” in the South, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Shelby decision. “The tests and devices that blocked ballot access have been forbidden nationwide for over 40 years.” But as we’re seeing clearly in 2016, the states previously covered by the VRA keep finding new ways to undermine the right to vote.

Easy for John Roberts to say.

Ok. Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway admitted the campaign lied by saying the FBI was going to indict Clinton – and she was unapologetic about it. So that’s where we are; ok.

MSNBC’s “11th Hour” host Brian Williams asked Kellyanne Conway about a report from Fox News in which two anonymous “sources with intimate knowledge” of an FBI inquiry into the Clinton Foundation said an indictment of Clinton was “likely.” Trump recounted a version of the report to a crowd in Jacksonville, Florida on Thursday, crowing that “FBI agents” said his opponent would be indicted.

“This has been walked back, the indictment portion, by Fox News who originally reported it and by NBC News which has done subsequent reporting on this,” Williams said. “Will Donald Trump amend his stump speech to walk back the same thing?”

“Well, the damage is done to Hillary Clinton,” Conway replied. “No matter how it’s being termed the voters are hearing it for what it is—a culture of corruption.”

In other words no, we’ll tell any lie we want to and you can’t stop us, neener.

The Harvard women’s soccer team wrote a statement on the 2012 men’s team’s “scouting report.” I wrote my post on the report before reading the women’s statement, so I’m interested to see that they say what I said.

On Monday, October 24, The Crimson published a story detailing a “scouting report” written by members of the 2012 men’s soccer team regarding incoming female recruits on the women’s soccer team.

We are these women, we are not anonymous, and rather than having our comments taken, spun, and published behind the guise of a fake anonymity offered to us by numerous news outlets, we have decided to speak for ourselves.

When first notified of this “scouting report” each of us responded with surprise and confusion, but ultimately brushed off the news as if it didn’t really matter. As if we weren’t surprised men had spoken of us inappropriately. As if this kind of thing was just, “normal.”

The sad reality is that we have come to expect this kind of behavior from so many men, that it is so “normal” to us we often decide it is not worth our time or effort to dwell on.

That. It is normalized all over the place. It’s normalized on the most popular US sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. It’s normalized in all those Judd Apatow-Seth Rogen movies. It’s normalized in a billion jokes and cartoons and songs. It’s normalized. Women aren’t people, they’re a thing men want for fucking purposes.

In all, we do not pity ourselves, nor do we ache most because of the personal nature of this attack. More than anything, we are frustrated that this is a reality that all women have faced in the past and will continue to face throughout their lives. We feel hopeless because men who are supposed to be our brothers degrade us like this. We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance. We are distraught that mothers having daughters almost a half century after getting equal rights have to worry about men’s entitlement to bodies that aren’t theirs. We are concerned for the future, because we know that the only way we can truly move past this culture is for the very men who perpetrate it to stop it in its tracks. [emphasis added]

Hello, UN? This is why Wonder Woman was a terrible idea, especially paired with the refusal to appoint a woman General Secretary or to promote women to more than 4% of the upper level jobs. 4%!! Do you get it now?

Having considered members of this team our close friends for the past four years, we are beyond hurt to realize these individuals could encourage, silently observe, or participate in this kind of behavior, and for more than four years have neglected to apologize until this week.

Friends don’t do that sort of thing.