The US is unusual among developed countries in that its life expectancy has gone down in the last few years.

In most high-income countries, life expectancy has been increasing, gradually but steadily, for decades. The last time that life expectancy in the United States showed a similar decline was in 1915–18, as a result of military deaths in the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic.

This time, the culprit has been a surge of drug overdoses and suicides, both linked to the use of opioid drugs. The death rate from drug overdoses more than tripled between 1999 and 2017, and that from opioid overdoses increased almost sixfold during the same period.

…

This crisis is often referred

As a scholar of antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt finds Marjorie Greene’s claims about Jewish lasers in space all too familiar.

Greene’s claims were familiar territory. All of them – space lasers, 9/11, school shootings, Trump’s election loss and so much else – shared a common theme: conspiracy.

In her QAnon-inspired worldview, behind them all was a small group of inordinately powerful people who had global – not national – loyalties. They conspired against the common welfare to advance their own interests. They mutilated babies. They amassed power and money in order to harm good, hard-working and, one can fairly assume, Christian folks. This is the foundation stone of classic antisemitism. There are certainly non-Jews in the swamp Greene wants

Congress is discussing doing an investigation on the riot.

Democrats and Republicans have made fresh calls for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission to investigate how rioters were able to breach the Capitol on 6 January. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, a commission reviewed how the incidents were possible and laid out plans to prevent them being repeated. Now politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for the deadly Capitol siege to be given the same treatment.

In a way the answer seems obvious – the Capitol is not normally fenced off and guarded by soldiers, so it wasn’t that day. On the other hand that day wasn’t a normal one, what with Trump’s well-advertised plan to do a … Read the rest

Crisis in Genderland:

Gender studies has become a lucrative and prestigious topic at the world’s leading institutions and universities have moved to lure its scholars, not least because of the insights they cast right across teaching and research.

What kind of insights? Into how gendered conventions keep women subordinated? Or into how much fun it is for men to say they are women and join their fellow women in sports and women-only prizes?

St Andrews is to part company with Alison Duncan Kerr, an American philosopher who is director of its Institute for Gender Studies (StAIGS).

People have signed a petition to keep her, the university has said calm down.

Kerr’s redundancy has had resonance, sparking a campaign called

Michael Beschloss is doing a “Remember” today.

United States Senate Chamber –Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/bGMkzt2K4b

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 14, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/oAcU0rm5SN

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 14, 2021

Office of Speaker of the House — Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/4OF0sIhirh

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/ePlKfj4GEv

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

Remember January 6: pic.twitter.com/kvDcvq2mlh

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 15, 2021

… Read the rest

Lindsey Graham suggests Kamala Harris will be impeached if Republicans take back the House next year pic.twitter.com/J68Or4k1la

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 14, 2021

… Read the rest

At least Boris Johnson is taking it very seriously.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Johnson was asked what signal the acquittal of a president who stoked violence while casting doubt on a free election would send to the rest of the world.

“The clear message that we get from the proceedings in America,” the prime minister said, “is that after all the toings and froings and all the kerfuffle, American democracy is strong and the American constitution is strong and robust.”

Huh. That’s not the message I get at all. Quite the reverse. The message I get is that American democracy is broken and feeble, and desperately vulnerable to murderous corrupt demagogues like Trump.

Constitutional experts have

When politics and identity play bumper cars:

[S]ome lesbians have been denounced as bigots and deluged with rape threats for their views about gender and biological sex. Transgender people and lesbians are two groups that face hatred and discrimination, and differences of opinion exist within these groups. Some trans people and lesbians believe that being a woman has nothing to do with biological sex; others believe they are related, because female reproductive biology is the basis on which women have always faced structural oppression. Both perspectives have a right to be heard. Yet lesbians who believe the latter – many of whom have faced lesbophobia their entire lives – are facing persecution for their beliefs.

Take Julie Bindel, an

There it is, there’s the foundational misconception (or just plain lie) that underpins all the opposite-world claims.

Transsexual women are a far more marginalized group than cis women.

— Matt Wallaert (@mattwallaert) February 14, 2021

Men who identify as or claim to be or say they are women are still men, and this determination to bully us out of even marginalization just underlines how male-entitled they remain.… Read the rest

I’ve run out of exclamations.

Turns out my surgeon is on tiktok advertising her services (username: gendersurgeon). She loves talking about "yeeting the teets", which I guess is the, uh… professional term for double mastectomy these days? pic.twitter.com/tJ4ihhrdaa

— Grace (@HormoneHangover) February 13, 2021

She “only gets to.” It’s like cutting down on chocolate, isn’t it.

I have major reservations about using this kind of jokey meme language to advertise/trivialize gender surgeries to kids/young people on tiktok. But okay, Dr. Teetus Deletus. pic.twitter.com/77qIIxCLZt

— Grace (@HormoneHangover) February 13, 2021

But hey, $$$.

I've been following this doctor work for a while now. She specifically targets kids on TikTok (where certain content is censored) and then sends them to her instagram

BREAKING: US Senate votes to acquit former President Trump on article of impeachment for "incitement of insurrection." pic.twitter.com/k3bTKNcXjQ

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) February 13, 2021

… Read the rest

This is where the Vocabulary Mandate gets you.

Are you suggesting cis-girls are taking a backseat to trans-girls?

— Matt Wallaert (@mattwallaert) February 13, 2021

In life? No. Absolutely not. How many cis women have been senators? How many trans women? I can’t think of any credible data that suggests that trans women have more privilege than cis women but can think of plenty of data that suggests the reverse.

— Matt Wallaert (@mattwallaert) February 13, 2021

The Vocabulary Mandate makes that sound true, if you’ve been following it strictly enough. But it’s not true; it’s absurd. Disobey the Vocabulary Mandate and we’re back in the real world where that’s not how it works.

“Are you suggesting girls are taking … Read the rest

It’s “oppression” for women to want to compete against women, and girls against girls?

In the gender that fits them, full stop. If you are brave enough to deal with all the shit society is going to give you, I’m fine with Bear losing to you. We are talking about 1% of the population and my kid will learn more losing to you than oppressing you.

— Matt Wallaert (@mattwallaert) February 13, 2021

Damn straight girls will learn a lot about the world when they’re forced to compete against males and told they’re “unkind” for complaining about it.

— serialsockthief (@serialsockthief) February 13, 2021

By men, who will never face this particular obstacle.

This really is it: I’d rather teach

Man casually dismisses women’s rights.

As a social psychologist, I understand why using women’s sports to argue against transgender rights works. But it is tough to imagine a more morally bankrupt position: “I’m going to make you sit in a gender that doesn’t fit you so my daughter can win her soccer game.”

— Matt Wallaert (@mattwallaert) February 13, 2021

Funny that he puts the words in the mouth of a mommy of an athlete instead of the athlete herself. There are adult female athletes, you know, and they do lose prizes and awards and wins if they are forced to compete against men.… Read the rest

New outrage – healthcare systems asking what sex you are.

It’s medical. It’s about physical bodies. The medical people need to know some basic facts about the bodies in order to treat them. It’s not about “outing” and it’s not something to stir up Twitterfury about.

Active endangerment of trans and intersex patients by @NHS_111. "Sex at birth" is irrelevant to most medical conditions, may cause misdiagnosis for others, and collecting this data risks outing vulnerable people. https://t.co/TMqWvXEO95

— Ruth Pearce (@NotRightRuth) February 13, 2021

Sex at birth may cause misdiagnosis, while giving fictional sex…won’t?… Read the rest

It won’t make any difference to the outcome, but it’s still good to know that Trump’s lawyers’ claims are falling apart because of that phone call.

Former President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense is looking more threadbare: New statements by Republican lawmakers appear to undercut key claims from his defense team about how much Trump knew about the unfolding January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and when he knew it.

New details emerged Friday about a January 6 call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, in the midst of the attack. First recounted in January by Washington state Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was one of just 10 House Republicans to vote for impeachment, the

You know, if at least 50% of the wording of your Denunciation is simply a copy of 9 million other Denunciations you could at least pause to wonder if any of it is actually true.

Sanctimonious inquisitorial toads.… Read the rest

The Senators are part of cancel culture. Impeaching Trump is exactly like petitioning the university to cancel a talk by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers put up a pugnacious if brief defense presentation in his impeachment trial Friday, saying his rally speech before the Capitol riot was “ordinary political rhetoric” and blasting the proceedings as a “sham” fueled by Democrats’ “political hatred” for the ex-president.

If it’s true that Trump’s rally speech before the riot was ordinary political rhetoric, then why did all those people storm up Pennsylvania Avenue and batter their way into the Capitol? Why did they beat people with flagpoles, smash windows, storm along corridors shouting threats, walk the halls yodeling “Naaaaaaaaaancy, where … Read the rest

They know he did it. They were there.

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men.

A furious McCarthy told the President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows,

Nailed it.

Actor James Dreyfus today slammed trans activists as ‘misogynistic guys in skirts’ for waging a war of hatred against Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

The Gimme, Gimme, Gimme star, 52, claimed those involved were ‘angry, young, anarchist people’ who harboured a deep hatred of women and ‘what they represent’.

He also accused them of being behind an alleged campaign of threats to kill and rape women in order to ‘put them back in their place’. 

Gee, where would he get that idea? Apart from Twitter and Facebook day in and day out.

A group of trans activists condemned Dreyfus last year when he was among 50 actors, writers and journalists to sign a letter in support