Oh goody, another private “militia” is born.

The Utah Citizens’ Alarm is only a month old, and yet it already boasts 15,000-plus members.

The citizen militia’s recruits wear military fatigues and carry assault rifles. Their short-term goal, they say, is to act as a physical presence of intimidation to deter protesters from becoming violent and destroying the state of Utah. Their long-term goal: to arm and prepare the state of Utah against underground movements they believe will incite civil war.

But the physical presence of a “militia” wearing military fatigues and carrying assault rifles would not merely deter protesters from becoming violent and destroying Utah, it would deter them/us/me from protesting at all. If I saw a bunch … Read the rest

Dan Froomkin points out that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to make the people at the NY Times very nervous.

So rather than report on how Ocasio-Cortez’s riveting, viral speech on the House floor on Thursday was a signal moment in the fight against abusive sexism, Times congressional reporters Luke Broadwater and Catie Edmondson filed a story full of sexist double standards and embraced the framing of her critics by casting her as a rule-breaker trying to “amplify her brand.”

Here’s her speech in case you need a refresher.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1286341062651523076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1286341062651523076%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpresswatchers.org%2F2020%2F07%2Fthe-new-york-times-has-a-misogyny-problem-too%2F

Then consider that the Times described the speech as “her most norm-shattering moment yet,” leading with the fact that “she took to the House floor to read into the Congressional Record a 

… Read the rest

You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, ya know?

The Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton has called the enslavement of millions of African people “the necessary evil upon which the union was built”.

Cotton, widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, made the comment in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published on Sunday.

He was speaking in support of legislation he introduced on Thursday that aims to prohibit use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project, an initiative from the New York Times that reframes US history around August 1619 and the arrival of slave ships on American shores for the first time.

Well that’s certainly urgent at this time of a pandemic, … Read the rest

What we now say when we mean “shut up, bitch.”

https://twitter.com/gorskon/status/1287158532299784194

Updating: Oh look there’s more.

https://twitter.com/gorskon/status/1287392306828640256

Very adult, very thoughtful, very progressive and feminist and reasonable and fair-minded.

Also the other David.

https://twitter.com/david_colquhoun/status/1287159599544578054

Than “Ok Karen” and an eyeroll. Yes, I think so too.

Updating 2:

Thanks for being an example of skepticism done well. The gripers in your mentions are aggressively anti-science, anti-human jerks.

— Kavin Senapathy (@ksenapathy) July 26, 2020

Skepticism done well, yes indeed – you can’t get much better skepticism than “Ok, Karen” and an eyeroll emoji.… Read the rest

pic.twitter.com/qf7I0nZ9ti

— Penni Peterson (@pennipete) July 26, 2020

… Read the rest

No, actually, we approve of violence against women.

Poland is to withdraw from a European treaty aimed at preventing violence against women, the country’s justice minister announced on Saturday.

Zbigniew Ziobro said the document, known as the Istanbul Convention, was “harmful” because it required schools to teach children about gender.

Meaning what? That there are two sexes? That one of the sexes is on average bigger and stronger than the other? That the stronger one has historically dominated the other one? That it takes one of each to make a baby? Aren’t they going to learn all that in any case?

He added that reforms introduced in the country in recent years provided sufficient protection for women.

Easy for … Read the rest

No comment necessary.

It would be nice to ignore the Harry Potter person but the rhetoric being used on her massive platform is feeding a genocidal impulse that already exists in government and within individuals. She is dangerous.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) July 26, 2020

… Read the rest

But St Bernards are supposed to rescue people in the mountains…

A mountain rescue team has said its members “didn’t need to think twice” when they were called to help a 121lb (55kg) St Bernard dog that had collapsed while descending England’s highest peak.

Sixteen volunteers from Wasdale mountain rescue team spent nearly five hours rescuing Daisy from Scafell Pike after receiving a call from Cumbria police.

Her back legs were hurting and she couldn’t keep going. (Descending a steep hill can be hella painful, more so than climbing.)

They sought advice from vets before beginning the rescue operation and were able to assess Daisy’s condition and administer pain relief before lifting her off the mountain on a stretcher. The

… Read the rest

Speaking of men who treat women like underlings…

A nonpartisan Christian organisation that seeks to end hunger says it has asked for and received the resignation of Republican congressman Ted Yoho from its board of directors, following what it called his “verbal attack” on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

That’s especially interesting because what was Yoho abusing Ocasio-Cortez about? Her argument that an increase in crime is related to an increase in poverty – i.e. that poverty can lead to increased crime. Poverty is also very intimately linked to hunger. Ocasio-Cortez and this Christian organization are on Team End Poverty while Yoho is on Team Poverty Is the Fault of the Poor Person. It was never a good fit.

In a statement

… Read the rest

Jolyon Maugham QC says he would love to discuss it with a gender critical feminist, so a GC feminist says I’d love to discuss it with you Jolyon, so…

He says it.

That's certainly true. I have spoken out against no platforming of careful voices. And I could give you (for their privacy only, privately) a list of high profile GC feminists I have offered to discuss the issue with in public, without success. For me, one of the only good…

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) July 23, 2020

Privately. For their privacy only. So we don’t know who they are or what they said or why his offer was “without success.” We don’t even know whether we should believe him … Read the rest

Just call her Bitch?

In Afghanistan, family members often force women to keep their name a secret from people outside the family, even doctors. Using a woman’s name in public is frowned upon and can be considered an insult. Many Afghan men are reluctant to say the names of their sisters, wives or mothers in public. Women are generally only referred to as the mother, daughter or sister of the eldest male in their family, and Afghan law dictates that only the father’s name should be recorded on a birth certificate.

Of course that’s not completely strange to us in the so much more progressive part of the world. Not many decades ago it was pretty normal to refer to … Read the rest

pic.twitter.com/3kh81WYNTu

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 24, 2020

… Read the rest

Oh good, the tv machine is training kids in how to lecture medical staff.

When Bailey comes down with a fever, Mary Anne rushes her to the hospital, where two doctors misgender her. Mary Anne firmly corrects them.

Misgendering is traumatic. This is one of the baseline ways cisgender people can show up for the trans people in their life pic.twitter.com/EyrenC5QDK

— Netflix (@netflix) July 23, 2020

The first clip is merely stupid and cloying, but the second is infuriating. The lecturing kid is what, 12? Maybe 13? And she’s lecturing two medically-trained adults as if they were puppies who had eaten the carpet. And they look grief-stricken and horrified, as if they’d torn the patients limbs off by mistake. … Read the rest

A play in three acts. WITS is Women In Technology & Science.

Act one:

WITS Reads – Invisible Women by @CCriadoPerez our virtual book clubs meets July 28th. #WomenInSTEM More below ⬇️ https://t.co/Pzj9Pb8ZqU

— Gendelity – for workplace inclusion (@gendelity) July 20, 2020

Good choice. Caroline Criado-Perez is brilliant, as any fule kno.

Act two scene one:

https://twitter.com/Repealist_/status/1285496641991180288 https://twitter.com/Repealist_/status/1285497212810792960

In other words, don’t read this book that you chose, read some other book that someone else will choose from this list of names provided by me.

Act two scene two:

Thank you so much, we were not aware of this at all and based our choice on the @stemminist book club, we really appreciate you informing us and will look

… Read the rest

Veterans challenge illegal orders:

The Black Lives Matter protest in Portland looked to be winding down last Saturday night when US marine corps veteran Duston Obermeyer noticed a phalanx of federal officers emerge from the federal courthouse.

They shot teargas at the crowd and pushed a protester to the ground with such force that, Obermeyer said, she slid 6ft across the pavement.

He’d gone there to see what was happening, but at that point he decided to participate.

In a Pokémon hat and Superman T-shirt, and with a cotton mask protecting his face, the 6ft 4in, 275lb man walked up to the officers and asked whether they understood their oath to defend the constitution.

Defending the constitution is not … Read the rest

Good luck watching this unmoved.

The chant is: our streets.

Another huge crowd tonight in Portland, including a new "wall" on the front lines: a Wall of Vets.

Here's a look at the line of military veterans getting set up here in front of the federal courthouse. Behind them, the Wall of Moms and the Wall of Dads are arriving. pic.twitter.com/gGnXHjI3k2

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) July 25, 2020

 … Read the rest

It appears that the Feds committed a war crime in Portland.

Federal authorities have been accused of violating the Geneva Convention after apparently destroying medical equipment during protests in Portland.

Reporter Sergio Olmos shared a video on Twitter Tuesday night showing medical supplies and protective gear covered in an orange liquid.

“It appears that federal officers, during dispersal, pepper sprayed the medical supplies in the tents,” Olmos wrote.

And The Enemy is…protesters. Not soldiers for the Nazis but protesters.

It appears that federal officers, during dispersal, pepper sprayed the medical supplies in the tents pic.twitter.com/Y9HGqzcepB

— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 22, 2020

An article in the 1998 International Criminal Court Statute says “[i]ntentionally directing attacks against … hospitals and

… Read the rest

Mary Trump was on Fresh Air yesterday.

GROSS: Donald Trump was sent to military school, the New York Military Academy. And this was against his protests. Why was he sent there, and who do you have that information from? Who told you why he was sent there?

TRUMP: My grandmother told me stories. And, you know, I think it was a combination of things. He was a student at a school in Forest Hills that my grandfather was a trustee for. He was on the board of trustees. And Donald’s behavior, as he grew up, became increasingly belligerent and uncontrollable. So I think that was causing some problems. I think my grandfather probably found it, if not embarrassing then

… Read the rest

What is contrition, what is apology, what do we mean when we use those words?

Did Ted Yoho apologize and/or “offer contrition” to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for calling her a fucking bitch?

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor on Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of “accepting violence and violent language against women” whose adherents include Donald Trump.

A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Republican congressman Ted Yoho for his language during this week’s Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behavior by men, including the president and other Republicans.

An offer of … Read the rest

Our new friend Zack just keeps on giving. Thanks to the vagaries of Twitter I didn’t see this one yesterday, despite clicking on all the view threads and replies I did see.

That is, a cisgender woman can believe their biology is part of what makes them, personally, a woman — so long as they do not assert that this is the only way one can be defined as a woman.

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) July 23, 2020

It’s breathtaking, isn’t it. We impudent women “can,” according to this man, “believe” (stupid credulous creatures that we are) that our biology is “part of” what makes us women – only “part of,” mind you, we’re not allowed to “believe” it’s … Read the rest