Why Trump’s sudden Syria move was such a catastrophically bad idea:

As President Trump defends his decision to pull away some U.S. troops from Syria’s border with Turkey, the president’s former envoy for the fight against the so-called Islamic State is raising alarms about how potentially destabilizing the move can be for the region.

Brett McGurk, who resigned from Trump’s national security team in December and also served in the Obama and Bush administrations, tells NPR that Trump making such a drastic announcement shortly after speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned a vital foreign policy decision into a potential crisis.

“Presidents do a lot of things, but the most consequential are decisions of war and peace

While awaiting developments in the impeachment process, I stumble over (sigh) Tim Minchin being a jackass.

I’m excited that so many people are so interested in the @OldVicTheatre at the moment! I look forward to hearing more about what you think of their amazing shows, fantastic community outreach programs, training & scholarships, and the wonderful work they’ve done over the…

… last 2 years to fund-raise for & carry out a complex renovation to make this historic 200 yr old building accessible for those who don’t do stairs 😊❤️. The Old Vic is not tax-payer funded, but does amazing work, carried out by passionate people who think very carefully..

… about the art they generate, the environment they create,

The Guardian updates:

Trump has reacted to the latest subpoena of one of his administration officials by attacking the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

Hasn’t Adam Schiff been fully discredited by now? Do we have to continue listening to his lies?

16K 9:06 AM – Oct 8, 2019

Gordon Sondland said in a statement earlier today that he was “profoundly disappointed” he could not appear before Congress, so it will likely be much harder for Trump to prevent him from testifying now that he has been subpoenaed.

On the one hand they can’t – legally speaking – just ignore a subpoena; on the other hand these are Trump and the trumpies, so … Read the rest

We need some refreshment.

… Read the rest

It appears that the sequence of events was: Erdoğan said Turkey was about to invade Syria, and Trump said “Great! I’ll take our troops out!”

Donald Trump got “rolled” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a National Security Council source with direct knowledge of the discussions told Newsweek.

In a scheduled phone call on Sunday afternoon between President Trump and President Erdogan, Trump said he would withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria. The phone call was scheduled after Turkey announced it was planning to invade Syria, and hours after Erdogan reinforced his army units at the Syrian-Turkish border and issued his strongest threat to launch a military incursion, according to the National Security Council official to whom Newsweek

Sarah Ditum:

Just spent twenty minutes on the phone angrily telling the features ed – who approached me, commissioned me, and to whom I made myself available for any rewrites all for a derisory 50 quid fee (important enough issue to take a hit on the rate, I thought) – that he’s a coward

Sarah wrote one of the articles.

She adds:

Unbelievable as it seems, the issue of whether women should have toilets is incendiary. I agreed to write for the Stage in good faith, believing they intended to give a platform to an important conversation. That was my mistake and god do I regret it.

You can read the column here, on my website, and decide

And speaking of the difference between Identifying As and actually being…Trump an hour ago:

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over…….the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

Francis Wheen:

“My name is Ozymandias,

Wait hold the presses it turns out that identifying as is not enough. It all depends on…er…um…

…making a tangible change?

Whether they transitioned or not depends on if they made a tangible change either medically or through documentation (social transition). Just asserting your identity is absolutely your right, but it doesn’t mean you transitioned.

It doesn’t? But we’ve been told and told and told it does. We’ve been told that just asserting your identity is absolutely all it takes, and that any skepticism is a phobic crime against humanity.

It seems it’s going to turn out that that rule holds for trans people (definitely including those who just assert their identity) and not for former … Read the rest

It’s wrong from the headline on.

I was harassed at an In-N-Out bathroom for being a black trans woman

No. Not for being either black or trans, and not exactly harassed either, although that bit is tricky.

Subhead:

Ahead of a crucial supreme court decision, LeahAnn Mitchell writes about her experience with discrimination

That is, a guy who calls himself LeahAnn writes about his experience of using a women’s toilet.

“Is there a man in the bathroom?”

I was seated on the toilet in the stall of a women’s restroom of an In-N-Out when I heard the manager yell.

I had stopped at the burger restaurant in the Bay Area for a late lunch last spring, and was alone in

Oh and by the way also…

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

What were they doing? Relief work? Technical advice? Helping?

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

They were in Ukraine … Read the rest

Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert on Orwell and Big Brother and who saw Big Sister on the horizon?

You also showed us the way out of this insane “sanity”:

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

But you also wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” You said a boot. You did not say a men’s size twelve Christian Louboutin Hot Chick Patent Leather Pump stamping on a human face — forever. You, who predicted

Multiple whistleblowers now.

The attorneys representing the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine said they are representing “multiple whistleblowers” in connection to the case, including one with “first hand knowledge” of events.

“I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” attorney Andrew Bakaj tweeted Sunday. “No further comment at this time.”

Mark Zaid, another member of the first whistleblower’s legal team, also said the team is representing a second official with first-hand knowledge of events, as first reported by ABC News. The original whistleblower had not heard or seen a transcript of the phone

Guest post by Dave Ricks.
In the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA), the word “sex” was clearly intended to remedy a history of discrimination based on “sex” meaning female (i.e. a dictionary definition, biologically, XX chromosomes, etc.).

But recent legal actions conflate “sex” with “gender identity”.  For example, the way the Democrats wrote the Equality Act (EA) as changes to the CRA (PDF here), they replace the word “sex” with the phrase “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)“.  A civil rights lawyer wrote three blog posts here that show how this conflation will undo 50 years of case law, spawn 50 years of new cases to interpret the conflation, and be a disaster for … Read the rest