Yes, why are they there? It’s not a trip to Disneyland.

https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1135890748010835968

Why did Trump bring his whole damn family apart from Barron along? That’s not normal. If it’s not normal it’s not appropriate. Were they even invited?

Are we paying for it? Of course we are.

Trump’s four adult children and their spouses have joined him on his state visit to the United Kingdom this week. And US taxpayers are picking up the hefty bills for their hotels, transportation, and security.

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump were all among the 171 dinner guests at Buckingham Palace today, according to the White House press pool.

Yet another lying bullying “statement,” this one from Minorities and Philosophy UK. Brian Leiter flags it up:

I don’t want to make more of this disgraceful statement than it deserves; many MAP chapters are doing constructive work, and they would do well to repudiate this embarrassment from the UK chapter.  One can support equal opportunity for and dignified treatment of trans philosophers, as Professor Stock explicitly does, and still disagree with how some trans philosophers understand gender.

Note that this statement is the work of a handful of individuals, including the already notorious Keyvan Shafei and the equally benighted spouse of Nathan Oseroff, among others.  It was apparently prompted by the fact that the Aristotelian Society, much to

Why doe anyone think Trump is a billionaire when all his suits look like they came off the rack?

I'm not the president but if I met the Queen, I wouldn't settle for the Men's Wearhouse spring clearance sale. I'd get measured for a real suit. pic.twitter.com/SEGCUnZznA

— Stephen Robinson (@SER1897) June 3, 2019

https://twitter.com/FrancisWheen/status/1135651436082192386

That awkward moment when the Queen invites you to dinner but you just ate Boris Johnson pic.twitter.com/WEu5gB2a8H

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) June 3, 2019

Updating to add: I had to hit the Google to see if I was wrong to think Trump wasn’t supposed to be showing several inches of waistcoat below his jacket. GQ says nope I wasn’t wrong:

You will need a low

Saturday in Bradford:

Yesterday a group of lesbians went to Bradford Pride to celebrate their sexuality and challenge the erasure of lesbians by transactivists.

They had a banner saying “lesbians don’t have penises” so you can guess what happened next.

We had decided to meet in a coffee shop before going into the square. Whilst sat drinking coffee we were approached by two police officers from West Yorkshire Police. They explained that someone had come to them and said that they’d seen some placards and so they wanted to make sure that there was nothing derogatory and that we were not a hate group. We assured them that we were just lesbians going to Pride. That WYP felt it

The “nope” to a court order is a red flag.

The Justice Department argued that the documents need not be released because “it did not rely on such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or determine a recommendation for his sentencing.” Moreover, “Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Even if the district court’s order to release the Flynn-Kislyak transcripts goes further than justified by the sentencing matter before the court, I would’ve thought that, in a government of laws, the only way to avoid compliance is to take an appeal to a higher court.” The

A column I wrote for the April/May issue of Free Inquiry is online. It’s about “authenticity.”

The idea of an “authentic self” has, oddly, become a theme of political discourse as well as Oprah-style uplift. We’re being told that people have a right to live as their authentic selves, which often means as opposed to their outward appearance, that mere physical dross. It’s a weirdly religious idea, reminiscent of the contemptus mundi of medieval monks, but it’s presented as political rather than religious. What I keep wondering is how it’s possible to make a sane politics out of the denial of material reality.

The irony is that what is meant by the authentic self in the current dialect is

Breathtaking.

Kathleen Stock has a thread this morning.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1135159042513526785

Quoting the rest for ease of reading.

Rather, they’re concerned with what Austin would call perlocutionary effects of my arguments. That is, the indirect effects of my arguments on feelings, thoughts, and actions of others, whether or not these are grounded in charitable or accurate interpretations of my views. In vain do I ask critics to engage with my writing (pinned) in a fair, non-snarky manner typical of their philosophical engagement with others. I’ve come to realise most won’t do this, because for them it’s not the point. The point is, my views allegedly lead to harm: fear/anxiety, people allegedly leaving the profession, and possible violence to trans people by others.

“I never said that. It’s all lies.”

“But sir, it’s on the tape.”

“Lies. It’s all lies.”

“But…the tape…”

“Lies.”

Our Don is at it again.

[I]n a series of early morning tweets on Sunday, the US president said he “never called Meghan Markle nasty” and that the “Fake News Media” had invented his remarks.

He said it was “Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will CNN, NY Times and others apologize? Doubt it!”

The Sun posted a recording of the original interview to prove that its reporting was accurate.

Never you mind about the recording! Just never mind! It’s all lies!!… Read the rest

Kim Jong Un may or may not have executed one of the negotiators of the whatever that is between the US and North Korea.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the US is looking into reports that North Korea executed a top official after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, earlier this year.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s special envoy to the US, was executed after Kim Jong Un and Trump were unable to reach an agreement at their second summit in February.

CNN also tried to verify the reports and was unable to.

The [South Korean] paper — quoting unnamed North Korean sources —