The Free Speech Union tells us:

Bosses at the impartial public service broadcaster, the BBC, have cancelled a scheduled series of programmes featuring Irish singer Roisin Murphy just weeks after the Irish singer faced backlash from trans activists for her views on puberty blockers.

As reported by The Telegraph, Radio 6 music was set to broadcast five hours of Murphy’s songs, interviews and concert highlights next week, as part of the 6 Music Artist Collection, which celebrates the music and careers of artists and explores their influences and who they have inspired.

However, Murphy has been replaced by rapper Little Simz. The BBC said the decision was taken so that Little Simz’s work could reflect poetry, rap and spoken word programming the following week, and insisted it was not [influenced] by Murphy’s views on transgender issues.

It’s pure coincidence that the thought police are canceling Murphy everywhere they can. The BBC canceled her for completely different reasons that are nothing to do with fear of the trans inquisition. The BBC suddenly realized in the middle of the night that they had to replace Murphy with Little Simz because it just did, that’s why.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Nuanced.

“Remember that your child has probably been thinking about and exploring this for some time – whereas you’ve just found out and you now need to go through that process of learning and discovery too

Pay no attention to those TERFs with their talk of ROGD! NO SOCIAL CONTAGION TO SEE HERE, FOLKS. YOUR CHILD HAS BEEN THINKING AND EXPLORING, SO SHUT UP AND NOD AFFIRM WHATEVER THEM SAYS.

Notice that there’s no suggestion that the parents cast their minds back to their own experiences struggling with these same issues when they themselves were growing up. Because none of this shit had been invented yet. The Beeb would have been able to connect the old vocabulary used to describe these concepts to the new terms. But they don’t because they can’t. What are being described as new terms are the novel redefinitions of old terms, hijacking them and using them in novel, idiosyncratic ways that have no parallel to the parents’ experience of puberty and maturation. Sex words turned into gender words. Sex words conflated with gender words in order to suggest that sex is somehow fluid and malleable, that your personality (i.e. “gender identity”) can and should override the trajectory of your body’s pubertal development.

If it were true that “there have always been trans,” then there would be a rich history of growing up with these struggles with supposed “gender identity” already present in the whole cultural tradition of “coming of age” stories. Sure there’s plenty of lore surrounding growing up, of boys and girls becoming men and women (much of it burdened with sexist, patriarchal stereotypes), even of discovering one’s homosexuality, but there’s no rich tradition of becoming the other sex. It’s all new to parents because it’s new, period. It’s strange and confusing because it’s impossible and can’t happen. Children are being told it can, and, being impressionable, some – too many- believe it. Without outside prompting, this isn’t something the children would be pursuing. It’s no different than if what was being encouraged was trans-speciesism rather than trans genderism. Changing species is just as impossible as changing sex, but advocates of the former lack the power and influence to inject their beliefs into society the way genderists have uploaded transness into the culture. Transness is freshly made up, out of whole cloth, putting the lie to the claim that it has always been around. Parents would have already been exposed to it and in the know if it were as widespread as it is claimed to be, or more importantly, real at all.

Feminism that pretends men are women if they say they are is not feminism at all. It’s not feminism and it’s nothing to do with feminism. Feminism is a rejection of the age-old belief that women are inferior to men. What’s that got to do with pretending men can be women? Not one damn thing.

However loudly and often they say it it remains a lie. Trans women are men who say they are women, but saying so doesn’t make it true. Men who say they are women are irrelevant to a feminist future. They’re also, for now, a hindrance to any feminist future.

I took a bus out to the suburbs this afternoon to revisit a trail I haven’t been to in years. It’s along the Sammamish River, and it becomes a boardwalk when it reaches the marshy area where the river flows into Lake Sammamish. It’s actually not a river, I read the other day, but a slough, because it can flow either way: from Lake Washington into Lake Sammamish or the other way around. Currently (pun not intended) it’s flowing into Lake S.

That mountain down at the south end looks tiny in the photo but not in real life.

Unpleasant heedless of others egotist in real life as well as in Congress:

Republican lawmaker Lauren Boebert was escorted out of a theatre in Denver during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice, after being accused of disruptive behaviour.

…

The incident report filed by Denver Arts & Venues in Colorado said the disruptive behaviour at Buell Theatre during Sunday night’s show prompted three complaints from fellow audience members.

After an initial warning at intermission, an usher approached them again five minutes into the second half requesting they leave after additional complaints of being loud and recording the show. Taking pictures and recording at the show are not permitted.

In the report, one usher claims Ms Boebert and her companion “told me they would not leave”.

“I told them I would (be) going to get Denver Police. They said ‘go get them’.”

Once in the lobby area, ushers claimed the congresswoman resisted leaving, saying “I will be contacting the mayor” and “Do you know who I am?” Ms Boebert’s campaign manager, Drew Sexton, confirmed she was escorted out of the downtown Denver theatre.

She’s a classy broad.

So gynecologists are supposed to do what now?

An LGBTI rights organization in France is calling on the Minister of Equality to intervene in the case of a gynecologist who they are accusing of “transphobia.”

On September 8, SOS Homophobie, which describes itself as a “national association against LGBTIphobia” took to X (formerly Twitter) to condemn a gynecologist for stating he only provided services to females. The comment from Dr. Victor Acharian, who operates in the Pau region, was made in reply to a Google review he received in which a trans-identified male’s partner complained that Acharian refused to provide services to him.

But…I don’t like to be indelicate, but what services can a gynecologist provide to a man? Does the complainant understand what a gynecologist is? Does he think it just means GP who treats exclusively women?

He says he’s not competent to treat MEN even if they’ve shaved off their beards and told his secretary that they’re women. His GYNECOLOGICAL examination table is not adapted to examine men.

Seriously, do these guys want him to try to ram a speculum into their testicles?

In their X post on Acharian, SOS Homophobie wrote: “We denounce the transphobes and discriminatory remarks of gynecologist Victor Acharian in Pau. Transphobia is a reality with serious consequences, particularly in access to health. It affects the entire territory.” 

Bodies are a reality too, particularly in access to health. Men really do not want gynecologists trying to look up them.

We must grind the faces of the poor.

Property developer Tim Gurner says employees have become too arrogant, and that unemployment must rise substantially to lift productivity, especially in the construction sector.

…

“They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change,” he told the AFR property summit in Sydney. “I think the problem that we’ve had is that people decided they didn’t really want to work so much any more through COVID.”

…

“We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around. There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. It’s a dynamic that has to change.”

We need to starve people. We need to throw them onto the streets and starve them when they get there. We need to round them up and put them to work whether they like it or not.

Christ on a bike. Hi, parents, here’s how to help your children do whatever they want all the time, without asking any tiresome outdated parentish questions. It’s from the BBC, too, so it must be sensible and official and not harmful at all in any way.

An A-Z of LGBTQ+ language for speaking to your child

If your child opens up to you about their sexuality or gender identity, it’s likely to be a really significant time for both them and you.

…

The language around sexuality and gender has changed over time and your child may be using terms that you might not fully understand.

You are the one who doesn’t understand, here: you, the adult, are lost and confused, while your child of any age [the BBC hasn’t bothered to distinguish between 5-year-olds and 17-year-olds so far] knows all about it and is your instructor. You must work hard to understand your child’s profound knowledge.

Jess Borthwick is a Family Support Worker at the charity All Sorts Youth Project which connects and supports LGBTQ+ children and their families.

She says, “It’s okay not to understand, and the varied terminology and language can be overwhelming! The language is complicated, nuanced and moves quickly, and the meanings are often very personal to the individual.”

Well…that is to say, the language is the jargon of a staggeringly wrong-headed ideology centered on the magical belief that physical sex is infinitely mutable. The language is “complicated” because it’s about complete and utter bullshit. It’s people making shit up as they go, and working hard to make everyone grovel before their absurd belief system. They’re a bunch of wannabe popes.

Sarah Furley, Vice Chair of FFLAG, a charity that offers peer support to the parents and carers of LGBTQ+ children, agrees that asking questions is a good idea and also thinks that you can take a proactive approach.

…

She adds that although what you’re hearing is new to you, it’s likely something your child has been considering for a while: “Remember that your child has probably been thinking about and exploring this for some time – whereas you’ve just found out and you now need to go through that process of learning and discovery too.”

In other words your child – whether 5 or 17 – is the expert and you are the apprentice. Your child knows all about it, and you are completely ignorant. Let your child guide you through this new magical glorious belief system. Don’t interrupt, don’t laugh, and don’t you dare disagree.

It’s normal to be nervous if you’re talking to someone about a subject you’re not an expert on, especially one where there’s emotions involved.

And obviously parents can’t be experts on sex and gender, or how much their children understand about sex and gender, or how easy it is to change one’s sex or gender, or what the consequences might be of trying to change one’s sex or gender.

Also, this is the BBC. “where there’s emotions involved”? Really? They can’t even do a quick “there are”?

A child might start using certain language to describe themselves and then change the terms they identify with.

Jess says, “This is a normal and healthy part of identity exploration. The more they are able to explore, the more they are able to find out what fits. Don’t be alarmed if they find something that’s a better fit – most young people will settle into a more consistent identity as they age. However if they don’t, this isn’t something to worry about.”

Ah yes, it’s totally normal and healthy to pick up gender ideology from your fellow children and social media and then keep picking up the latest tweaks for the next ten or twenty or fifty years. Or, it might be more efficient to go to clown college and make it a career.

Lisa says, “Language evolves over time and LGBT+ terminology is no different. Often terms get added as people want the comfort of words to describe their identity. As time has gone on and our understanding of gender and sexuality has expanded, some definitions have been updated to match this. That’s why the + in LGBT+ is so important as it encompasses and celebrates all identities.”

So much expansion! Keep going! Keep expanding and expanding and expanding until you explode!

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on We must do MORE.

For the govt to provide targeted funding for research & innovation in gender-affirming surgeries & other areas of gender-affirming care that would benefit from more scientific knowledge, with funding conditional on info sharing around practices developed & their outcomes.

Be careful what you wish for. Look how this turned out for caloric, phlogiston, N-rays and the the ether.

8. To amend section 268(3) of the Criminal Code to restrict cosmetic surgeries on intersex children until they are old enough to consent.

Ah, looking for a loophole via the plight for people with DSDs (NOT “intersex”) in order to cut up “trans” kids, are we?

For the govt to take a clear stand against the rising tide of anti-trans hate & violence wherever & whenever egregious acts of hate & violence occur.

We’d need to see your definition of “anti-trans hate and violence,” because I’m betting most of what you’d put on the list is neither. Stating that there are only two sexes, and that humans can’t change sex. Correctly sexing someone and using the pronouns appropriate to the correct sex. I’ll bet that those are on your little Index of Proscribed Ideas.

10. For the govt to host a roundtables on combating anti-trans hate & violence with stakeholders.

Do the same for women FIRST, and make sure that women are consulted in your little publicly funded trans roundtables, as what you’re going to be demanding will involve taking things from women and giving them to men.

Why do people think this? I’ll never understand it.

“Squeaky wheels and grease” comes to mind, but we’ve also got trillion-candlepower virtue signaling happening here. “I’M ONE OF THE GOOD ONES! PLEASE DON’T BURN ME WITH THE WITCHES!! DO IT TO JULIA!!!” She hasn’t figured out that she’s not the one to decide whether she’s a witch or not. Salvation is not through works but by the Grace of Trans. She will always be just a single slip or tweet away from vilification and condemnation. If she fucks up once, says the wrong thing, likes the wrong post, it won’t matter if her list was 29 items or 29,000. She’ll be damned. Just like the rest of us.

Helen Joyce on that meeting in Manchester and what happened afterward.

The event was a follow-up to the Sex Matters board meeting, which we held in late June, in a lovely private room that the museum hires out. I wrote about what happened afterwards in issue 53—in brief, after an online mini-whingefest from about three-and-a-half people, the museum abjectly apologised for renting us a room. It put out a statement in which it begged to be given time to rebuild the trust of the “wider LGBTQI+ community and all people who face marginalisation” and promised to “learn from” its terrible error in accommodating an organisation that does not “share its values”, an error it promised never to repeat.

Hey I have an idea. How about “the wider LGBTQI+ community” tries to rebuild our trust. How about we call a halt to all this dementedly overwrought and disproportionate alarm and panic and anguish whenever anyone says “boo” to trans ideology? How about we get a share of all this concern for a change?

They chose the People’s History Museum for their board meeting because two of their board members live in Manchester and because…

it’s lovely, and about precisely the sort of history we feel part of. It holds one of the most important collections of Suffragette materials, including the Pankhursts’ “First in the Fight” banner. The battle for female suffrage was a story of female courage and a too-small number of male allies, on the one hand, and male supremacy and female complicity, on the other. I’m sure you can see why that period resonates.

But this is now, and somehow women don’t matter any more, and our courage is mere terfery, and we’re the oppressor, and we’re evil, and we deserve taunts and threats and even violence. The denunciations got going as soon as the board meeting was in the past, so…Sex Matters booked a room again. The tickets sold out in three hours.

Very depressingly, the museum then took a series of steps to signal its ongoing capitulation to those complaining about us exercising our legal rights. It came off social media. It took down the bookings page from its website. And, most extraordinarily, it rewrote its entire mission statement, in the process removing any claim it had to be a fit home for the most important archive on the Suffragettes.

See Helen’s post for the changes. The new version talks about “standing in solidarity with people who face persecution and discrimination” by for instance “dismantling racism, championing trans inclusion” etcetera yet somehow women didn’t make it into the etcetera. Women are the new Domineering Wicked Overlords, and all other people are their victims.

So the meeting happened, and afterward the Energetic Display of Hatred took place, with the demonstrators following Helen and Maya down the street, shouting abuse.

I wonder how different things would have been if the museum had simply ignored the initial complaints, instead of responding with abject apologies for letting women who were barely better than Nazis into the building. Because after that, its response to everything that followed was foreordained. How can you tell protestors to keep the entrance clear, and keep the museum open and call police to eject any troublemakers, when you think the protestors shouting obscenities through megaphones are the good guys and the nasty women talking about human-rights law are the baddies?

And in fact how can the protestors realize their protests are wrong-headed at best and viciously misogynist at worst when everyone keeps telling them they’re both miraculous angels and the most persecuted people in the history of the world?

The videos I and others took show both myself and Maya smiling broadly. That was obviously partly bravado—but also a feeling of incredulity at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing. Here’s that tosspot Billy Bragg’s take, just for a contrary view. This is a man who has signed the White Ribbon promise to “never use, excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women”.

Promise broken. Promise smashed into a billion sharp wounding pieces.

H/t guest

Laurel Collins is an NDP MP for Victoria. She has a long bonkers thread on Twitter listing all the things we must do to rescue trans people from the edge of a cliff over a pool of sharks. I’ll just quote it because too much Twitter is too much.

The rising hate directed at trans people is terrifying, and Conservative leaders are stoking this hate with dangerous discriminatory policies. We need to better support trans & gender-diverse people. [trans flag trans flag]

Here are 29 concrete things we’re fighting for:

29 Concrete Steps: 1 on supporting organizations 2 to 8 on gender-affirming healthcare 9 to 13 on hate & violence 14 to 16 on identity documents 17 to 19 on refugees 20 to 21 on employment & sports 22 on blood/organ donation 23 to 26 on prisoner rights 27 to 29 on sex work & HIV

1. Sufficient, stable funding to support the creation of new trans & gender diverse organizations and support trans & gender diverse orgs that currently exist. Funding should be sensitive to intersectional differences among trans & gender diverse people.

2. For the federal govt to work with provinces and territories to make comprehensive gender-affirming care a reality across Canada. 3. To provide comprehensive gender-affirming care for everyone directly under federal jurisdiction for healthcare.

4 funding mental health research 5 information sharing

6. For the govt to provide targeted funding for research & innovation in gender-affirming surgeries & other areas of gender-affirming care that would benefit from more scientific knowledge, with funding conditional on info sharing around practices developed & their outcomes.

As if “gender-affirming” care is a real thing and needs only more research and innovation.

7. To review testosterone’s status as a controlled substance & develop a policy approach that considers the needs of trans men. 8. To amend section 268(3) of the Criminal Code to restrict cosmetic surgeries on intersex children until they are old enough to consent.

More testosterone, not quite so many cosmetic surgeries on children. Great.

9. For the govt to take a clear stand against the rising tide of anti-trans hate & violence wherever & whenever egregious acts of hate & violence occur. 10. For the govt to host a roundtables on combating anti-trans hate & violence with stakeholders.

11. That the Government of Canada take action to prevent trans-femicides through education campaigns to address harmful ideas that contribute to deadly cis male violence against trans women. These campaigns should be sensitive to colonialism and racism.

That’s the one that alerted me to the whole thread, because irritated women are telling her there’s a woman killed every other day in Canada and no trans people have been killed since 2019.

There are 29 items on this to-do list, as if trans people were the most neglected abused desperate chewed up and spat out people in all of human history.

Why do people think this? I’ll never understand it.

Billy Bragg is even more disgusting than I realized.

No. Wrong. Patriarchy does not “pose a threat” to trans women the same way it poses a threat to women. Trans women may well be subject to bullying from men, but that’s not the same as the relegation to second class status that women are subject to from birth.

They didn’t merely “exercise their right to protest,” they followed two women down the street, screaming at them from inches away. That’s not “protest” it’s abuse.

Oh my god. Words fail me.

And there it is. He is a horrible man. Worse than I thought, and I already thought he was a nasty piece of work.

The glaciers are melting.

Once, there were 29. Now at least one is gone, maybe three. Those that remain are almost half the size they used to be.

Mount Rainier is losing its glaciers. That is all the more striking as it is the most glacier-covered mountain in the contiguous United States.

It doesn’t look as if it’s losing its glaciers from down here in Seattle. It still looks like a giant ice cream cone. But appearances can deceive.

Mountain glaciers are vanishing as the burning of fossil fuels heats up Earth’s atmosphere. According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, total glacier area has shrunk steadily in the last half-century; some of the steepest declines have been in the Western United States and Canada.

…

In a stable climate, glaciers dance to the rhythm of the seasons. They grow every winter with snow and ice. They melt every summer, supplying chilled water to the creeks and rivers downstream, and the plants and animals that rely on them, in the dry season.

Climate change has upset that balance. Spring snowpack has declined since the mid 20th century. Temperatures have gone up. Even when the winter snow is good, an unusually warm spring melts the snow quickly, as it did this year.

So long Tahoma.

This stands for so much – what they get wrong, how very wrong they get it, how obvious it is why they get it so wrong.

If you, a woman, saw a man you thought was pretending to be a woman, you’d feel powerful and superior.

That is so fucking stupid it takes my breath away. A lone woman doesn’t ever feel “powerful and superior” in the presence of a random man displaying weird behavior. She might feel morally or intellectually superior, but physically she would feel anything but. I can tell you what she would feel: she would feel afraid. Physically afraid.

Montgomerie doesn’t know that because he is a random man displaying weird behavior.

The rules: We can say whatever we like; you are a fucking sociopath if you say whatever we don’t like. Got that?

First:

That’s fine. Fine fine fine. It’s fine for Dorian Lynskey to call Helen Joyce “a startlingly cruel and hateful person.”

Other people however…

How dare Rachel say he isn’t too keen on strong, outspoken women.

What a nauseating display.

Filed under “Transgender News”:

Labour councillor Alison Thomson of Brighton & Hove City Council apologises for engaging with transphobic posts on social media

Brighton & Hove City Council councillor Alison Thomson, of Brighton & Hove Labour Party, has apologised for engaging with transphobic posts on social media, as reported by Scene magazine. The Labour councillor was slammed by community groups for reposting or liking a series of tweets supporting the anti-trans TERF movement, which is spearheaded by controversial figures such as JK Rowling and Julie Bindel. 

Millions of womenphobic “posts on social media” appear every day without any male reporters getting all breathless about it, let alone openly fantasizing about women getting “slammed” for likecrime.

The councillor said in her apology:

“I apologise unreservedly for endorsing these social media posts which contain anti-trans sentiments.

“I recognise that they are offensive to the transgender community and I am deeply sorry for the hurt caused by this.

“I am committed to undergoing training to better understand the lived experiences of transgender people and with the aim of becoming a good trans ally.”

In other words the councillor is a hostage.

For the billionth time I point out that nobody has ever talked this way about the torrent of sexist and misogynist garbage on social media. It’s just normal to express hatred and contempt for women, and women just have to put up with it. Men in skirts, on the other hand, are as fragile as morning mist and must be shielded and pampered and love-bombed every minute of every day. People must undergo training in how to flatter them enough, while noisy haters of women just get noisier.

Leader of Brighton & Hove City Council and Labour Group, Bella Sankey added: “We know that Brighton & Hove is a beacon city for trans, non-binary, gender queer and lesbian, gay and bisexual communities. People come to our city because we are known as a safe and inclusive city with a thriving diverse and intersectional population.

Brighton is neither safe nor inclusive. Brighton is hostile territory for women.

“As your Labour Council, we stand in solidarity with our trans, non-binary and intersex communities and are proud of our commitment for trans equality and we celebrate our city’s diversity.

“I want to reassure the trans community that any expressions of anti-trans sentiment in any form will not be tolerated.

“Councillor Thomson has now, rightly, apologised unreservedly for her actions. I have also taken the decision to remove Cllr Thomson from her lead role on City Centre Renewal, while further investigation is carried out and subject to her completing training.”

Diversity blah blah anti-trans sentiment blah blah women councillors are so much garbage to be ground up at the pleasure of our trans, non-binary and intersex communities.

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Detrimental clothes.

It sounds like the scars of Japanese occupation have not healed for members of the older generations. It was a brutal occupation targeting the civilian population with rape and murder. Here’s an article aobut it,  and the disastrous role that Chiang Kai-Shek played in losing the second Sino-Japanese war of the 20th century.

During the eight years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), China suffered continual crushing and humiliating defeats at the hands of Japan and was subject to a devastating, brutal occupation of much of the nation. Japanese behaviour in the conflict was the principal factor which distinguished the occupation from other wars of recent memory. Not since medieval times had such barbarity and brutality been witnessed. Most significantly, it was the deliberate targeting of the civilian population for murder, rape and terror which made this episode so different and so shocking. The Nazis would repeat this in Eastern Europe and Russia, but the Japanese preceded them by several years.[1]

Japanese attitudes towards China governed Japanese behaviour towards the Chinese. Belief in their own racial and cultural superiority and the influence of the Bushido code of conduct allowed the invaders to justify their treatment of Chinese people. Iris Chang has written that, “Teachers [in the 1930s] instilled in boys hatred and contempt for the Chinese people, preparing them psychologically for a future invasion of the Chinese mainland.”[2] Japan had already fought and defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), annexed her colony of Korea and the island of Formosa, taken over the German concession ports at the end of the First World War, and in 1931 occupied the vast northern region of Manchuria which became an imperial possession with a puppet Chinese emperor.[3] Repeatedly, China proved incapable of resisting Japanese aggression.

Even though many of the survivors of that era have died, their children likely know of their parents’ pain and it would be as painful as the Shoah is for the Jews and Romany, so I can understand why they would not want to see Japanese clothes and culture.

But it’s hard to justify laws on it, any sort of control over how people express themselves can be well-meaning but dangerous. However, the current regime in China, whatever they are, don’t seem to care much for freedom of their people.

Ahahahahahaha so there shitheads!

Roisin Murphy’s new album set for chart success after puberty blocker comments

Nyah nyah.

Roisin Murphy will claim the second spot on the UK albums chart for her new album Hit Parade, released after the Irish singer-songwriter became embroiled in controversy.

The former Moloko frontwoman, 50, was forced [bullied] to apologise last month after facing criticism for comments that appeared to condemn the use of puberty blockers by transgender children.

There’s no such thing as “transgender children.” There are only children who have been misled by a stupid fad.

According to Planned Parenthood, these are medical treatments that can be used to “help your body better reflect” your gender identity.

What’s Planned Parenthood got do do with it? Have you polled the Boy Scouts, the Seventh Day Adventists, the people at Tupperware parties, the people behind you in line at Waitrose?

Bad bad bad bad move.

Law enforcement in the US city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will no longer report the biological sex of crime victims, a decision made after “discussions the department had with members of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Wisconsin has the nation’s 8th highest rate of domestic violence homicides (wherein women are killed by men), which have skyrocketed by 300% over the past decade.

“Every four and a half days, somebody in Wisconsin is killed due to domestic violence,” says Darlene Master, the executive director for a domestic violence shelter located in the state.

Data shows that Wisconsin domestic violence homicides increased by 150% from 2019 to 2020, 250% from 2015 to 2020, and 300% from 2010 to 2020.

So no wonder Wisconsin wants to hide the stats.

It’s kind of amusing to read about Tucker Carlson’s relegation to being just another talker. Last April

Fox News, after settling a defamation lawsuit for $787m, gave Carlson the boot.

The move was as unexpected as it was sudden, and left viewers and pundits wondering what Carlson, who had used his position to push far-right conspiracy theories and elevate rightwing figures, would do next.

So far, the answer has been: use a new Twitter show to push even more conspiracy theories and give a platform to even more bizarre people, which culminated with a new low this week, as Carlson revived a debunked claim that Barack Obama smoked crack and had sex with a man many years ago.

It seemed to confirm something that many observers had predicted: deprived of the prime time platform of Fox News, Carlson – once seen as a power broker in Republican politics and even a possible presidential candidate – has spiraled into extremism and growing irrelevance.

“He doesn’t have the Fox News bells and whistles anymore. And so the result is that he’s basically just Alex Jones in a jacket and tie, trying to concoct conspiracy theories that he thinks his audience will be interested in,” Gertz said. “He’s really dropped in relevance pretty quickly.”

But he’s been working hard to fix the formula.

Since those early videos, Carlson has shifted tack. Since July his videos have generally consisted of longer-form interviews, apparently with anyone prepared to say yes to a Carlson media request.

The first of Carlson’s new oeuvre dropped on 11 July: a two-and-a-half-hour interview with Andrew Tate, the rightwing misogynist influencer who in June was charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.

Just the kind of guy you want to listen to for 2.5 hours.