Steve Benen at the Maddow blog notes that Clarence Thomas has been pretty clear about his indifference to ethics.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is no stranger to questions about his ethical standards. The far-right jurist has, for example, faced awkward questions about incomplete financial disclosure forms. There have been related concerns about his appearances at wealthy conservatives’ political retreats, as well as his wife’s activism/lobbying on matters before the court.

And bless his heart he’s simply ignored all the concerns.

If you have a good memory, these revelations might ring a bell. The New York Times reported 12 years ago on the “ethically sensitive friendship” between Thomas and the GOP financier. Despite the fact that Crow’s company had multiple cases in the federal court system, the Times found that he’d showered Thomas with lucrative gifts, including a massive check to the justice’s wife to start a lobbying organization.

ProPublica, however, has advanced the story to a stunning degree, uncovering the details of Thomas’ travel “by drawing from flight records, internal documents distributed to Crow’s employees and interviews with dozens of people ranging from his superyacht’s staff to members of the secretive Bohemian Club to an Indonesian scuba diving instructor.”

Who played a major role in putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court after and in spite of Anita Hill’s testimony? Joe Biden, that’s who. Who rescued Thomas by hanging Hill out to dry? Joe Biden. Ironic, ain’t it.

Whaddya know. Clarence Thomas has been taking bribes for more than 20 years.

The bribes take the form of luxury vacations on the private plane and the Luxury Yacht of “real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.”

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.

Supreme Court justice flouts the law.

In a statement, Crow acknowledged that he’d extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years,” but said that Thomas never asked for any of it and it was “no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends.”

But it is different. Unless their many other friends are all Supreme Court justices then it is different. Some jobs require people to be especially particular about what kind of favors and “hospitality” they can accept, let alone accept without reporting.

Through his largesse, Crow has gained a unique form of access, spending days in private with one of the most powerful people in the country. By accepting the trips, Thomas has broken long-standing norms for judges’ conduct, ethics experts and four current or retired federal judges said.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that someone would do this,” said Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. When she was on the bench, Gertner said, she was so cautious about appearances that she wouldn’t mention her title when making dinner reservations: “It was a question of not wanting to use the office for anything other than what it was intended.”

Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said Thomas “seems to have completely disregarded his higher ethical obligations.”

“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” said Canter, now at the watchdog group CREW.

It corrodes public trust and it probably corrodes the justice who accepts the subsidy. Clarence Thomas is revealed to be thoroughly corrupt. Not a good look and not a good reality.

Thomas’ approach to ethics has already attracted public attention. Last year, Thomas didn’t recuse himself from cases that touched on the involvement of his wife, Ginni, in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. While his decision generated outcry, it could not be appealed.

He’s thoroughly corrupt and we can’t do anything about it.

Pro Publica gives us a bit of comic relief.

In Thomas’ public appearances over the years, he has presented himself as an everyman with modest tastes.

“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” Thomas said in a recent interview for a documentary about his life, which Crow helped finance.

“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” Thomas said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that — I prefer being around that.”

Who doesn’t prefer spending vacations in a Walmart parking lot instead of the beach?

Crow’s access to the justice extends to anyone the businessman chooses to invite along. Thomas’ frequent vacations at Topridge have brought him into contact with corporate executives and political activists.

During just one trip in July 2017, Thomas’ fellow guests included executives at Verizon and PricewaterhouseCoopers, major Republican donors and one of the leaders of the American Enterprise Institute, a pro-business conservative think tank, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. The painting of Thomas at Topridge shows him in conversation with Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society leader regarded as an architect of the Supreme Court’s recent turn to the right.

…

Thomas didn’t report any of the trips ProPublica identified on his annual financial disclosures. Ethics experts said the law clearly requires disclosure for private jet flights and Thomas appears to have violated it.

So not just strikingly unethical but actually illegal.

Justices are generally required to publicly report all gifts worth more than $415, defined as “anything of value” that isn’t fully reimbursed. There are exceptions: If someone hosts a justice at their own property, free food and lodging don’t have to be disclosed. That would exempt dinner at a friend’s house. The exemption never applied to transportation, such as private jet flights, experts said, a fact that was made explicit in recently updated filing instructions for the judiciary.

Two ethics law experts told ProPublica that Thomas’ yacht cruises, a form of transportation, also required disclosure.

“If Justice Thomas received free travel on private planes and yachts, failure to report the gifts is a violation of the disclosure law,” said Kedric Payne, senior director for ethics at the nonprofit government watchdog Campaign Legal Center. (Thomas himself once reported receiving a private jet trip from Crow, on his disclosure for 1997.)

The experts said Thomas’ stays at Topridge may have required disclosure too, in part because Crow owns it not personally but through a company. Until recently, the judiciary’s ethics guidance didn’t explicitly address the ownership issue. The recent update to the filing instructions clarifies that disclosure is required for such stays.

How many times Thomas failed to disclose trips remains unclear. Flight records from the Federal Aviation Administration and FlightAware suggest he makes regular use of Crow’s plane. The jet often follows a pattern: from its home base in Dallas to Washington Dulles airport for a brief stop, then on to a destination Thomas is visiting and back again.

So it’s his personal free air taxi.

Thomas has even used the plane for a three-hour trip. On Feb. 11, 2016, the plane flew from Dallas to Dulles to New Haven, Connecticut, before flying back later that afternoon. ProPublica confirmed that Thomas was on the jet through Supreme Court security records obtained by the nonprofit Fix the Court, private jet data, a New Haven plane spotter and another person at the airport. There are no reports of Thomas making a public appearance that day, and the purpose of the trip remains unclear.

Jet charter companies told ProPublica that renting an equivalent plane for the New Haven trip could cost around $70,000.

Tell us again about the joys of camping in Walmart parking lots.

Gang boss and his gang respond as gang bosses and their gangs do.

In the 24 hours since former President Donald Trump’s arraignment, the presiding judge and his family have received multiple threats, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Law and order!

Unless it’s our crook.

The New York police detail assigned to the DA’s office is providing extra security to all affected staff members. Court officers, meanwhile, are boosting security for the judge and the court as a whole as a precaution.

Other steps have been taken, as well. Online bios of employees at the Manhattan district attorney’s office were recently removed from the DA’s website, according to a source familiar with the matter, because of troubling posts on social media, including Trump’s Truth Social platform.

…

Trump and his allies have publicly criticized Merchan and his family, including his adult daughter.

Ahead of his court appearance Tuesday, Trump blasted Merchan on his Truth Social account as a “highly partisan judge” and said the judge and his family are “Trump haters.” In the post, Trump said, “HIS DAUGHTER WORKED FOR ‘KAMALA’ & NOW THE BIDEN-HARRIS CAMPAIGN.”

The former president’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, also posted links to stories from conservative outlets focusing on Merchan’s daughter’s employment.

Crime family spews threats in all directions.

This vile disgusting man. (Sorry, drecky Musk and disgusting Don one right after the other but here we are.)

In the courtroom he had to sit still and shut up (with that incredibly childish scowl on his face) but when he got back to his palace of vulgarity he was Florida Mussolini again.

But as soon as the former president returned home, to his namesake ballroom filled with his adoring fans, he was a rock star again, and he snapped back to his usual combative posture, lashing out at the prosecutor and judge in personal terms, despite the latter’s admonition Tuesday to watch his words.

…

He did not bring reporters on the plane, as he has to recent campaign stops, and he did not approach the cameras to make a statement while heading in or out of court. One of his lawyers, Todd Blanche, characterized him as “absolutely frustrated and upset and believes there is a grave injustice happening with him being in this courtroom today.”

Blanche gave the description by way of explanation for Trump’s recent inflammatory statements about Bragg and the judge, Juan M. Merchan. During the arraignment, Merchan said he appreciated the importance of Trump’s freedom of speech, especially while running for president, but disagreed that his language was merely expressing frustration. The prosecution referenced a social media post by Trump that showed a photo of him holding a baseball bat next to an image of Bragg. Merchan asked Trump to “please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest” or engaging in rhetoric that will “jeopardize the rule of law.”

So did he? Oh hell no.

But when he spoke Tuesday night, Trump did not back off his attacks, calling Merchan “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.” Trump also singled out Merchan’s daughter, about whom Trump’s adult sons shared articles on social media.

His daughter.

Vile disgusting man.

Elon Musk is dreck.

Is NPR “U.S. state-affiliated media”?

Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, seem to think so. Over NPR’s protests, Twitter placed that label on its account Tuesday night, implying that the Washington-based nonprofit news organization is somehow connected to, if not controlled by, the federal government.

NPR is frustratingly crappy and dumb, but it’s not an arm of the government.

The designation puts NPR, which has 8.8 million followers on the site, in the same category as propaganda outlets like the Russian-government-owned RT and the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper. Both are also “state-affiliated media,” according to Twitter.

Notably, however, Twitter has not slapped that label on several media organizations that are substantially funded by government. The Voice of America, the BBC and the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, among others, continue on Twitter without being designated as “state-affiliated” — a phrase with strong connotations of compromised editorial independence.

Which of course is smirky sneery Musk’s point.

From its founding in 1970, NPR has asserted that it is editorially independent of any government agency or funding source (NPR also receives revenue from advertising and donations).

It asked Twitter to remove the “state” designation late Tuesday when it first appeared. In a statement Wednesday, president and chief executive John Lansing said: “We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media.’ … NPR and our Member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way.”

NPR doesn’t stand for holding the powerful accountable when it comes to men who say they are women. Nevertheless, Musk’s jeering is dishonest and an abuse of power.

Twitter hasn’t explained why it placed the label on NPR, but its action appears to be consistent with Musk’s often arbitrary and punitive decisions regarding news-media accounts since buying the company last year for $44 billion.

Arbitrary, punitive, and childish.

Asked for further comment via email on Tuesday, Twitter’s press shop responded with the same automated response to every news-media request: a poop emoji.

They’ll be throwing baby food at us next.

A Washington Post article on Title IX from last June:

Title IX celebrates its 50th birthday on June 23. Signed into law in 1972, the policy requires educational institutions that receive government funding to treat all sexes and gender identities equally.

Does it? Or does it require educational institutions that receive government funding to treat both sexes equally, with no mention of “gender identities”? I think we can assume it’s the latter, since no one was talking about “gender identities” in 1972, let alone a multitude of sexes.

This mandate has at once been phenomenally successful and disturbingly unfulfilled. In banning sex discrimination, Title IX fundamentally changed American education by creating the legal expectation of equality. Millions of people have seized the expansive gender opportunities Title IX has forced open, and now their children and grandchildren expect and even take for granted those options.

Millions of people? Or, specifically, millions of women? It’s women who were disadvantaged by the status quo before Title IX.

Title IX passed in 1972 amid other policies affirming women’s rights. Feminists celebrated the law, although they initially thought it would only affect academics. Controversy exploded when girls and women rushed to claim space in academic programs and on athletic playing fields.

Title IX’s impact on sports drew the most attention because it was the area in which the sex gap was the most egregious. Girls and women in sports also visually challenged long-held sexist tropes about their capabilities and ambitions.

It’s not ladylike to be athletic.

But after less than a decade, the Reagan administration weakened Title IX. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan crippled the National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programs, a women’s federal advisory board on sex equality, by replacing its executive director with a state leader of Phyllis Schlafly’s anti-feminist Eagle Forum group.

A year later, he dissolved the board altogether.

…

Most large universities bowed to Title IX’s pressure to create women’s sports programs, though they often segregated these into “women’s centers” rather than integrate the sexes on equal footing. In these expansive new roles — as in other arenas of women’s increased access due to Title IX, including in business, medicine and entertainment — stereotyping and harassment often accompanied women’s efforts on the playing field.

But that was then. We don’t care about stereotyping and harassment of women any more, because trans women are so much more important and vulnerable and preshusss.

But even if a marker of Title IX’s success is the decades-long assumption of sex equality on campus and beyond, the law has not created a cultural shift from a patriarchal to a more feminist, egalitarian society.

Especially now that we’re spending most of our energies on men who claim to be women.

Planning to disrupt.

Silencing women is not “solidarity.”

What Willoughby is so enraged about:

Ministers will consider advice from the human rights watchdog about amending a legal definition of sex – which would make it easier to exclude transgender people from some groups or services.

Changing the Equality Act term to “biological sex” would make single-sex services offers easier, says the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission).

Well yes but it takes all the fun out of it for men like Willoughby. If you can’t ruin everything for women what’s the point?

LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said it risks adding to a “manufactured culture war”.

Thus demonstrating complete indifference to women’s concerns about safety, privacy, dignity, comfort – about their right and ability to get away from men when circumstances make that desirable or imperative.

Man who claims to be a woman thinks only of himself.

Several women remind him of what he’s carefully ignoring.

Of course he won’t pay the slightest attention to any of them.

Willoughby is furious.

Look at the fake man calling the lesbian gay bisexual alliance “fake.”

Such a liar. It’s not about “barring trans people from loos.” Single-sex spaces bar men from women’s loos [and women from men’s].

Which is why “LGBT” is such a manipulative label. Why would lesbians want men in women’s toilets? The interests of the T are not the same as the interests of the L.

Notice what he doesn’t mention. A day for women. He doesn’t like to mention women. I wonder why that might be. (Kidding. We all know why.)

What “inequality” does he think he’s talking about? It’s not “inequality” for him to be kept out of women’s toilets and scholarships and prizes.

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643628975812378625

Oh no it’s only a few years old! While this ludicrous gender ideology is older than the Acropolis, right?

He has one bit of good news.

Awesome. Stand down and be quiet.

Starmer is as bad as Inside Higher Ed.

Keir Starmer is taking women for fools. He imagines he’s solved the contentious question of how to protect women’s rights while meeting the demands of gender dysphoric men and trans rights activists with his ingenious formulation: 99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis. That, he thinks, will reassure anxious floating voters and get his new target, Stevenage Woman, on side. Of course, he tells us, incredulous that anyone should suppose a sensible person like him would believe anything else, being a woman is biological. Well, mostly. Until it isn’t. There is the little matter of that 0.1 per cent.

If 0.1 percent can then any percent can. If you say it’s real but very very rare, it’s the “it’s real” part that counts. It doesn’t matter how rare it is, because there is no criterion for it and anyone can claim it and by god a lot of anyones are doing exactly that. How stupid or oblivious do you have to be not to get that?

And with that declaration Sir Keir abandons all safeguarding and flings the door of women’s spaces, sports, showers, jails, awards and intimate care needs wide open to every male who fancies walking through it. If some women have a penis, and any man can self-identify as a woman, which is Labour’s policy, then women lose all privacy, rights and protections. Some 48,000 men identify as trans women. It is impossible for women to distinguish between the genuinely dysphoric men who just wish to live peacefully as women, and men with bad intent. There is no marker. Voyeurs, exhibitionists, sexual fetishists, predators and men who enjoy making women uneasy and humiliated have the right to enter any female space once sex segregation has been abandoned.

Exactly. Round of applause for Jenni Russell.

This is wilful ignorance. There’s no “somehow” or “could” about the rolling back of women’s rights. It’s already a reality, one that huge numbers of women are frightened and furious about. Sir Keir could take a look at the 2,500 livid comments under his Sunday Times piece. Schools are forcing girls to use unisex loos where boys photograph them under the partitions, break open the doors or harass them by listening for the crackle of sanitary products, leaving girls too scared to use lavatories during the day. Women are being described by the NHS as “menstruators” and “uterus-havers”. A handful of rapists and male murderers have been placed in women’s jails. So many male sex offenders are claiming to be female that ministry of justice figures show trans women appear five times as likely to commit these crimes as men.

Starmer has no excuse for ignoring this.

Title IX was enacted to end sexual discrimination in higher education, i.e. discrimination against women and girls. The goal was to provide girls and women with resources and opportunities equal to those provided to boys and men.

We’re now in a world so fucked in the head that we have to pretend it was never about women and girls at all. Inside Higher Education has a long piece on Title IX in which the words “women” and “girls” never appear; not once. If you didn’t already know what Title IX was supposed to be, you would have little idea what the article is talking about. You would get that it’s to do with the Biden administration fixing some Trump messes, but you wouldn’t know it was specifically about the rights of women. Evasion and generality covers that up.

“The Trump-era regulations create incredible barriers for students who have experienced sexual assault to seek and achieve justice for what happened,” said Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us.

…

“We really see the Biden administration releasing their rule by May as crucial to interrupt the harm that students are experiencing under the Trump administration’s Title IX regulation,” said Emma Grasso Levine, manager of Know Your IX, a survivor- and youth-led project of Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that also signed the letter.

…

The department has to review and respond to substantive comments before releasing the final rule. A department spokesperson said the agency “is committed to equal educational opportunity for all students.”

The Biden administration proposed changes that would once again change how colleges investigate reports of sexual assault, make it easier for victims to report sexual harassment, end the requirement for live hearings and expand protections for LGBTQ+ students, among other changes.

We can mention LGBTQ+ students, but we can’t mention female students. Forbidden. Taboo. Don’t you dare.

The proposed regulations also would expand the definition of sexual harassment to include unwelcome conduct that’s “sufficiently severe or pervasive.” The current sexual harassment standard is unwelcome conduct that’s deemed “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive.”

What is sexual harassment? I don’t understand. Unwelcome to whom? Conduct of what kind?

“We’re encouraged to see strengthened protections for survivors and for LGBTQ students and also for pregnant or parenting students,” Levine said. “We’re also encouraged that students who experience sexual violence off campus are able to access resources, which isn’t currently guaranteed under the current rules.”

There is is again. LGBTQ students we can talk about. Female students nope nope nope nope keep your obscenities out of this article.

Parham said it is important that the administration follows through on its promise to finalize the rule by May. Otherwise, students will remain in a “Title IX limbo.”

“Students can’t wait, and this administration really needs to act now,” Parham said. “We can’t have another year of students’ basic civil rights being denied. They deserve an education that’s free from violence.”

Students. Any particular kind of students? One sex as opposed to the other for instance? Nonononononononono. Never.

I’m worried now. Trump says the US is going to hell.

“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” the 76-year-old told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida after he appeared in court.

Oh no, there are lots of crimes besides that.

While the charges relate to the payment to Stormy Daniels, prosecutors also released background documents which they say point to a pattern of trying to suppress potentially politically damaging stories.

They listed two other payments they say were made via the National Enquirer, a US tabloid whose publisher is a long-time ally of Mr Trump.

They allege $30,000 was paid to buy the silence of a doorman at Trump Tower who claimed Mr Trump had a lovechild.

And $150,000 was paid to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said she had a sexual relationship with Mr Trump.

It’s all so dignified, isn’t it. Doorman, “lovechild,” Playboy model. (Why is it “lovechild”? When the whole point is that that’s exactly what it isn’t? Fuckchild would be the accurate label. Sexchild, mistakechild, condombrokechild.)

Tune in next month for another episode of Big Don and the Porn Star.

Willoughby thinks he’s a brave activist as opposed to a bullying misogynist. Not good at self-knowledge, that one.

Men who claim to be trans are not comparable to “Black and Gay” [notice he didn’t mention women]; they’re comparable to the people who oppressed “Black and Gay” (and women). Willoughby isn’t on the side of the despised and rejected, he’s on the side of the bosses. He wants to boss everyone, especially women. He wants to push women aside and take over. He especially wants to force himself on us, calling our refusal “segregation.” He’s a very bad man.

So did Trump give a doorman hush money to cover up Sexual Relations with a housekeeper?

Maybe.

Donald Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records on Tuesday. Trump became the first former president ever to be indicted, for his role in disbursing hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. And what else was among those payments? A $30,000 payment to a former Trump Tower doorman for their silence about a potential Trump child out of wedlock.

It’s all so dignified, so impressive, so to the credit of all of us.

“In one instance, American Media Inc. (‘AMI’), paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child TRUMP had out of wedlock,” the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced Tuesday, referring to the company that owned The National Enquirer at the time.

That poor kid, if there is such a kid. Imagine being a child of Trump’s. Really: imagine it.

“During the election, TRUMP and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects,” the district attorney’s office noted. “TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”

Classy classy classy. From the gilded living room to the catch and kill scheme to the phony business records, it’s just classy all the way. Cary Grant looks like a bucket of slops in comparison.

Another censor on the job.

Uh oh uh oh – somebody showed Adult Human Female and that must not be allowed.

Yes indeed, pubs have to be accountable for what people they let in and what films they show and what they talk about and whatever else occurs to us as we light the fire.

Oh is that all. Modesty itself.

That’s all. It’s about getting the permission of every random rager before you make a move. You have been told.

Money that could have gone to someone starting a PhD doing real research.

Let’s see what the Equality Act 2010 says about how to define “sex.”

Under the Equality Act 2010, ‘sex’ is understood as binary, being a man or a woman. For the purposes of the Act, a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate. A trans person can change their legal sex by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. A trans person who does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate retains the sex recorded on their birth certificate for the purposes of the Act.

Well there’s a train wreck. Sentence 2: “a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate.” Sentence 3: A trans person can change their legal sex by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. In other words, a person’s legal sex is their biological sex and a person’s legal sex is not their biological sex. No wonder that needs “clarification.”

The Equality Act protects individuals from discrimination and harassment on the basis of a protected characteristic. Protected characteristics include sex (being a man or a woman) and gender reassignment (being an individual who is ‘proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process or part of a process to reassign their sex’).

Well guess what, chumps, you can’t do both of those. You can’t and you aren’t and you don’t. You can’t protect women from endless bullying and shunning and persecution if you insist on pretending that men can become biological women by getting a “gender recognition certificate.”

What on earth is this supposed to mean?

Saying “sex” means “biological sex” is a change? From what? What does it mean in the Equality Act now? Height, nationality, hobby?

They need advice? They don’t know what “sex” means?

So we’ll have to read what they say.

On 21 February 2023, the Minister for Women and Equalities asked for our advice on the definition of the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010.

Section 11 of the Equality Act 2006 allows the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to advise the UK Government on the effectiveness of equality law.

The EHRC’s initial response to this request is set out in a letter sent to the Minister on 3 April 2023.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said:

“A change to the Equality Act 2010, so that the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ means biological sex, could bring clarity in a number of areas, but potential ambiguity in others.

“Our response to the Minister’s request for advice suggests that the UK Government carefully identify and consider the potential implications of this change.”

So in the Equality Act 2010 “sex” currently means…what? Social sex? Cultural sex? Psychological sex? Literary sex? Political sex? Fashion sex? Eye of the beholder sex? Possible sex? Approximate sex? Fictional sex?

“Should they wish to pursue work in this area, we recommend detailed policy and legal analysis be undertaken, in compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and with due regard to any possible disadvantages for trans men and trans women.”

Oh, so that’s it. The definition of “sex” now has to cater to people who think they’re the sex they’re not.

Why?

Sea level is going to rise around Charleston.

The city is in the lowcountry region in South Carolina, and it is very, very low: more than a third of the houses in the city are at 10 feet above sea level or less. The first settlers saw mostly marsh when they arrived in 1640, stepping gingerly over scores of muddy creeks. Much of the city was built on fill – trash, oyster shells, wooden pilings, human waste, loose dirt – over centuries, and now nature wants its land back. Charleston’s residents have already become accustomed to frequent high-tide flooding on days when the sun is shining.

The message that climate change is happening, and happening quickly, is acknowledged by national governments around the world. But the translation of that message into action at the local level is not yet, really, happening.

The trouble is that sea level rise is taking place relatively slowly compared with the human attention span – which is, let’s face it, gnat-like, and made even shorter when other crises (a global pandemic, the threat of world war, domestic political instability, rising inflation) are on our minds. City leaders, occupied with running for re-election, prioritize continued growth and expanding the tax base over protecting against future doom. Awareness is smoothed over by the common cognitive bias toward believing that anything awful is anomalous. Humans are not by nature long-range planners, particularly when they are focused on simply surviving. Boosterism and denial are at work in Charleston, as they are everywhere.

What I keep saying. Nothing is being done; planes still fly in their thousands every day; cars still zoom in their millions; cruise ships keep advertising and passengers keep boarding; nothing is changing.