Trump’s having a busy day. He’s also been telling the FBI what to do via his personal social media platform. That should work.

Donald Trump has demanded the return of some documents seized by the US justice department in an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida last week – apparently under the impression that posts on his Truth Social platform carry legal weight.

Or any other kind of weight.

In a post on Sunday, the former president wrote: “By copy of this Truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!”

Woman man person camera tv.

On Saturday, citing anonymous sources, Fox News reported that in the search at Mar-a-Lago last Monday, the FBI seized boxes “containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege”.

Nonsense. The records were no longer his to keep once Biden was sworn in. There is no form of “privilege” that overrides that.

Trump is told he should hurry up and declare he’s running so that he can…make the world a better place? No, of course not; so that he can avoid criminal investigation. That’s a good reason to run for president!

Donald Trump “has to” announce a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 in the next two weeks, a senior Trumpworld source said, if the former president wants to head off being indicted under the Espionage Act after the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago last week.

Awesome campaign slogan. “The Feds were hot on the trail so I announced my campaign to be president to foil them!”

In communications reviewed by the Guardian, the source indicated Trump needed to announce because politically it would be harder for the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to indict a candidate for office than a former president out of the electoral running.

Which is fascinating. It’s harder to indict a candidate for office? Shouldn’t that be reversed? Don’t we want to screen criminals out of the election process? I’m pretty sure I do.

Kenan Malik on the attack on Rushdie and free inquiry:

The Rushdie affair was a watershed in British political and cultural life, thrusting to the surface issues such as radical Islam, terrorism, the boundaries of free speech and the limits of tolerance. It was also a turning point in the way many thought about these issues. There developed in its wake both a greater hostility to Muslims and a stronger sense of the moral unacceptability of giving offence to other cultures or faiths in a plural society.

…

Rushdie was charting this new terrain, capturing the sense of displacement and dislocation, which he found exhilarating. The Satanic Verses was, he wrote while in hiding, “a love-song to our mongrel selves”, a work that “celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs”. Many critics of The Satanic Verses believed “that intermingling with a different culture will inevitably weaken and ruin their own. I am of the opposite opinion.”

Where Rushdie celebrated the unstitching of traditional boundaries, others yearned for new certainties. Fundamentalist Islam had previously had little presence within western Muslim communities. Now it gained a foothold, providing the certitude and purity that many began to crave.

It seems to me this is Kenan talking about the very things Maugham accuses him of failing to talk about. It’s also Kenan talking about a subject he knows a good deal more about than Maugham does.

Today, many believe that plural societies can only function properly if people self-censor by limiting, in the words of the sociologist Tariq Modood, “the extent to which they subject each other’s fundamental beliefs to criticism”.*

I take the opposite view. It is in a plural society that free speech becomes particularly important. In such societies, it is both inevitable and, at times, important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. They are better openly resolved than suppressed in the name of “respect”.

And important, because any kind of social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities. “You can’t say that!” is all too often the response of those in power to having their power challenged. To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged.

What is deemed “offence to a community” is more often a debate within communities. That’s why so many flashpoints over offensiveness involve minority artists – not just Rushdie but Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Sooreh Hera, MF Husain and many others.

Rushdie’s critics no more spoke for the Muslim community than Rushdie did. Both represented different strands of opinion within Muslim communities. Rushdie gave voice to a radical, secular sentiment that in the 1980s was highly visible. Rushdie’s critics spoke for some of the most conservative strands. It is the progressive voices that such conservatives seek to silence that are most betrayed by constraints on the giving of offence. It is their challenge to traditional norms that are often deemed “offensive”.

And Maugham is on their side, while preening himself on being the more Enlightened one.

*See Tariq Modood’s comment @ 2 for clarification

Jolyon deploys the irregular verbs.

Oh but I’m sure posh rich smug pale Jolyon knows far more about it than mere community-havers like Kenan.

Honestly. You couldn’t make it up. Maugham tweets a stupid ignorant criticism of Kenan’s piece on Rushdie and free speech, and then whines about “hostility or personal animus” when Kenan points out what he got wrong about those “communities” that Kenan knows a good deal more about than he does. You could build a whole city out of the bricks of Maugham’s smugness and conceit.

The Hunger Stones have appeared.

Severe drought has caused water levels of the river Elbe to drop, exposing centuries-old “hunger stones”.

One stone, now visible in Děčín, where the Elbe flows from the Czech Republic into Germany, was carved with a warning in 1616 which reads: “If you see me, weep.”

The stones, embedded into the banks to mark water levels during famines, have been exposed as drought continues to afflict Europe. Other stones, which were common in German settlements from the 16th to the 19th century, were inscribed with similarly macabre warnings in the event of falling water levels.

Water levels during famines – not something we can technology our way around. Crops need water, and if the water isn’t there, the crops fail. We can point to our driverless cars and wireless communications all we want, but if the crops wither and die in the fields, famine ensues. We can put rovers on Mars, but we can’t stop destroying the planet we depend on for life.

It’s bad to threaten and/or attack writers to punish them for what they write.

Mostly.

If the writer is JK Rowling though…

Writer Joanne Harris is facing calls to resign as chairman of the Society of Authors after she was accused of mocking JK Rowling with a ‘tasteless’ Twitter poll about death threats.

After tweeting her support for Sir Salman Rushdie in the wake of his stabbing on Friday, Rowling received this response: ‘Don’t worry, you are next.’

Police are now investigating a report of an ‘online threat’ made to Rowling. Harris, 58, wrote: ‘Fellow-authors… have you ever received a death threat (credible or otherwise).’ 

The response options were ‘Yes’, ‘Hell, yes’, ‘No, never’ and ‘Show me, dammit’, suggesting scepticism about how serious the threats were. Writer Julie Bindel said it was ‘disgustingly inappropriate’.

And novelist Simon Edge described the poll, which was later deleted and replaced with an alternative version, as ‘indefensible’ and said it’s ‘high time’ the Chocolat author stepped down. 

It’s almost as if we don’t know in advance which threats are serious and which are just noise.

The death threat came from an Iran-supporting Islamic extremist called Meer Asif Aziz, based in Karachi, who described himself on Twitter as a ‘student, social activist, political activist and research activist’.

What kind of “activist”?

Rowling had expressed her horror at the attack on Rushdie, and activist dude replied with “you’re next” haw haw geddit?

She also revealed that after reporting [she reported] the vile threat to Twitter, the social media network responded decided that the extremist did not violate the rules.

The email from Twitter read: ‘After reviewing the available information, we determined that there were no violations of the Twitter rules in the content you reported. We appreciate your help and encourage you to reach out again in the future if you see any potential violations.’ 

Rowling posted a screenshot of the response, commenting: ‘These are your guidelines, right? “Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence… “Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism”…’

Why did Twitter decide the threat was no violation of its rules? I don’t know. Is it because Twitter thinks JKR deserves to be threatened? I don’t know. I don’t understand their thinking at all.

Harris on the other hand is all too clear.

In 2020, 58 writers, journalists and actors signed a letter in the Sunday Times in support of Rowling, condemning the ‘onslaught of abuse’ she had received after expressing her views on gender.

Three days later, Harris was among more than 200 figures who published a statement in support of trans and non-binary people and their rights.

Implying of course that JKR was opposed to those rights.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Trans identitarianism benefits principally upper-class white men.

A current example might be the critique of “colorblindness”. While colorblindness is the desired state of affairs, adopting radical colorblindness prematurely renders one insatiable of recognizing racism. An intermediate state is required in which we “see color”.

Funny how this phase of “blindness” was reached so quickly with regards to women’s rights and equality. We never really “fixed” sexism. There was a little bit of a start, but it was interrupted by a combination of “choosie-choice feminism” and gender identitarianism. We skipped right over equal pay, equal political participation, freedom from male violence, etc. to “Sex Work is Work” and “Trans Women Are Women.” In exchange, we have the “cotton ceiling” and feminism=fascism. Women are painted as oppressors through the “Karen” meme and the “cis” slur. As for “blindness?” We’re now not supposed to see sex; not because we’ve acheived equality between women and men (as if), but because sex no longer exists. Women can no longer be named. If women had even half the power attributed to them by trans activists, they’d be better off than they are. They would have been able to resist the unprecedentedly rapid advances of trans-activism’s institutional capture, because they would have had a seat at the table. Women had no such seat at the table; they weren’t even in the goddamn room.

Here’s some convenient “blindness.” How many oppressed minorities have instant, backroom access outside of (and despite) the law, to shape policy in accord with its own peculiar, self-interested redefinitions, and against existing statutes? Gender is the oppressed king, calling the shots from its position of entrenched “marginalization.” If trans identifying men were really as powerless as they claim, they would be fucking nowhere.

Boston Children’s Hospital is truly scary.

The content that’s labeled “sensitive” is just a hospital bureaucrat talking absolute bullshit about how to know a child “is trans.”

Her title is Director, Gender Multispecialty Service. Specialty how? Service how?

The crime family members are eyeing each other suspiciously.

Theories about Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, are swirling online following the FBI’s seizure of classified documents that were at the former president’s Florida estate.

After Newsweek reported that a confidential source had tipped off the FBI about what classified documents Donald Trump was keeping at his Mar-a-Lago home, Mary Trump— Donald Trump’s niece—theorized that the mole could be Kushner.

…

“I think we need to look very hard at why Jared got $2 billion,” Mary Trump said, referring to the investment Kushner secured from a fund led by by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about six months after leaving the White House.

Well, yes, we do, and always did. Even without the boxes of documents, it’s glaringly corrupt for Kushner to get loans from Saudi princes off the back of his illegal presence in the White House.

The documents the FBI seized could have the potential to reveal U.S. intelligence sources, including human sources on U.S. government payroll, Newsweek also reported this week, citing two federal government sources.

In other words agents. The documents could tell Putin or anyone who the agents are.

That reporting led talk show host Thom Hartmann to tweet that such information was “exactly the king of thing for which [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or Saudi Arabia would pay the Trump family billions.”

And members of the Trump family shouldn’t be receiving billions from Saudi Arabia (or Putin). It’s grotesque that it happened and that nobody did anything about it.

One is never enough.

Police are investigating an online threat to JK Rowling, after she tweeted support for Salman Rushdie following his attack in the US. The Harry Potter author, 57, shared screenshots of a message stating: “Don’t worry, you are next”.

The same Twitter account also posted messages praising the man who attacked Mr Rushdie on stage at an event in New York state. Ms Rowling said she felt “very sick” at the news and hoped he would recover.

She shared a screenshot of the threat, writing: “To all sending supportive messages. Thank you. Police are involved (were already involved on other threats).”

The tweet, from an account in Pakistan, had been removed on Sunday morning. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We have received a report of an online threat being made and officers are carrying out enquiries.”

Makes a change from telling feminist women to wheesht.

Originally a comment by Papito on His colleagues complained.

Nullius, I agree with your statement:

Action within the constraints of egalitarianism (treating none as lesser or greater than oneself) is incapable of exerting the power over others necessary to bring about egalitarian conditions. Egalitarianism cannot bring itself about. Thus, a Leftist politics must necessarily incorporate some other non-egalitarian mechanism for changing the state of affairs obtaining in the world.

This can be substantiated by looking at leftist theory, e.g. Marcuse, who states openly that a bias should be instituted in favor of leftist ideas, to contradict a naturally existing bias towards conservative ideas. So it’s true that leftism has a propensity towards identitarianism, at least as an intermediate stage in the progress towards equality.

On the other hand, there has also been a hijacking of leftist purpose at the means stage, on the part of capitalism. Identity politics has been coopted as a tax paid by the well-educated and well-established in order to continue pursuing the concentration of wealth unhindered. In this, a means stage of leftism has itself become one of the main antagonists of leftist ends.

Trans identitarianism – gender theology – benefits principally upper-class white men. They love to use the shield of poor brown people in, say, Brazil, as a justification for their extortion, but there is nothing whatsoever about that project that enhances equality between rich white trans men in America and mixed-race tranny prostitutes on the street in Rio.

Many other forms of identitarianism have been similarly perverted – affirmative action in American colleges principally benefits immigrants from Africa and middle-class black kids, while leaving the native-born impoverished behind. The left finds itself in frank conflict between those who seek to create a more egalitarian social system and those who seek to use their identity status for personal gain within the system as is. The latter are winning, not incidentally because it’s been so easy for capitalism to adapt to them. It’s just another form of rent-seeking.

But back to the question: are university bosses who force out lesbians and feminists for telling the truth “far-left?” All they’re doing is privileging one identity over another; they’re not doing any work whatsoever to bring about greater social equality. We call them “leftist” if we find the identity/means part of leftist praxis to be its most salient feature, and we don’t if we believe that working for social equality is leftism’s most salient feature. They are simultaneously examples of leftism and examples of its antithesis; they are emblematic of the failure of leftism.

A little more on Rushdie:

Salman Rushdie’s “road to recovery has begun” but “will be long” after his stabbing in western New York late last week, the novelist’s agent has said.

“The injuries are severe,” the agent, Andrew Wylie, said Sunday in an email to the Guardian, alluding to stab wounds that the author suffered to his neck, stomach, eye, chest and thigh two days earlier. “But his condition is headed in the right direction.”

So he was actually stabbed in the eye? That’s nightmarish.

The article also quotes Zafar’s tweet but I’ve shown you that already.

Earlier on Saturday, Hadi Matar, the man suspected in Friday’s attack at a literary festival in upstate New York, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault at a brief court appearance where he was denied bail.

I have to wonder what the point is of pleading not guilty to something you did in front of an auditorium full of witnesses. (But I guess there’s the insanity plea and similar.)

Rushdie had 10 knife injuries: three stab wounds to the right front of his neck, another four to his stomach, one each to his right eye and chest and a cut to his right thigh. He emerged with a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, Wylie said on Friday evening. He was likely to lose the injured eye.

Horrible.

Matthew Syed on the complicity of western liberals with fatwa-issuing clerics:

Many of the comments on the Rushdie affair over the past 24 hours have pointed out that for many years he has been living quite freely, that the fatwa had been revoked by Iran (although the bounty remains) and that society has moved on from the dark days of book-burning, even if lone attackers remain a threat.

I would suggest that this is delusional, a fantasy conjured up by western liberals to distract from a more sinister truth: over 30 years they have worked as the de facto accomplices of the ayatollah, assisting in the task of dismantling free speech, sending fear through those who dare to criticise or ridicule religion or anything else. Rushdie, in this sense, is not — and never was — a historical affair but a live scandal running through the veins of British life, not to mention other western societies.

Indeed. Charlie Hebdo anyone?

As I read about the attack on Rushdie, my mind turned to Louis Smith, another high-profile Briton from an ethnic minority; a gymnast who won three Olympic medals before going on to a TV career. A few years ago, he and his friend Luke Carson, a fellow gymnast, were frolicking around, singing (as they often did together) when Carson lay down on a mat and shouted “Allahu akbar” while Smith laughed. It was a bit of a giggle, nothing nasty, scarcely satirical. But the video, as you have probably guessed, leaked.

And boom, his life was ruined, with the energetic help of “liberal” commentators.

Yet the truly chilling aspect of this affair — which also went largely unreported — is that Smith couldn’t earn a living after his “crime”. Sponsors and broadcasters turned their backs on him. Progressives didn’t want to know. His income vanished and he struggled to pay his mortgage. To be clear: this punishment beating was perpetrated on Smith not by fanatics, not by knife-wielding fundamentalists, but the monolithic liberal ideology that will not tolerate opinions (or even jokes) that breach their antiliberal creed.

It was the same creed that defended those who hounded into hiding a teacher at a school in Batley, West Yorkshire, last year for showing his class a religious cartoon. It is the same creed that equates criticism of the myriad excesses of the Muslim Brotherhood with Islamophobia.

For that matter it’s the same creed that thinks there’s something wrong with hating religions.

Reliably backing the wrong horse, our Jolyon.

Yes that’s Salman, embedding power all over the place, not challenging it at all.

Of course saying that relies on believing that Islam is powerless. Have a think about that for a minute or two.

A little more news:

Ewan Somerville at the Telegraph on more gender Stalinism in academia:

“Far-Left” university bosses have been accused of forcing out their own diversity adviser after staff protested that criticism of transgender activism was “threatening”. 

They’re not “far-left” though. We need a new moniker for this nonsense. Far-Identitarian perhaps. There’s nothing actually lefty about imposing fantasies on the world and punishing people who fail to believe the fantasies. Far-Incloosive. Far-Reality-Denying.

The equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) adviser at the University of Sheffield had been employed for more than two years working on LGBT+ inclusion and a race equality action plan.

No equality or inclusion for women though? Nothing? Not even a crumb?

But in October last year, his colleagues from a trade union complained to managers about him signing a “statement of solidarity” with Prof Kathleen Stock…

The anonymous staff in a trade union at the university, who described themselves as “senior LGBT+ champions”, said his signature – alongside 2,800 staff from other UK universities – was “particularly concerning given his role in EDI work at the university”. 

In a letter, staff also protested that his Twitter account had questioned why Girlguiding was allowing trans girls as members…

Equality and inclusion just don’t cover women, sorry. Women don’t need equality and inclusion – women are the enemy, the bosses, the oppressors.

At least Rushdie is off the ventilator and able to talk.

Unfortunately there’s no other new information, but it’s a start. I hope.

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

John Kelly tried to limit access to Trump at Maralago but he failed because Trump said no.

Mr. “I-Know-More-About-Everything-Than-Anyone-Else-On-Earth” probably figured he could spot spies because they would be wearing black trench coats and carrying bombs with lit fuses. A man with no theory of mind, who chooses staff because they look the part (rather than being qualified for the position), would think that everyone else hires underlings and minions in exactly the same way. In real life, at a resort, an agent could be a member of caretaking or custodial staff. What matters is access, not rugged good looks, or femme fatale gorgeousity. I’d be amazed if Putin did not have agents in place amongst Trump’s staff well before he entered the White House. He might prefer to have someone on the inside keeping tabs on Trump, rather than having to rely on the self-reporting of the empty-headed toad. (Can you imagine having to debrief Orange Julius? Spare a thought for the poor bastard charged with that job.)

It seems Trump wasn’t too picky about making sure that his employees were even legally allowed to work in the US, meaning he could pay them less. Who better to get into any room than an “invisible” member of the service staff? What better candidate for clandestine work than an unnoticed, underpaid, undocumented immigrant – or someone posing as one – in such a support position? Trump would be looking for a tall, gun-toting, menacing thug with five o’clock shadow*, and completely ignore Maria the maid, Jesus the janitor, or Ivan the electrician. In Trump World, only loser nobodies do joe-jobs like that. Who pays attention to those people? I can imagine a comedy wherein the entire caretaking staff of Mar-a-Lego is made up of Russian, Chinese, and North Korean agents, (mixed in with a few from nervous allies, keeping tabs on the Stable Genius), all trying to stay out of each other’s way. The whole time they’re studiously pretending to dust the furniture or mop the floor; dutifully touching up the paint, watering the plants and changing lightbulbs between taking pictures with their tiny, Secret Spy Cameras. Think of it as a mix of James Bond, “Noises Off” and “Black Comedy.”

* Note that he wouldn’t be looking for a suave, tuxedo-clad playboy, because that’s what the good guy’s secret agents look like.

Now for the essay by Dr Kit Heyam that explains why Joan of Arc & Elizabeth Tudor were too good to be mere women.

Dr Heyam uses the bespoke pronouns right off the bat, and the result of course is confusing meaningless drivel.

Title: ‘It was necessary’: taking Joan of Arc on their own terms

Whose own terms?

Subtitle: We take a look a fresh look at Jeanne d’Arc’s story, and what they tell us about the history of gender

What who tell us about the history of gender?

Pronouns are there for a reason: to convey needed information without having to repeat people’s names a million times. Sticking in “they”s where they don’t make any sense doesn’t convey any information, it just creates clumsy bumps that interfere with comprehension. It’s shit writing.

We start with clothes, because of course we do. Joan of Arc wore men’s clothes. The audience gasped as one.

This is how Joan’s story is often told: as a tale of pragmatic gender nonconformity, men’s dress as a strategy to navigate a patriarchal world. The subtext of this interpretation – increasingly made explicit as our society continues to deny the historical existence of trans experience – is that Joan shouldn’t be seen as part of trans history: that their story is about gender-nonconforming behaviour, not identity.

Bollocks. We can perfectly well think Joan was also gender nonconforming, and I’m pretty sure lots of people have, and we can think that without having to think she was “trans.” I for one think it’s the other way around: idiots like this Kit Heyam person impose their fatuous socially constructed ideas on people who wouldn’t have understood a word she he they is saying, even in translation.

In my new book Before We Were Trans, I take a fresh look at histories like Joan’s, and consider what they tell us about the history of gender. The book tackles histories of gender nonconformity which overlap with other kinds of history, including histories of queer sexuality, intersex embodiment, and defiance of gender roles…

I have to wonder why the Globe is helping this fool market her his their new book.

…saying Joan’s gender nonconformity was motivated by practicality doesn’t prevent us from also saying that it had other, deeper motivations – or that it had other, deeper, unexpected consequences for how Joan felt.

No shit. Of course it could have had other motivations! Of course she could have wanted a wider more interesting life than the one that was allotted to women. Lots of girls and women want that and always have – that doesn’t mean they’re “trans.”

The ninth-century English ruler Æthelflæd, who governed Mercia after the death of their husband, was later described as ‘conducting…Armies, as if she had changed her sex’: to take on a male-coded military role was, in some sense, for Æthelflæd to become male. Elizabeth I, similarly, described themself regularly in speeches as ‘king’, ‘queen’ and ‘prince’, choosing strategically to emphasise their female identity or their male monarchical role at different points.

Still doesn’t make them “trans.”

This person is an idiot. I’m finished with her him them.

Could they be any more insulting? The Telegraph tells us “academics” say Queen Elizabeth I wasn’t a woman. Gee, I wonder why they think that – because she was powerful and tough and clever perhaps? Can’t be no girl because girls are weak and soppy and stupid? Thanks, academics, you’re doing brilliant work.

Elizabeth I has been presented as possibly non-binary in an essay published by the theatre, which refers to the female monarch with the gender-neutral “they/them” pronouns.

The essay was written by a “transgender awareness trainer” in defence of the Globe’s decision to stage a new play featuring a non-binary Joan of Arc, but both the play and the essay have raised concerns that famous females are being written out of history.

Probably because that’s exactly what’s happening.

I’ve found the essay, but that will be for a separate post.

Imagine the Globe writing an essay saying Frederick Douglass probably identified as white, because look how clever he was. They wouldn’t do that, would they, but for some reason this “strong women were not women” crap is ok?

Philosopher Dr Jane Clare Jones said: “This is a really great example of the inherent gender conservatism in gender identity ideology. Traditional gender conservatism says that men must do ‘manly’ things, and women must do ‘womanly’ things.

“Gender identity ideology reverses that and then we end up with the idea that anyone who does ‘manly’ things must be a man, and anyone who does ‘womanly’ things must be a woman.

“This is how we end up in a situation in which historical women who have performed traditionally ‘masculine’ roles end up being re-categorised as ‘trans men’ or ‘non-binary’ or ‘not-women’ in some way. This is a really regressive message to be sending out, especially to young women.”

Joan Smith, author of the feminist volume Misogynies, said: “Women and girls are entitled to reject stereotypes without losing our sex. We didn’t have enough female role models to start with, we have spent decades rediscovering women artists, authors, leaders. And now a regressive ideology is trying to take them away.”

It makes me livid.