The Independent thinks it’s marvelous.

The Old Vic theatre in London is the latest establishment to scrap single-sex toilets in favour of more inclusive alternatives.

As part of a major refurbishment, the 201-year-old theatre has replaced signs on male and female lavatories with pictures of cubicles or urinals.

The brand new facilities have been installed to allow “people to make their own decision about which loo is suitable for them,” the theatre has said.

Not in the case of women who don’t want to share the loo with men they haven’t.

Women don’t want to share a room with men at urinals, and given that whole thing about men placing tiny cameras in women’s toilets they’re not all that keen on sharing cubicle rooms with men either. Excluding women isn’t really all that “inclusive.”

The theatre has doubled its number of toilet cubicles, which were formerly women’s facilities, in the hope that this may address the industry-wide problem whereby queues for women’s toilets are far longer than those for men.

What? It’s doubled its number of toilet cubicles but at the same time it’s also opened all of them to men, so how likely is it that that will help much?

Speaking about the changes, Kate Varah, executive director at the Old Vic said: “We set out to make changes to The Old Vic that were reflective of the needs of today’s audiences and our local community.”

Suddenly today’s women have a “need” to pee next to men?

Meanwhile, the Old Vic has completed some renovations.

Yesterday we officially opened our building after nine months of renovations to double the number of loos and improve accessibility.

When you come to visit us you might notice something a little different about our new loos. First, there are double the number – 44 loos within the building.

Our loos now offer ‘self-selection’ rather than being labelled male or female. This takes a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, approach following advice from surveys conducted with focus groups.

Uh oh…

When you arrive in the theatre, you will see labels signposting which blocks contain cubicles and which contain urinals. We also have one specifically designed gender neutral loo.

So men will be able to use all of them, while women are able to use only the ones with cubicles. This is a good plan because…???

You can choose which one you want to use, rather than responding to a label placed on you which you may not identify with.

You know…when I’m at a theater and needing to pee at intermission when there’s always a massive line/queue for the women’s I’m really not thinking about what label I “identify with”; I’m thinking about how unlikely it is that I’ll be able to get in the door before intermission is over.

But actually that’s true even when there isn’t a rush and it’s not now or never – it’s true pretty much always. Public toilets are not a big Identity Moment, they’re a utilitarian necessity that one wants to get into and out of as expeditiously as possible.

As Caroline Criado-Perez put it:

So @oldvictheatre has refurbished their toilets, and ended up giving men 18 facilities practically speaking just for them, plus 24 they share with women. So that’s 42 men have access to. Meanwhile women have access to 24, that they share with men. This is an improvement how?

And Tracy King:

Am I getting this right, they expect women to go into a room that has urinals where men have their nobs out to piss and just happily wander in to use the cubicles? That’s what Old Vic is asking? That women do that?

Here’s what will happen: women will not use the room where men are holding their penises. Instead, we will use the other room, except men can also use that room so there is literally nowhere free from men that we can be at our most vulnerable. Lawsuits.

In the meantime…well, I guess just avoid drinking anything for several hours before you go to see a play at the Old Vic.

He mad.

The Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on BULLSHIT, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306. Get a better candidate this time, you’ll need it!

Aw yeah.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 35m
Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moot stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border. I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!

You watch: moots stuffed with alligators and snakes are going to be the next big thing.

In fact, according to Scott Stedman of Forensic News Net…

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: I’m told that Pompeo’s office in recent days asked State Department HR/IG if they could “discipline” officers for “failure to follow direction” if they cooperate with Congress.

This, I’m told, is PART of the IG’s urgent request to Congress.

New request, or the one we learned about last week? I’m guessing the latter but was Pompeo threatening people before the news broke? I don’t know.

There is written documentation.

State Department staffers were truly shocked by the directive, which the IG denied. It appears that Pompeo is threatening his officers if they comply with Congressional inquiries.

The IG denied Pompeo’s request? Or the IG denied the staffers were shocked? I don’t know.

The IG and HR teams wouldn’t go along with Pompeo’s ask.

For when this is confirmed please credit me as the founder of @forensicnewsnet

The IG for State was appointed by Obama. Not sure about the HR people but the IG and HR are in lockstep against Pompeo’s ask.

Interesting.

It’s as if Trump’s entire administration has stolen a car and is drunk-driving all over the country crashing into barricades and running over the corn and playing death metal at top volume.

Pompeo’s attempt to demote Congress doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction:

The chairmen of three House committees say they expect “full compliance” from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as they investigate President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings fired back Tuesday after Pompeo said in a letter that lawmakers are trying to “intimidate” and “bully” his employees. Pompeo said depositions scheduled by the panels are “not feasible.”

The chairmen wrote Pompeo that “any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress” is illegal and could constitute obstruction of justice in their ongoing impeachment inquiry.

Meanwhile…

Ukraine’s president says no one explained to him why U.S. military aid to his country was delayed.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters Tuesday that he stressed the importance of the military aid repeatedly in discussions with President Donald Trump, but “it wasn’t explained to me” why the money didn’t come through until September.

Kings don’t have to explain themselves.

Pompeo is trying to bully the impeachment hearings:

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has written to the House foreign affairs committee chairman, New York Democrat Eliot Engel, vowing to prevent attempts to “intimidate, bully, and treat improperly” current and former members of the state department into testifying in relation to the impeachment inquiry.

In the letter, Pompeo said he would work to expose what he called any attempts to intimidate employees, the Wall Street Journal reports.

…

Pompeo said he is “concerned with aspects of the Committee’s request that can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State, including several career [foreign-service officers].”

He works for Trump. Does he notice any attempts to intimidate, bully, & treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Congress or the press?

More:

Pompeo says he won’t tolerate “tactics” of Dems in Congress seeking testimony from officials

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo continued his broadside against congressional committee chairman Eliot Engel, in his letter today.

Pompeo said that requested dates for officials voluntarily to appear on Capitol Hill for depositions related to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry were “not feasible.”

“I am concerned with aspects of your request,” Pompeo wrote to Engel, the Democratic congressmen from New York and chairman of the House foreign affairs committee.

“I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals,” Pompeo wrote, as reported by the AP.

The chairmen of three House committees, including Engel, made it clear last week that stonewalling their investigation would be considered obstruction of Congress in its investigation.

Pompeo is talking as if his boss were a dictator and he had the power to tell Congress to fuck off. He doesn’t.

So why doesn’t Harrop see it? Why do all the “TERF”-bashers not see it? Harrop’s claim is that people can’t overrule or overcome their sexual preferences and they shouldn’t be pressured to. What if that inability and right not to be pressured about it apply to more than just sexual preferences? What if they apply to other kinds of inter-relating?

What if, for instance, gender critical feminists can interact with trans women as women in some situations but not all? What if we want to reserve the right to talk to other women – literal women – about some subjects, especially those that affect us as women, because we’re women, and don’t affect men the same way, because they’re men? What if that wanting is something we cannot overcome, any more than Harrop can overcome his genital preferences? What if we can pretend to overcome but not actually overcome, and what if forcing us to do the first in all circumstances is not fair to us? What then?

Originally a comment by Roj Blake on Tiny favor, Scott.

Where do they get off? Why would they think Morrison has any interest in meddling with US internal affairs? Is Trump also asking other heads of state to wash his underpants, scrub his toilet, pick the nits out of his combover?

On December 27, 1941, Australian Prime Minister wrote in a “Letter to The Australian People” and published in that day’s Newspapers, “Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.” Although Curtin saw an equal partnership with the US, that has not always been the case. Historically, Liberal governments have tended to treat Australia’s role in the alliance as one of subservience, from Holt’s ‘All the way with LBJ’ to Howard’s ‘deputy sheriff’ doctrine.

Morrison is a Liberal in the same mould as Howard, and also an adherent of Hillsong Church, so no doubt Trump saw him as another easily manipulated evangelical.

I doubt most Americans are aware of it but in Australia the ANZUS Treaty has the status of Holy Writ amongst the Australian Right. In the aftermath of 9/11, John “Deputy Sherrif” Howard invoked the Treaty and thus began our national descent into yet another American Colonial War.

Yet, when Australia attempted to use the Treaty to get US support in standing up to Indonesian aggression in East Timor, the Seppos basically said, “Fuggedaboudit. What did you ever do for us?”

So yes, Australian Prime Ministers do make a habit of washing underpants, scrubbing toilets, picking the nits out of Presidential combovers.

The Post has more. A lot more.

Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

In other words the top law official is using the Justice Department as a personal weapon to defend Trump against all accusations, no matter how well-founded.

The direct involvement of the nation’s top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.

The attorney general’s active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in re-examining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.

Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, these people said.

I could see doing this if the objective were to investigate how elections anywhere can be hacked…but that doesn’t seem to be the objective.

David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the early stages of the Russia probe, said it was “fairly unorthodox for the attorney general personally to be flying around the world as a point person to further evidence-gathering for a specific Justice Department investigation,” and especially so in Barr’s case.

“Even if one questions, as a threshold matter, the propriety of conducting a re-investigation of the Justice Department’s own prior investigation of Russia’s interference, the appointment of John Durham — a seasoned, nonpartisan prosecutor — provided some reason to believe that it would be handled in a professional, nonpartisan manner,” Laufman said. “But if the attorney general is essentially running this investigation, that entire premise is out the window.”

In other words Barr is neither professional nor nonpartisan.

Democrats are likely to bristle at the notion of the attorney general devoting personal time and energy to traveling overseas asking foreign countries to assist in an investigation of U.S. agencies and personnel, particularly since Democrats have accused Barr in the past of acting in Trump’s interests at the expense of the Justice Department’s independence.

Yes, I daresay they are.

Matt Lodder tweets:

Richard Dawkins is promoting far right, white nationalist, Christian crank conferences now. That’s what’s happening. https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1178170072537264129

Also, Helen Pluckrose and her gang of bold warriors for intellectual truth are *speaking* at far-right, white nationalist crank conferences, in case any one still doubted the quality of their work and the rigour of their research.

The tweet is gone but

Pretentious postmodern nonsense is a serious menace in universities & contemporary culture. Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay & Helen Pluckrose are heroes in the fight against it. Hear them at the London conference on “Speaking Truth to Social Justice.”

They are thought leaders! Thought leaders of the finest kind!

H/t Screechy Monkey

Bolsonaro has a weird sense of humor.

Bolsonaro, an outspoken fan of the 1964-1985 military regime during which hundreds of political opponents were murdered and thousands more tortured, met with students at the gates of the presidential palace in the capital, Brasília, on Monday.

Video of the encounter shows one of the students saying, “Send a hug to my teacher.”

“You teacher is a leftist?” the president replies, as the crowd erupts with laughter.

“Tell her to read the book The Suffocated Truth. Just read it,” Bolsonaro says. “There are facts, not the blah blah blah of the left.”

The book he recommended was written by Col Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who in 2008 became Brazil’s first military man convicted for kidnap and torture during the dictatorship.

So read his book! He gives the facts! After he’s kidnapped and tortured you.

In a recent interview with the Brazilian media, one Ustra victim, Gilberto Natalini, described sadistic torture sessions that had played out under the watch of the man Bolsonaro considers a role model.

“It was a house of horrors,” Natalini said of the torture centre where he was held by Ustra’s men. “Once I saw them hang a man upside down by his feet and leave him there for almost 48 hours.”

Yeah but everybody should read his book though.

Sâmia Bomfim, a São Paulo congresswoman with the leftwing Socialism and Liberty party tweeted: “Those who encourage this monstrosity are accomplices to the suffering that plagued countless families during the dictatorship. Bolsonaro drinks from the sewers of our history.”

But with the rise of Brazil’s far right, Ustra has become a cult hero for some, with T-shirts bearing his face and chants of “Ustra lives” sometimes seen at rallies and events.

Hooray for torture. Reminds me of the Bush-Cheney years – hey waterboarding is no big deal, relax, pansy liberals.

Matt Yglesias at Vox reminds us why Congress isn’t getting much done (spoiler: it’s not because the Dems are “Do Nothing” as Trump keeps tweeting):

Both parties’ congressional campaign committees have polling that indicates the public is frustrated with Congress’ lack of progress on policy issues and therefore have adopted strategies centered on blaming the other party for inaction.

This theme recurs in recent Trump tweets on subjects ranging from China to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to nothing in particular, all of which repeat the phrase “Do Nothing Democrats.”

Under the circumstances, it’s worth emphasizing that this is simply false. House Democrats have passed a lot of bills, including conceptually ambitious legislation to curb corruption in politics and begin to address climate change along with a host of smaller measures. They’ve passed legislation on background checks for gun buyers, tried to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, tried to extend nondiscrimination rules to LGBTQ people, and tried to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. The reason these bills — and measures addressing prescription drug prices, insurance for people with preexisting conditions, and consumer protection in financial services — aren’t going anywhere is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring them up for votes.

It isn’t even that these bills are being defeated in the Senate. McConnell is aware that these are popular measures, and he doesn’t want to make his members cast unpopular votes against them. Consequently, Republicans have simply refused to let them come to the floor, even while pretending to be mad that Democrats are too busy with impeachment to legislate.

Great. The Republicans don’t want these bills, because they would be good for people, but they don’t want to be seen to vote down these bills, because they would be good for people…so they just throttle them out of sight.