Holly Lawford-Smith on what we mean when we talk about gender and gender norms:

Radical and gender critical feminists think the best way to understand gender is as a set of harmful norms, which are applied to people on the basis of their sex. A female person, for example, is subjected to norms that tell her to take great care over her appearance, to be helpful, kind, caring, and warm. A male person is subjected to different norms, for example telling him to be strong, bold, clever, and stoic, to not care much about his appearance. What’s key here is the subjection part: norms are applied to us by others, throughout our early childhood socialisation, both inside the family and in school and by peers and extended family members, and all the way through our lives. Some kinds of violations of the norms are tolerated; people are not generally too bothered about a kind boy. Other kinds of violations are policed: a boy likes to play with dolls, and his uncle berates him for being ‘gay’ or a ‘sissy’; a girl is full of ideas for play and takes the lead with other kids, the parents of the other kids call her ‘bossy’ or ‘too big for her boots’. Understanding gender as a set of harmful norms has a lot of explanatory power. It accounts for why particular male or female people are subject to bullying, social sanctioning, or victimisation—namely because they fail to conform to the norms applied to their sex. Feminists have for a long time preferred to understand gender in this way, and to advance the claim that those norms are pernicious and constraining. There’s nothing that one has to be like simply because one is female, or because one is male, they say. Be whatever you want to be.

Feminists are motivated to advance that claim because the norms that women are subjected to are ones that at least are compatible with, and at most enforce, subordination. Some of the norms, considered by themselves, are good ones – by all means be helpful and kind. But if they are especially enforced on girls and women, and neglected or even discouraged for boys and men, then they become just a cuddly way of making sure women stay submissive and, as the Quiverfull types call it, “sweet.”

Men don’t have that particular motivation. The gender norms they are subjected to are the ones suitable for the dominant class. On the other hand men can of course grasp this fact and want to reject the whole idea, just as white people can want to reject white privilege. (Whether anyone can really succeed at rejecting privilege I don’t know.)

Recently, this view of gender, and this ‘advice’ dispensed to male and female people, has become contested. Some insist now that gender is not harmful norms but rather is identity. Gender-as-identity is the view that everyone has an internal, subjective sense of their own gender, and that this—rather than their sex—is what determines how they should be treated by other people, and by the law.

Feminists want to shake free of gender, and gender favorable people want to grapple it to their souls with hoops of steel. I say we haven’t given the shake free option nearly enough of a try yet. If we had there couldn’t be such a thing as The Real Housewives of Topeka.

What is peculiar about this issue is that one side, radical and gender critical feminists, approach it as a reasonable disagreement. They argue for their views in popular and accessible venues, and defend the views on social media. They are willing to debate with their opponents, and they are willing to read what their opponents have to say. They are able to articulate what the concerns of their opponents are, accurately, and give responses to those concerns.

The other side, however, approach it as an unreasonable disagreement. For them, radical and gender critical feminist speech is hateful speech or harmful speech. Those who utter it are reprehensible humans and should be treated as such. Engaging with such speech only dignifies it, which makes engagement into a kind of complicity.

Instead the thing to do is call those who utter it every foul name in the big book of foul names, in the hope that it will cause them (us) to creep away and hide deep in the earth, never to be heard from again.

Like for instance…

There was an example of this clash of perspectives recently, with a retraction statement authored by several academics on the side of gender-as-identity. The Institute of Art and Ideas had asked academics and activists to contribute to a forum, giving 200-word answers to the question “How can philosophy change the way we understand the transgender experience and identity?” The forum featured contributions from Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel, and myself, on the gender-as-harmful-norms side, and Robin Dembroff, Rebecca Kukla, and Susan Stryker, on the gender-as-identity side. As soon as they found out they were “co-platformed” alongside (which, note, merely means appearing on the same page as) us, Dembroff, Kukla, and Stryker called for their contributions to be withdrawn, and made statements on social media to this effect. In their co-authored statement they went a lot further, accusing the gender-as-harmful-norms side of speech acts that are “acts of violence”, as well as comparing engagement with us to participation in conversation with holocaust deniers, white supremacists, and over the question of “whether corrective rape should be used to cure lesbianism”.

If this is not hate speech, then it’s something awfully close to it. Stock, Bindel, and I are all lesbians. The choice to use that example was obviously intended to target us with violent, lesbophobic, and degrading imagery; to put us in our place. Our conception of gender-as-harmful-norms helps to explain it: we have violated the gender norm “be accommodating of males” by refusing to accept the claim that when a male asserts that he is a woman, he is in fact a woman. We are being subject to misogynistic policing (in this case, even more disappointingly, by two female people) in the form of a reminder of what male people can do to female people who don’t conform to the norms. This kind of policing is completely unacceptable in any context, and certainly in a disagreement between academics over what the right conception of gender is.

It’s also completely unacceptable to appropriate other social groups’ genuine and horrific suffering, including the genocide of the Jewish people, slavery and colonization of people of colour, and rape of lesbians, for political point-scoring against people who hold a philosophical position you don’t like. In making the last move against lesbians, Dembroff, Kukla, and Stryker use speech that is more hateful than that they accuse us of using. Buried underneath the hyperbolic and incendiary rhetoric, there is a reasonable disagreement over what the correct conception of gender both is and should be. Kathleen, Julie, and I will continue to articulate our side of that disagreement in accordance with the norms of our respective professions. We look forward to Dembroff, Kukla, and Stryker doing the same in the future. If not, we request that they at least leave the rape talk out of it.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Good.

From Speak Up for Women New Zealand:

This morning the Green Party has been presented with a letter calling for them to clarify the party’s position on women’s rights. It has been signed by hundreds of people, including some of New Zealand’s most prominent feminists: Sandra Coney, Prue Hyman and Dr Alison Laurie.

The letter was triggered by the Party’s decision to remove an article written for their newsletter by Jill Abigail – a feminist activist and long standing Party member.

Dr Alison Laurie, says “Jill Abigail’s well reasoned, moderate letter raised points that need further discussion. Bullying and silencing her is indicative of an authoritarian culture within the Green Party.”

Marama Davidson, the Greens co-leader, dramatically claimed that the article contained “hateful views” and “puts trans rights to exist up for debate”.

Ani O’Brien, spokeswomen for Speak Up for Women, the feminist group that penned the letter, says: “Women, particularly lesbians, need the Green Party to confirm if they believe people born female deserve their own spaces, services and opportunities, and if they accept that some people are exclusively same-sex attracted.”

The letter also asks if the Green Party understands that in the New Zealand Human Rights Act ‘sex’ is a protected characteristic and that there are specific exceptions to protect the privacy, dignity, and safety of women.

Dr Alison Laurie, says “The campaign for trans rights was initiated in New Zealand by MP Georgina Beyer. This was to add a separate category of “gender” to the Human Rights Act. The proposal was defeated, the view being that transgender people could be covered under the existing category of “sex”. This subsuming of gender under sex can lead to negative outcomes for both females and for trans people. Any changes to legislation need to be discussed and debated accordingly.”

Jill Abigail says: “The censorship was a strategically unwise move by a faction of the Greens. But it has opened up a conversation that needs to be held, and it’s clear that my article spoke for many women and men both inside and outside the party.”

We await developments.

More shit news:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a request by President Donald Trump’s administration to fully enforce a new rule that would curtail asylum applications by immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, a key element of his hardline immigration policies.

That is to say, his hardline racist immigration policies. It’s brown people he’s hell-bent on keeping out, not people in general.

The court said the rule, which requires most immigrants who want asylum to first seek safe haven in a third country through which they traveled on their way to the United States, could go into effect as litigation challenging its legality continues.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.

…

The rule would bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the southern border. It represents the latest effort by Trump’s administration to crack down on immigration, a signature issue during his presidency and 2020 re-election bid.

In her dissent from the decision to lift the injunction, Sotomayor said that the government’s rule may be in significant tension with the asylum statute. “It is especially concerning, moreover, that the rule the government promulgated topples decades of settled asylum practices and affects some of the most vulnerable people in the Western Hemisphere — without affording the public a chance to weigh in.”

One of the Republican president’s main objectives has been to reduce the number of asylum claims primarily by Central American migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in large numbers during his presidency.

Because they need it the most.

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Funny kind of public engagement.

One of the signs in that picture really pisses me the fuck off, as it perfectly encapsulates the doublethink involved in this whole goddamn process. It reads, “Don’t look for society to give you permission to be yourself.”

You know what? That’s what feminists have been saying since the beginning. A woman should not need to fight for social license to study physics, be a doctor, drive a race car, have short hair, or wear goddamn pants. A man should not need to fight for social license to study dance, be a nurse, do interior decoration, have long hair, or wear frilly, lacy sleeves. We should all be free to be ourselves, regardless of our bodies’ reproductive functions.

Daniel Kaufman’s article “Feeling Like a Man” reminded me of a book, record, and VHS tape I had as a child—and watched quite a bit—called “Free To Be You And Me”. Apparently I’m not the only one who grew up with that message so thoroughly ingrained in my brain that the very notion that someone would face negative social repercussions for having girlish/boyish interests is hard to grok. It is so obviously retrograde that I have difficulty accepting that other people don’t share that perspective. Have you ever talked to a “moderate” or “liberal” Christian who simply refuses to believe how widespread literalist/fundamentalist beliefs actually are? I often feel like I’m the Christian when it comes to the gender thing. I suspect that many people supporting the transgender movement have a similar problem when it comes to engaging with potential causes of gender identity disorder.

And that’s the thing: for some number of transgender teens, their cross-sex identity arises from the belief that certain behaviors, thought patterns, preferences, etc. are all the exclusive/proper domain of the other sex. Do you like trucks and MMA and watching football with the boys? You must be a boy. Do you like cooking and musical theater and pink unicorns? You must be a girl. Time to change your name, start dressing differently, taking those hormone blockers, binding your chest, and surgically altering your body—all so that your outward appearance matches your inner self.

This is not freedom to be yourself. This is freedom to undergo a “transition” that gives social license—that is, permission—to be (some subset of) yourself. Truly not needing society’s permission to be yourself would mean that a boy should feel utterly free to play with dolls and have magical tea parties, and his sister should feel utterly free to play in the mud then come back inside and code, solder, and troubleshoot a Raspberry Pi-powered robot. They should both be able to do that without any sort of strange looks or comments from anyone, and they should not have to go through a transition in order to reach that point of default, background, banal, unremarkable acceptance.

The sign nominally supports personal freedom while in fact perpetuating a system that unjustly curtails freedom. But whoever wrote and proudly carried that sign will never recognize the problem, and that saddens me on behalf of all the young people who are being and will be told that they can’t just be themselves. On behalf of my little nieces and nephews who will have to navigate this nonsense:

Fuck you, sign writer. Fuck you, I say.

Another exchange with Alice Roberts:

I don’t seek to promote any ideology, just to make sure science isn’t misrepresented and misused to justify certain political ends. And biological essentialism is especially dangerous – having been used variously to excuse racist, homophobic and anti-trans ideology in the past.

DrFondOfBeetles:

Do you think it’s fair for transwomen to participate in female sports?

[an hour later] This is a very simple question. Did you miss it or are you ignoring it?

Here is Selina Soule. She used to win sprint races.

Now she loses sprint races. Now she fails to qualify for junior championships. Because now she has to race against males.

These males. These males who believe they are females (whatever, knock yourselves out). These males who have been given space in those female races by people like you.

 

Yes Trump actually did order NOAA to contradict its own staff in order to back up his mistake about Alabama. Yes he is that dishonest and that petty and that dictatorial and that willing to abuse his power.

President Trump told his staff that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration needed to deal with a tweet that seemed to contradict his statement that Hurricane Dorian posed a significant threat to Alabama as of Sept. 1, in contrast to what the agency’s forecasters were predicting at the time, senior administration officials said. This led chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to call Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to tell him to fix the issue, the officials said.

That should never happen. Trump is not Henry VIII and we are not his subjects. Saying Trump is wrong is not treason and we get to do it.

He whined about it for days and days, the senior officials said.

Mulvaney then called Ross but did not instruct him to threaten any firings or make any punitive threats, officials said. He simply told Ross that the agency needed to fix the matter immediately, leading to a new statement that was issued Friday, Sept. 6.

But of course the agency didn’t “need” any such thing. The agency was being forced to by the underlings of an out of control authoritarian shit.

Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he did not direct NOAA to issue such a statement. “No, I never did that,” he said. “I never did that. It’s a hoax by the media. That’s just fake news. Right from the beginning, it was a fake story.”

That’s our Tiny Shoes. He issues an authoritarian order that he has no right to issue, and then he lies to us about it.

Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology are launching an investigation into the Commerce Department’s involvement in NOAA’s unusual decision to side with Trump over its scientists.

Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), chairwoman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, sent a letter to Ross requesting information related to the department’s dealings with NOAA regarding Dorian.

The Science Committee, which has jurisdiction over NOAA, is requesting a briefing with Commerce Department staff who may have been involved in issuing instructions to NOAA that led to several directives being issued to Weather Service staff and culminated in the Sept. 6 unsigned statement, which disavowed a tweet sent by the Birmingham office Sept. 1.

The Trump people will tell them to refuse, and the committee will give up.

“We are deeply disturbed by the politicization of NOAA’s weather forecast activities for the purpose of supporting incorrect statements by the president,” Johnson and Sherrill wrote to Ross. The House members are seeking answers to who ordered and helped draft the Sept. 6 statement and whether Commerce Department or White House staff members were involved in threatening NOAA leadership to secure the statement.

“We are committed to supporting the activities of the NWS and its dedicated staff. During your Senate confirmation hearing, you committed to allowing federal scientists to ‘be free to communicate data clearly and concisely’ and that you would ‘not interfere with the release of factual scientific data,’ ” Johnson and Sherrill wrote to Ross.

They noted that based on news reports, it appears that Ross violated the “values of scientific integrity.”

The Science Committee is requesting all records of communication between Commerce Department officials, NOAA and the White House between Sept. 1 and 9 pertaining to the president’s tweet and NOAA’s Sept. 6 statement.

The committee wants to hear from three Commerce Department officials in particular by Sept. 30: NOAA deputy chief of staff Julie Kay Roberts, Commerce Department chief of staff Michael Walsh Jr. and Commerce Department policy director Earl Comstock.

That’s all very good but we know Trump will just tell everyone to say no, and that will be the end of it.

There are other probes though.

In addition to the Science Committee’s investigation, others are initiating probes into NOAA’s decision to back Trump’s claim. These include the Commerce Department’s inspector general and NOAA’s acting chief scientist.

A spokesman for the NWS confirmed Tuesday that the Commerce Department inspector general had launched a probe. The spokesman said two senior leaders had received notice of the investigation.

Good. That’s good. We can’t have a dictator telling NOAA which weather it gets to warn us about.

In addition, NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean wrote an email Sunday saying he would open an investigation into whether the agency’s Sept. 6 statement, as well as previous emails to NWS staff, violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy.

“The content of this news release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific danger to public health and safety,” he wrote. “If the public cannot trust our information, or we debase our forecaster’s warnings and products, that specific danger arises.”

As a result, McLean told his staff that “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity.”

“I have a responsibility to pursue these truths,” he added. “I will.”

The scientific integrity policy includes a provision that states, “In no circumstance may any NOAA official ask or direct Federal scientists or other NOAA employees to suppress or alter scientific findings.”

Aha. That spells it out. That’s not the same as being enforceable, but maybe it will work out that way.

Framing is everything.

Transgender teen bullied for using girl’s locker room

Being a transgender teen at Galesburg High School, Ali Mcdorman, always knew she would eventually encounter hate. However, she never thought that hate would come from an adult.

“I feel like grown people…like adults… wouldn’t target a teenager,” said Ali McDorman, a 16-year-old student who identified as transgender three years ago.

But Ali said she was targeted. In a Facebook post last week, one parent wrote:

“Did you know… that Galesburg High School is allowing a male student (who identifies as a female) to be in AND a change in the same locker room as the girls while they are changing?? #GHS “

“It wasn’t derogatory towards me necessarily. They didn’t say my name,” Ali admitted. “But I am one of the three trans females at the high school. So I assumed it was me. I bit the bullet and I basically announced myself to be that person.”

That’s one way to frame it, but there are others. There is, for instance, “Girls at Galesburg High School forced to change clothes in front of boys.” The needs of Ali Mcdorman aren’t the only needs at issue here, but they are the only ones the story talks about. Ali Mcdorman apparently doesn’t pause for a second to wonder if girls might feel uncomfortable or worse having to share their locker room with him, regardless of how he “identifies.” He seems to think he’s the only person who matters here.

“I believe there was close to 200 shares, and about 800 comments,” said Holly McDorman, Ali’s mother. “I don’t think the original post had that intent (to bully Ali). But it certainly got to the point that Ali was definitely bullied and name called.”

“I think this entire situation blew out of proportions too quickly,” Ali said.

According to the National Center For Transgender Equality, transgender students have the right to use restrooms and locker rooms “that match their gender identity, and can’t be forced to use separate facilities.”

And according to the National Center For Burglars’ Equality, burglars have the right to force open windows and help themselves to whatever they find inside.

In other words the National Center For Gender Equality can assert that “right” all it likes, but the fact remains that such a right conflicts with the right of girls to have some facilities separate from those of boys, specifically toilets and changing facilities. Informing us what the National Center For Gender Equality says doesn’t mean we have to bow and tug our forelock and say “Okay.”

“For us it’s not even a question,” Holly said. “She’s a girl. She’s a female. So, of course, she’d use the locker room. Why would you send another female into the men’s locker room? It’s just that simple to us.”

That’s nice, but the article says Ali is transgender, so Ali is not a girl or female, Ali is a boy who “identifies as” a girl. We don’t all agree that “identifies as” magically changes people’s sex. It’s not self-evident that Ali’s self-identification should overrule girls’ disinclination to change their clothes in the presence of a boy. The girls have feelings too.

Now, both mother and daughter said they just want every student to feel safe and accepted in school.

“We can let everyone know that it’s ok to be themselves and that they can find acceptance in the world,” Holly said.

But what if they’re girls? What if they’re girls who don’t feel safe taking their clothes off with a boy in the room? What about them?

Professor Alice Roberts again, professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, linking to a bad article on Vox and pissing on feminists:

Beware biological essentialism: the latest frontier in civil rights, and the unholy alliance between gender-critical feminists and the far right:

It’s not “biological essentialism.” That would be claiming that liking to wear skirts=being a woman, and that’s not what we claim.

Francis Wheen asked:

Why are you trashing your academic reputation by promoting this slipshod, defamatory and unscientific drivel? Clearly you don’t know any GC feminists, or you’d realise how grotesque it is to smear them as agents of the “far right”. Shameful.

Hadley Freeman was tactful but firm:

I’m sure you meant well by tweeting that piece. But I cannot believe you actually read it before tweeting, given it’s already been multiply corrected and is full of absurd generalisations and anti science word salad. No professor would knowingly promote that.

Martina Navratilova clarified further

I, along with so many women, am not gender critical but rather biology critical. A big difference. Get a clue and call it what it is- women’s sports and fairness is about biology. Not gender. So – we are not gender critical- get it now?!?

And many more.

People have lost their minds.

Meet the first gender neutral penguin at aquarium Sea Life London.

Staff have decided not to describe the Gentoo penguin as male or female because they say gender is more of a human construct. Expert Aquarists say it would be normal for it to grow up as genderless in the wild as male and female penguins look almost the same until they mature and reach adulthood.

Not almost the same, just plain the same. Lots of birds are not visibly dimorphic at all and nobody knows what sex they are. That’s nothing to do with “gender neutral” though, it just means the sex is unknown. Animals don’t have “genders.” Of course gender is a human construct, but that’s not a reason to call animals “gender neutral.” If you don’t know the sex you don’t know the sex, and gender doesn’t come into it.

Graham McGrath, General Manager at Sea Life London, said: ‘While the decision may ruffle a few feathers, gender neutrality in humans has only recently become a widespread topic of conversation, however, it is completely natural for penguins to develop genderless identities as they grow into mature adults.’

They don’t develop “genderless identities”! They don’t develop any kind of identities. They get older. If they mate, they mate. Some males mate and leave, others stay and help rear the young. None of that is a matter of “gender,” much less animals that are “gender neutral.” They don’t argue over who gets to wear the high heels tonight, either.

Typical Trump admin: when in doubt, go for the kill everything option. If there’s a choice, always choose death and destruction.

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is expanding hunting and fishing in 77 national wildlife refuges in a move that critics contend is deferring management to states and could harm wildlife.

Not much of a refuge if you kill them, is it.

The Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said hunters and anglers can shoot and cast their rods on 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers) of federally protected land in 37 states, much of which is considered critical habitat for waterfowl and other birds to rest and refuel during their migration.

“This is the largest single effort to expand hunting and fishing access in recent history,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said last month before the changes were posted Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Well hey, why don’t we just gas them all – wouldn’t that be more efficient?

It’s the latest effort by the Trump administration to open public lands to recreation and industry, including oil and gas drilling, which critics say comes at the expense of the environment and wildlife.

“Critics say” – how could it not come at the expense of the environment and wildlife? It’s not some fanciful belief of critics, it’s just reality.

Hunting and fishing will be allowed at seven national wildlife refuges for the first time and expanded at 70 others. The agency, which also now permits it at 15 national fish hatcheries, said some 5,000 regulations have been eliminated or simplified to match state rules.

Conservationists said the changes went into effect without adequate environmental review.

“While the Trump policy retains federal ownership, it basically eviscerates federal management,” said Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “The states end up managing federal land with federal dollars but following state laws. That’s a sea change from federal management for conservation and biodiversity rather than promoting hunting.”

Yeah but hunting is good because Don Junior and Eric like to kill things. Case closed.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican, pretends not to understand what corruption is, what conflicts of interest are, what the emoluments clause means.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday defended military expenditures at President Donald Trump’s properties, arguing that hotels owned by the president are “just like any other hotel.”

“The president’s resorts are hotels that he owns. People are traveling. It’s just like any other hotel. I know people will look at it, I don’t know if that’s different than anything else,” he said at a press conference.

No, it’s not just like any other hotel, because the president can use his office to promote his hotel, and that’s just what we don’t want. That right there is the very thing we do not want, because it’s a conflict of interest, aka corrupt. “People will look at it” because it’s corrupt and shady and self-dealing, and people in government are not supposed to do that.

Ethics officials and lawmakers have raised concerns about foreign officials staying at Trump hotels, noting that Trump supporters and industry groups regularly hold events at Trump-owned locations. An analysis conducted by The Washington Post earlier this summer found that Trump’s properties had brought in $1.6 million in revenue from federal officials and Republicans who paid to be near the president.

McCarthy asserted Tuesday that shouldn’t be looked down upon either. “Is it different than if I go to eat or stay at a Marriott here or eat at the Trump?” he asked, adding: “The president isn’t asking me to, he’s competing in a private enterprise. It’s nothing he controls in that process, so if it’s in the process, they can stay there, yes.”

That’s not the rule. That’s never been the rule. The House minority leader is just brazenly lying to us.

If you want to watch and hear McCarthy say it, it’s in this tweet.

Now Bolton is twitter-bombing reporters with his version. He wasn’t fired, he quit!

Peter Baker:

Bolton differs from Trump version of his resignation. “Offered last night without his asking,” he texts me. “Slept on it and gave it to him this morning.”

Robert Costa:

Ambassador Bolton sends me a text message just now: “Let’s be clear, I resigned, having offered to do so last night.”

Brian Stelter:

Quite a moment on Fox –> Host @Kilmeade said “John Bolton just texted me. Just now. He’s watching. And he said, ‘Let’s be clear. I resigned.'”

Other news boffins are pointing out that Bolton, loathsome and wrong though he is, has intellectual and rhetorical powers that Trump does not, so the fight could get interesting.

The Guardian says it’s all a bit abrupt because Bolton was on the schedule for a briefing to be held in an hour or so.

This tweet is likely shocking news to both Bolton and the White House, who just announced that the national security adviser would appear alongside Mike Pompeo and Steven Mnuchin at a press briefing at 1:30 p.m. E.T.

The Post reported at the end of August that Bolton opposed Trump’s approach to Afghanistan.

Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace deal aimed at ending America’s longest war, the officials said.

His opposition to the diplomatic effort in Afghanistan has irritated President Trump, these officials said, and led aides to leave the National Security Council out of sensitive discussions about the agreement.

The sidelining of Bolton has raised questions about his influence in an administration that is seeking a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as an ambitious nuclear deal with North Korea and potential engagement with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Bolton, U.S. officials said, stands in opposition to those efforts, but he does so increasingly from the periphery.

Meanwhile Bolton has just informed us that Trump lied in that tweet. Of course he did.

I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

So Trump. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” meaning, “Nah, I’d rather fire you abruptly in a tweet but I’m too chickenshit to say so to your face.”

They deserve each other, all of them.

The count is now up to four times military personnel have stayed at Trump’s golf dump 50 miles south of Prestwick Airport.

The four trips — uncovered through interviews with people present, records of expenditures and social media postings — date back to at least September 2018 and continued through at least this past June. They include at least one instance in which a crew member said a nearby airport arranged for rides and lunches to and from the luxury waterside retreat. All the flights were shuttling crews between the United States and the Middle East, and at least three of them of them were divisions of the Air National Guard. In total, over 60 service members stayed at the posh property on these stopovers.

Democrats are trying to get a bill passed to prevent any more of this corruption. A normal president wouldn’t need a law forcing him to stop making the military stay at his hotels so that he can pocket more cash, but Child Trump isn’t a normal anything, let alone president.

The push to outlaw the practice will join a growing list of conflict-of-interest concerns that Democrats want to highlight in the coming months as House leaders decide whether to begin formal impeachment proceedings against the president. The overnight stops at Turnberry have already sparked a broader House Oversight Committee investigation of military spending at and around Trump properties. The Air Force over the weekend also launched a worldwide review of how it chooses lodging on overnight layovers. A legislative battle could be next.

There shouldn’t be any battle. Nobody should be defending this bullshit.