Trump expands on his low opinion of Sadiq Khan. “He should be positive, not negative; he’s a negative force, not a positive force.” Trump’s calling Khan a stone cold loser is of course very positive and not negative at all.

https://twitter.com/jchaltiwanger/status/1135906361773056000

Yes, why are they there? It’s not a trip to Disneyland.

https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1135890748010835968

Why did Trump bring his whole damn family apart from Barron along? That’s not normal. If it’s not normal it’s not appropriate. Were they even invited?

Are we paying for it? Of course we are.

Trump’s four adult children and their spouses have joined him on his state visit to the United Kingdom this week. And US taxpayers are picking up the hefty bills for their hotels, transportation, and security.

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump were all among the 171 dinner guests at Buckingham Palace today, according to the White House press pool.

…

US taxpayers will spend millions on the trip, according to a Quartz analysis of expenses available in the federal government’s publicly accessible databases. This tally doesn’t include the cost of security, ground transportation, or airfare for many of the US attendees.

The princess is gloating.

https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1135934606874746880

The president and some of his delegation appear to be staying at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, where the US embassy in London is spending more than $1.3 million on rooms. The Qatari sovereign wealth fund bought the hotel in 2013, and it is controlled by Constellation Hotels, which is owned by Qatar Holding.

The US embassy in London i.e. we the people are spending that.

US taxpayers are paying another $1.1 million for 10 additional contracts with other hotels in London, most of them near Buckingham palace. That includes:

$339,000 at the London Hilton on Park Lane, a 450-room tower that has a Polynesian-themed Trader Vic’s bar in the basement.

$92,000 at the Cumberland Hotel at Cumberland Place.

$37,000 at the Hyatt Regency Churchill hotel, named after the former prime minister.

And a chunk of that is so that Trump’s very rich children can tag along with him and shove their way into Buck House.

Yet another lying bullying “statement,” this one from Minorities and Philosophy UK. Brian Leiter flags it up:

I don’t want to make more of this disgraceful statement than it deserves; many MAP chapters are doing constructive work, and they would do well to repudiate this embarrassment from the UK chapter.  One can support equal opportunity for and dignified treatment of trans philosophers, as Professor Stock explicitly does, and still disagree with how some trans philosophers understand gender.

Note that this statement is the work of a handful of individuals, including the already notorious Keyvan Shafei and the equally benighted spouse of Nathan Oseroff, among others.  It was apparently prompted by the fact that the Aristotelian Society, much to its credit, permitted a professional philosopher, Kathleen Stock, to present a philosophical paper on sex and gender, and even defended her right to do so.  For the Red Guard wannabes at MAP UK that was too much to bear, hence the statement, complete with the usual make-believe allegations of “harm” (that someone finds someone else’s philosophical views offensive and upsetting isn’t a harm:  please read John Gardner’s earlier comments on this subject).

So let’s read the statement.

In line with the missions of Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), MAP UK aims to support and celebrate the work of members of under-represented and marginalised groups in philosophy. This includes, for example, (but is not limited to) women, trans and non-binary people, people of colour, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, working class people, immigrants, and practitioners for whom English is not a first language, among other historically underrepresented groups.

The presence of these voices in academic philosophy improves academic philosophy for everyone. Not only do members of these communities make our discipline fairer, but their contributions also make ongoing conversations richer and better.

Fine so far; no problem.

The discipline of philosophy, as it stands, has much work to do for each of these groups. But one particular area that we must focus on is the increasing professional hostility towards trans people, with trans women and trans feminine philosophers regularly experiencing intensified and aggravated forms of hostility and abuse. In recent years and months, attacks on the trans community have been led by a number of prominent philosophers and are made to seem legitimate due to the unwillingness of the wider community to speak up and protect its most vulnerable members.

Bzzzzzzzt. No. The lies have begun.

• increasing professional hostility towards trans people
• with trans women and trans feminine philosophers regularly experiencing intensified and aggravated forms of hostility and abuse
• attacks on the trans community have been led by a number of prominent philosophers

They’re calling disagreement over the ontological status of the trans version of gender “hostility”, “abuse”, and “attacks”. That’s not legitimate. They’re interpreting analysis of trans ideology and activism as “attacks on the trans community.” How can anybody ever get at the truth about anything if all attempts are translated into “attacks on the ____ community”?

A number of trans people have spoken out about their experiences in philosophy, especially on the painful topic of how recent events in philosophy have impacted (and continue to seriously threaten) their wellbeing, their professional careers, and their personal lives. We list some of these invaluable and heartbreaking testimonies below.

At the top of the list of those “invaluable and heartbreaking testimonies” is of course the one we read last week, by “t philosopher” – the one that I couldn’t be sure wasn’t a parody. How can these philosophers be so sure that anonymous post is both sincere and truthful? How is it that they can’t take even a single step back to ask a question or two? How is it that the stunningly banal formulaic prose of that post doesn’t pip their radar? Why are philosophers, of all people, rushing to embrace this kind of maudlin self-obsessed whine-accusation, and using it to justify vilifying a thoughtful philosopher like Kathleen Stock? What was in that Kool-aid?

Back to the MAP denunciation.

In continuation of such harmful trends, today (3rd June 2019) the Aristotelian Society hosted a talk by Professor Kathleen Stock, entitled ‘What is Sexual Orientation?’. We have composed this statement for two reasons: firstly, we are disappointed that a prominent philosophical organisation has hosted a talk by someone who has so aggressively and routinely spoken out against the trans community.

Another lie, a worse lie, a venomous malicious personal lie. Stock doesn’t “speak out against the trans community.” Stock presents arguments about the ontological status of women and lesbians. Philosophers of all people really ought to know the difference.

We have composed this statement for two reasons: firstly, we are disappointed that a prominent philosophical organisation has hosted a talk by someone who has so aggressively and routinely spoken out against the trans community. Secondly, we are deeply concerned by the fact that the Aristotelian Society is offering its valued intellectual platform to a paper that, itself, targets the trans community. We believe this talk brings into stark relief the current situation for trans and non-binary people in philosophy.

Two more lies marked.

In defence of their decision, the Aristotelian Society recently released a statement of support for Professor Stock’s right to engage in philosophical debate. We believe a right to engage in legitimate philosophical debate does not absolve a person of responsibility for the harms they inflict on vulnerable persons, nor should philosophical institutions encourage such forms of moral evasion.

Hyperbolic bullshit marked. Trans people aren’t the only vulnerable persons in the world. What about the harms these fools are inflicting on feminist women who don’t agree that men can be women, and who by the way also don’t think men are “vulnerable” in the same sense that women are, much less more so than women are?

We believe that by remaining ‘neutral’ and referring to ‘philosophical debates’ in this way, the Aristotelian Society has demonstrated its detachment from trans and non-binary people and their embodied and continually endangered lives.

Hyperbolic bullshit marked. Since when are men more endangered than women? The violence stats for trans people are lower than those for women, not higher.

In effect, their statement of ‘neutrality’ amounts to an explicit indifference to the harassment of trans people and their allies.

Stock’s paper is not harassment of trans people, or their sanctimonious “allies.”

In this context, we have to tell it like it is and acknowledge that purported neutrality in the face of bigotry is complicity.

It’s not “bigotry.”

We believe that by hosting this talk, and also by not issuing a clear and unequivocal statement of support for trans people within the profession and outside, the Aristotelian Society has contributed to the wider harms being done against trans people.

What wider harms?

Unlike the Aristotelian Society, we want our trans colleagues to know that we are here for them, and that we stand wholeheartedly with our trans and non-binary siblings everywhere.

They sound like some bozo at Everyday Feminism, not grown-up philosophers.

Unlike the Aristotelian Society, we refuse to be ‘neutral’. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Oh just stop with that shit. This isn’t Mississippi 1964.

Unlike our colleagues at the Aristotelian Society, we refuse to remain silent in the face of injustices inside and outside the academe.

What injustices? How is it that these goons even have colleagues? They should be in a sandbox with Trump.

The right to promote hateful ideas is not covered under the right to free speech.

Saying men are not women is not “promoting hateful ideas.”

Thus, we resist the charge that this is simply an attempt to silence and stifle philosophical debate. Nobody is entitled to unlimited and unopposed speech in academic philosophy – and we need to identify and call out forms of speech that target, oppress, and silence marginalised groups.

They say, proudly and boastfully (they are Martin Luther King!) trying to silence feminist women and lesbians.

Not every item of personal and ideological obsession is worthy of philosophical debate. In particular, scepticism about the rights of marginalised groups and individuals, where issues of life and death are at stake, are not up for debate. The existence and validity of transgender and non-binary people, and the right of trans and non-binary people to identify their own genders and sexualities, fall within the range of such indisputable topics.

Why? Why is it “indisputable” that there is a “right” for trans and non-binary people to identify their own genders (which in this context clearly includes sexes)? There is no general right for people to “identify” their own ______, so why is there such a right when it comes to what gender and sex one is? Why is there a “right” for a person with a penis to insist that he is a woman and that the entire world has to agree and act accordingly? Why is such a right indisputable? It seems to me there’s a lot to dispute, and by way of reminder let me say yet again that women are marginalized too.

The thing is signed by eight people.

Why doe anyone think Trump is a billionaire when all his suits look like they came off the rack?

I'm not the president but if I met the Queen, I wouldn't settle for the Men's Wearhouse spring clearance sale. I'd get measured for a real suit. pic.twitter.com/SEGCUnZznA

— Stephen Robinson (@SER1897) June 3, 2019

https://twitter.com/FrancisWheen/status/1135651436082192386

That awkward moment when the Queen invites you to dinner but you just ate Boris Johnson pic.twitter.com/WEu5gB2a8H

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) June 3, 2019

Updating to add: I had to hit the Google to see if I was wrong to think Trump wasn’t supposed to be showing several inches of waistcoat below his jacket. GQ says nope I wasn’t wrong:

You will need a low cut, white evening waistcoat (so the shirt is visible) and the bottom of the waistcoat shouldn’t stick out under the jacket. This is a subtle point, but it is worth trying to adhere to since it helps keeps the balance of the suit.

So he didn’t mess that up by just a little bit.

Also…

OMG — whoever dressed Donald today needs to be thrown into one of the dungeons in the Tower of London. He looks like a Royal Schlump compared to how President Obama wore a tailcoat!#TrumpUKVisit pic.twitter.com/3fStAf8pR1

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) June 3, 2019

Saturday in Bradford:

Yesterday a group of lesbians went to Bradford Pride to celebrate their sexuality and challenge the erasure of lesbians by transactivists.

They had a banner saying “lesbians don’t have penises” so you can guess what happened next.

We had decided to meet in a coffee shop before going into the square. Whilst sat drinking coffee we were approached by two police officers from West Yorkshire Police. They explained that someone had come to them and said that they’d seen some placards and so they wanted to make sure that there was nothing derogatory and that we were not a hate group. We assured them that we were just lesbians going to Pride. That WYP felt it necessary to question a group of lesbians sat in a public place should concern everyone. The state has no business intimidating or policing the peaceful behaviour of its citizens just in case they offend someone.

The placard in question read ‘Lesbian = Female HomoSEXual’. That this was worthy of attention from the police illustrates our point. Our belief is that lesbians have the right to chose their partners based on sex and not gender identity. This position does not conflict with the right of individuals to express themselves or to live their lives in the gender they choose- we are not anti-transgender or transphobic.

Doesn’t matter. It says the words or it gets the hose.

After Pride’s opening speeches, some men came over to try to get us to leave, when we refused they attempted to cover our banners with transgender flags. A gay man came over to explain that lesbians have no right to oppress transgender women by refusing to have relationships with them. A video of that exchange was recorded and even watching it back I can see a man looming over a woman on a mobility scooter trying to intimidate her. Gay men telling lesbians that they are bigoted to want same-sex relationships. A group of large men telling women to be quiet and capitulate to what men believe is right. Who is oppressing who here?

…

LGBT organisations do not advocate for or represent the L. This is typified by their stance on gender identity (see Stonewall’s revamped definition of the word ‘homosexual’) but it by no means ends there. Where is the funding for lesbian-only spaces and groups? Lesbians face additional challenges when coming out or being openly homosexual because they are women; this is rarely acknowledged and women are not supported. We are concerned that young women who are lesbian and gender non-conforming are instead being encouraged to become straight transmen. This is modern conversion therapy.

Aka woke conversion therapy.

The “nope” to a court order is a red flag.

The Justice Department argued that the documents need not be released because “it did not rely on such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or determine a recommendation for his sentencing.” Moreover, “Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Even if the district court’s order to release the Flynn-Kislyak transcripts goes further than justified by the sentencing matter before the court, I would’ve thought that, in a government of laws, the only way to avoid compliance is to take an appeal to a higher court.” The government made its arguments to the court, did not obtain a stay to our knowledge and did not seek an emergency appeal. From all appearances, the Trump administration has deliberately and willfully defied a court order.

I wondered about that when the story was reported on Friday. The judge ruled make it public and the DoJ said “No and here’s why.” It was my understanding that the “here’s why” bit takes place in court, and that once the judge says make it public anyway, you don’t get to just say no and here’s why. You have to go to court to say why, and if you’ve already done that and the judge ruled against you…that’s the end of the road. “We decided to ignore the court order because reasons” doesn’t look good from anyone, and especially not from the Department of [ahem] Justice.

“Normally when prosecutors don’t want to make something public for national security reasons, etc., they file a document under seal with the judge explaining that reasoning and requesting relief from the presumption that things should be made public,” says former prosecutor Mimi Rocah. “The fact that the government didn’t do that here is puzzling. Instead, they took a very unusual tact of refusing the judge’s order publicly. which suggests that they didn’t think the judge would go along with keeping the material under seal.” Rocah continues, “While it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have legitimate motives, the disrespectful and atypical nature of their action makes me suspicious. And it certainly doesn’t mean the judge is just going to say, ’Okay, let’s just forget I asked.’ ”

If I were the judge I’d be feeling pretty annoyed. I’d be all “Pretty soon I’m just another fella around here!” about it.

Make no mistake, Trump’s conduct resembles conduct that was the basis Impeachment Article 3 against Richard M. Nixon. (“In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has failed without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.”)

Emphasis added.

A column I wrote for the April/May issue of Free Inquiry is online. It’s about “authenticity.”

The idea of an “authentic self” has, oddly, become a theme of political discourse as well as Oprah-style uplift. We’re being told that people have a right to live as their authentic selves, which often means as opposed to their outward appearance, that mere physical dross. It’s a weirdly religious idea, reminiscent of the contemptus mundi of medieval monks, but it’s presented as political rather than religious. What I keep wondering is how it’s possible to make a sane politics out of the denial of material reality.

The irony is that what is meant by the authentic self in the current dialect is not a self that comports with the actual facts—with the biography, the history, the Curriculum Vitae, the parentage, the body—but a self that contradicts such dull literal realities, as if some absent-minded official had simply made a mistake in the paperwork. The authenticity in question is not the kind we mean when we talk of an authentic Vermeer or Patek Philippe; it’s a distinction between the social self and the private one, between the self that others perceive and the one that we alone know from the inside.

As you probably already know, I don’t believe in such a thing as an “authentic self.” I also don’t believe that obsessing about one’s own self, authentic or otherwise, is a branch of politics; I think it’s the opposite of politics.

Breathtaking.

Kathleen Stock has a thread this morning.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1135159042513526785

Quoting the rest for ease of reading.

Rather, they’re concerned with what Austin would call perlocutionary effects of my arguments. That is, the indirect effects of my arguments on feelings, thoughts, and actions of others, whether or not these are grounded in charitable or accurate interpretations of my views. In vain do I ask critics to engage with my writing (pinned) in a fair, non-snarky manner typical of their philosophical engagement with others. I’ve come to realise most won’t do this, because for them it’s not the point. The point is, my views allegedly lead to harm: fear/anxiety, people allegedly leaving the profession, and possible violence to trans people by others. Yet it seems to me that they’re equally or more guilty of indirectly causing such things. To uncharitably construe my views as harmful, for people who haven’t read them, is self-fulfilling, with respect to exactly the sort of harm they claim to be most worried about: spreading fear and anxiety amongst trans people. If they described me more accurately and less febrilely, this effect could be limited. So I finish by reminding my critics and other readers of my actual, stated views, with italics for emphasis. (See also my pinned tweet). I argue for:

Then she tagged several of those people. One was Jonathan Ichikawa. He replied.

Speaking for myself, I agree that:
1) I've argued that your rhetoric is doing great harm.
2) I'm not interested in the details of your arguments.

Is it your view that it doesn't matter whether you're doing harm? Or are you planning to engage with the many arguments that it is?

— Jonathan Ichikawa (@jichikawa) June 2, 2019

To repeat:

Speaking for myself, I agree that:
1) I’ve argued that your rhetoric is doing great harm.
2) I’m not interested in the details of your arguments.

In other words, “I’ve accused you of doing great harm, I can’t be bothered to find out what you’ve actually argued.”

As I say: breathtaking.

“I never said that. It’s all lies.”

“But sir, it’s on the tape.”

“Lies. It’s all lies.”

“But…the tape…”

“Lies.”

Our Don is at it again.

[I]n a series of early morning tweets on Sunday, the US president said he “never called Meghan Markle nasty” and that the “Fake News Media” had invented his remarks.

He said it was “Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will CNN, NY Times and others apologize? Doubt it!”

The Sun posted a recording of the original interview to prove that its reporting was accurate.

Never you mind about the recording! Just never mind! It’s all lies!!

Kim Jong Un may or may not have executed one of the negotiators of the whatever that is between the US and North Korea.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the US is looking into reports that North Korea executed a top official after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, earlier this year.

South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s special envoy to the US, was executed after Kim Jong Un and Trump were unable to reach an agreement at their second summit in February.

CNN also tried to verify the reports and was unable to.

The [South Korean] paper — quoting unnamed North Korean sources — said Kim Hyok Chol was executed in March at the Mirim airport in Pyongyang on charges of “being recruited by US imperialists and betraying the supreme leader.”

Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea’s State Affairs Commission special representative, led negotiations with the US special representative to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, at the Hanoi summit and was in charge of the working-level talks with American counterparts.

He’s definitely out of sight, but sometimes North Koreans who go out of sight later reappear, having been *cough* re-educated. Four legs good, two legs bad.

“There’s certainly plenty of evidence — both in Kim’s recent past, and North Korean history — of purging officials when things don’t work out the way that the leader needs, or when there are potentially concerns about different factions within the government and the elite,” according to Lindsey Ford of the Asia Society Policy Institute, who is also a former Pentagon adviser for Asian and Pacific Security.

“Trump can talk about how he and Kim are on the same page … because they are buds, but (Kim) is a dictator who, in the past, has executed people close to him: his brother, his uncle — and he’s not afraid to do it again,” Ford added.

Let’s be real: that’s why Trump likes him. Trump probably envies him the ability to execute anyone he takes a dislike to, including relatives.