I neither watched nor listened. I’m not a masochist.

Let us read.

My fellow Americans: Tonight, I am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border.

Every day, Customs and Border Patrol agents encounter thousands of illegal immigrants trying to enter our country.  We are out of space to hold them, and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country.

Big lie right there. Many or most of them are not “illegal immigrants” but asylum seekers. It is fully legal and a human right to seek asylum. Trump doesn’t like that, but Trump’s dislike doesn’t make something not true.

Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don’t act right now.

Big lie. The crime rate is lower among immigrants.

This is a humanitarian crisis — a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.

Wtf is that supposed to mean?

And if Trump really thought of it as a humanitarian crisis and a crisis of the heart, he would talk about asylum seekers with sympathy instead of loathing and contempt.

In places he improves on Steven Miller’s scrip with interpolations of his own, like the two in this paragraph:

My administration has presented Congress with a detailed proposal to secure the border and stop the criminal gangs, drug smugglers, and human traffickers.  It’s a tremendous problem.  Our proposal was developed by law enforcement professionals and border agents at the Department of Homeland Security.  These are the resources they have requested to properly perform their mission and keep America safe.  In fact, safer than ever before.

Trumpisms in red. I don’t know that for certain, but those sure look like Trumpy blurts breaking up the more normal officialese.

The border wall would very quickly pay for itself.   The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year — vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress.  The wall will also be paid for, indirectly, by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.

And yet, as we all know, that’s not what he said. He said, several million times, that Mexico would pay for the wall. Mexico said like hell it would, but that never slowed Trump down. He said Mexico would pay for the wall, over and over and over.

Day after day, precious lives are cut short by those who have violated our borders.

And precious lives are cut short by those who were born here, but at a higher rate. Immigrants as a group commit less crime, not more.

Over the last several years, I’ve met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration.  I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers.  So sad.  So terrible.  I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices, and the sadness gripping their souls.

How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?

To those who refuse to compromise in the name of border security, I would ask: Imagine if it was your child, your husband, or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken?

He’s trying to emote people into thinking immigrants=murderers. It’s a variation on the blood libel, and it’s disgusting.

Ed Pilkington at the Guardian reports a very bad thing:

The Trump administration has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world.

Quietly and unnoticed, the state department has ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, the network of independent experts who act as global watchdogs on fundamental issues such as poverty, migration, freedom of expression and justice. There has been no response to any such formal query since 7 May 2018, with at least 13 requests going unanswered.

Nor has the Trump administration extended any invitation to a UN monitor to visit the US to investigate human rights inside the country since the start of Donald Trump’s term two years ago in January 2017. Two UN experts have made official fact-finding visits under his watch – the special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and privacy – but both were invited initially by Barack Obama, who hosted 16 such visits during his presidency.

Two per year for Obama, zero in two years for Trump. Make America Great Again by not giving a damn about human rights? Is that the idea?

The timing of the break in relations with UN investigators coincides with the publication in June of the official findings of Philip Alston’s visit to the US to research poverty. As UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Alston castigated the Trump administration for aggravating levels of inequality that were already the most glaring in the western world.

Alston’s robust criticism was received badly by Nikki Haley, then US ambassador, who accused him of biased reporting. She hinted that the administration was minded to turn its back on international accountability by saying it was “patently ridiculous” that the UN should focus on America’s internal human rights standards when it could be looking into countries like Burundi.

Burundi. Why Burundi in particular? Could it be because…no, surely not.

It is not known whether the decision to sever cooperation with the UN monitors was directly related to the spat over Alston’s report. But emails seen by the Guardian involving top US state department officials in Geneva show that by July they were rebuffing contact with international agencies on grounds that they were “considering how best to engage with special procedures”, the blanket term for the network of UN special rapporteurs.

…

Paradoxically, the Trump administration’s decision to shun the UN’s independent watchdogs places the US among a tiny minority of uncooperative states. There are very few countries that resist international oversight from UN special rapporteurs – one of them is North Korea.

Individual UN experts expressed dismay at the US cold shoulder they are now receiving. Alston said the move would set “the most unfortunate precedent as the US has always tried to press other countries to be accountable. This sends a message that you can opt out of routine scrutiny if you don’t like what is being said about your record on human rights.”

Felipe González Morales, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, has twice approached the US government requesting a formal visit to inspect how the country is handling immigration including the crisis at the Mexican border – once in March and then in July. He has yet to receive a reply.

“In the absence of an official visit, we cannot publish a country report to be presented to the UN human rights council,” he said.

This is really appalling and disgusting.

A sobering thread:

If you are currently working without pay during the shutdown, or are furloughed and willing to share please comment and let people know what you do. I think it is important for everyone to understand the families and services that are currently impacted. It is VAST.

— Amanda Deibert at Comic Con Revolution #E2 (@amandadeibert) January 6, 2019

I am an attorney in the Division of Enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission. I am currently NOT investigating violations of the securities laws (meaning they are not currently being enforced). I would really like to review the subpoenaed docs on my desk right now.

— Hocca McFendel (@HoccaMcFendel) January 6, 2019

https://twitter.com/BonnieKRobinson/status/1081930516469899264

https://twitter.com/LRow15/status/1082065241993891840

You don’t even have to be a federal worker, you can be affected if your work depends on some furloughed bit of the federal government or of course if some aspect of your life depends on some furloughed bit of the federal government.

My husband is not a federal employee but his work has been halted due to the shutdown. He is a scientist who specializes in the research & development of new cancer drugs. His latest submission to the FDA to begin a new clinical trial is in limbo because the shutdown. Sad.

— Mary Christensen (@MMChristensen) January 6, 2019

Like that. Oh well, it’s only cancer meds being delayed.

https://twitter.com/phiala/status/1081940501404807170

https://twitter.com/avamariegeorge2/status/1082041121751134209

Oh, so crop losses then. Oh well, it’s just food.

https://twitter.com/Nichole261/status/1082318167811055616

And so on. The thread is probably infinite.

James Gheerbrant wrote a profile of a trans woman, Sandra Forgues, which is getting some attention on Twitter, not all of it warmly complimentary.

Beneath the surface, she was fighting currents unseen. The face that periodically appeared in local newspaper articles, the name proudly emblazoned on lacquered clubhouse boards, were pieces of an identity that did not match the self she felt deep in her soul.

“At the core of my being, I have always felt like a woman,” she says. “I have a woman’s mind, but I did not have the body of a woman.”

I have to wonder if anyone would feel like that in a world where sex differences were not so exaggerated and value-laden and enforced. I have to wonder what the point would be. I have to wonder what anyone would think “I have a woman’s mind” could possibly mean.

More basically, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a self one feels deep in one’s soul. The self is almost as mystical a concept as the soul, and both are illusory.

Her voice, even by the standards of the female sex, is noticeably dainty and high-pitched. Later she explains that during male-to-female transition, the pitch of the voice is unaffected by hormone therapy — a woman’s voice has to be learnt and polished through hours of painstaking work with a speech therapist. Before, whenever she opened her mouth, the deep pitch of her speech did not match the feminine tenor of her thoughts and feelings. Now, a day of ordinary conversation consists of a thousand semi-conscious efforts to ensure that her innermost and outer selves are on the same wavelength.

So…in order to be the self she feels deep in her soul, she has to make the effort to talk in an artificial mannered way in any ordinary conversation. Is there perhaps a contradiction there?

Also…”dainty and high-pitched”? So, like, affected? That’s what women are? Thanks, guys.

“I could slip back into my old voice and you’d fall out of your chair!” She says with a high, trilling laugh.

As we gurlz do.

“To feel female deep inside, in all my characteristics, brings me peace,” Sandra says. “Often when we talk about transition, we talk about the look, but in hormone therapy what changes very quickly and very starkly are all the smells, the pheromones, the senses, the entire functioning of the brain: emotions, perceptions, fears.

“I now have fears that I never had before.”

Yes, that’s definitely one of the great joys of being a woman: the fears.

Sandra Forgues is the same person as Wilfrid Forgues: they share one Wikipedia page, one passport number, one consciousness. And yet she is also fundamentally, neurologically different. She is not simply a repackaged female version of her former self. Her character is altered, her reaction to things around her changed. In order to set up the interview, two armchairs need to be moved from the ground floor to an upstairs conference room. Before she would automatically have lent a hand; now she demurs bashfully as the photographer and I haul them up the staircase.

That’s the one that really got the Twitter attention.

If she could have another life, would she transition early? Would she trade a life of glory and anguish for a life of happy anonymity? Would she give away the years when she was somebody, to have more years as herself?

“The woman that I am today is much more accomplished than the woman that I would have been if I’d transitioned very early,” she says. “I would never have been Olympic champion, I would never have had that social status. Being Olympic champion brought me many other things. You learn about yourself. And that self-learning has made me the woman I always dreamt of.”

Well quite. Gather the rewards of being male for the first few decades and then “become” a woman.

Huh, guess who is “required” to work without pay during the government shutdown. (I put scare quotes on “required” because that’s slavery and as Katha Pollitt pointed out on Twitter the other day, slavery is a violation of the 13th Amendment.) The Secret Service, that’s who.

Secret Service agents are growing increasingly anxious and angry about the shutdown, according to several current and former agents. The Secret Service protects 42 people associated with the Trump White House, 11 more than were given details during the Obama administration. In August 2017, the agency’s new director, Randolph D. Alles, told an interviewer that the sprawling Trump entourage was putting unprecedented strains on his agents, in terms of staffing and budgeting.

Now add just plain not getting paid to that, and imagine how you would feel.

“They are asking you to put your life on the line and not paying you — it’s ridiculous,” said Donald Mihalek, 49, a 20-year Secret Service veteran whose own retirement paperwork has yet to be processed because of the shutdown.

The motivation to put your life on the line for Trump or his greedy children or his “I really don’t care” wife must get very feeble in those conditions.

“Morale is a serious issue,” said Mr. Mihalek, who served on the presidential detail during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations. “This is an incredibly stressful job that requires your full attention, and if you are standing there thinking about your mortgage, or your credit card bills, or the fact that you are burning through your savings, you are distracted, you not able to give 100 percent.”

Plus you feel less like it anyway.

DOCTOR Rachel McKinnon wrote a piece explaining what people should do when they annoy DOCTOR Rachel McKinnon, with particular reference to Martina Navratilova.

Last month, tennis legend Martina Navratilova wrote some now-deleted, unfortunate tweets about trans-women athletes.

Her initial tweet was about trans women athletes competing as women while having a penis. It read:

Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard…

Two days later, I weighed in by retweeting the offending tweet: “Welp, guess Navratilova is transphobic.” I also said, “No, you are not ‘pro- trans people’ if you say that trans women with a penis must not compete in women’s sport.” I made the points [sic] that her position is transphobic. Genitals do not play sports.

Saying her position is transphobic is not so much making a point as it is repeating a bit of stale jargon. What Navratilova said is not “transphobic” just because Rachel McKinnon says so. Saying that people with male bodies should not compete against women is not transphobic, it’s just an obviously reasonable claim about fairness in physical competition. Wear skirts, call yourself Jenny, giggle fetchingly all you like, but don’t force your way into women’s sport.

Many others confronted her, but Navratilova did not feel the need to back down from her position.

Imagine that! Some people disagreed with her, some people agreed with her, and she went ahead and felt entitled to think what she thought. She didn’t “feel the need to back down from her position” because no one had succeeded in convincing her her position was wrong. That happens sometimes.

What Navratilova failed to see was that her tweets, whether they were intentional or not, were doing harm to trans women. Her comments were immediately picked up by anti-trans publications and used as justification for their own positions.

What McKinnon fails to see is that much of the shit he talks is doing harm to women, to say nothing of the harm his competing against women in cycling does to those women.

The doc then gets to the instructions on what to do if you trip and say something transphobic. They’re predictable enough: cop to it, apologize, mean it, delete it all, listen to the abuse criticism and thank people for it, commit to doing better and do the work.

(Wouldn’t it be nice to see Rachel McKinnon do that? Ever? Isn’t it interesting that that apparently never happens? We have to nod in agreement at whatever “criticism” is flung, but Rachel can skip through life without being re-educated every five minutes.)

I still have hope for Navratilova.

Nobody is perfect. I’m not perfect. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect. But we should be held accountable for our actions, especially when we hurt people. When people say that something you said or did hurt them, believe them. Don’t try to minimize it or point to what you ‘intended.’

Again, this is a philosopher talking, making it a general and absolute rule that when people say that something you said or did hurt them, you have to believe them. No exceptions, no qualifications, no warnings – just believe them. But what if they are psychopaths, or narcissists, or whiny entitled brats, or con artists, or people who work for Trump, or people who want to do you harm?

Don’t try to minimize it or point to what you ‘intended.’

Here’s an analogy: suppose that you accidentally break my favorite coffee mug. Sure it’s worse if you intended to break it, but even if was an accident, you still broke my mug. You should acknowledge that you broke it, apologize, do something to fix the harm, and then promise to be more careful in the future.

And you should mean it.

Wow – don’t ever drop in at McKinnon’s place. But more to the point, don’t ever go near McKinnon at all. Guess what: that’s not how you treat people. If somebody breaks your favorite whatever, they already feel bad about it, and if you’re not an asshole you don’t want to make them feel even worse.

And I mean it.

Jacob Mchangama and Sarah McLaughlin at Foreign Policy also argue that Europe is going backward on free speech and free thought.

But despite the unanimous rhetorical support for free speech after Charlie Hebdo, blasphemy bans have become more firmly anchored in some parts of the continent in recent years. In a recent case, the European Court of Human Rights even reaffirmed that European human rights law recognizes a right not to have one’s religious feelings hurt. The court based its decision on the deeply flawed assumption that religious peace and tolerance may require the policing rather than the protection of “gratuitously offensive” speech. Accordingly, it found that Austria had not violated freedom of expression by convicting a woman for having called the Prophet Mohammed a “pedophile.”

And yet, of course, talking about Mohammed and pedophilia is not necessarily gratuitous. It may be done in the spirit and style of Trump, but it may be done in the spirit and style of Salman Rushdie or Maryam Namazie or Taslima Nasreen or many many other secular critics of Islam.

Moreover, laws against blasphemy and religious insult frequently protect the majority against minorities and dissenters. In Spain, the actor and activist Willy Toledo was arrested and now faces prosecution for “offending religious feelings” after being reported to the police by an association of Catholic lawyers. Toledo had written a particularly salty Facebook post: “I shit on God and have enough shit left over to shit on the dogma of the holiness and virginity of the Virgin Mary.” Toledo’s Facebook rant was provoked by the criminal investigation of three Spanish women’s rights activists who paraded a giant effigy of a vagina through the streets of Seville, imitating popular Catholic processions.

It’s not as if Spain needs to protect the feelings of Catholics, is it, when Catholic reactionaries ran the place until all too recently.

These cases stand in stark contrast to how European democracies have approached the question of blasphemy and free speech at the United Nations. For more than a decade, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) attempted to introduce a global blasphemy ban by passing annual resolutions against “defamation of religions.” But in 2012, the OIC’s then-secretary-general, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, had to admit defeat under pressure from democracies, human rights organizations, and activists, with the United States and European democracies taking the lead. “We could not convince them,” Ihsanoglu said. “The European countries don’t vote with us, the United States doesn’t vote with us.” This crucial victory for free speech was followed by statements from U.N., European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Council of Europe bodies and experts, all stressing the incompatibility of blasphemy bans with free speech under international human rights law.

By breaking with this consensus and failing to crystalize the protection of blasphemy and religious insult into legally binding human rights norms, the court has failed to offer an expansive protection of free speech for Europeans affected by such laws. But the court’s reasoning and the continuous enforcement of blasphemy bans in European democracies also help lend legitimacy to laws punishing blasphemy and religious offense in states where blasphemy is a matter of life and death.

If it’s good enough for the UN, why isn’t it good enough for Europe?

Charlie Hebdo, four years ago today.

Four years after Charlie Hebdo attacks, satirists bemoan the loss of reason #JeSuisCharliehttps://t.co/vrkNQyUwiW

— Ex-Muslims of North America (@ExmuslimsOrg) January 7, 2019

‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ – Salman Rushdie #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/C2DaT8ZVTc

— Ex-Muslims of North America (@ExmuslimsOrg) January 7, 2019

“I am not afraid of retaliation. I have no kids, no wife, no car, no credit. It perhaps sounds a bit pompous, but I prefer to die standing than living on my knees.” Charb – Chief Editor at Charlie Hebdo #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/rSmHMZ0nnF

— Ex-Muslims of North America (@ExmuslimsOrg) January 7, 2019

It’s four years ago today that the Charlie Hebdo attack took place. This is what I wrote the following day: https://t.co/liOGIfjf4H And what I wrote a year later: https://t.co/sX1Hse0Hhn Both still hold.

— Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik) January 7, 2019

Not forgotten. pic.twitter.com/NVod4DkGf8

— AuthorJ&M (@JandMo) January 7, 2019

Now Trump wants to take over the airwaves to tell us lies.

President Trump wants to address the nation about the government shutdown on Tuesday night, and later in the week plans to travel to the southern border as part of his effort to persuade Americans of the need for a border wall — the sticking point in negotiations with Democrats who are eager to reopen shuttered agencies.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about a request to television networks to carve out time for an Oval Office address. A person familiar with the request said the White House had asked to interrupt prime time programming on Tuesday.

So that he can lie to us about a SCARY EMERGENCY on the border. The answer should be no.

And at the same time, I saw Julie tweet.

YES!!!!!!!! https://t.co/0n85rQObVe

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) January 7, 2019

Rahaf tweeted her barricade.

https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1082212804549959687

Help was on the way.

https://twitter.com/melissarfleming/status/1082212629148565504

Australia director of Human Rights Watch urges Australia to step up.

Australian senator calls on the government to issue emergency travel documents to allow young Saudi woman @rahaf84427714 trapped at Bangkok airport to travel to Australia. Do it, Australia! https://t.co/mLH4RELi8s

— Elaine Pearson (@PearsonElaine) January 7, 2019

ABC News Middle East correspondent on the scene.

UN has arrived. They are interviewing Rahaf. They gave their word that she would remain in their custody & that she is now safe. This is what they promised @UNHCRThailand @Reaproy @melissarfleming

— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) January 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1082275701330345989

Sophie McNeill joined her in the barricaded room.

https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1082297101239836672

Human Rights Watch is still on the case.

Really such wonderful news Rahaf! If your father causes any problems, call me right away. We will keep pushing until you are safe in a 3rd country!

— Phil Robertson (@Reaproy) January 7, 2019

Great news! Rahaf left the airport with the UN & it will take a few days to find a country that will accept her!

Big thank you to heroes like journalist @Sophiemcneill for barricading herself in with Rahaf, @monaeltahawy for spreading the story, and ALL OF YOU! #SaveRahaf pic.twitter.com/YjtuUsMCPa

— Ex-Muslims of North America (@ExmuslimsOrg) January 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1082290017966399488

Love and solidarity with all who YELLED #SaveRahaf https://t.co/VbPiS2WfGe

— Mona Eltahawy (@monaeltahawy) January 7, 2019

https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1082296905680519168

About to go on @bbcworld – @monaeltahawy will talk about #SaveRahaf and Saudi Feminists. pic.twitter.com/9DjXakB0Z9

— Robert Rutledge (@rerutled) January 7, 2019

It looks as if Thailand is not going to hand Rahaf Alqunun over to her father after all.

Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, will be taken to a safe location in Bangkok, a hotel where U.N. staff members will interview her and process her status determination in coming days. She originally was set to be deported back to Kuwait, where her family was waiting for her.

…

Thai authorities had detained her at an airport hotel in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport since Saturday night and had initially planned to send her back to Kuwait on a flight departing at 11:15 a.m. local time Monday. Alqunun, however, barricaded herself in her room and demanded to meet with the U.N. refu­gee agency, missing the flight.

Hours later, agency officials were granted access to her “to assess her need for international refugee protection and find an immediate solution for her situation,” according to an emailed statement from Caroline Gluck, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Immigration officials released photos of her leaving the small hotel room in the airport’s transit area where she was being held, escorted by U.N. officials and Thai authorities.

The Thai authorities have given her back her passport.

Alqunun began a social media campaign late Saturday on Twitter chronicling her detention and even posting a photocopy of her passport to prove her identity. The young woman, who is from the city of Hail, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hands of family members, including her brother, according to a 19-year old woman who said she and Alqunun have been friends for several years.

The woman said Alqunun’s family locked her up for months at one point as punishment for cutting her hair.

The woman, who lives in Sweden and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she also fled Saudi Arabia two years ago because her family was abusing her. Alqunun was in contact as she planned her escape, the woman said.

Sometimes Twitter is a literal life-saver.

The dramatic scenes and Alqunun’s pleas for help echoed those of other women who have tried to flee abusive or restrictive conditions in Saudi Arabia. In 2017, Dina Lasloom, a 24-year-old Saudi woman, was similarly attempting to seek asylum in Australia when she was stopped at an airport in Manila. She was forced to return to Saudi Arabia and has not been publicly heard from since.

Better luck to Rahaf.

H/t What a Maroon

Updating to add: on Dina Lasloom

Foreign Minister Chrystia @caFreeland, please intervene to help @Rahaf84427714; save her life. She’s a Saudi woman who renounced Islam & tried to escape her family & Saudi Arabia, but was arrested in Thailand at the behest of Riyadh. Please #SaveRahaf. We Canadians r not cowards.

— Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) January 6, 2019

https://twitter.com/miss9afi/status/1082032113069756418

#Thailand authorities should immediately halt planned deportation of Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, a #Saudi woman who says she is fleeing domestic abuse & fears for her safety if forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch @hrw said today. https://t.co/C2iyZ6XJ3f #SaveRahaf

— Mona Eltahawy (@monaeltahawy) January 6, 2019

https://twitter.com/JenDegtjarewsky/status/1082054336383860736

#Saudi woman asylum-seeker Rahaf has stated that the forced flight info is @KuwaitAirways 412. It is supposedly due to take off in approx. 5 hours and 20 minutes, based on live flight updates website here: https://t.co/x67SUxr4YO #SaveRahaf pic.twitter.com/XFCMm5h2mX

— Nora Abdulkarim نورة الدعيجي (@Ana3rabeya) January 6, 2019