So I said... #24 - for June 12-26

So now the next in my what I said is “more or less weekly”- so don’t give me grief about it being nearly two - compilations of various thoughts and comments on various sites. As always, comments and reactions are welcome, with gushing, effusive praise the most fun but in most cases not the most instructive.

As a quick reminder, comments are separated by “==” while those separated by “—” are a thread. Text in italicized braces (“[ ]”) are added here for context, while any in non-italicized braces were in the original comment as posted.

I’ve made you wait long enough. Let’s get to it.

2026-06-12
[And we start off with one I forgot to include last time. Oddly, it’s about memory.]

It’s the 43rd anniversary of the June 12, 1982 rally in Central Park, NYC, against nuclear weapons - the largest peace demonstration in US history, with an estimated 1,000,000 participants.

Just a reminder those weapons have not gone anywhere.

==

2026-06-15
[Submitted to the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment System]

I write in opposition to the proposed “Triumphal Arch at Memorial Circle.”

Contrary to the description, this proposed arch celebrates not our founding principles but rather a parody of them. It is “monumental” for the sake of being monumental, its size substituting grandeur for grace, expansiveness for elegance.

It is, to put it simply, big just for the sake of being big, not for any artistic or even memorializing purpose; it’s an expression not of pride but of pridefulness.

Which is why it seems oddly appropriate that the proposal is “drawing on the historic Roman precedent of erecting freestanding arches,” reaching back to a time of emperors and empires, of “bread and circuses” and gladiatorial contests to find inspiration for architecture as well as for fights on the White House lawn.

It is particularly improper for this latest outgrowth of Donald Trump’s desperate desire to be remembered as someone of oversized importance to be intended as an entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, where if it has any effect at all it will be to disrupt and distract from the solemn air, the contemplative atmosphere, of the site.

If it is to be built anywhere, let it span some side avenue somewhere, where it can, in time, come to be seen like the monuments and arches peppering London, as a pretty but ultimately quaint and otherwise unimportant reminder of times when some leader’s sense of self-importance outran their self-awareness.

==

2026-06-16
[Some guy who was supposed to be an FBI agent asks someone about their social media posts.]

Dunno about the assumptions he’s a fake, but if I make it out correctly, the shirt says “FBI Newark” so I wonder is the post was about the subhuman treatment of detainees at Delaney Hall.

EDIT: Okay - I just looked at it again and I’ve joined the “Fake!” brigade. The shirt does say “FBI Newark” but the emblem is a freaking World Cup logo and the shirt has a Nike swoosh on the sleeve.

If this dude was for real he dang well ain’t dressed for the occasion.

ANOTHER EDIT: It also occurs to me that he never actually said he was with the FBI and falsely claimed he’d already given his name - and while I don’t know for sure, I really doubt an agent would open a conversation with a warning about lying.

==

2026-06-20
[OP: Those arrested for plotting the attack on the UFC fight were driven by a version of right-wing Xianity.]

“Pure TDS.”

What is? The plot? The reports (both police and press)? The presence/absence of the Christianity-related aspect in them? What?

The notion among some extremists, underpinned by some version of “Christianity” (the quotes are deliberate), that “the US government is run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume infants” is neither new (Have we already forgotten “Pizzagate?”) and its targets are every bit as likely to be (and have been) Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as our current Orange Overlord.

In fact, it and its antisemitic roots go at least as far back as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and indeed much further (as that volume is a collection of previously existing antisemitic slurs).

So while this plot may well have had no connection with the administration’s own embrace of its version of radical Christian fundamentalism, the dismissive notion that this was “pure TDS” with the unsubtle implication it was a bunch of crazy lefties denies both the history and the facts. I call BS on TDS.

==

2026-06-23
[“Labour’s declining fortunes are unrelated to its rejection of trans rights and GAC access.”]

I can and do accept all of that as true, but it utterly misses the point, which is that throwing trans folks under the bus didn’t do the party a flipping bit of good.

Indeed, rather than question the argument, it reinforces it: Abandoning trans rights with the idea it will improve your electoral chances is foolish - and, I believe, perhaps even self-defeating because I suspect it may have hurt Labour (although perhaps only a little) through loss of enthusiasm among those who hoped for an overall more progressive posture than they got.

==

2026-06-23
[A Kansas transwoman changed her driver’s ID to conform to state law and then got threatened with prosecution for having a “false” ID.]

What I find surprising here is not that it happened, but that it was the first time. This is exactly what many of us predicted when the law was passed: You don’t change your gender marker, you’re risking being charged with carrying a “fake ID.” You do change your gender marker, you’re still liable to be accused of having a “fake ID.”

Like all such laws and their kin, it has nothing to do with identification. It has to do with forcing trans folks into the closet, so far into the closet they couldn’t find the door with a flashlight.

A quick not-really-relevant sidebar on a little thing that bugs me: I wish we’d stop referring to our “preferred gender,” like our gender was a choice, a preference like our favorite color or favorite cuisine. It’s not one’s “preferred” gender, it’s their gender. I realize I could be hit with a flood of complexities, but I‘m referring to one narrow point: Your gender is you, it’s who you are, not a mere “preference.”

I expect others might think I’m making too much of it and perhaps I am, but I keep thinking of the term in the mouth of a hater: “They know it’s not real, they say it themselves: They just ‘prefer’ to call themselves that.”

==

2026-06-23
[A troll turned up in comments whining that the same article as the above hadn’t referred to the transwoman as “he” and “a man.”]

“That makes me a transphobe?”

Yes, Because it’s transphobic (fear of trans people) to be “opposed to discrimination” so long as it’s limited to areas “out there,” all safely legalistic and hypothetical, that do not involve you having to interact with real people living real lives.

I realize that “sex realist” is the term now favored by a number of terfs, but that does not make it a sensible one. Anyone truly realistic about the concept of sex would know that it’s a good deal more complex than both the “XX vs. XY’ you learned in some high-school biology class and the “biology is destiny” you absorbed from the society around you - and you would at least know and accept the basic concept that sex (relating to reproduction) and gender (sense of personal identity) are not the same thing.

I see where below you say “we’ll call it quits” om arguing, so I’ll leave it there with the hope you remember the old warning about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.

==

2026-06-24
[A Rastafarian who had his dreadlocks shorn by prison guards in violation of federal law saw his suit tossed by SCOTUS on the grounds that the guards hadn’t agreed to be sued and yes you read that right.]

“It’s fair to wonder if the outcome would have been different here if a Christian”

No, it’s not.

Because there is no wondering involved.

Of course it would have been different. The emerging theocracy would allow for nothing else.

-

2026-06-24
[“Yet it’s Christians who continue to claim persecution”]

I wrote recently that they need to feel persecuted because they regard that as a sign that are right with Jesus and so are among the “elect” to be brought to eternal life and spared.

-

2026-06-26
[“It’s designed that way. The persecution complex is part of their brainwashing.”]

I dunno that I can go with “designed” and “brainwashing,” as they imply that the designers and brainwashers deliberately created it knowing it’s bullshit.

But the idea that suffering is proof of validation is a thread in the Bible - e.g., Matthew quotes Jesus as saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me,” Paul wrote “we glory in our sufferings,” and James wrote “consider it pure joy whenever you face trials.”

The notion that being (supposedly) persecuted is proof of righteousness is hardly new and it is neither exclusive to, nor did it originate with, Xianity.

==

2026-06-25
[Armed ICE agents came to a polling place in Syracuse to tell a poll worker to take down an Instagram post critical of ICE.]

Contrary to [host] Jesse [Dollemore], we should hope we are “frog-potted.” When the myth was actively tested in lab conditions, in every case there came a point where the water got too hot and the frog refused to accept it and jumped out - if you will, rebelled.

So I said... #22 - for May 27 - June 4

The latest entry in my continuing attempts to offer something of value here. So I said… consists of comments and observations I’ve made on various topics in various places over the last week or so. Comments and reactions are always welcome.

Onward.

2026-05-27
[Ken Paxon’s creepy victory speech went on about James Talarico having said “God is binary” and “there are six sexes.”]

God is binary? Hell, I figured that out when I was maybe 8. I remember asking my mother why we call God “Him” because “if he’s a spirit, he has no body and so isn’t a man or a woman.” (She answered - not in these words, I’m sure, because, y’know, I’m 8 and all, in terms of it being a social convention.)

And indeed there’s good Biblical basis for a binary God in Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (NIV) If God created male and female in his own image, God must contain both male and female and so must be binary.

Oh, and as for “six sexes?” If the right wingers insist on defining by chromosomes, there are at least six. Besides XX and XY, there are X0 (called “X naught”), XXY, XXYY, and XXXY. While these variations (there are a few more) are rare, they are quite real, involving thousands of births in the US every year. And that’s without getting into the weeds of XX individuals having male bodies and XY ones having female bodies.

==

2026-05-30
[A troll called the Kennedy Center a “failing institution” and heaped praise on TOO (aka The Orange Overlord); the “failing” line was based an article reporting the TOO Board’s claims the institution is deep in the red.]

The article you cited does not, in fact, support your argument. It includes claims from Trump’s hand-picked board at the Kennedy Center, claims that treat this non-profit organization as if it was a profit-seeking private business, punctuated with the assertion from the PR agent that those there before the hostile takeover consciously and deliberately intended the Center to lose money.

Meanwhile, the same article notes both that the Center’s most recent tax filings show a profit and the fact that performing arts nonprofits typically run a deficit on operational costs and rely on grants and contributions to overcome it - in fact, that is “best practice in the sector” - and the claims of the Trump’s hand-picked board ignored that fact.

I think it’s clear that you do not hang out here to make actual arguments, but just to troll. Admittedly, you’re rather good at that, but I don’t think it’s a skill to be admired.

But what the hell, happy Memorial Day anyway, since I’m old enough to think of it still as May 30.

-

2026-05-30
[They replied “Wrong!” and how TOO would have made it great, complete with random capitalizations.]

I take it back. You’re not even a good troll. That was utterly unoriginal and not in any way clever or challenging. OTOH, other than being too short it would make for a decent Truth Social post, so I suppose that makes you very proud of yourself.

I’m done here.

==

2026-05-30
[Some Xian nationalists made themselves a movie about how oppressed they are.]

There is a rarely-explored reason for the “we’re so oppressed” whining from Xian nationalists: They want to, even need to, feel oppressed as proof of their faith. The New Testament is full of references to this idea. (All references NIV.)

For example, Jesus taught “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:10) and “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22).

Paul said “we glory in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3), James wrote “consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2-4), and there are multiple references to “perseverance” leading to your “reward.”

In short, telling themselves they are “oppressed” is to tell themselves that they are right there with Jesus and are among the elect who will be “saved.” It’s certainly easier and less demanding a route than to live by such as 1 John 3:17 (“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”).

==

2026-05-30
[An article outlined how using AI undermined “Business Insider,” leading to four years of staff cuts and the loss of 25% of its subscribers.]

Maybe AI should stand for Artificial Insemination: getting screwed by a machine.

==

2026-05-31
[A new plan for re-doing Penn Station was leaked; it included engraving TOO’s name by the main entrance.]

I’m a bit confused about Amtrak’s involvement, since Amtrak is now based in NYC out of the new Moynihan Station, not Penn Station. As for the design, I’m not a fan of gold trim, which has seemed gaudy since maybe 1920. And one real question: What is the point of “an additional 50 feet of overhead space” other than pointless attempts at a fake grandeur that passengers will forget the moment they leave while significantly expanding the volume of air to be heated and cooled? And unless the current ceilings are like six or seven feet, connecting it to the station being “cramped” is more like ad copy than reportage.

Could the old station use a refurbishing? Sure, and I’ve been there enough to see. But this plan looks like “grand” for the sake of seeming grand and gold-trimmed for the sake of looking golden - while function is “oh yeah, that too, I suppose.”

In architectural design, as in most everything else, less can be more. This one appears from what I know of it as too much.

==

2026-06-01
This is something I wrote to a friend sometime in the 1990s about the social and political differences between right and left that I think bears repeating from time to time:

-

It’s the right that says “I,” the left that says “we.” It’s the right that says “gimme,” the left that says “we’ll give.” It’s the right that says “compete,” the left that says “cooperate.”

Where the left says “us together,” the right says “me first.” Where the left says “hope,” the right says “fear.” Where the left says “you can come for help,” the right says “you can go to hell.”

Time after time after time, the left argues for choices that primarily benefit the needy. Time after time after time, the right argues for choices that primarily benefit the needless.

Time after time after time, when folks on the left benefit from their proposals it’s because they’re part of a broader community. Time after time after time, when folks on the right benefit from their proposals it’s because they’re part of a narrow clique.

It is the left, not the right, that knows that the real answer to Cain’s question is “Yes.”

==

2026-06-02
[Todd Blanch - not a typo, the thought of him takes the color from my face - says the DOJ is “not moving forward” with The Orange Overlord’s slush fund but won’t put it in writing.]

His own words - “the reasons [for the slush fund] remain important” - explain exactly why it needs to be in writing.

==

2026-06-03
[A Connecticut law said parents under investigation for abuse or neglect can’t be approved to homeschool their children. GOPpers opposed it.]

And so much for it’s all about “SAVE THE CHILDREN!!” when it comes to LGBTQ+, especially trans, issues.

==

2026-06-04
[A Xian in LA is suing because his employer wouldn’t let him work at home during June so he didn’t have to go past a pride flag hung at the entrance. One accommodation offered was a different parking space to make another entrance more convenient, which he said would amount to “separate but equal” facilities.]

I wonder how he’d respond to being asked if that meant anyone who normally used that other entrance was a victim of actionable discrimination.

But in fact he has no standing to raise any complaint about “separate but equal” facilities when that is exactly what he is demanding for himself, it’s just that in his case the “separate” facility is his house.

My advice to him is to do what every one his fundamentalist ilk tell people who object to the 10 Commandments being put on a wall of every classroom: You don’t like it? Just don’t look at it. Which is, in this case, a viable option.

==

2026-06-04
I couldn’t help but notice that the female symbol [on a “straight pride” flag] is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from its standard orientation, making it appear that the figure is lying on its back and the male symbol is, well, you get the idea.

Obviously it’s intended to sexualize children into the ideology of heterosexuality. Those grooming perverts.

So I said... #13 - March 5-12

Here we have the latest more-or-less weekly collection of my various musings and comments on things here, there, and everywhere, with context added where I thought it necessary for folks to get what was going on.

A note on style: If within a comment something is in brackets - [ ] - and it is in regular type, that’s how it appeared in my original comment. If it’s in italics, it’s something I’ve added here for additional clarity for those who didn’t see the original.

Onward.

2026-03-05
[A friend asked me via email where was the school that was bombed in Iran at the opening of the war and for a suggestion for keeping up with events. Unfortunately, I overlooked the mail for a couple of days.]

A little late for the purpose, I expect, but yeah, there was a school bombed in Minab, a small city in southern Iran on the Straits of Hormuz. I had heard about a second school, but now I don’t see any reference to it.

The US and Israel both deny responsibility (although the Pentagon is “investigating”), so I guess the place just spontaneously combusted - or engaged in what the Department of Death would probably call a “self-initiated rapid kinetic disassembly.”

It is possible the school wasn’t the target (there is a military site nearby) but al-Jazeera did an investigation showing that either the school was hit deliberately or that the US and/or Israel relied on intelligence that was 10 years out of date.

[To save you having to check the link: Intelligence images showed that 10 years ago the building where the school was had been physically separated from the rest of the base and facilities like a sports field had been added. As a footnote, major US media have started reporting the same thing - over a week later.]

Neither case changes the fact that it was hit and “oops, my bad, oh well,” is not an acceptable response - particularly in light of the fact that there have now been large-scale attacks on undeniably civilian targets including hospitals, residential buildings and schools across Tehran and other locations with repeated accounts of “double-tapping,” that is, bombing a site, pausing long enough for assistance to arrive, then bombing the same place again.

(As a sidebar, that’s a tactic for which the US has been known; for one example, the fire bombing of Dresden in WW2 involved a wave of bombing followed by a second one deliberately timed to catch fire-fighting equipment out in the open.)

For a general source of info beyond regular media (where I STRONGLY recommend non-US sources), two that are good on keeping up with events in the vicinity are Drop Site News and within that Jeremy Scahill because they have contacts within the Iranian government (and also Hamas) for perspectives we generally never see in US media. I’m usually very suspicious of partisan sources, but I’ve seen enough cases of something reported on Drop Site being confirmed - days later - in major media to give them a fair degree of credibility.

==

2026-03-05
[Indiana AG Todd Rokita has been compiling a list of his state’s trans people, apparently intending to copy Kansas in invalidating their IDs and maybe charging them with the felony of “falsified” documents.]

FWIW, “retroactively enforcing this would pose a significant legal question” is an understatement as it would appear to be a blatant example of an ex post facto law, trying to make into a crime an action that was not illegal at the time it was performed.

That may be why [Kansas AG Kris] Kobach, who has never shown any shyness about pursuing his own personal obsessions (including extremism in restrictive voter laws, being anti-choice, and xenophobia, the latter of which being where I first encountered him in 2004) didn’t try that route in Kansas.

==

2026-03-06
[This was about a video by Dave McKeegan about Bill Kaysing, considered the father of the “we never landed on the Moon” conspiracy theory. McKeegan is a professional photographer who uses that expertise to debunk photo and video “evidence” that the landing was faked.]

Something that struck me was in the clip about the interview that mentioned the [Werner] von Braun memo supposedly saying a Moon landing was impossible. Part of the answer got rather buried under the interviewer’s next question; that part being that the memo reported von Braun as saying there was a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting to the Moon on the first try.

Considering the idea of just shooting a rocket straight to the Moon and landing there was at one time on the table, the existence of such a memo is plausible. But since we didn’t do it that way, we first just went around the Moon and later sent a multi-stage rocket to end with a module orbiting the Moon with a lander that descended from that orbiting module to make the actual landing, that memo, even if real, is wholly irrelevant.

==

2026-03-06
[This is sort of out of sequence. In the previous issue of “So I said...” I posted my reaction to a video by the Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta questioning the report about a US military commandeer preaching “last days” theology to his troops. Subsequent to that posting, I got a reply to my comment; I think my response is worthy of including here. For the original, go here and scroll down to March 3.]

“Until it’s sourced, it’s just more smoke and that’s the last thing we need more of. Don’t you think?”

It’s not unsourced. It’s from a reputable source with access to the original material whose accounts have proven accurate in the past.

Should we dismiss as “smoke” accusations of Trump abusing a child because we don’t have the original source? In fact all we truly have is a paper reading that someone whose name we don’t know said that someone whose name we don’t know said it was so. But given the overall circumstances, I have no trouble giving a great deal of credence to that report even though a court could legitimately dismiss it as hearsay.

Same here. Lack of perfect knowledge does not prevent reaching justifiable conclusions. And my conclusion is that, given that Hegseth is a Christian nationalist who has conducted Bible study classes while in office and has opened the gates to proselytizing (plus the fact that right-wing religion being pushed in the military has been an issue before), yes, there was a commander preaching apocalypticism and yes, there are others preaching some flavor of fundamentalist Christianity to those under their command.

And I find Hemant’s doubts quite unpersuasive.

==

2026-03-08
[Still more on this. Jonathan Larsen, author of the piece Hemant questioned, replied to the critique. In comments there some suggested Hemant acted out of jealousy that he hadn’t broken the story himself.]

I don’t think jealousy is part of it. Hemant tends to work in the areas of court cases, public and organizational statements, and news accounts - that is, areas where questions about sources generally don’t arise. So I expect he’s not used to dealing with stories like this where you have to some degree make the call as to the trustworthiness of sources.

Jonathan touched on one of the reasons I found the story persuasive: MRFF has been reliable in the past, so it may be a single source, but it’s one that has demonstrated trustworthiness.

==

2026-03-08
Sam Ames (sames) recently posted an essay about forced outing of transgender students in schools.

He referred to his “least favorite line” in a recent SCOTUS action upholding at least for now an injunction against a California law barring the practice. (To be clear, this doesn’t mean California now has forced outing; it means that such outing can’t be banned statewide pending further court action.)

That line was “But those [student privacy] policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”

“Least favorite” is a worthy description because a world of hurt can be found in that supposedly self-evident homily.

I started to say “because it assumes,” but that’s not strong enough. It doesn’t just assume, it sets as a baseline declaration not only that parents protect the best interests of their children but also that they know what those interests are, that parents by definition “know what’s best” for their kids.

And we do like to tell ourselves that. But in fact, in practice, we don’t say that, not by definition. Rather, it’s a “rebuttable assumption,” an assumed stating point that can be overcome by evidence - where possible before any harm arises. That’s why there are agencies like Child Protective Services, why there is such a thing as foster care, why there are custody battles in divorce proceedings, because we as a society recognize that parents don’t always know what’s best for their children, that sometimes they are even harmful to them.

Forced outing policies strip away a layer of protection for children, turning “rebuttable assumption” into “final decision” and opening LGBTQ+ (these days, mostly trans) children to risk of harm without the chance for questions to be raised until it’s too late and without providing them any benefit.

In fact, I wrote somewhere else recently that I can recall from my youth seeing PSAs saying that if there’s trouble at home, “tell someone,” with one specific example being “a trusted teacher.” With forced outing, a teacher becomes someone you must not trust, not just because they might out you but because they would have no true choice in the matter, not when silence risks their entire career.

Trans children get no benefit from forced outing and supportive parents effectively have no need for it. Rather, I would argue that the only people who benefit from such a policy - other than the trans-hating ideologues who just want to force all trans folks so far into the closet they couldn’t even find the door much less open it - are the hostile parents, those whose response to having a transgender child would range from fury to forced conversion therapy to total rejection and ejection from the home.

So to any parent who would say “Why didn’t the school tell me my kid says they’re trans,” my reply is that’s the wrong question. The right one is to ask yourself “Why couldn’t my kid tell me? What message am I giving out such that they felt they needed to hide this from me?” Or, both more philosophical and harsher, “Do I really love my kid? Or do I just love the idea of what I imagine them to be?”

Forced outing answers neither of those questions. It just provides a means to avoid them.

==

2026-03-09
On February 25, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said an “historic” agreement with the US was “within reach” ahead of renewed talks in Geneva. On the 27th, Oman’s foreign minister said a “breakthrough” had been reached in the negotiations.

On the 28th, the bombing began.

In the ST:TOS episode “The Savage Curtain,” one character is a reincarnated version of an Earth warlord named Colonel Phillip Green. Kirk says he was known for attacking his enemies in the middle of peace negotiations.

That description was used to establish Green as representative of historic evil.

Just a thought.

==

026-03-09
Wait - so Dep. UN Ambassador Tammy Bruce says “two times they voted for him,” that is, Trump? (About 7:15 at the linked video.)

So Bruce is saying The Orange Overlord lost the 2020 election? She better hope the The Boss doesn’t notice!

==

2026-03-11
[The 4th CCoA upheld a West Virginia law that denied Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgery, in so doing effectively extending the Skrmetti ruling allowing bans on transgender care from youth to adults.]

“It is not irrational for a legislature to forgo Medicaid coverage of arguably ineffective and dangerous procedures.”

The word “arguably” is doing a hell of a lot of work - in fact, all the work - in that sentence.

I suppose we can expect the same panel at some point in the future to rule that a state can ban the teaching of evolution because it is “arguably” (according to creationists) incorrect and ban the use of globes in schools because the planet is “arguably” (according to flat Earthers) a flat disc while asserting, as it did here, the state “did not have to take any third party at its word to find a good reason” for the bans - that is, “We don’t need to hear from no stinkin’ experts.”

It sometimes seems the 4th and 5th Circuits are in some private competition as to which can make the stupidest argument to support the cruelest outcome. This one will be hard to beat, but I’m sure the 5th will take up the challenge.

Oh, btw, for all the terfs and “LGB without the T” types out there who I’m sure are quite gleeful over this, who will you turn to when some court rules that a state’s authority to “encourage citizens to appreciate their sex” is interpreted to mean their “natural” sex, so “becom[ing] disdainful of their sex” by rejecting “normal reproduction” sex by being gay or lesbian can legitimately be outlawed?

Reminder: Niemöller’s poem was not just about Nazi Germany.

==

2026-03-12
[Under a new rule, the State Department will be able to revoke trans people’s visas over “misrepresentation,” giving ICE grounds to suspect all non-native born trans people of being in the US illegally. In response, someone asked “Why is our government so obsessed with the genitals of strangers?”]

Because they are trying to suppress the lurid, guilty fantasies the concept of being transgender stirs in them, an outgrowth of our on-going, Puritanical, gross immaturity about anything even remotely related to sex or sexuality.

So I said - semi-regular wrap-up

More comments on various topics posted somewhere online.

2026-01-18
Right-wing hate preacher Greg Locke claims his house was attacked by someone with a machine gun and played what he claimed was an audio of the attack, featuring the sound of 60 shots in three seconds.

Well, the incident was real (and police have arrested a suspect), but Locke's supposed audio was a fake.

It was supposedly from some home security system but sounded fake to me when I first heard it. Even so, I was prepared to chalk it up to the quality of the system’s recording ability until I looked up the info about the weapon.

See, the police said the weapon was a .40 caliber automatic pistol. That is a SEMI-automatic weapon - meaning the trigger has to be pulled for each shot - with a capacity of up to 15 rounds.

So if he did fire 60 shots, he had to fire 15 times, pause to reload (which police said he did), fire 15 times, reload, and so on. No flaming way in hell did he do than in, as Locke claimed, three seconds.

Why he felt it necessary to manipulate or manufacture the audio I can't say; maybe he thought the original didn't sound as scary as he wanted. Whatever the reason, is was a fake.

==

2026-01-18
I've asserted several times that much of the bigotry and hatred around trans folks is actually about discomfort and fear about sex, our societal sickness about the subject. For way too many of us, anything and everything about LGBTQ+ folks in general and trans folks in particular isn’t about who a person is, but about how they “do it," about "what's in their pants," with the unwanted lurid thoughts such notions arouse and the self-loathing guilt they produce turned outward as self-protection.

Here we have another example.

RJ May is - or was until he quit — a member of the South Carolina state legislature.

During his time in office he claimed that children are being "harmed" by "exposing" them to drag shows and "pushing sex changes on toddlers," ranting about “child exploitation.”

And to what should be no one's surprise he has been sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to distributing child sex abuse material, including nearly 500 explicit videos featuring toddlers and young children involved in sex acts and incest between young children and their parents. (He has a seven-year-old child.) 

After his indictment in June, he claimed he'd been framed by his political enemies (of course he did) but wound up pleading guilty to five counts in exchange for the dropping of five others. 

From the article:

Moms for Liberty — the anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group that regularly seeks to ban LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books as a form of “pornography” and regularly accuses LGBTQ+ people and their allies of “grooming” children for sexual abuse — honored May as their 2023 Legislator of the Year and had him speak at their 2022 event on “Reclaiming Education in America.”

I wonder if they'll take back the honor.

Actually, I doubt it. Just like I doubt there aren't a lot more just like May among the haters.

==

2026-01-19
It is time for Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to be disbarred for judicial misconduct for accepting and ruling on issues where he clearly has a profound personal bias.

==

2026-01-21
A post suggested that The Orange Overlord's desire for Greenland is because the area distortions inherent to the Mercator Projection map makes it look much bigger than it actually is.

The post is interesting and worthwhile but have to contest that starting point as I rather doubt that has much if anything at all to do with it. I think it’s much more to do with TOO’s vision of a “greater America,” the same vision that drove the business of Canada being “the 51st state” - something that still sits in the back of his head; note that he recently referred to Greenland becoming the “52nd state.”

(And people in Puerto Rico went “um, hey!”)

What matters here is that he thinks in 19th-century sphere of influence terms, with one nation dominating it’s own: China in Asia, Russia in Europe, and the US in the Americas. In that view, each of those dominant nations should be free to do pretty much what it wants within their own sphere so long as it does not intrude into one of the others.

In that way of thinking, expanding our borders would be the ultimate establishment in the historical record of the US being a great power and him a great leader, something he so desperately desires (which, parenthetically, I think relates to his practice of plastering his name on things and his pathetic desire for a Nobel Peace Prize, ways to be seen and remembered as someone worthy of note). It’s not so much the size of the expansion per se (although it would be significant, increasing the area of the US by about 22%) as the sheer fact of it that provokes his dreams of grandeur.

Footnote: Post author Christopher Lockett protested (with a smile) that he didn’t say that’s why TOO was saying that, rather it was just an excuse to “nerd out about cartography.” To which I replied, that’s okay, I was doing the same thing: using a remark as a hook for my own rant. And that I enjoyed the article.

==

2026-01-21
[To my Congressional reps after the release of the elated budget proposal to the floor of the House.]

The public, not to mention Congress, being given just days to consider and react to funding for DHS in general and ICE in particular is disturbing at best, evasive of public response at a time when those agencies are significantly unpopular more likely.

I call on you to vote NO on any appropriations for DHS or ICE until after - repeat, after - major reforms are agreed to and acted on.

DHS, a product of post-9/11 paranoia, should be dismantled. ICE should be stripped down and rebuilt from scratch with strict controls; to steal a phrase, it should be "repealed and replaced." Until then, they should  get nothing.

On this, I will not be satisfied with less.

==

2026-01-23

[Background: A commenter on an article at Erin in the Morning said the people behind anti-trans laws should be imprisoned and fined and barred from seeking office “until they are as politically dead as the Whigs.”

NOTE WELL: The writer’s responses to me in this exchange have been edited. While I think they still reflect what was argued, to be completely fair, you should see the whole exchange, which can be found here.

 

I hate to be a downer, but what you're suggesting is an incredibly heavy lift.

 

The first citation [42 USC §1983] is about suing public officials, the second [18 USC §241] is about conspiracy, the third [18 USC §242] is about wrongful official actions under color of law. What all have in common is that they involve violations of rights secured either under the Constitution or by federal law.

There is no federal law establishing a right to GAC (or any health care, for that matter - note that Medicare, the ACA, and the like are about access to care, not a right to it). Even the Biden-era protections for trans folks were an Executive Order based on an interpretation of Title IX and rescinded by The Orange Overlord.

Nor is there any established Constitutional right to GAC or even just to being transgender. In fact, in US v. Skrmetti, upholding a Tennessee ban on GAC for youth, the Scurrilous Six majority said the ban is valid because it merely "removes one set of diagnoses," that is, gender dysphoria, "from the range of treatable conditions” so no violation of rights was involved. I expect any claim that denial of access to GAC violates a Constitutional right would likely be treated dismissively.

The closest I think we could come now is Bostock v. Clayton County, but since that was about employment, not health care and preceded Skrmetti (2020 vs. 2025) I doubt it would be persuasive.
-
2026-01-24
[There are laws on state and federal interference with rights to property, commerce, etc. Rights don’t need to be in the Constitution; rather, there must be government power to limit them, otherwise they are plenary.]

 
On the first point, the established power of a state to regulate commerce, in this case the practice of medicine, is exactly what SCOTUS relied on in Skrmetti, arguing that's what Tennessee did: regulate the practice of medicine.

On the second, it's true that the 9th Amendment refers to "enumerated" rights and that a right not being listed does not mean it doesn't exist. But that does not mean that any given non-enumerated right exists legally, rather it must be discovered, usually by implication of those that are.

For example, a right of married couples to obtain contraceptives was found in to exist within the "penumbra" of the 4th Amendment's relation to personal privacy. The principle was later extended to cover unmarried couples and still later to strike down sodomy laws, but legally, that right didn't exist until 1965.

So it seems to me the only way to pursue the suits and prosecutions you suggest is to establish an overall right to health care and then have GAC be an accepted right within that, so that it could not be regulated out of bounds.

Like I said, an incredibly heavy lift.

And as a footnote, all this is without considering the impact of the Constitution's ban on ex post facto laws on your hoped-for prosecutions.
-
2026-01-24

]These laws are constitutionally impermissible attempts to mandate that transgender youth be abused with their own sex. Child abuse is already illegal. Those in favor of these laws have no case. And you have no idea what ex post facto means.]

 
I was addressing the legal landscape facing the course you argued for. I stand by it.

Now you are arguing that laws barring GAC (particularly puberty blockers) are "constitutionally impermissible" even though Skrmetti, by virtue of upholding Tennessee's ban, said they are valid.
So at least you have to overcome that barrier. That alone makes it a heavy lift. Doesn't mean it can't be done, but do not pretend it would be anything short of that.

As for ex post facto, you are proposing criminalizing actions that were not considered criminal at the time they were performed, which at the least raises ex post facto concerns. While child abuse laws already exist, the application of them to deny access to GAC doesn't; in fact, it is far more common to hear the opposite, to hear the transmisics and reactionaries screaming that GAC is itself "child abuse" and some places - Texas, for example - have proposed prosecuting parents on just that basis.

Morally and ethically, as you say, "those in favor of these laws have no case."  But unhappily, as someone (I don't recall who) said, "The law is not about justice. The law is about the law." And that is what we're dealing with here.

Bottom line and I think the end from my side: Not impossible. But know how hard it will be to get there and the obstacles to be overcome.
 

==
 

2026-01-24
[Background: Dr. Kirk Milhoan is the head of RF (my father would be ashamed of me) Kennedy Jr's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He is also an evangelical Christian pastor with no background in immunology who says vaccination should be voluntary.] 

 
So Milhoan is "returning individual autonomy to the first order, not public health, but individual autonomy to the first order," even though "declin[ing] a vaccine may also affect others," is he?

How does he feel about speed limit laws? Sure, speeding "may affect others," but if "individual autonomy" can outweigh public health, why not public safety? 

By the way, is he a flat-Earther? I mean, he says “I don’t like established science” and “Science is what I observe.” Central arguments of flat-Earthers revolve around the "observation" that "Hey, it looks flat" and how you can't trust "the scientific establishment." Sounds pretty flerfy to me.

Kennedy Center to support art by suing artist. It's not political. Really.

So NPR reports that the Kennedy Center says it’s going to sue Chuck Reed for $1 million for cancelling his annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam. Reed cancelled the show after the Orange Overlord’s hand-chosen board stuck his name on the Center even though it’s not theirs to rename, as the name was set in the founding Congressional legislation.

(BTW, all praise to NPR for consistently referring to it as "the Kennedy Center," not the "Trump-Kennedy Center.")

Sounding like a petulant 6-year-old screeching “You’re mean!” Center rep Roma Daravi called Reed “selfish” and “intolerant” and as having “failed to meet [his] basic duty” as an artist, which apparently is performing when and where Daravi wants him to.

For his part, Center President Richard Grenell sniveled quite non-politically that the cancellation was a political stunt in a way that renaming the Center obviously was not. He called it an example of “sad bullying by certain elements on the left,” and pouting that it’s all happening because “the Left is mad” that the Orange Overlord “is supporting the arts” in some no doubt special and impressive yet invisible manner. The Arts are indeed magic.

Grenell said “we will not let them” - we can assume he means those “elements of the Left” - “cancel shows without consequences.” The Center says the suit will come after the holidays.

Interestingly, no basis for the suit was mentioned and it doesn’t appear that any suits were filed against other artists - including Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens, Peter Wolf, Low Cut Connie, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, and the production company of “Hamilton” - who previously canceled appearances in protest over the name change. Apparently, this one hurt their fee-fees more than usual.

Footnote: In late November, Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works announced an investigation into “cronyism [and] corruption” involving “millions in lost revenue, luxury spending, and preferential treatment for Trump allies.” The investigation is being undertaken at a time of, NPR reports, “declining audiences, artist cancellations, layoffs and resignations at the Kennedy Center.”

The next level

The fascists and the self-interested camp followers are working up to their campaign to "destroy the left" and its "terrorism networks" and we accept the threat is real because we seem to have finally embraced Maya Angelou's famous quote, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." As I remarked a little while back, "It is possible to overstate their power; it is not possible to overestimate their intentions."

But I also have a next-level concern, beyond the coming attempts at repression, that I wanted to raise, one to be filed under "be ready for the fallout from unintended consequences, even if they’re not your own."

It's what happens when the MAGA Masters can't make good on their promises to "destroy" the left? Because they won't. They can't. Oh, there may be, probably will be, some show trials or at minimum multiple prosecutions; there will be a lot of "investigations" and a surfeit of accusations; there will be repression of speech and assembly; there will be a lot of pain for those directly and the much greater number indirectly impacted - but no, while the left may even be significantly injured it will not be "destroyed." We survived the Palmer Raids, we survived McCarthyism, we survived the conspiracy trials of the 60s, we will survive this. Maybe scarred and limping, but alive and continuing and re-building. And truth be told, every time we have gone through one of these cycles, at the end of it the country is a little better than it was before. The moral arc of the universe and all that, I suppose.

So anyway, getting back to the point, what happens when after the MAGA Masters have gotten their rabid followers all pumped up, they can't produce the ultimate victory they promised? How far will they go, how desperate will they be, to keep that loyalty, to hold that blind commitment?

And will those followers try to make that victory come true on their own? It wouldn't be the first time that leaders of a movement lost control of their creation. We've already seen it here on a small scale in the refusal of some of the MAGA crowd to accede to the attempts of the Orange Overlord and company to drop the whole Epstein file business. So yeah, that could happen.

If it does and the MAGA Masters start to lose control, lose their grip on the formerly obedient, will those Masters turn on their own followers? Again, it has happened before.

And don't anyone tell me "that'd be good" because now we're talking about literal blood in the streets and guerrilla warfare and if you think that wouldn't affect you, wouldn't come to your door (it's often been said, with cause, that civil wars are the worst), you're an idiot.

This doesn't mean, of course, that other than the moves at repression this will happen. Of course and yes it's a string of "what ifs." I only raise it as a scenario for which we should be prepared - because even if you think it unlikely, you, I think, have to agree it's plausible.

And I raise it for another reason: to remind ourselves that, in another old but true phrase, the best defense is a good offense. The more strongly we today, now, don't just defend our rights but press our commitments to justice, the more strongly we don't merely say "no" to what shouldn't be done but also say "yes" to what should, the more prepared we are to sacrifice in the present for the sake of the future, the sooner and more clearly we can show "destroy the left" to be the pipe dream it ultimately is, the less pain there will be in the end to us and, more importantly, everyone else.

So carry it on. Except more.

Speaking of Kirk

What follows is rather meandering and I probably should go to bed and do it tomorrow, but I'm worried I would cool off to much by then. So with that warning and the understanding that I may feel compelled to edit this later to straighten out spaghetti syntax, I'll proceed.

When anybody among the wingnuts of the right says anything about "free speech," you can be pretty damn sure that they mean free speech for them but not for anyone else.

If it wasn't already obvious, the wave of firings, suspensions, and other penalties we've seen imposed on workers for failing to react in a MAGA-approved manner to the killing of the sexist, racist, xenophobic, trans-hater that was Charlie Kirk drove home the point.

Well, here's another example: Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau is urging people to respond to Kirk's killing by reporting to the State Department people "who glorify violence and hatred" so officials can "undertake appropriate action." What constitutes such “action” is left unsaid along with how far it can and will extend.

Why is that concerning? For one, the meaning of "people" is curiously limited to "immigrants and foreign visitors." That could be taken as an admission they can't touch US citizens, except that stripping citizens of their passports is already under discussion, the DOJ is "is aggressively prioritizing efforts" to denaturalize citizens, and there is the on-going effort to repeal birthright citizenship - so that admission-that's-not-an-admission is at best cold comfort and the phrase "can't touch US citizens" must be modified with "yet."

For another, while the meaning of "people" is curiously limited, the meaning of "glorify" is curiously broad, embracing "praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event," none of which need describe anything approaching "glorify." "I'm glad he's dead" isn't "glorifying" the murder, "he made his name spewing hatred so we can't be surprised if he generated a hateful response" certainly doesn't, and "I guess if he'd used a hammer instead of a rifle it would've been okay," while crude, likewise doesn't make the cut.

The real point, however, is that none of that matters even if any of it actually did "glorify" the murder because all of it fits quite comfortably under the banner of the "FREE SPEECH!" the reactionaries will screech at the least challenge to their vile and often enough violent rhetoric. Because that human right does not rise or fall depending on citizenship or even legality of residency. It is a right, not a privilege to be dispensed to a favored few.

But not as far as the right wing is concerned, oh no. Note that Landau's whole premise by definition excludes anyone who has used Kirk's death to issue calls, no matter how violent, for "war" against those in any way on the left, regardless of their status as "immigrant or foreign visitor" or citizen. As long as it is said in praise of Kirk, it's fine.

Well, sauce for the goose and all that and if anyone objects to you having excoriated Charlie Kirk in death for the execrable person he was in life they should just be told "It's free speech. Do you believe in it or don't you?"

Consider it just a question

Consider this to be just a question, one directed toward every red-cap-wearing MAGA muppet out there. No, seriously.

In the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Republicans and right-wingers of various sorts immediately blamed the shooting on Joe Biden, Democrats in general, DEI programs, and - of course - the "liberal" media.

Oh, and they're immediately starting to fundraise off it.

So here's the question:

What the hell happened to "not politicizing a tragedy?"

What happened to "thoughts and prayers" for the family of Corey Compreatore or the others still in the hospital? What happened to the "lone wacko" talk or any of the rest of the vapid homilies you always spew to evade your own moral responsibility for a climate of threat and violence?

You generation of vipers! You liars! You hypocrites! You are like whited sepulchers, prettified outwardly but inside you are corruption and death.

And no, I will not moderate my tone in pursuit of "unity." Paraphrasing William Lloyd Garrison, I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this topic, the topic of your denial of democracy, your rejection of reason, your jettisoning of justice, your dismissal of decency and all in service of protecting your power by projecting your packaged paranoia - on this topic I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation, nor will I.

One truth I will speak now is that I confess that I'm not sure that in the short run we can stop you. But ultimately we will and at some point your descendants will be ashamed to admit to being related to someone who thought as you do. We will because, one last paraphrased quote, the arc of the moral universe is long and my eye reaches only a little ways. But I do know that moral arc bends towards justice - and so away from you.

The Rules

Updated Recently, I saw a video about the "Reverse Gish Gallop." The Gish Gallop is a verbal tactic based on the premise that it almost always takes longer to rebut a claim than it does to make it, and, as you likely know, consists of firing out so many claims and charges so fast that there is no way the target can adequately refute of even contest all of them.

People came to expect this so tried to prepare rapid-fire responses to expected claims. The "Reverse Gish Gallop" consists of picking out something you said, some error no how minor, and attack that as if it discredited every other rebuttal you made or at least distracting attention from the fact you had presented them.

That reminded me of some things in what I call my "Rules for Right-wingers," which I post from time to time as reminders. Since the last time was about four years ago, I figured this presented an opportunity to do it again.

The fact is, flakes, nutcases, paranoids, and other assorted bozos are almost the totality of the present right-wing and almost the totality of the national Republican party apart from the bigots and bosses whose only interests are of the self kind. For some time I had observed with varying degrees of annoyance and bemusement the predictable tactics of the wingers in debates - or rather, their tactics in avoiding actual debates. But I finally came to a point where I had had it with the evasions, the dodges, the schemes and slime that make up winger discussions and began assembling a list of those tactics.

So here it is, the latest always-subject-to-expansion-or-refinement list of wingnut arguing tactics and operating procedures. They are listed simply in the order in which they got added. Thoughts (and suggestions for new rules) are welcome.

=

Rule #1: Attack, attack, attack!
In fact, try to level so many attacks so fast that your opponent never gets to make a criticism of their own because they are so busy trying to catch up to your attacks. However, don't forget to be deeply shocked and offended if anyone on the left responds in kind.

Rule #2: Deny, deny, deny!
Doesn't matter if it's something undeniable, deny it anyway.

Rule #3: When facts are beyond even your ability to deny, change the subject.
This can be done in various ways, for example:
- Introduce irrelevant details on a tangential point.
- Pluck out from what your opponent said an individual phrase you think you can attack, even if it's one that was just tossed out offhandedly, and treat that as if it's the focus of the entire discussion.
- Tie up the discussion in piles of minutia to the point where everyone, including your opponent, loses track of the actual issue.

Rule #4: Issue a lengthy, ranting denunciation of "the left."
This often can be initiated with "whataboutism," responding to criticisms by ignoring them and going "Yeah? Well what about" whatever seems most useful at the moment. Try to include the words "hypocrites" and/or "hypocrisy," arguing that the left can't legitimately criticize the right (because any such criticism is by your definition hypocritical) while insisting that the right can continue to criticize the left. (Note: Where possible, include the phrase "you liberals" or better yet, "you libtards.")

Rule #5: Make the particular stand for the whole.
Find something offensive or silly some liberal or leftist, somewhere, sometime, said or did and label it as identifying the entire left half of the American political spectrum. Demand that your opponent spend their time denouncing that example rather than discussing the original topic.

Rule #6: Never answer a question.
When faced with one, ignore it and respond with a question, preferably on a different point. If possible, the question should be accusatory. If you do not get an answer, repeat the question and loudly demand it be answered while continuing to ignore the original question you were asked. If you do get an answer, ignore it. If necessary, drop the matter without acknowledging having gotten a reply; if possible, repeat the question, insisting it has not been answered, even if it has.

Rule #7: No amount of proof is enough.
Demand every remotely questionable assertion by your opponent be proved in every conceivable detail, right down to dates, times, and places, complete with signed affidavits. Refer to all factual assertions by your opponents as "just your opinion" even if the level of proof you demanded is supplied.

Rule #8: Assert unsourced statistics and facts with great assurance.
Or, more appropriately these days, assert "alternative facts." Reply to requests for proof by saying some version of "You can look it up." You thereby demand that your opponents do the work of trying to prove your argument for you.

Rule #9: Frame the debate in false choices.
For example, "Do you support socialism or freedom?"

Rule #10: Accuse the accuser.
You could call this "I'm rubber and you're glue" method: Insist, even in the absence of any foundation, that any criticism of you actually applies to your opponent. For example, if someone notes you're avoiding a debate, insist "You're the one who won't debate!" Faced with examples of right-wingers lying, reply "That fits you lefties to a T!" If something you said is challenged as bigoted, say "You're being intolerant!" or better yet, "You're the real racist!"

Rule #11: When a claim has been debunked, continue to use it nonetheless.
When it has been debunked so thoroughly and completely that continuing to use it is counterproductive, stop claiming it for a time, after which assert it again as if the debunking had never happened. For numerous examples where this can be found, see climate change denialists.

Rule #12: Never accept responsibility.
Never, never, never admit any responsibility for the meaning or impact of your own words. If you want guidance, see almost any GOPper statement on January 6.

Rule #13: When all else has failed - and even when it hasn't - lie.
Just make crap up. Important: Keep repeating it. See Rule #11.

Rule #14: When you fear a contrary point may be raised, shout.
If that contrary point is a good one, shout very loudly. Your point may not get heard, but neither will your opponent's. (This is primarily for use on television.)

Rule #15: Seize control of the Clock of History.
Choose the period of time most advantageous to your argument and insist that any event outside that time frame, either before it or after it, is irrelevant and must not be considered.

Rule #16: "Both Sides Now."
If the behavior of some rught-wingers is so undeniably bad that it can't be explained away, airily dismiss it with "Both sides do it." Freely employ false equivalencies.

Rule #17: All debate stops when you win - and only when you win.
Remember that there are only two responses to anything in contention: It's "up for debate" and "We won, the debate is over, shut up." Gun control provides a good example: In the 2008, the Supreme Court, for the first time, held that owning a gun is an individual right. Even since then, the pro-gun claim has been "The Supreme Court has ruled. The debate is over." But for the 69 years preceding that, the controlling precedent was that the 2nd Amendment was about a collective right of collective self-defense, not an individual one. In all those years, no one on the right ever said "The Supreme Court has ruled. The debate is over. We lost."

Rule #18: If you can't win by the rules, change them. Better yet, ignore them.
A great example of this is the recent attempt by the GOPper-controlled Ohio legislature to toughen the requirements for an amendment to the state constitution in an attempt to head of protection of reproductive rights. Even more recently, see almost any Trumpian EO.

Rule #19: Intellectual consistency and honesty are for wusses and losers.
Should need no example, as there are new ones every day, but I happen to favor this classic: Late in evening of election day, 2012, it looked for a time that Obama might lose the popular vote to Mitt Romney despite having won the electoral vote handily. Tweetie-pie tweeted that such a result would be "a total sham and a travesty" and the electoral college is "a disaster for a democracy."

Rule #20: Sitzfleisch.
It's German for "sitting flesh" and it goes back to the days before chess clocks put time constraints on games and players would sometimes win by simply taking so long to move that their opponent would either give up or become so tired from the wait that they would make foolish moves and lose. More generally it now means winning by virtue of sheer, unmitigated, stubbornness. Right-wingers are past masters at that.

Rule #21: Play the victim.
Whatever it is, the right-wing claims they are the real victims. They are the ones facing discrimination, being oppressed, whose free speech is imperiled, who are being called names, the ones who can't get a decent break.

Rule #22: All progressive proposals are "too radical."
This especially applies to proposals that are popular, such as a Green New Deal, national health care, having the rich pay more taxes, and a $15 minimum wage.

=

Okay, that's all the rules I have now, ones which collectively show up right-wingers for what they are: a bunch of selfish, whining, crybabies only interested in their own power and privilege. Which is why playing the victim comes so easily to them.

I'll wrap this up with an observation, one I've made before in discussing this: I frankly expect many of us have at some time or another been guilty of one or more of these sins in the course of a debate, especially if it got heated. But occasional sins in the heat of the moment is not what this is about. This is about a consistent pattern by the right of evasion and deceit. It is being an intellectual coward. It is about being a bully. It is about being a liar.

It is about being a right-winger.

Updated to include the newest rule, #22. 

When Someone Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time

 When Someone Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them The First Time

The title of this post is a quote from Maya Angelou that seems especially appropriate these days, and I'm reminded of a letter-to-the-editor I wrote some time ago in response to a syndicated column by George Will, at the time regarded as pretty much the definition of a right-wing intellectual.

"Some time ago," indeed: The date of the letter is January 3, 1995. This is the unedited text:

To George Will (Boston Globe, January 2) goes the honor of being called an honest man. Cutting through the nonsense of Newt and company, he opens the heart of his cohorts' agenda: "'Back to 1900,'" he says, "is a serviceable summation of the conservatives' goal."

"Back to 1900." Back to a time before legal labor unions or effective anti-monopoly laws, a time of child labor and twelve-hour work days. Back to a time before consumer or environmental protection laws, before regulations requiring safe working conditions, a time when being killed at work was a major cause of death. A time before Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment or disability insurance.

"Back to 1900." Back to when poor people were considered genetic defectives who deserved their condition. Back before civil or voting rights laws, when wives were chattel, blacks were either "good n*****s" who got called "boy" or "uppity "n*****s" who risked being lynched, when racism (against Irish, Italians, and others as well as blacks) was institutionalized, sexism the norm, and gays and lesbians, as far as "polite society" was concerned, didn't exist.

Back, in short, to a time when the elite were in their mansions and the rest of us were expected to know our places, live lives of servitude without complaint, and then die without making a fuss. "Back to 1900" is indeed "a serviceable summation" of the right-wing's goal, which is to undo a century of progress toward economic and social justice in order to selfishly benefit their morally stunted lives.

And if anyone thinks I'm too harsh, remember that Will's "summation" was offered as a moderate alternative to Christopher DeMuth of the American Enterprise Institute, who proposed we "go back to the Articles of Confederation and start over." One wonders what, given the chance, they'd do with the Bill of Rights.

They told us. Believe them.

069 The Erickson Report for January 26 to February 8, Page Four: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

 Next, it's the much-anticipated return of Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages.

We start, as we usually do, with the Clowns, of which we have three.

First up, we have GOPper Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who has vowed to start an "anti-woke caucus" to fight what he calls a "woke agenda" in Congress.

He said that the move would help crush the "doctrine" of "wokeness," necessary because, he whined in the most unintentionally-revealing remark in quite some time, "we no longer live in normal America."

Jeez, and they call us snowflakes.

He should call it the "Send in the Clowns" caucus. You know, "Don't bother, they're here."

=

Next, we have a twofer. Two infamous anti-LGBTQ+ preachers, each of who has called for gay people to be executed, want their male followers to give up beer.

Steven Anderson, founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, and Jonathan Shelley of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas, posted unhinged rants about how drinking beer is risky for men.

Why? Because beer has hops, of course. Uh, what? Y'see, hops contain a minute quantity of a phytoestrogen mimicker and so, according to our two Clowns, drinking beer will make you effeminate.

Friends, that is champion level Clown. And paranoia.

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The third one requires some background. COP, or Conference of Parties, is an annual multinational confab to see who has the best PR campaign claiming to be really really we really mean it committed to staving off climate change. COP28 is to take place in Dubai in late November.

Our clown here is US climate envoy John Kerry, who expressed his approval of the selection of Sultan al-Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, to preside over the meeting. Kerry justified his approval of al-Jabar by citing a recent speech al-Jaber gave.

Not very convincing, because in that very speech al-Jaber talked about how COP should “get it done across mitigation, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage” - which is less about preventing climate change than about learning to live with it - and the company he heads plans to increase its output of crude oil.

Activists rightly equated al-Jaber's choice to asking “arms dealers to lead peace talks.”

With John Kerry's approval. The act of a Clown.

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 3: A Year of Stupid: Clowns of the Year

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 3: A Year of Stupid: Clowns of the Year

We are going to skip the Two Weeks of Stupid this time - which in a way is too bad because we had a good one for Clown: Candace Owens, the right-wing talk show host who got owned by Tweetie-pie about vaccines on her own show and then tried to whine it away by tweeting that he's an old guy from before the time people could "do their own research."

Instead, as this is the last show of the year, it's a good time for one of those yearly wrap-ups. So I'm going to use the occasion to give out awards for Clown of the Year and Outrage of the Year. This was a shortened year for various personal reasons so we don't have as many nominees as we normally would, but we still have some worthy winners.

For Clown, there are two categories: Basic Stupid and Total Jackassery. And in the category of Basic Stupid, the Clown of the Year is the man who put the "gomer" in Gohmert - Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas.

At a June 8th hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee he put this question to Jennifer Eberlin, the assistant deputy chief of the National Forest System, quote:

"I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they found that the Moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the Sun. We know there's been significant solar flare activities and so is there anything the National Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management can do to change the course of the Moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Obviously that would have a profound effect on our climate."

And apparently this is not sarcastic; he was serious about this. Louis Gomer was actually raising the idea of changing the orbit of the Earth in order to deal with climate change. He is hands down the Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category.

A quick science aside here because this is just the thing to demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect, where in effect the less you know about something the more you think you know.

It is true the Moon's orbit is changing slightly. That has to do with interaction with the tides on Earth. It's also true that the Earth's orbit is subject to some for lack of a better term wobbling and those cyclical shifts in the Earth's motion and the resulting change in its position relative to the Sun can be a driver of long-term climate change, including things like triggering the beginning or the end of glaciation periods or ice ages.

The thing is, those cycles run on time frames ranging from 24,000 to over one hundred thousand years and the warming we are now seeing is from a time frame of maybe one hundred-fifty years. Those cycles and the warming we're seeing now have absolutely nothing to do with each other and Louis Gohmert really really really is a Clown

Okay, moving to the Total Jackassery category, we have another clear winner: smug transphobe Dave Chappelle.

Chappelle released a new special the beginning of October and got flak over the offensive transphobia it included, up to and including a walkout by some employees of Netflix, where it was streamed.

He responded by claiming he is the actual victim, saying "You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. Well, it seems like I'm the only one that can't go to the office anymore."

Then, at the November 22 screening of his new documentary, Chappelle tossed around the "f-word," made jokes about people’s use of various pronouns, and pretended to identify as a woman to get a cushier prison cell, proving to one and all that he has learned nothing and doesn't intend to.

Which actually had been clear from the start. Back in October, he supposedly offered to meet with members of the transgender community, but, he said, "You will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody's demands." But he'd meet - under certain conditions. Quoting:

"You cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing." (In other words, "You will not summon me; I will summon you.") "And thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby" - another comedian and a member of the LGBTQ+ community - "is not funny."

An "offer" which doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that is neither serious nor sincere.

You'd think that growing up as a black person in the US Chappelle had to deal with some issues of personal identity, so he'd be able to have some understanding of the feelings of others dealing with a similar sort of question. But he doesn't and he won't - because he finds it easier and more profitable to punch down with cheap shots. Dave Chappelle is a Total Jackass.

043 The Erickson Report for December 2 to 15, Page Four: Two Weeks of Stupid [the Clowns]

We wrap up this time with Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages, starting, as usual, with the Clowns.

The Library of Congress has begun what amounts to a routine re-cataloging task of changing the dehumanizing terms “aliens” and “illegal aliens” as subject headings to the neutral “noncitizens.”

And guess what, to no one's surprise, our favorite bag of grease, Sen. Ted Ooze was very very upset. This was, he bloviated, a “politically motivated” move, an “Orwellian attempt to manipulate and control language.”

Which, apparently, labeling upwards of 12 million of our fellow residents as The Other for thepusposes of faer-mongering and fundraising is not.

Ted Ooze: always good for a clown show.

As a footnote, the Blahden administration has made some efforts in this direction, including a memo ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to drop "illegal alien" in favor of "undocumented noncitizen."

Dealing with dehumanizing language brings us to our next clown - supposed comedian but certainly homophobe and transphobe Dave Chappelle.

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You know about this, I'm sure, but still it bears sneering.

Chappelle got return fire after his new special was released the beginning of October because of the offensive transphobia it included, sparking a walkout by some employees of Netflix.

He responded by saying "I said what I said, and boy I heard what you said. My god. How could I not? You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. Well, it seems like I'm the only one that can't go to the office anymore." In other words,  he followed up being offensive by claiming he is the actual victim.

Classic clownishness. But wait, there's more.

On November 22, at the screening of his new documentary, Chappelle tossed around the "f-word," made jokes about people’s use of various pronouns, and pretended to identify as a woman to get a cushier prison cell, proving in case there was any doubt that he has learned nothing and doesn't want to.

Actually, that had been clear from the start. Back in October, he supposedly offered to meet with members of the transgender community, but, he said, "You will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody's demands." But he'd meet - under certain conditions. Quoting:

"You cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing." (In other words, "You will not summon me; I will summon you.") "And thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby" - another comedian and a member of the LGBTQ+ community - "is not funny."

An "offer" which doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that is neither serious nor sincere.

I'll end with this, addressed to Dave Chappelle: One of the things you said in that special was "Gender is a fact."

Yeah, it is, but not in the way you think, you ignorant dolt. Your sex might be defined biologically, but your gender is who you are, it's your sense of self, it's who and what you feel yourself to be, which may or may not line up with your outward appearance. The fact that difference between sex and gender can exist is what raises the entire issue of being transgender. The technical term for the mental stress and suffering some experience as a result is gender disphoria.

You'd think that growing up as a black person in the US you had to deal with some issues of personal identity. So you'd think that you'd be able to have some understanding of the feelings of others dealing with a similar sort of question. It's called empathy. Look it up.

But you won't - because you find it easier and more profitable to take cheap shots. Which is just more proof that you are a thoroughgoing Clown.