Better late than never - please read.

This is a post I drafted back on July 12 and just now realized I never posted. So I'm posting it now hoping it will get read - certainly more than it would if I backdated it to the 12th. I'll leave it to the text to explain what it's about - so if I'm going to do that, I should get to it. What follows, then, is that July 12 draft.

==

I finally submitted my comments on the proposed federal rule that would concentrate control of federal research grants in the hands of a hand-picked presidential political team while requiring, among other things, that grantees act as if trans people don’t exist. One advantage of my slowness is that I got to notice how may comments had been submitted - as of about 11pm on Sunday, it was a touch under 279,000. A good rule of thumb is the greater the number of comments, the greater the opposition. [I learned later that the final total was near a half-million, a truly extraordinary number, and preliminary estimates were 80% of them were in opposition to the rule.]

Personally, I would not be the least surprised if the royal court of The Orange Overlord just said “We don’t care, we’re doing it and this was just for show, anyway.” But hope springs and all that and at least one proposed rule during TOO’s first term - about imposing transphobia on emergency housing met enough opposition that it was never acted on and the Biden administration withdrew it. (They’re trying again.)

I did have some weird moments. For one,I submitted the comment and got told it exceeded the allowable limit. Okay, but until then, no limit had been mentioned. When I edited it enough to fit, I got a notice that it contained “invalid characters.” No indication as to what they were. And everything was regular characters unless they wanted to call braces (used in editing a quote) “invalid” which is weird. To top it off, I submitted just a two-sentence summary plus a .doc file (okay, actually a .wpd file ‘cause yes, I use Word Perfect if only not to use Microsoft) for the full text - which uploaded with no problem. Still don’t know what the issue was.

Anyway, here is the text of my comment.

—

I write to oppose in full the proposed rule “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance.”

I expect much of what I say has already been said amid the over 200,000 comments submitted so far but the importance of opposition must be emphasized.

This proposed rule would replace robust, open, scientific inquiry and “promoting the general welfare” with a weaponized, politicized approach centered on advancing the prejudices and political purposes of whoever happens to occupy the White House. Indeed, it says so in just those words, saying that “activities performed under Federal awards [must be] consistent with ... policy” - which is already defined as “the President’s policy priorities” - and must “demonstrably advance” those interests.

So contrary to what is claimed, this has nothing to do with “improv[ing] transparency, accountability, and oversight for Federal awards” but rather intends to establish centralized control over essentially if not all discretionary federal grants across a wide range of agencies overseeing an even wider range of programs, with such control being held by a small group of hand-picked agents of the president, who are free to overrule any and all scientific and other expert judgement regarding the requested funds. That is not about transparency, that is not about accountability. That is about power.

What’s more, the proposal makes no secret that those “priorities” include continuing and further entrenching the current administration’s racial/ethnic and gender biases, as the White House seeks to redefine any efforts to uplift marginalized communities as discrimination against people who aren’t members of those communities. This is visible in the number of provisions that go far beyond anything to do with “transparency, accountability, and oversight” to set rules for what is and isn’t acceptable in grant requests, rules that serve to strip funding for anyone doing work to support, or do research relating to, those very communities in the greatest need of attention.

For example, the (again hand-picked) presidential appointees performing the “pre-issuance review” are explicitly instructed to screen for and block awards for anything that might “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate ... racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination.” This amounts to a blanket rejection of any and all funding related in any way to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) or similar or related programs, as the administration has repeatedly labeled DEI programs in exactly those terms.

This proposal effectively demands that any grant applicant act as it racism does not exist. An administration that cut refugee admission slots by 94% and reserved most of the 7,500 remaining for white Afrikaners “fleeing” a non-existent “white genocide” in South Africa and then added 10,000 more, all of them for Afrikaners, may embrace that concept. Rational humans do not. This denial of social reality in the proposal must not be accepted.

For another, those same apparatchiks are supposed to scan for any hint of “[g]ender ideology [including] theories or ideologies that deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans, or endorse or advocate for the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic.” Meanwhile, the proposed rule refers to gender transition as “so-called,” bars all gender-affirming care for anyone under 19, and calls standard, well-established, medical treatment protocols as “chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

This, bluntly, is attempting to write pseudoscientific nonsense with no greater grip on reality than that held by Holocaust deniers into the federal regulatory framework. It must not be allowed.

But there is yet another danger here. The regulation explicitly instructs the political appointees to screen for “denial by the recipient of the sex binary, etc.” Note: not a denial in the grant or grant application, but by the recipient. I am prepared to assume that those who drafted the proposed rule are aware of the meaning of their words, and if the intent had been to limit the screening to the grant request, it would have been easy enough to say so. But it doesn’t. It says “recipient,” clearly suggesting that the entire institution, organization, research center, or other entity making the request must be expunged of such unacceptable “ideology” or be denied funding.

So just as some entities must behave as racism does not exist, those here must behave as is transgender people do not exist, must not be mentioned, even by suggestion, even indirectly, even from areas unrelated to the funding.

Enough. This proposed rule change is not about “transparency, accountability, [or] oversight.” It is about writing racism and transphobia into federal regulations while giving a cabal of hand-picked presidential acolytes the power of near total control over discretionary federal grants and the control of scientific research that provides. It is unconscionable and must be rejected.

So I said... #26 - For July 10-19

Another collection of my various comments on various topics over the past week and a half. I seem to have been unusually mouthy recently, as this one is somewhat longer than the norm for these roundups, but I can still hope you’ll find something of interest or insight in what’s here.

Remember that “==” separates comments on different topics while those separated by — are parts of threads.

And off we go.

2026-07-10
[“Why Some People Feel Like Trans People Are ‘Everywhere’”]

Dunno if anyone will care, but for the heck of it:

I’m reminded of something I came up with it must be over 40 years ago. I kept hearing people talk about “always getting the red lights” and the like, so I decided to consider the idea.

For a couple of months I tried to keep track as I drove of the red lights and green lights I got (those little thumb clickers proved invaluable) and where I was if I stopped.

The results were pretty much what you would expect: The ratio of green lights to red lights was high on the highways, very roughly 50-50 at side street intersections, and reversed on side streets crossing highways.

So why the perceptions of “always getting red?” I concluded, in what became generalized as my “red light hypothesis,” that we remembered red lights more because unlike green lights they required a change in our behavior - and it was the change that produced the impression.

Simply put, we are more sensitive to and more likely to remember change than continuity and any trans character, precisely because of their infrequency, is a change from the usual. I suppose it could be thought of as a part of or at least related to the frequency illusion.

==

2026-07-10
[Another anti-trans ruling arising from judge-shopping]

It is an affront to, a disgrace to, the very concept of equal justice before the law if any bigoted, jackassed, wanna-be dictator can just pick one district where some equally-bigoted wacko will give them whatever they want, run any legal errand they desire, and bring all their cases there and not get pushback because oh yeah, “trust the system” that allows it.

-

2026-07-14
[How did we get to this terrible situation in only 18 months? How do you get so many cowards in Congress?]

The only part of that I would dispute is “only 18 months.” This is the outgrowth of a decades-long, conscious program of the right-wing and their billionaire (nee millionaire) funders and beneficiaries to undermine the concept of government “of, by, and for the people” and replace it with a mating of plutocracy with oligarchy.

Beyond that, being an elected federal official has come to be seen less and less as public service and more and more as a line of work, as not a calling but a career, as just what you do for a living, just like any other job except with extraordinarily good perks. The result is an increased focus on one thing: staying elected - which means not displeasing the boss, in this case The Orange Overlord, who has shown his ability to raise a host of money and a horde of true believers and aim then at anyone who incurs his royal displeasure.

And here we are.

I, too, think history will not judge the enablers kindly.

==

2026-07-12
[A letter to three corporations that had blocked investor-advised funds from donating to the Southern Poverty Law Center.]

I became aware of the SPLC shortly after its founding in 1971. While I would get irritated by its sometimes overly-aggressive fundraising, I have admired and continue to admire its history of exposing and tracking hate groups and associated hate rhetoric.

Now it faces what it describes as “the very definition of a vindictive prosecution” at the hands of an administration that has demonstrated its own white-supremacist nature not only by its violent anti-immigrant behaviors but by cutting refugee admissions to 7,500 for all of 2026 (a 94% cut from the previous year), with most of those slots to be used by Afrikaners “fleeing” a non-existent “white genocide” in South Africa - followed by the White House announcing an additional 10,000 more slots, all of them for Afrikaners.

However, whatever you may think of the SPLC or the Trump administration, what can’t be denied is that accusation is not conviction and that by blocking donor-advised funds from making grants to the SPLC, you have unfairly and improperly denied the organization access to perhaps millions of dollars, some which it may need to defend itself against an administration that has made no secret of its desire to destroy it.

I urge you to stop blocking donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center immediately. If nothing else, “innocent until proven guilty” demands it.

==

2026-07-14
TERF is not a slur, but it is an incorrect term. There is not a single thing radical about the reactionary, narrow-minded, self-interested, “I got mine so screw you” bullshit they peddle.

In fact, not only are they not radicals, they are not even feminist. Feminism once celebrated opening opportunities for self-expression for everyone, not just women, because they recognized how the male-female binary we had built into our social structures and rules were oppressive to everyone. They were liberators.

Now, these non-radical, non-feminists have become oppressors, eager to impose that same old binary - provided that they get to decide where and how the lines are drawn.

==

2026-07-14
[“Anti-trans activity is a social panic fostered by powerful voices.”]

Spot on. We have seen any number of organic moral panics over the years, and they usually flare up, spread, and burn out in no more than a couple of years. The damage they can do and have done is real (consider the day care panic), but at least the panic is temporary and in retrospect they often look silly (e.g., comic books; rock’n’roll; going back further, dime novels).

This one is different. As you note, it is not organic, it was deliberately created and is being artificially maintained for selfish political purposes and it’s targets (bathrooms, women’s sports, “OMG! Save the Children!”) consciously chosen.

It occurs to me we might be wise to press that point.

==

2026-07-14
Any time a candidate of any party forces an opponent off the ballot in any election (primary or general) while going on about the “integrity” or “security” of the “process,” I get a strong odor of a heavily-used, poorly-tended barnyard.

==

2026-07-15
[A self-proclaimed Christian who was fired from his job after being warned about repeatedly misgendering and deadnaming a co-worker has filed suit, claiming religious discrimination.]

In one of these cases I would like to see the judge or an attorney insist the Christianity-claiming plaintiff cite the Christian doctrine that requires them to behave as they did. They would be hard pressed to do so.

For example, there is no bar on courtesy, indeed Proverbs 15:1 (KJV) says “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

For another, Jesus told his disciples “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Mathew 10:16, KJV) (Oh, and wasn’t the serpent “more subtil [sic] than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made?” (Genesis 3:1. KJV) Kind of hard to find a doctrine against lying for the sake of social peace in that.

Besides, how is his behavior not a sin of pride?

I could come up with more, but you get the idea.

It would be amusing at that point to have the Christian supremacists argue that doctrine is irrelevant because this is his true belief and be met with the counter-argument that they would have him be exempted from all standards of behavior in any context simply by claiming it was his “belief” that he should act that way, something which no society could accept.

I always find it frustrating that in cases like this the argument of “I’m a Christian, therefore” goes unchallenged.

==

2026-07-15
[Heritage Foundation releases report attacking Title IX as a “failed experiment” and saying women’s sports should be exchanged for more “non-competitive and lower-intensity activities.”]

BREAKING NEWS: The Heritage Foundation wants to go back to 1900!

MORE BREAKING NEWS: The Sun rose in the east!

Relevant quote, from conservative columnist George Will, January 2, 1995: “’Back to 1900’ is a serviceable summation of the conservative goal.”

Quote relevant to the relevant quote, from Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

==

2026-07-16
[A commenter said they couldn’t find a source for an inflammatory meme saying JK Rowling posted an up-skirt photo of a transwoman then said “he” [sic] was asking for it.]

Damn, do I thank you for that. I was about to post a comment calling for a link to a source. I am sick to flipping death of memes that do not cite one and I am especially sick - as has happened to me on more than one occasion (not, I emphasize, here) - of requesting a source and getting some version of “find it yourself” in response.

If you don’t have a link to an actual source, don’t post the meme. And personally I will not link to, forward, or even believe any meme that lacks one.

-

2026-07-16
Okay, everybody, I did the work which shouldn’t have been necessary and found the source for this meme.

Someone on Bluesky said it was from a July 11 thread on The-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter so after signing in to a platform I abandoned several years ago and scrolling down through a Trump-worthy pile of posts from JK Growling I found it.

It was a picture of an overweight transwoman at some conference or another. She was dressed in a blue top, short leather skirt, fishnets, and knee-high boots and was sitting in a cushioned chair on a stage with one leg crossed over another. Because the stage was of course elevated, that position game a somewhat revealing view above the tops of her stockings.

So did Growling post it? Yes.

Did she say she was “asking for it?” She said the woman (who she misgendered as “Fred” - I gather her name is Freda) chose the outfit and then labeled her an “paraphilic exhibitionist” who was having “the time of” her (because Growling didn’t say “her” but I refused to quote it exactly) “life.” So yes, she said it but not in the “blame the victim” sense we usually mean it. Rather, her bigot-befuddled brain pumped out her Psych 101 understanding of real (as opposed to fictional) people to declare that Freda was deliberately exposing herself because it sexually aroused her.

Notably, Growling said the above in response to being asked if she would have posted the same picture if it was of a cis woman. She never answered. Which I think is revealing.

Oh, and she couldn’t let pass the opportunity to body-shame, saying Freda “left an indelible impression on the audience. And the chair.”

Now everybody thank me for the detective work. :-)

==

2026-07-16
[The Democratic candidate for OH governor expressed support for banning trans girls from school sports.]

The bizarre thing is that I almost hope that she said this out of true conviction. That would make her anything from deeply ignorant to an outright transphobe, but at least it would be honest.

The alternative, that she said it thinking it will pick off some of those mythical “moderate Republicans” who supposedly only need a little nudge to abandon The Orange Overlord and all he represents, then she is not only a profound hypocrite, she is stooopid!

And while it’s possible to fix ignorant, stupid is generally incurable.

==

2026-07-17
[“Every interview, in fact almost every sentence should end with ‘Trump crime family’ or ‘corrupt.’”]

Exactly. One of my “Rules for Right-wingers” refers to “Sitzfleisch,” German for “sitting flash” and comes from chess, from a time before chess clocks, and people would sometimes try to win by just refusing to move until the other player just gave up in exhaustion or frustration. That is, winning not by the quality of your play (or in this case argument) but by pure unadulterated stubbornness.

The right is a past master at this, including taking some tag line or slogan and repeating it over and over and over…. That sort of insistent persistence and message consistency is something we should see a lot more of from our side of the divide.

==

2026-07-17
So after effectively winning on bans on trans athletes in school sports, the Heritage Foundation has taken aim at Title IX.

And the Newsom-Moulton playbook of “If we just give them this, everything will be better,” works out as we should have expected (and a lot of us did expect).

But c’mon, be fair, because after we let Germany have the Sudetenland, Hitler was satisfied and we had peace for our time.

==

2026-07-18
[Nosferatu aka Stephen Miller says antifa “rioters” are “deformed.”]

The language is that of eliminationism, a central part of which is making your enemies into something “other,” something not human, something sub-human. It’s why references to “insects,” to “vermin,” to “infections” are so very common among the fascists and their willing enablers - as are, as here, references to “deformities.”

The point in every case is to define some group as “not us, as “other,” as ones whose elimination from society, whether by imprisonment, expulsion, or death is for and to the benefit of those who remain.

We must be clear-eyed about what we facing. As Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” And this is far from the first.

==

2026-07-19
[Contrary to the headline, Tom Tillis does not “rip apart” the SAVE Act.]

His complaint is that it can’t be done for this election cycle, not that it shouldn’t be done. Voter ID is a fraud because no matter what the standard of proof is, some people will be unable to meet it, meaning it’s main effect will be to exclude people, generally poor people, from voting. Considering how rare unlawful voting is, voter ID is a right-wing voter-suppressing “solution” to a non-existent problem.

==

2026-07-19
So Markie Mullin says there are 250,000 non-citizens on voter lists across four states: California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Okay, well, together those states have a breath under 40,000,000 registered voters. So even if his unproven figures based on data which doesn’t have were by some weird coincidence true, the voter rolls in those states would be 99.4% citizens.

Not exactly an “OMG! RUN FOR THE HILLS!” emergency.

==

2026-07-19
[”Apparently mainstream Dems don’t want or need progressive votes”]

It’s not that they don’t need or want our votes. It’s that they think they can take them for granted. Any hesitation or resistance is met with the manipulative outrage of “What, you want (the demon du jour) to win??!?”

==

2026-07-19
[A caucus of the OH Democratic Part was forced to delete a comment criticizing gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton for calling trans girls “boys.”]

“We of the Ohio Democrats Progressive Caucus wish to thank the upper echelons of the state party for instructing us regarding our recent misunderstanding of how things operate.

“To prevent such unfortunate misunderstandings in the future, we request that the party leadership supply us with a full list of statements we are not allowed to make and opinions we are not allowed to express.

“Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Enough for now!

So I said... #25 for June 26 to July 8

The next of my apparently never-ending series of posts of comments I’ve made here there and everywhere and yes I’ve always liked that song.

Just a reminder that comments on different topics are separated by “==” while those separated by “—” are parts of a thread. What is in braces - that is, “[ ]” - in italics is added here for context; if it’s regular type is was as per the original comment.

Speaking of which, comments and reactions are always encouraged.

Here we go….

2026-06-26
”It’s hilarious when Americans pity my Norwegian tax rate.”

I once asked my father, a WW2 veteran which I mention to establish his generation, if he would be willing to pay the income tax rates in Sweden. He immediately said yes on exactly the logic presented here: How much you pay in taxes isn’t important, it’s do you get back in services what it’s worth.

(I specifically remember him citing free education through college as an example.)

And I am going to remember (and steal) the description of the US health care system as “a GoFundMe waiting to happen.”

—

2026-06-26
[Troll: ”If Norway didn’t have control over North Sea oil reserves then your taxes would be four times as much”]

So IF Norway did not have income from North Sea oil, taxes would be higher.

Perhaps. And IF your grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.

And oh yeah, IF we didn’t have a government and economic system encouraging rapacious capitalism, we’d have nice things, too.

==

2026-06-27
The Shuffle [moving ICE prisoners around so family and legal aid can’t find them] reminds me of the old police trick of repeatedly moving those they arrested from one station house to another so neither their families nor their attorneys knew where they were. There was/is a name for it; maybe someone here can remind me of it.

==

2026-06-27
[A comment on a list of words that can’t be used in NIH grant applications referred to variations on “lactating or pregnant person” as “chilling absurdities.”]

Those actually aren’t absurd; they are intended to include trans men, who while being male by personal identity (i.e., gender) can still have or relate to issues involving having a female phenotype.

Please accept my apology if I have misunderstood you.

==

2026-06-28
The image (of booksellers in Iraq who leave their stock out on the street overnight, confident none will be stolen) reminded me of an experience I’ve had a few times, with the first being the most profound, when I walked into a bookstore and suddenly felt - well, stupid. Aware of a world of knowledge I will never know, whole fields of thought, of philosophy, of which I am unaware, whole realms of history I will never hear of, entire fields of scientific undertaking and development at which I have and will continue to have no understanding, assuming I’d even have come across the name.

It actually can be a rather salutary experience as a corrective to the ego and a invitation to keep learning what I can.

==

2026-06-29
[Re SCOTUS overturning the Humphrey’s Executor decision: “A progressive president could accomplish a lot by systemically removing any Republican appointee.”]

Except that’s not the real danger. If DOGE (which I always pronounce “dodgy” because the whole enterprise was/is) proved anything, it was that you can destroy a program or an institution in a small fraction of the time it took to build it. That incoming administration would spend much of its time rebuilding what had been destroyed just to get back to where things had been - assuming it could.

The danger is not to potentially doing something progressive, it’s rather, to misquote Ben Franklin, “you have something progressive - if you can keep it.”

==

2026-06-30
[A report in Erin in the Morning about the SCOTUS decision allowing sports bans on transgender girls/women produced a lot of discussion. One commenter, looking to rebut another’s argument, said that if the other chose to argue as they did, “every part of Title IX is null and void. All of it, you don’t get to pick and choose.”]

I’ve been staying out of this since I think people are talking past each other - but I do have to insert that “you don’t get to pick and choose” is untrue. Striking down part of a law or regulation or rejecting it “as applied,” meaning it can be valid in other circumstances, is hardly unknown.

==

2026-06-30
[Responding to a different comment in the same article.]

I expect you realize that “T in excess of typical levels” intended to create fairness has been used to exclude cis women as well as trans women. Drawing rigid lines that are actually fair to all is no easy task.

—

2026-06-30
[“Why is it unfair or difficult to apply the same standard to cis women as trans women?”]

Um, I’m confused. The point, which I thought was clear but apparently wasn’t, is that a standard designed to allow for trans girls/women to play on women’s teams could also bar some cis women from that same opportunity and that it’s no easy task to develop a standard that would accomplish the former while avoiding the latter.

If you’re saying that some T level should be controlling in all cases, okay, but then you should say that explicitly and I don’t think anyone would be satisfied.

==

Share

2026-06-30
[Yet another from responses to the same article, referring to an example of people talking past each other. ”Studies show no advantage after 2 years HRT.” “I said the same thing exactly.”]

Which I honestly think is a source of a lot of the verbal conflict here: You kept burying the damn lede underneath declarations that “male biological advantage is real.”

I think the idea that it’s not unreasonable in the pursuit of fairness for trans girls/women to go through a course of HRT in order to be able to compete would meet little objection.

One last thought: Cracks like “as if some woo-woo appeal to spirit gender should be persuasive to any sane person ? !!!” - which certainly comes across as claiming that psychology and neurology are “woo-woo” - certainly didn’t advance understanding of your position.

—

2026-07-01
[Summary of the response: Didn’t bury the lede; idea of requiring course of HRT got “no small bit” of rejection; “woo-woo” refers to “belief that people are transgender for no physical reason.”]

I have no intention of continuing this, so this will be my last.

Burying the lead is exactly what you did. More than once. The lede is the central argument, the one you want people to see, the one intended to frame what follows. It’s precisely why the headline and opening paragraph of a story are so important.

Your first comment was “T in excess of typical levels for a gendered category [is cheating]. Biological reality must be acknowledged and addressed.” (If you don’t know that “biological reality” is a verbal calling card of the anti-trans crowd, I have cause to doubt you are “quite current” on the topic.)

When someone responded by noting the effects of hormones, you responded by calling them an “i***t,” which I think we can assume meant idiot, condescendingly claiming superior expertise - punctuated with “I award you no points” - and went on to declare “The ‘male’ athletic advantage is real.”

It was only at that point when you posted what I assume was your lede, that a prior course of HRT is a reasonable requirement for trans female athletes in traditionally female sports.

Yes, that is damn well burying the lede.

As for the “rejection,” what there was of it was based on the impression you gave by the way you initially approached the topic. If that many people misread your intention, you have to consider that perhaps the problem was not their lack of understanding buy your lack of clarity.

Finally, there is the statement “I refer to a belief that people are transgender for no physical reason.” I have absolutely no idea what that even means. It’s incoherent nonsense. Unless, that is, you are insisting that the brain isn’t “physical” and that, exactly as I suggested, you hold psychology and neurology to be “woo-woo” - in which case your “45 years of study” did you no good.

Yeah, I’m done with this.

==

2026-07-02
[New Jersey enacted a trans shield law.]

There was considerable disappointment when the NJ lege didn’t pass a shield law in the post-election session despite a promise from the party leadership to do it.

I was among those who concluded that the promise to act was to serve as a stopgap in case right-wing nutzoid Jack Ciattarelli won the governor’s race. Since he didn’t, the feeling in the lege was, “Well, there’s an EO in place and that’s been good enough so far, why raise the issue at all?”

I’m glad to see others kept with it and turned an order into law.

==

2026-07-02
I’m glad you mentioned, if only in passing, the women’s national team. They are, in fact, the most successful women’s national football team in the world, having won the cup four times along with finishing second once and third three times. The fact that gets so rarely mentioned just demonstrates the male bias in US appreciation of sports.

==

2026-07-03
[Responding to a note, a biologist wrote, summarized: Nature isn’t binary; a spectrum is the norm; gender is a social construct.]

Just throwing this in because it’s a point I like to emphasize: Gender presentation is a social construct, but the concept of gender exists across time and culture, marking it as something inherent to being human. Which also serves to point out that sex and gender are not the same thing.

—

2026-07-04
[I’m not sure I get your point. I didn’t say concept, I said and spoke from a scientific, not a sociological, perspective. Could you explain more? ]

First, thank you for asking, both because it gives me the opening to blather on a bit and because, well, it’s always a little flattering to have a comment considered seriously.

Let me start by saying that I think that we too often and too easily fall back on the old habit of equating sex and gender as synonyms or as the former defining the latter. But they are not synonymous, which is why I raise the point. You may well be fully aware of that, but I still think the language we use matters.

So, yes, you did use the word “construct.” That is what I was addressing. Referring to gender as a “social construct” is a sociological argument that suggests that gender does not exist outside of social relations - that is, that it is a creation of society.

But the fact that the **idea of gender, the **idea of the masculine and the feminine, exists across human history and (as far as I’m aware) all human societies testifies to the fact that that idea is inherent to humans, as inherent as male and female phenotypes, as inherent as language.

However, and again like language, what forms the **expression of that part of us, in this case, gender expression, is indeed a social construct, determined by the standards and mores of the society in which we live and which instruct us in what is masculine and what is feminine (and what is approved or disapproved in each) in dress, behavior, speech, mannerisms, roles in family and broader society, and more. It tells us how we are supposed to act and more importantly, to be.

For most people, their genetically-driven phenotype (sex) and their internal personal sense of self (gender) align, or at least closely enough to avoid troubling stress from the incongruence. For some among us, they don’t. Which ultimately is the basis of the whole issue.

So my point, which I hope I’ve made clearer than my previous once-over, is that gender exists [I should have added “on its own] apart from sex and we should make a point of presenting it that way as a clearer description of why the whole discussion and defense of trans rights and health care needs to take place.

—

2026-07-04
[My words indicate these ideas, just in fewer words]

:shrug: Okay. I’ll leave it at this: Saying “gender,” not “gender expression” but “gender,” is a “social construct” is to say the concept of gender does not exist on its own but only as an creation of society, little different from clothing fashion.

==

2026-07-04
[Notoriously anti-trans judge Reed O’Connor put an FTC motion “on hold.”]

Maybe I’m just trying to entertain a dream, but I can’t help but wonder of O’Connor, after hearing from WPATH and Boasberg, decided he was kinda tired of being treated like The Orange Overlord’s legal errand boy. He may be a right-wing nutzoid, but he could still have some measure of self-respect.

==

2026-07-05
[USAF Major Jason Watson stood on the Capitol steps in full uniform with a sign reading “Impeach Convict Remove.”]

“you just cannot do what MAJ Watson did”

Yes you can. We know because he did it. He did it knowing there would be a cost, knowing he was risking his position, his career, likely his pension - and prison. Doing it because it seemed a way to make a difference, to have an impact, and doing it because sometimes the “call to conscience” outweighs the “call to duty.”

Yes, he could have just resigned. And Rosa Parks could have just sent a letter to the bus company.

But he didn’t and she didn’t and that’s why we’re talking about him and about courage and about civil disobedience and what are our real first duties and why we still know her name and what followed.

We never know in advance what spark will start a fire and history says his spank very likely will not light one now (few ever do). But he struck his with, I have absolutely no doubt, knowledge of the potential consequences because “Here I stand, I can do no other.”

And that deserves at the least honor and respect rather than arrogant condescension suggesting he acted without consideration of others, including any family.

==

2026-07-05
[Re a video of people reading the “preamble” to the Declaration of Independence]

Okay, I know it’s silly but it always irks me. What those folks read was not the “preamble” to the Declaration of Independence, it was rather (most of) the second paragraph. It was the core argument, not an introduction or preamble to it, and was followed by a bill of particulars.

If the Declaration has a preamble, it is the opening paragraph, which reads:

“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

==

2026-07-07
[A fundamentalist tries to claim the Bible describes evolution.]

Genesis 1:3-5: And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day. (NIV)

So much for “days don’t mean anything before the fourth one.”

Genesis 2:7: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV

So much for “Adam had ancestors.”

This guy reinterprets words with the looseness of Humpty Dumpty - or the majority of SCOTUS.

==

2026-07-07
One sort of side but relevant thing: Please stop referring to the [US-Iran] MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] as if it was a settled pact. It is not.

A MOU is essentially an agreed list of what are the outstanding issues, what needs final settlement. It is not binding on either party; rather it is an indication of the direction they intend to take in a final, formal, pact. Neither the US nor Iran properly can be accused of “violating” an agreement to which they have made no legal commitment. So, bluntly, whatever it says about Iranian control over the Strait is entirely irrelevant to the present moment. Stop talking as if it was.

Oh, and to save some folks’ time: Do not even bother trying to claim I’m justifying the [renewed] attack [on Iran]. It would only demonstrate an inability to read what is clearly said, that I am addressing one particular point about the reporting.

==

2026-07-08
[Chris Geidner commented on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s writings on the birthright citizenship and transgender sports ban cases. One person asked “if ‘sex’ includes things other than biological sex, what exactly are those things?”]

Sorry for the delayed response. No arguments, just some of my thoughts on this.

I’d say first that people in general and courts in particular should stop treating the words “sex” and “gender” as if they are synonymous. They are not.

But of course the fact that we have and continue to equate them means that we could just decide that the term “sex” in the law was intended to encompass gender identity - which is in fact what we had done and what this court undid, despite having decided essentially the opposite in an earlier case involving a different title.

Given that’s our situation, I’d say the issue isn’t what’s beyond “biological sex,” but the assumption that the word “sex” - even though we persist in equating it with “gender” - refers only to “biological sex,” which is than taken as a synonym for “means of reproduction.”

But that is a constructed and constricted meaning which separates sex from society and the impacts of each on the other, thus making “biological sex” a perhaps convenient but still a purely arbitrary basis of judgment.

Consider that neuroscience is classed as a multidisciplinary subdivision of biology. Which means that brain function, which is fundamental to and thus directly involves personal identity, is itself part of our biology.

Meanwhile, sociobiology sits in the area where sociology and biology overlap, regarding biology as fundamental to social interaction and identity, which are socially produced and regulated. That is, biology is fundamental to identity, but what defines that identity in a given society is socially generated and the study is of the interplay between them.

Bottom line: SCOTUS imposed a predetermined definition on a word and term that is disconnected from the science involved - and got it wrong.

(BTW, sociobiology got a bad rep when it emerged into popularity in 1975 because some of its adherents insisted that genes are controlling of social relations and so such things as then-accepted social roles for men and women were “natural” and trying to change them “defied reality.” Sound familiar? Thankfully, it has matured at least somewhat in the past 50 years, even though it still to my mind tends to focus too much on genetics as explanations for social relations.)

More to come, I expect. “See” you then.

Rejecting the HUDdled masses - if they're trans

UPDATED
 I failed to include some links to information about the issue and the rule. They are:

https://housingup.org/2026/06/25/hud-proposes-to-remove-key-lgbtq-protections/
https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-proposes-rescind-lgbtq-anti-discrimination-protections-hud-programs-advocates-4-trans

The rest is unchanged. 

 My apologies for not posting this earlier. It was submitted within the time frame (which ended early July) for public comments on a proposed rule change for HUD enforcing stereotypical, transphobic definitions of male and female on applicants for housing aid.

--

In February 2012, a Final rule about HUD’s programs was issued, one which “aimed to ensure that HUD’s housing programs would be open to all eligible individuals and families regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.”

However, it did not address how to deal with transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in temporary, emergency shelters and other facilities with shared sleeping quarters or bathing facilities.

On September 21, 2016, an updated final rule was issued, clarifying the issue and noting that people must be treated according to their gender identity “and not on another person’s stereotype-based complaints.”

I note that history to emphasize that the current standard is one which has existed since the fall of 2016 through to the present, which means it was in place across the whole of President Trump’s first term - and its one attempt to undo it, in 2020, was washed away under a flood of public opposition from providers, faith-based partners, domestic violence shelter operators, and more, along with the general public. (It was withdrawn by the Biden administration in April 2021.)

Despite that history, on February 7, 2025 HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the agency simply would stop enforcing the 2016 Equal Access Rule - overruling federal regulations by executive fiat - followed by, on April 28 of this year, an announcement of a proposed formal rule change, formalizing and institutionalizing the anti-trans bigotry the administration had been practicing so far.

This rule would apply to all HUD programs and would allow providers of services, including housing and temporary and emergency shelters, to demand “assurances or evidence” to confirm the claimed sex of the person matches their birth certificate, embracing “immutable biological classification as either male or female” - the right-wing approved way of saying “biology is destiny” - while stripping away any references to “gender,” marking it as “ever-shifting concept” with, it appears to say, no real meaning.

This, bluntly, is pseudo-scientific claptrap. It is ignorance pretending to erudition, bigotry wrapped in bureaucracy, animus cloaked as administration. It takes the documented reality that gender-nonconforming people are significantly more likely to be homeless, significantly more likely to be a victim of violence, significantly more likely to be a target of abuse - and says “We don’t care.”

It takes the documented accounts of gender-nonconforming people that “given the choice between a shelter designated for assigned birth sex or sleeping on the streets, many transgender shelter-seekers would choose the streets” because it’s that much safer - and says “Lalala, we can’t hear you!”

Perhaps most importantly, it ignores - I hope through ignorance because doing it deliberately is much worse - the scientifically-documented hard reality that sex (which is about reproduction) and gender (personality, sense of self) are not the same thing, either functionally or neurologically, as they are mediated by partially-overlapping but different parts of the brain.

One of my all time favorite quotes about living an ethical life says “Always try to be good - but never fail to be kind.” The proposed rule change is neither. It should be withdrawn.

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.

Submitted for your consideration...

The fact that this needs to be said makes me feel I'm in the Twilight Zone.

To: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov
From: Lawrence Erickson

Subject: Ballot Mail

I oppose the proposed rule by the Postal Service as outlined in 39 CFR Part 111 on mail-in ballots and the USPS’s involvement in election administration.

Election administration is by the Constitution a state function. No role for the Executive Branch is set even by implication. Federal-level mandates that override state and local procedures exceed the claimed authority and must be rejected as illegal, unconstitutional, and improper.

More to the point, contrary to what is suggested, this proposal is not about clarity or efficiency or any other bureaucratic excuse. It is, rather, an attempt to force states to provide to the Executive Branch voter information to which it has no right at a cost of being unable to engage in mail-in voting.

That is, as practical fact its intent is to aid and abet the White House in its avowed campaign to disrupt, undermine, and ultimately eliminate mail-in voting. By this proposal the USPS has made itself a partner in a blatant, politically-motivated attempt to federalize and so exert centralized control over the process of voting - and so has embraced, even if (we can hope) unknowingly, this significant threat to the informed public needed for a functioning democracy because once the principle is established that the agency can and will pick and choose who can receive mail based on the personal preferences and prejudices of the White House, where is the cut-off? Where is the limit?

Which in some ways is the heart of the objection: The proposed rule change brings shame and disgrace to the honored history of the USPS. It changes its famous, even if informal, motto that begins “Neither snow nor rain nor heat” and its notable dedication to providing mail service even to the remotest parts of our nation into vapid politicized slogans.

Reclaim your tainted honor: With draw this proposed rule change. Preferably with an apology.

Thank you for considering my comments.

News Worth Knowing (which you may have mssed) #4

“News Worth Knowing (which you may have missed)” is one of the regular features of our weekly 1-hour lunchtime vigil downtown. This one involves me taking about 5-7 minutes reporting on a few things which are outside the main headlines but which I think are still worth some attention. I’ve taken to posting those things here for whatever additional attention they get. So here is edition #4, a bit longer than usual but still, I hope, worth the read. Comments are always welcome.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Being arch about “The Arch”

I got a notice about the National Park Service taking public comments on the DC “Arch” desired by The Orange Overlord. So I thought I’d get in on the fun and submit a comment. This was it:

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 national pride but of national pridefulness.

Which is why it seems oddly appropriate that the proposal is “drawing on the historic Roman precedent of erecting freestanding arches,” that is, 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.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

This is a feel-good one

Todd Blanch (not a typo; the thought of him makes me go pale) said in April that the Epstein files “should not be a part of anything going forward.” In other words, “Get over it.”

Well, one of Jeffy’s estates was a place called Zorro Ranch in New Mexico - and the people of New Mexico are apparently not willing to get over it.

A small bipartisan commission headed by state Rep. Andrea Romero is going after not just abusers but those who enabled them.

The commission, which has a $2 million budget, has now issued 14 subpoenas to targets ranging from Epstein’s estate through local law enforcement and state officials, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase, up to the FBI and the DOI (Department of Injustice).

Meanwhile, state authorities have reopened a criminal investigation that was closed in 2019 at the request of the DOI and searched the ranch in March.

No big media splash, no self-promoting puffery, just a state commission doing the work the minions of TOO were too corrupted, cowardly, or contemptuous of others’ pain to undertake.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Taking action

The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act - NDAA - is coming to the Senate floor.

One provision, section 224, would set about “synchronizing cooperative efforts” in military research and integration between the US and Israel, essentially aiming to intertwine the two militaries, which would decrease any leverage the US has over Israel (not that we’re using what we have) while increasing leverage Israel has over the US by making the US at least partly reliant on Israeli military technology.

There will be moves to strip section 224 - which may have been renumbered as section 219 in later versions - from the bill.

I’m confident that in my home state of New Jersey we can count on Senator Kim and probably Senator Booker to support those moves. (”Probably” because Booker’s refusal to oppose arms to Israel, acceptance of AIPAC money, and persistent referral to the slaughter and devastation of Gaza in the passive voice as if it is a natural disaster with no human agent - that is, the IDF - involved give me reason to doubt.)

However, they made need some pushing to commit to - in the event those moves fail - opposing the NDAA in full - which, in fact, they should anyway.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Home Sweet Homeless

In the first weeks of The Orange Overlord take two, on February 7, 2025, HUD Sec Scott Turner said the agency would stop enforcing the 2016 Equal Access Rule, which requires services funded by HUD to have equal access to programs for individuals based on their gender identity.

Now he’s announced a proposed formal federal rule change, formalizing and institutionalizing the anti-trans bigotry they’ve been practicing so far.

The rule would apply to all HUD programs and would allow providers of services, including housing and shelters, to demand “assurances or evidence” to confirm the stated sex of the person matched their birth certificate with no regard to their gender.

Public comments can be submitted through June 29 at:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/28/2026-08244/equal-access-to-housing-in-hud-programs-revisions

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And there is always more to do

TOO and the noxious goo of acolytes, toadies, and grifters that make up his maleficent maladministration have decided to go all in on their hatred of trans people.

They have proposed a new federal rule regarding the distribution of all discretionary federal funds and grants across all agencies - “discretionary” meaning anything not set by law.

Centrally, it requires that before a grant recipient can get any money they have to go through a “pre-issuance review” done by a political appointee who is explicitly instructed to look for any sign of a “denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans” or support for “the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic,” with “sex” and gender being declared as identical - which they decidedly are not.

Note well: They are not examining the grant in question, they are examining the entire organization requesting it.

So any institution that acknowledges in any way, even indirectly, that transgender people, or nonbinary people, or gender-diverse people exist - maybe it has a DEI policy, maybe healthcare coverage includes gender care, maybe it allows trans restroom access or sports participation, anything at all - could be deemed to “deny the sex binary” and so denied funding.

Hell, it’s easy to imagine a university looking for a grant for a new gymnasium being rejected on the grounds of promoting “gender ideology” because its medical school has a class on human sexuality that includes a section on gender being on a spectrum - because remember, it’s the whole organization, not the grant request, that’s on trial.

What they’re proposing, in short, is that federal funding be available only to those people and institutions who are prepared to actively behave as if trans folks literally do not exist. Don’t mention them, even by suggestion, even indirectly, even from areas unrelated to the funding. Erase them entirely from archives, historical records, even, it would appear, from casual language or offhand reference - or risk losing all federal funding.

Oh, and be sure to act fact, because the same proposal includes means to cancel any existing grants.

This is more than draconian, more than diabolical. It is outright evil.

Comments can be submitted through July 13 at

https://www.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2026-0034-0001

and be assured I’ll bug you about this every week until then.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

A revealing footnote to that

During a press event at the Oval Office on Thursday, in the middle of a long, rambling response to a question about the voter-suppression SAVE Act, TOO went off about “mutilization of your children for transgender purposes” (No, you’re not wrong; there is no such word as “mutilization.”) and that there are six states where “they take your child from you do what they want to do,” which is “transgender mutilization.”

The next question was not a follow-up, nothing about “which six states.” Rather, it was another reporter asking about US intelligence staffing.

And so the normalization of this man’s descent into paranoid delusion continues apace while another lie about trans folks goes unchallenged.

==================

The White House lawn isn’t the only place where there are fights

Finally some encouraging news, as the courts show there’s still fight in the legal system, especially at the district court level.

Last July, ICE instituted an unprecedented policy of mandatory detention without bond of anyone they said was undocumented. Formerly, that had only been applied to those caught crossing the border; now it was to be applied to everyone, no matter where in the US they were found or how long they have lived here.

As a result, thousands of immigrants filed suit to be released based on improper detention, that ICE was misapplying the law - which it was - and the vast majority of them won.

That is, until February 6, when the extreme right-wing 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed that overwhelming rejection of ICE’s new policy and upheld the mandatory detention scheme.

So what happened? Judges in the 5th Circuit switched from addressing claims of not following the law to addressing claims of a denial of due process, and continued setting people free.

According to data gathered by Politico, since the February ruling, District judges in the circuit have ordered bond hearings or release of detainees more than 1,200 times on due process grounds - that’s nearly 60% of all immigration detention rulings on all bases in the 5th Circuit since Feb. 6.

What’s more, overall, across all circuit courts and again according to Politico, since the new policy went into effect last July, there have been rulings in at least 15,100 immigration cases - and the Whitest House has lost at least 13,300 of them, a loss rate of 88%.

Finally, while the 8th Circuit agreed with the 5th, the circuit courts of the 2nd, 4th, and 6th Circuits have all reached the opposite conclusion, which means it will at some point be at SCOTUS. Which is potentially bad news but you have to wonder if there’s a point where when decisions of the district courts are so overwhelmingly on one side and are supported by a majority of the circuit courts that have ruled on the matter that even this court not dismiss them.

Keep hope alive. And keep on keepin’ on.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

You have the best week you possibly can and we’ll see you then.

Remember, comments and reactions are always welcome.

 

So I said... #23 for June 5-12

So here I am again with my sort-of-weekly collection of comments I’ve made here, there, and everywhere on various (and not always political) topics, some flip, some serious, some offering I can hope some degree of insight or worthwhile analysis. Please remember that comments and response are always welcome.

An occasional note on style: Comments separated by “==” are on separate topics, while those separated by “-” are about responses to comments. Comments in braces - “[ ]” - were in the original comment, usually in editing a quote, while those in italicized braces - “[ ]” are added here for additional context.

What that said, let’s get to it.

2026-06-05
[A meme quoted a “top European prosecutor” as saying “Americans will hail us as liberators” when subpoenas “rip open” Trump records.]

LINKS, DAMMIT! What prosecutor? When? Where? All we’ve got here is an unsubstantiated, unattributed, claim which traces back to a Facebook post with the same total lack of anything verifiable - and no, don’t tell me to look it up myself because that’s a confession you don’t actually have a source beyond a FB post, one which generated several comments from people saying they searched for news about this and found none.

Please, everybody, stop doing this. Have a source, cite a source, or at the very least label it rumor or speculation. Stop wasting everyone else’s time with vapor.

==

2026-06-06
So Pete Hogsbreath went to Normandy to declaim that “different European beaches are [being] stormed by different dangerous ideologies” today.

Um, doesn’t that mean that he regards the US and its allies in the D-Day assault as representing “dangerous ideologies?”

And what does that then say about his thoughts about the by comparison seemingly non-dangerous ideology to which those forces were a danger?

==

26-06-06
[Tim Kaine expressed sympathy for the malpractice claims of professional detransitioner Chloe Cole; some said he fell for the propaganda.]

I think you’re being unduly harsh on Kaine. Rather than falling for the BS, I think he was doing what you suggested in passing: making a political calculation, one consisting of expressing great sympathy for the witness and then describing it as an individual case that should be addressed as an individual case.

That is, don’t argue with her, don’t get into any debate, don’t possibly generate sympathy by going after a seeming victim, but drain the emotional impact by emphasizing it’s one case and we already have a system for situations like that.

So while I think he could have been a *little* sharper, perhaps by saying that despite her personal tragedy it represents a tiny fraction of those who have transitioned, no, I don’t think he fell for the propaganda, even briefly. I think he de-fanged her.

I would like to have seen the contents of the letter he read.

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2026-06-08
[He’s a career politician and can be held responsible for his actions. Supporting Chloe Cole in any regard is actively transphobic.]

Of course he can be held responsible for his actions but calling what he did “actively transphobic” and “falling for disinfo” is way over the top.

The very post under discussion here says that after describing Cole’s case as one to be dealt with by malpractice law rather than GAC legislation, “Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people.”

How that is “actively transphobic” is beyond my understanding.

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2026-06-10
[If you don’t understand how it’s actively transphobic to validate Cole as anything but a transphobic grifter, I can’t explain transphobia to you no matter how hard I try.]

And if you can’t understand the value of essentially (if politely) reducing Cole to an example of medical malpractice that says nothing about proper GAC, an experience by which I am quite confident Cole did not feel validated, then the feeling of having nothing to say is decidedly mutual.

==

2026-06-06
[A bill in Washington to ban boys from girls’ sports could require genital exams for any student wanting to play on a girls sports team.]

Okay, it’s all about “fairness” and “safety.” Just for girls, mind you; fairness and safety aren’t for boys, who are supposed to be tough and Hegsethy.

Okay, but some girls mature faster than other girls. Are you going to say some cis girls can’t participate because they’re, what, “too advanced?” Oh, no, of course not - only trans girls can have an “unfair advantage.”

And what about safety? Wouldn’t this require the same sort of examinations for anybody trying out for a boys sport? I mean, we can’t have a trans boy sneaking onto a team - we’d be ignoring their safety, allowing them to risk being “run over” (as Seth Moulton put it) by one of those “physically advantaged” cis boys! We have to protect our girls, amirite?

==

2026-06-07
Y’know, the whole business about Adam and Eve “disobeying God” has irked me for a long time. How about we take the Bible literally for a moment or two. (All are from the NIV.)

Gen. 2:17 says “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Note that there is no command to not eat that fruit, rather a warning that “you will die.” BTW, Eve doesn’t exist at this point, that comes in Gen 2:22.

Moving to Gen. 3:3-4 and the exchange between Eve and the serpent, she says “but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” (When was she told that? She didn’t exist at the time.) “You will not certainly die,” the serpent replies.

Eve tries the fruit, she doesn’t die - proving God lied - and gives some to Adam, who also doesn’t die, and “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” (Gen. 3:7)

Then they heard God coming, hid, and God says “Where are you,” raising the question of why he didn’t know. (Gen. 3:9)

Then comes Gen. 3:11: “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Note well: Both prior references are to dying, not to a command.

Adam throws Eve (who actually doesn’t have a name yet) under the bus, and they get kicked out of the garden because they disobeyed a command which was not a command and which even if it was, by the Bible’s own words they could not have known was wrong to do because they had no knowledge of good and evil.

Conclusion: God is a dick, hoping that’s far enough into the comment to not get it blocked.

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2026-06-08
[”Trans people will outlive this nonsense and history will not be kind to this period.” Reply: “Small consolation to those of us who don’t survive.”]

Although I think [the OP] is correct, you’re right that the longer term is little consolation to those in the present - except, maybe, for whatever degree of strength it can provide to keep on going.

Daniel Ellsberg liked to recall how after Nixon resigned, it was learned that he once had been driven to distraction by the sight of a lone protester on the Ellipse carrying an anti-Indochina War sign, infuriated to the point that he was ordering the Secret Service to go arrest the guy. “Nothing we do is for nothing,” Ellsberg said. “Everything has an impact, even if it’s a tiny one, even if we don’t know about it.”

Related to that, a quote I like but can’t for the life of me recall where I saw it is “Immediate victory is not the only cause worth fighting for.”

I don’t know how to end this without it seeming even more preachy than I expect it already does so I’ll just say I hope that everyone of us - community and allies alike - manage to keep on keepin’ on as best as we can to make that longer term arrive sooner and be better than it otherwise would have been.

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2026-06-09
[The (anti-trans) insanity is rising because they know they are losing politically.]

“they know they are losing”

Precisely. Not just politically but more importantly, socially. The world is changing and that terrifies them, as change always does for conservatives.

Between 2004 and 2008, 24 states added bans on same-sex marriage to their state constitutions, hoping, like King Canute in the popular version of the story, to hold back the rising tide of support for that. The tactics are different here, but the underlying idea of, as William Buckley put it, “standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop!’” is the same.

I’ve written elsewhere that I look forward to these sorts being run over by the train of history. I’m old enough that I may not live to see it happen, but happen it will.

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2026-06-09
[A story tells that pastor Peter Muhlenberg rallied support for the American Revolution by in the middle of a sermon ripping off his pastoral robe to reveal he was in uniform.]

I looked up Peter Muhlenberg because the name sounded familiar; it turned out I had heard the story not all that long ago. And it prompted a thought about oral tradition.

The record shows that Muhlenberg was a pastor, he did support the Revolution, he did join the Continental Army, and even raised a regiment. (And ultimately became a US Senator.)

So it’s not that hard to see how over time the sequence of he “took off” his clerical robes to “put on” a uniform got pushed together into a single event of taking off a robe to show a uniform already on underneath.

Oral traditions, especially family ones, can tell us much but must be used with caution.

==

2026-06-09
Funny, as soon as I read about [Muhammad] Ali supposedly abandoning Islam, I thought “No, he didn’t, he rejected the Nation of Islam.” The fact that I so quickly and clearly remembered an event from 42 years ago raises the question of if I’m unusually well-informed or seeing the onset of senility.

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2026-06-10
[I celebrate Nancy Mace’s defeat, but I’m cautious. One loss is not a tsunami. Progress can be wiped out by the whim of a state legislature.]

Your doubt is wise, since a part - maybe not a major one, but certainly a not inconsiderable one - of her low finish was failing to get The Orange Overlord’s support because she opposed him on the Epstein Files.

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2026-06-10
[Isn’t it shameful how far that narcissistic paranoid’s reach still extends. But WE’RE the enemy.]

It was FDR who said “They are unanimous in their hatred of me, and I welcome their hatred.” We can judge ourselves, at least in part, by the nature of those who call us their enemy.

Oh, one other thing: “Mr. Erickson.” Ooh, ick. Like Donovan, I regard myself as being on a first-name basis with the world. It’s “Larry” or if you’d rather a less-used nickname, “Eric.” :-)

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2026-06-10
[A post described Hogbreath’s revisionist history.]

Just FWIW and strictly as a footnote, Emanuel Swedenborg did some good science, including a number of very prescient ideas about neurology, before going “batshit crazy,” which was likely the result of epilepsy.

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2026-06-12
[I know little about Swedenborg - no more than that he was a scientist who started preaching crazy stuff.]

I, too, know little about him, but he was a figure in a book I just finished reading about the history of discoveries in neurology - a good number of which occurred because, to put it simply, something went wrong with someone and others tried to figure out just what.

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2026-06-10
I intend to call Sarah McBride’s DC office tomorrow with this message:

“I’m not a constituent, but I hope I’ll be allowed a very quick comment. I read about the Congresswoman’s comment on Nancy Mace’s finish in the gubernatorial primary and I just want to say: ‘Right on, my sister. You deserved to take that moment.’”

[Footnote: I did.]

==

2026-06-10
Contrary to the words of some, the administrative minions of The Orange Overlord actually are not proposing that recipients of federal funds must deny trans people exist.

It’s worse.

If recipients had to say “trans people do not exist,” that would still raise the possibility that they do, as if it was a disputed issue that still had to be positively asserted.

What they’re proposing is subtler and much more dangerous, which is that recipients *behave* as if trans folks do not exist. Don’t mention them, even by suggestion, even indirectly, even from areas unrelated to the funding. Erase them entirely from archives, historical records, even, it would appear, from casual language or offhand reference.

This is more than draconian or diabolical. It is evil worth Minitru, the Ministry of Truth which this outfit longs to be.

==

2026-06-11
Stealing the natural resources of other peoples - aka economic colonialism - is the history of the US economy.

==

2026-06-12
[How does such a no-show, do-nothing Congressman keep getting elected? Via gerrymandering.]

Unhappily for we locals, gerrymandering goes both ways. The redistricting done after the 2020 census [by the Deocratic-dominated legislature] left [our] CD the reddest in the state, something like +16 for the GOPpers, in order to make the surrounding districts a little bluer. Apparently, the state Dems regard us as a lost cause.

As for responses, I’ve given up expecting any kind of response or even acknowledgement. The only two times I’ve gotten an answer were a GOPper-approved text about how great last year’s Bilious Buncha Bullshit was and the time he mistakenly thought I agreed with his endorsement of the slaughter in Gaza. Even a pro forma “I received your email” is too much to expect.

Messages by phone are politely accepted, politely ignored.

Any noise coming out of this CD is going to depend on us; we should expect nothing from the state party except indifference.

As a footnote, I was living in [another state] during The Orange Overlord’s first term, so I can’t confirm this, but after returning to [this area] I read that at that time [our Congresscritter] had been “something of a thorn in [TOO]’s side” to the point were TOO threatened to primary him. He was in fact primaried in 2020 and despite winning in a walkover, he seems to have become a servile worm to the point where last year I accused him of “not even standing up for the things he stood up for.”