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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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

Remember, comments and reactions are always welcome.

 

News Worth Knowing (which you may have missed) #1

For something over a year now, I think about 14 months, a group of us have had a one-hour lunchtime vigil downtown every Tuesday, with the numbers usually running 25-30. It started focused on a demand that our Congress critter hold a town hall, but over time has broadened to encompass the whole gamut of reactionary suckiness with which we are afflicted.

We’ve also developed some for lack of a better term traditions, with one recently-emergent one being me taking about 5-7 minutes on “News Worth Knowing (Which You May Have Missed),” going on about three or four things outside the main headlines.

It occurred to me that since I have to prepare for that anyway, I might as well post them here, particularly because the very nature of it being weekly means they doesn’t have to be breathless, breaking, up-to-the-moment news. Just hopefully worth knowing.

So herewith the first of what I sincerely hope will be a weekly Tuesday evening feature called, again, “News Worth Knowing (Which You May Have Missed)” starting with two Updates which I know seems weird but trust me, it made sense at the time.

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Update #1

 I mentioned last week that Hawai’i had passed legislation redefining what a corporation is in a way that makes it harder to contribute to political campaigns. I added that Gov. Josh Green had until June 30 to either sign or reject the bill.

The Update is that it turns out I was wrong: He’d already signed it on May 14.

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Update #2

Our other update relates to the DOI (Department of Injustice) suing 31 states to force them to release confidential voter information. Two more of those cases, those in Maine and Wisconsin, came to a decision this week, bringing the total to eight - and the DOI has lost every one of them.

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This you may well not have missed but I’m doing it anyway because it made me white with fury.

On May 22, a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter said that the DOI is “quietly” removing from its website news accounts related to January 6, in what as mainstream an outfit as AP described as “the latest step by the Trump administration to dramatically rewrite the history of the assault on the Capitol.”

In response, the DOI thugs not only acknowledged doing it, they celebrated doing it. “There’s nothing quiet about it,” they crowed.

They called the accounts documenting the actual criminal charges, the actual convictions and guilty pleas at court, and the actual sentences given to those violent, rioting, insurrectionist traitors, they labeled those actual facts, as “partisan propaganda” and they were positively puffed with pride about erasing the history.

Among the records stripped were those regarding the convictions of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy, whose convictions the DOI last month asked a federal appeals court to vacate.

On May 21, they got their wish. The very next day, May 22, the DOI moved to have the cases dismissed entirely.

Related to all this is the fact that the DOI has subpoenaed The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets that have been critical of the The Orange Overlord (aka TOO) for records of their journalists’ activities, contacts, and more under the hoary excuse of investigating “leaks.”

I’ve taken to calling it the Department of Injustice, but it seems I should be calling it the Ministry of Truth. Or Minitru for short.

(And if by some chance you don’t get the reference, look it up! I’ll give you a hint: It comes from the same source as the quote “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past,” which appears to be the unspoken motto of Minitru.)

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Some bad news and some good news on the death penalty.

In 2023, in the case of one Edward Lee Busby, who was convicted of murder, the state of Texas agreed he was intellectually disabled to the point that he was ineligible to be executed and so entered a motion that his sentence should be commuted to life.

Without going into the complications of the whole case, which are considerable, after that motion failed Texas flipped sides and said in effect “what the hey, snuff him” - that is, arguing the man they said shouldn’t be executed actually should be.

Ultimately, by the unsurprising vote of 6-3 the Supreme Court vacated a stay of his execution, and Texas killed him on May 14.

On the other hand, after 29 years in jail for a murder he has persistently sworn he did not commit, a time that included nine execution dates, three last meals, and a Supreme Court ruling in his favor over a year ago, Richard Glossip is out of an Oklahoma prison.

For now.

In February 2025, SCOTUS vacated Glossip’s conviction, finding that the sole witness against him lied on the stand - and what’s more, prosecutors knew he lied but kept their mouths shut.

But instead of releasing him, the state of Oklahoma has announced it intends to try him yet again and fought to keep him in prison. It wasn’t until May 14, 15 months after his conviction was vacated, when a county court finally granted him bond.

So Glossip is out he’s but still facing new trial, one apparently to be based on same now-discredited evidence from the same now-discredited witness.

It is sadly true that under our criminal justice system - which really should be called our prosecutorial procedure system - that while the state is often willing to admit it did it wrong, that it got some procedural technicality wrong, it will often, if you will, fight to the death the avoid admitting it got it wrong, that it sent an innocent person to the gallows.

The death penalty, that remnant of barbarism, still hangs over us.

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Now to make sure you’re really depressed.

On May 19, the House passed the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” allowing TOO to strip federal funding from any school that “teaches or advances concepts” related to transgender people, looking to codify the bigoted, pseudoscientific fantasies of his Executive Order definitions of sex and gender into federal law.

The notion of “concepts” and what makes for “advancing” them are so vaguely defined that any discussion, material, or school library book that even mentions the existence of transgender people could be banned; even a transgender teacher could risk punishment for using their own name or pronouns.

Another provision requires public schools to forcibly out transgender (or even possibly transgender) students to their parents with no exceptions for potentially hostile home environments.

You’ve heard of state-level “Don’t Say Gay” laws; this is like a federal-level “Don’t Say Trans” law.

The silver lining here is that this now heads to the Senate, where the 60 vote filibuster barrier is one that no standalone anti-trans bill has cleared this entire Congress and this one will likely meet the same fate.

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Finally, something to keep on your radar.

During TOO’s first months in office, the Supreme Court’s GOP-approved majority used the notorious shadow docket and an underlying notion of the “Unitary Executive” to allow him to fire commissioners on various boards and commissions that are technically part of the Executive Branch, doing this despite and in the face of a 90-year old precedent from a unanimous Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which found that Congress had the Constitutional authority to create independent agencies whose commissioners could only be fired for cause.

One of the suits arising from those firings is that of the TOO-fired FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. That case had oral arguments in December and a decision is expected in the next few weeks - a decision in which it is predicted that the Scurrilous Six, the appropriately-acronymed SS, making up the majority will simply dump that 90-year old precedent in the trash, effectively (technically not legally, but effectively) giving TOO personal control over the makeup of the entire federal-level regulatory system by making those in charge of running and administering it subject to this personal whims and will.

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I'll end with my old closing from my TV days:

You have the best week you possibly can't and we'll see you then. 

So I said... #21 - for May 15-24

So here I am again, striving for relevance, with a collections of thoughts and opinions expressed here, there, and pretty much anywhere else I happened to stick my keyboard. I hope you’ll find a few at least interesting; remember that comments and reactions are welcome.

A note on formatting, in case it’s not clear. Comments on new topics are separated by “==” (a double equal sign) while parts of reply threads are separated by “-” (an en dash). That said, let’s get on with this.

==

2026-05-15
[A post, the link to which I unfortunately failed to record, discussed the requirement for new cars to have a kill switch, supposedly to prevent drunk driving. It included four questions for discussion.]

Answering the questions in order:

Do you have an analog car and are you planning to keep it? Yes, and I’m keeping it as long as I can keep it running.

Does this bother you, or honestly, does it not? Yes, it bothers me, bothers me both because of the invasion of privacy (or, rather, the off-handed assumption of a lack of it) and the paucity of attention to the potential for unintended consequences.

Do you think saving 13,000 lives a year [the claimed benefit] is worth it? “Lives saved” is a claim, not a fact, and should be treated with the same skepticism as any other promotional claim should be. On the other hand, “false accusations” is a reality and while we can’t quantify the effect of these measures on that, we can safely assume based on the historical record that it will primarily affect minorities and other marginalized communities.

Is there a bigger agenda behind the legislation that we aren’t being told about? Maybe not an “agenda” in the sense of a conscious plan but it is part of an overall trend, an overall bias call it, toward the government in general and the police in particular knowing more and more about us while we are more and more restricted about what we can know about them - with the phrases “public safety” and “national security” waved like magic incantations.

Or do you think there’s a better way to get there? “You got anything better?” is not an argument, it’s a way of avoiding the issues and objections by demanding that you on the fly come up with something “better” - which assumes the supposedly desired end, whatever it is in a given case, requires no justification to a degree that “the ends justify the means” and thus the method is the only question involved while unintended consequences are irrelevant.

==

2026-05-16
[Popular Information revealed that The Orange Overlord had been investing in stocks just before acting in a way to promote them, clear evidence of insider training. Some commentators bemoaned a supposed inability to do anything about it because of presidential immunity.]

Will people puh-leeze stop saying that SCOTUS gave The Orange Overlord “absolute immunity” so he can do whatever the hell he wants, commit whatever crimes he chooses. That immunity decision was horrible but it was limited to actions related to “core presidential duties and powers,” if I recall the quote correctly. I don’t see how even this court could create a fig leaf big enough to define insider stock trading as a “core presidential duty.”

The statute of limitations for insider trading is five years for civil cases and six years for criminal ones. So yes, the SOB can be held responsible. Very likely not until he’s out of office, but yes.

Stop letting him off the hook before you even cast your line.

==

2026-05-17
[Re the White House video of TOO doing his bit during a Bible reading event]

Okay I will say he didn’t look as bad as I’d been told but otherwise, what a disaster.

He obviously had never seen those words before, had made no preparation - but my word, even for a cold reading, what a crappy job!

==

2026-05-18
[On May 18, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that hospitals which stopped GAC because of The Orange Overlord’s anti-trans EO discriminated against transgender youth in violation of state law.]

The most important sentence in the whole thing: “Because the Kennedy Declaration isn’t federal law.”

YES! And it’s damn well about time everybody - and I mean anybody and everybody - stopped acting as if any of that mass of heinous Executive Orders is anything other than what it is: the vapid ramblings spewed by biased fanatics dreaming of what they wish the law would be, not what it is.

-

2026-05-18
[Excellent news but can it be overturned by the Supreme Court?]

Not easily, anyway. This is a ruling by the Supreme Court of Colorado - a state court, not a federal one. SCOTUS should have no say unless there is a federal law to the contrary - and, as the decision points out, a declaration from Robert F. “My father would be ashamed of me” Kennedy Jr. is NOT a law.

==

2026-05-20
[Erin Reed reported that California has reaffirmed its policy re trans girl high school athletes where if a cis girl places lower than a trans girl, for the purposes of awards and meet records, she is treated as if the trans girl didn’t compete at all.]

In this case, as in a number of others, the thing that strikes me is that the people supposedly damaged by the presence of someone like A. B. - that is, the other competitors - seem to be the ones who are the least troubled by it.

==

2026-05-20
[In a discussion of supposed advantages trans women athletes have over cis women athletes, it was noted how the idea was being applies in competitions like disc golf, darts, and chess. Another unrecorded link, dang it.]

Just a bit of trivia to throw in: There is a way in which physicality can provide an advantage in chess, particularly at its highest levels. A game of tournament or match chess at master or grandmaster level can take a physical toll on a player because of the mental effort involved. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a long, hard-fought game to be lost because someone got tired enough to make mistakes.

That is, physical endurance can make a difference.

It’s trivia because there is so much individual variation and it’s such an individual quality that it’s silly to suggest men have more endurance than women.

==

2026-05-21
Why are there no ethical complaints against Reed O’Conner [the notorious judge in the notorious Northern District of Texas]?

He is patently biased to the point that he essentially has decided LGBTQ+-related cases even before they are filed. Overt animus drips from his every order. (Why is that not an issue in every such case he handles?)

He got a request to enforce a subpoena against Rhode Island Hospital signed by two of his former law clerks (Why didn’t he recuse himself?) and issued it hours later. (Why was the target not allowed a chance to respond?)

He has continued to press the matter even after learning (assuming he didn’t know originally) that the parties were in active negotiations literally the day before the request for the enforcement order. (Why didn’t he withdraw the order as not ripe?)

And now he has declared that he can decide where the targets of his bigoted wrath can seek relief and by implication what cases and motions other courts can accept.

And yet nothing happens and lawyers wonder why people don’t trust the system.

-

2026-05-21
[It’s really not that difficult: Just don’t hand over the information. Do not obey a single ruling handed down by Reed O’Connor]

I expect it will soon - indeed it has - come to that, where people need to just say “no.” The problem, the difficulty, with what we used to call “doing ‘no’” is that it involves consequences and it’s always easier to convince ourselves that those consequences (which seem real and immediate) are of greater weight than the potential gains (which seem distant and uncertain) than it is to convince ourselves that despite that the risks are worth the goal.

Breaking through that psychological barrier takes a good deal of courage, perhaps even more so for those in situations like hospitals, where people may fear the consequences not only to themselves but to others.

So I have some sympathy for places like Rhode Island Hospital even as I agree that the moral (and in the long run, more effective) course of action would be to tell Reed O’Connor and the entire 5th Circuit to stick it.

-

2026-05-21
[”These people should suffer such overwhelming personal / professional consequences from their collaboration that whatever the Trump regime threatens them with looks preferable.” (quote edited for length)]

My sympathy (or, as you tellingly put it, “sympathy”) was specifically directed at people in the crosshairs of the state, including situations such as that involving Rhode Island Hospital where those targeted may be deterred from resistance not only by the consequences to themselves but to the broader community; in the specific example, those whose access to care might be damaged by institutional resistance - which could, for example, result in the loss of Medicaid funding.

I recognize that you refer to “people in positions of power” but also say every person who “failed to say no” should be “hounded from polite society” and include those who acted under “whatever the Trump regime threaten[ed] them with” among the collaborators.

I find it both strategically dumb and morally offensive to lump those who wind up bending before the power of the state together with actual collaborators, who by definition are those who willingly cooperate with an enemy or oppressor.

Reed O’Conner (who faces no threat from Trump) is a collaborator - indeed, we could properly call him an oppressor. Rhode Island Hospital (which is under threat) is not. And we should not confuse the two.

I repeat: I have sympathy for places like Rhode Island Hospital even as I agree that the ethical and (ultimately) more effective course would have been to say “no.”

In the immortal words of Mr. Spock, “I understand. I do not approve.”

==

2026-05-22
After surviving a major heart attack, my wife was involved for several years with a group called WomenHeart, speaking to community groups and doing outreach at health fairs and the like. The stories I heard about women not receiving proper care because of the ignorance ranging from EMTs to MDs about women’s heart heath were both jaw-dropping and revealing.

It’s truly disturbing to hear now that in the six years since her death (ironically - and I maintain that is a correct use of the word here - not from a heart issue) it seems not much has changed.

==

2026-05-22
Please don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.

“Right-wingers falsely claim San Diego mosque shooters were trans”

OTOH, it admittedly was amusing to see the San Diego police described as “leftists.”

==

2026-05-24
[Jess Craven said some were upset that she said the Harris campaign’s silence on Israel/ Gaza cost the election.]

Just a quick note about the postmortem and Gaza: Don’t sweat the critics. You were right.

Openly calling out the slaughter in Gaza might have cost Harris the votes of some folks, but it for damn sure would have gained her those of a whole lot more. Enough to change the outcome? Precisely because the gap in so many states was so small, I’d say yes - but anyone reasonable would have to at least allow there was a good chance.

What can’t be denied is that her silence hurt her chances.

So I said... #16 for March 31 to April 7

 So another variegated conglomeration of perspectives and postulates from your couthy sesquipedalian. At or least I think it is.

As always, I’ve included context where I thought it would help understanding the comment itself along with links to the original if you’d like to check it out. With that, here we go.

2026-03-31
[Most comments in WaPo on SCOTUS oral arguments re Trump’s birthright citizenship order supported the 14th Amendment being read literally. Supporting Trump, someone wrote dismissively “Please tell me which Supreme Court case ruled where the plaintiff’s parents were in the US illegally. This reminds me of being told the 14th amendment case about getting Trump off ballot was a slam dunk, only to lose 9-0.”]

I expect this will not satisfy you but US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) involved a child who was born to parents who were subjects of the Emperor of China and so had neither US citizenship nor allegiance but yes, were here legally. But his parents had no diplomatic exception (they were “not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China”), so he was “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US - interpreted to mean “required to obey US law.” So yes, the Court did rule on that very point. Thus, the Court ruled, Wong Kim Ark was a citizen by birth.

Bluntly, it’s hard to imagine a space in there where the argument “Yeah, but they were documented so that doesn’t count” would fit unless you were to argue that being undocumented means you’re not required to obey the law, an argument I doubt would find much support.

Oh, as for those “legal scholars,” a phrase I strongly suspect was used sarcastically, you should have asked me. I predicted it would fail, albeit on a different basis.(1)
-
[Wong Kim Ark was actually a test case. In 1884, a person named Look Tin Eli had sued the government in the US Circuit Court for the Central District of California over his citizenship. He won, as the court affirmed that a native-born person is a US citizen regardless of race or ancestry. Some supporters were disappointed that the US declined to appeal because they wanted to get the matter before SCOTUS and the case of Wong Kim Ark provided the opportunity. The Look Tin Eli case was cited by SCOTUS in its favorable opinion.]

==

2026-04-01
There should be a requirement that any client considering conversion “therapy” should be given accurate information on all risks involved, including psychological harm and increased risk of suicide, and the success rate. Then they can make an informed decision and bluntly I wonder how many would continue in that event.

==

2026-04-01
[A woman in Kansas named Samantha Boucher noted Trans Day of Visibility by openly defying the state’s new bathroom ban.]

Bravo to her.

I wonder if [Gov. Kris] Koback would try to dodge the whole thing by saying he doesn’t want to bring attention to a “stunt” so will do nothing because she didn’t really “use” the restroom, just went in and right out.

I doubt he’s that clever, but these kinds of laws are often passed with the idea that trans folks will simply disappear from the restrooms and there will be no consequences that might get attention or even some sympathy among the public.

==

2026-04-03
[Referring to a list of suggested responses to being challenged for using the “wrong” restroom.]

I’ve re-written this three or four times because I keep thinking it could by misunderstood. This is my last shot at this.

I doubt the situation described will arise for me (I’m cis and in a safe state) since the freakage level over transmen in restrooms seems quite muted (which I say supports my contention that a lot of this is old-fashioned, albeit an extreme form of, sexism) but if it ever did I would be the bystander.

I think in that case my first instinct would be to blurt out “Why?” and if anything about being trans figured in a response, follow with “Prove it.” That is, “put up or shut up,” intending to shield the target from the harassment. (It occurs to me now that a better response would be “And?”)

But my favorite among the proposed bystander responses is #3 - actually, forget the first part as unnecessary; just use the second.

[The whole #3 was ”Who polices other people’s restroom use? You’re being really weird right now.”]

==

2026-04-03
[The Ohio House passed a bill to outlaw drag shows. Someone argued that some provisions could make it illegal for transgender folks to appear in public.]

The bill is indeed bad and hopefully will be killed or at least significantly modified, but I have to say I think your description in some ways goes too far.

Specifically, the section on “adult cabaret performance” (lines 153-173 of the bill, found at https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_136/legislation/hb249/02_PH/pdf/) repeatedly uses the terms “performance,” performers,” and “entertainers.” Applying that to “a transgender individual simply walking down the street wearing makeup” stretches the wording (the “legislative intent”) far past the breaking point.

But! That “cisgender woman playing a guitar in a park” wearing “too masculine” clothing? Oh, yeah. Just call her a performer and bang, covered by the law. Um, except wait - the section also says the performance must be “harmful to juveniles or obscene,” so just playing a guitar in a park isn’t enough, regardless of the clothing. (Yes, I looked up the definitions of “harmful to juveniles” and “obscene.” They’re all about “prurient interest” and “arousing lust.” https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2907.01)

I wholeheartedly embrace your (implied but accurate) argument that actually defining what constitutes “masculine” and “feminine” expression is a fool’s errand and I also agree that any attempt to do so, even by implication, is a threat to trans rights.

But here I’d focus on the obvious intention to ban drag shows by regarding them as de facto sexual and thus obscene. One thing I think the attempt shows is how difficult (if it’s even possible, which I very much doubt) to do that without trampling on basic rights and opening the door to “guilt by personal opinion of a cop.” Such bills can and should be rejected outright.

==

2026-04-03
Ben Meiselas reports that in a talk at George Washington University, Karoline Leavitt told the audience that her advice is to always be the most well-read person in the room - then said Trump always is.

I used to call her Levity because no one should take her seriously but this goes beyond that. She is either a pathological liar or in some other way deeply mentally disturbed.

==

2026-04-03
[The Georgia legislature ended its session with all of the nearly 15 anti-trans bills having failed.]

This is excellent news and everyone involved in this achievement should savor the moment and accept congratulations.

In passing, this raises something I’ve wondered about. This isn’t the first time a state legislature has come to the end of a session with a whole bunch of anti-trans laws dying without action.

So do some of these people sometimes introduce such legislation without really caring if it passes or not, they just want to be able to use “I introduced” or “I supported” such-and-such on the campaign trail, avoiding both the possibility of being “out anti-transed” by some opponent and the stronger pushback from the other side that could arise if it actually passed?

Just speculating; as a practical matter, I doubt it makes any difference.

==

2026-04-04
[Referring to forgiving MAGAs: “My gut instinct is to NEVER forgive them for their cruelty and greed.”]

I’ll just offer a variation on what I said about this very topic several days ago on a different site.

I’m what used to be called a fallen-away Catholic. In fact, I fell so far I fell away from theism altogether. But I can remember from my Catechism what’s required for forgiveness in Confession: contrition and penance - genuine regret and a sacrifice to make up for what you did.

The penance was pretty invariably symbolic, saying some prayers and the like, but still was a necessary part of the process of forgiveness.

The same should apply here. You want me to “welcome you into our tent?” First, give me good cause to believe you sincerely regret what you’ve done. (I think of the woman in that viral clip who said she voted for the Orange Overlord three times, punctuated with “That’s on me. Obviously, I’m an idiot.”)

Second, tell me what you’ll now do to make up for - more importantly, to undo - the harm you’ve helped to cause. Note that “I’ll never vote for another Republican” is not good enough. It is not penance and will not serve the purpose any more than a convicted robber saying “I’ll never steal anything else” does not excuse them from consequences. Tell me what positive action you will take (or have taken).

Then we can talk about forgiveness.

==

2026-04-04
So Gregg Phillips, associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, has doubled down on his claim of having been repeatedly teleported and connected it to his religious beliefs, claiming that the Bible refers to being “translated” or “transported” - that is, he got to a Waffle House through divine intervention.

“Here’s the real question,” he said. “What’s harder to believe? That God could move in a moment during a spiritual battle, or Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is coming again?”

In other words, which is harder to believe: 1+1=5 or 2+2=pi?

==

2026-04-04
[Various extremist Xians want women to be unable to vote.]

Whenever I read about this sort of bigoted insanity presuming a Biblical basis for their anti-democratic, anti-freedom, male-supremacist crackpot notions, I recall seeing (as part of my job at the time) a marriage manual from either the late 16th or early 17th century advising that, as near as I can quote from memory, a man who marries a woman from who he can’t get advice has a fool for a wife - and she has a fool for a husband.

==

2026-04-05
[In a comment, a parent told how their trans daughter, despite having adopted a new name at school, had declined using it at home until some time later.]

I can understand how that would hurt. But I suspect there was a reason: The whole purpose of the sort of social transitioning she did at school could have well been for her a matter of, if you will, trying it on, seeing if it fits, if it feels right, “is this me.” You said it yourself: She “tried” new pronouns and a new name.

Doing it with you, OTOH, isn’t a trial or a test, it’s a conclusion. A decision. She just needed more time to make it.

So when she did come out to you, she was saying “This is who I am. I’ve decided.” By giving her that time, you did the right thing.

==

2026-04-05
My response to “Yeah, well, all lives matter!” was to say “Yes, all lives matter. And if we actually acted like all lives matter, it wouldn’t be necessary to say ‘Black lives matter.’”

[I also used to say that in saying or thinking the phrase, the stress should be on the last word, not the first.]

==

2026-04-05
[“Some Democrats soften or side step trans rights. It doesn’t read as strategic. It reads as hesitation in the face of coordinated attacks.”]

“It doesn’t read as strategic. It reads as hesitation.”

More accurately, it reads as fear. The same old fear that has plagued the Democratic party for decades, the fear that the reactionaries might say something nasty about you in a campaign, so better to downplay the issue, even better to avoid mentioning it at all and be forever prepared to yield ground if it comes up. Consider it a political version of “duck and cover.”

Transgender rights are not the only example. There have been many over the years. The issue here, narrowly defined, is not trans rights but institutional cowardice, the kind of stark political cowardice that has had a major role in getting us into our current mess.

I know I have several times on this platform recalled seeing a survey from all the way back in the Gingrich era finding that people didn’t dislike Democrats for what they stood for but because they didn’t seem to stand for anything.

Well, that remains true today, as the intensity of Democrats’ active opposition to The Orange Overlord (TOO) is pretty much in inverse ratio to his favorability rating and the safer it looks politically on a given issue the more willing they are to go after him.

(I still cringe when I recall Hakeem Jeffries, around the time of the OBBB - the Obnoxious Barbarous Bigoted Bill - actually saying something to the effect that the Dems were waiting for TOO’s favorability rating to drop below 40% - in other words, when it was safe enough - promising that then, they’d really go after him. You can decide for yourself how well they followed through on that.)

I’ve said this before, perhaps even here, but I think it bears repeating. It’s not necessary for Dems to make trans rights the or even a centerpiece of their campaign, particularly as it ranks low on lists of people’s concerns and even Republicans in some polls say their party spends too much time on the issue.

What is necessary is to say clearly that you support trans rights and when challenged don’t evade and don’t back down.

And don’t settle for defense. Instead say something like “Of course I support trans rights because they are human rights. Trans folks have every bit as much right to grow and flourish, to go through their lives smoothly, without discrimination, and to be treated with respect and fairness the same as anyone else does. The really important question is why the other side is so damned focused on people’s genitalia instead of on” whatever issue or issues seem appropriate at the moment.

I’ve gone on long enough. Probably too long. So I’ll stop.

==

2026-04-06
The Pentagon has failed its department-wide financial audit eight years in a row.

Admittedly, US military operations are very complex, so clean audits are a challenge.

But if any “woke” program had a record anything like that, Faux News would be melting TV screens with the heat of its rage.

==

2026-04-06
I was watching the live NASA coverage of the Artemis mission. As the crew went to the Moon’s dark side (losing contact for 40 minutes) one of them just had to invoke Jesus to say “love your neighbor,” punctuated by ground control echoing the statement and adding “How great Thou art.”

:sigh:

==

2026-04-07
[Erin Reed demolished a study claiming to prove GAC actually harms the mental health of trans youth.]

Okay, I gotta be honest. I got as far as the percentages (the 9.8% before vs. 60.7% after) and a vibrantly bright red flag started flying.

Phrased rather more coherently than my initial response, it was “Wait - they’re comparing the mental health of folks who got and didn’t get GAC based on psychiatric visits after an initial one? But if someone was at that initial visit to obtain GAC, getting additional counseling would be a pretty normal part of the process of transitioning. Of course they’d have more visits than the general population!”

And that was before learning that they might have years of visits before they could even start actual medical transitioning (i.e. GAHT) - not to mention the history of the study author.

And this tripe got published? Just wow.

==

2026-04-07
[A commenter responded to Megan Rapinoe saying “They lost the battle on gay marriage” with “If they don’t lose hard enough over transgender issues, they will level their political guns to reverse that loss.”]

“they will next level all their political guns to reverse that loss”

They already are. The “LGB without the T” folks who think they’re safe are fools.
-
2026-04-07
[They are. I do think that attacking us is distracting some of the SoCons efforts from that though...]

True enough. But the reactionaries have already legitimized the notion “transgender = drag queen = sex” and it’s not that far a reach to reprising “disgusting” descriptions of “disgusting” gay/lesbian sex of the sort I remember from not that many decades ago.

The LGB/noT crowd should remember that Martin Niemöller’s poem is not just about Germany.

THAT’S IT! SEE YA IN A WEEK OR SO!

---

 

1 The 14th Amendment, Section 3, says that anyone who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US is ineligible for public office. The argument was that Trump was thus disqualified and Colorado tried to remove him from the ballot. The Court ruled that it was up to Congress, not the states, to make the decision about ballot eligibility. I had predicted they would rule that for Constitutional purposes he couldn’t be held to have “engaged in insurrection” absent a conviction on a relevant charge.