the US Democratic Party, and it appears that the Democrats are indeed prepared to die on the hill that ‘some men are women’. … It’s still not too late for the Democrats to change course. They’d better do it soon if they hope to gain back voters.
I'm not holding my breath.
raine. And no Ukrainian language – all Russian. And Ukrainian children to be sent off to Russia for a proper education into how Ukraine doesn't really exist as a separate country and how you're all Nazis. And a few billion dollars reparation for all the trouble of getting an army together to invade and bomb your hospitals and schools. Reducing cities to rubble doesn't come cheap. After all, remember, we're a much bigger entity than you. In fact you're not even an entity at all….
Of course this could all be Trump braggodocio. He can't resist boasting about his best-ever world-beating negotiating skills. But, as we remember from his last presidency, there's quite a gap between what he says and what he does.
Yes, he has a weakness for Putin's alpha male style – hey, two alpha males head to head negotiating about the future of Ukraine…what could be better?
Apparently he's reinstated the bust of Churchill in the Oval Office. Perhaps, if he glances up, he'll be reminded that taking up arms against tyranny is sometimes the only choice.
tor it has been.
(3/3) let's hope this will change – but we shouldn't hold our breath
Qatar is where the Hamas leaders lived their billionaire lives of luxury before Israel sent them off to meet Allah. So…normalisation, perhaps, but much would need to change…
e this new sudden explosion – which is not a discovery of a new medical condition which has only recently been uncovered – like, say, autism – but a term for these young kids persuaded by their time on social media that all their pubertal problems can be solved if they transition to the other sex. It's not a medical problem so much as a social contagion.
In other words, nobody's born in the wrong body.
: 11pt”>He's not the only one, of course.
An activist called Jie Lijian told us he had been treated for mental illness without his consent in 2018.
Lijian says he was arrested for attending a protest demanding better pay at a factory. He says police interrogated him for three days before taking him to a psychiatric hospital.
Like Junjie, Lijian says he was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs that impaired his critical thinking.
After a week in the hospital, he says he refused any more medication. After fighting with staff, and being told he was causing trouble, Lijian was sent for ECT – a therapy which involves passing electric currents through a patient's brain.
"The pain was from head to toe. My whole body felt like it wasn't my own. It was really painful. Electric shock on. Then off. Electric shock on. Then off. I fainted several times. I felt like I was dying," he says.
He says he was discharged after 52 days. He now has a part-time job in Los Angeles and is seeking asylum in the US.
inst Jews, Judaism and Israel. I say all three of those together because of the nature of these protests – what’s being chanted, the banners, the relentlessness of it, the obsession. We’re seeing something very much darker and deeper. There is no other cause in history where the West has behaved like this.
More trees, plus Henry Moore at Kenwood. That second image: I thought for a moment it was a carving – an angel or devil, perhaps – but no, just a natural break.
ion is central to addressing North Korea’s chronic electricity shortage.
The Cabinet, Central Public Prosecutor’s Office, and Ministry of Social Security branded them “anti-party figures” who had “contradicted the party’s guidelines for socialist construction.”
However, other researchers in the field suggest the punishments were excessive…
you think?
….noting that the failures stemmed from resource shortages and technical limitations rather than lack of commitment. The source indicated that the executed researchers had been dedicated to their work and had openly communicated challenges to the Workers’ Party. Their fate has dampened morale among remaining staff.
In the aftermath, the Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry has appointed a new research team to lead the project, with the Central Committee mandating increased party oversight of technological research and development.
Increasing party oversight of technological research and development? That'll work.
ought it unfair, and in some cases dangerous, for girls to compete against male-bodied athletes.
To any Floridian football fan or Montanan marathon runner, this was an unarguable truth. Yet all Democrats (except two from Texas) opposed the bill, rebranding it the “child predator empowerment act” and arguing it would lead to the appointment of genital inspectors — “Taliban-like enforcers” and paedophiles — to look inside the underwear of girls as young as four.
If that sounds deranged, it’s because it was. But what else did the Democrats have? They couldn’t dispute biological advantage or fairness, so they ended up sounding like QAnon loons.
None of this matters now President Trump has signed Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, the executive order that got the loudest cheer from the inauguration crowd. This ticks the entire gender critical wish-list, from fair school sports to removing rapists from women’s prisons and categorically defining woman as an “adult human female”.
Liberals will cry culture war — although they didn’t on President Biden’s first day when his executive order replaced “sex” with “gender identity” in Title IX policy, in effect abolishing women’s rights. Or in 2022 when the White House “lesbian visibility day” was led by Charlotte Clymer and Rachel Levine, both straight biological males. Or when Nancy Pelosi supported the abolition of the word “mother” from House rules.
It takes two to fight a culture war. And on the gender front the Democrats lost. Why? Because they moved beyond fighting for legitimate trans rights — freedom from violence or discrimination at work — into fantastical thinking….
Trump’s executive order states: “The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.” The damn-fool Democrats handed truth to their worst enemy. Can they ever win it back?
It doesn't look promising. If the Dems make this one of their main fight-back platforms – their hill to die on, as it were – then they'll be handing Trump all he needs to stay in power.
After yesterday's Daniel Finkelstein article on accepting the past, here's a letter in the Times this morning making another crucial point: the denial of citizenship to Palestinians by most Arab states:
Daniel Finkelstein’s poignant reflection on Villa Finkelstein highlights a crucial inconsistency. Under UNRWA’s definition of refugee status, which (unlike the UN high commissioner for refugees definition) includes all descendants in perpetuity, Finkelstein and his children would qualify as refugees from Lviv, despite their successful life in Britain.
This definition has helped to perpetuate rather than resolve the conflict. While Finkelstein accepts historical change, UNRWA’s approach has fostered an illusion of return that impedes efforts to create a lasting peace. Equally troubling is the stark contrast between the Finkelstein family’s integration in Britain and the denial of citizenship to Palestinians by most Arab states. Millions remain in limbo after 75 years.
Lebanon, Syria and others have kept Palestinians in segregated communities, refusing them basic rights while claiming to champion their cause. True solidarity with Palestinians means confronting these uncomfortable realities. A lasting peace requires not only a willingness by Israel to make territorial compromises but also reform of UNRWA and full citizenship rights for Palestinians in Arab countries where they have lived for generations.
Despite all the talk of Arab nationalism, with a shared common culture and language, citizenship for Palestinian refugees has been denied for one reason only: to pressure Israel, and sustain the illusion that the "Zionist state" is a temporary blight which will soon disappear.