All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Guess I haven't been paying much attention to things like that.

Why should you? I'd like to think you have better things to do with your brain cells than follow Trump.

[thwhtGuardian]

But factually trans women normally compete at a higher level in women’s events than they did in men’s events before they transitioned.

And many CIS elite women athletes would prefer not to compete against trans women.

Would you be happy to allow the people most affected by the issue (elite women athletes) to have a free vote on the issue of deciding the entry rules for their competition?

If surveys showed that they were happy to allow trans-men to compete in cis-men's brackets I could maybe see that the feelings that it was unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women might be genuinely about sport...but with the feelings being that trans-men shouldn't be able to compete it just seems like transphobic pushback hiding behind "fairness"

[Gray Lensman]

Well, the new Truth Social deal allows Trump to get unlimited foreign money, which would normally be illegal. We'll see how badly Putin and the Saudis want him back.

Trump won't be able to access any of the money from Truth Social for quite some time. It will be late September before he is allowed to sell anything, which will be about 6 to 7 weeks before election day - depending on what the stuff is worth by then. And then he'll still have to cut ads and buy time to air them, so don't expect any of that to come into play before October at the earliest.

Presuming there isn't a lein against it by then. New York will want their money.

[Agent Z]

Taliban leader vows to publicly stone women to death for adultery

There are growing concerns that the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan could lead to a regression of women's rights, reminiscent of darker times. Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban, recently conveyed through a voice message broadcast on state television that women in Afghanistan could face public floggings and stoning to death as punishments for adultery.

“We will flog the women… we will stone them to death in public…you may call it a violation of women's rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles… (But) I represent Allah, and you represent Satan,” Akhundzada was quoted by The Guardian.

The Taliban leader further justified the move as a continuation of the Taliban’s struggle against Western influences. “The Taliban’s work did not end with the takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun,” he was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

Reacting to the news, Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan researcher at Human Rights Watch, told the publishing house, “Two years ago, they didn’t have the courage they have today to vow stoning women to death in public; now they do... They tested their draconian policies one by one, and have reached this point because there is no one to hold them accountable for the abuses… We should all be warned that if not stopped, more and more will come..."

[Kirby101]

Trump won't be able to access any of the money from Truth Social for quite some time. It will be late September before he is allowed to sell anything, which will be about 6 to 7 weeks before election day - depending on what the stuff is worth by then. And then he'll still have to cut ads and buy time to air them, so don't expect any of that to come into play before October at the earliest.

Presuming there isn't a lein against it by then. New York will want their money.

Trump doesn't spend his own money on his campaign. That is for suckers. He holds events at his properties and charges his campaign. It's all a big grift.

[Gray Lensman]

Trump doesn't spend his own money on his campaign. That is for suckers. He holds events at his properties and charges his campaign. It's all a big grift.

The only difference this time is he sees the election as his only hope of avoiding prison. Will that be enough for him to consider tapping into his funds? It might, but I bet he still tries to stiff someone on payment even then.

[Mister Mets]

It's not really growing, any more than the gay population is growing, it's simply that society is thankfully becoming more open so people are more free to truly express themselves. The idea that it's a "growing" population is yet another transphobic sentiment as it implies ugly things like it's a contagious phenomenon.
As to why you should disbelieve the article you keep quoting? Try because they are quoting from a source by a known transphobic author, and the conclusions support the transphobic myth that the "evil trans people" are coming for young girls. If that's the drive then conclusions are not believable.

It's typical for an overview on a controversy to look at both sides of it. That's separate from a question of whether statistics are represented correctly.

I was imprecise when using the term "the trans population" when it is about people identifying as transgender.

The specific comment in the article was "In surveys by the American College Health Association, the number of students brought up as girls identifying as transgender soared from 1 in 2,000 in 2008 to 1 in 20." so the distinction between whether there is an increase in transgender people or whether there is an increase in people identifying as transgender is not going to make a difference to the article.

Anybody following transgender issues in the mainstream media will be exposed to the argument that any increase in identification is due to greater acceptance and understanding.

[zinderel]

Republican ‘christians’ are coming for queer rights in California.

Again.

Though, even if they get their way (the way they did with Prop 8), it won’t last long. California is populous, and tends to take a dim view of outside agencies (like the Catholic and Mormon churches) spreading hatred of, and lies about, its citizenry. As with Prop 8, I don’t expect this right wing hateful nonsense to last long, there. Which is one reason why republicans and ‘christians’ hate - and **** on - California so much…

Republican ‘christians’ are also blaming the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on Pete Buttigieg being gay.

Blaming him AND making trans-phobic comments about ‘chestfeeding’. Huh-huh, get it? Cause he’s a queer and gots kids, so he’s a ‘GIRLY MAN’?! Praise Jeebus, and God save ‘Murica!

But, I’m sure that, as always, this is just indicative of my tendency to exaggerate about the hatred, reach and rhetoric of ‘christians’ and Republicans. It’s probably just my desire to unfairly use their own words and actions to justify ‘persecuting them’ for their ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ that leads me to post about this.

Not its relevance to the discussion.

Not the fact that it’s further proof of Republican and ‘Christian’ awfulness that I’ve been talking about for years.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, like ’protecting children from Satan’ or ‘parents rights’, though. I’m sure this isn’t further evidence of what we’ve been talking about here: that republicans and ‘christians’ don’t see trans people as human beings.

Right?

[Gray Lensman]

Republican ‘christians’ are coming for queer rights in California.

Again.

Though, even if they get their way (the way they did with Prop 8), it won’t last long. California is populous, and tends to take a dim view of outside agencies (like the Catholic and Mormon churches) spreading hatred of, and lies about, its citizenry. As with Prop 8, I don’t expect this right wing hateful nonsense to last long, there. Which is one reason why republicans and ‘christians’ hate - and **** on - California so much…

Republican ‘christians’ are also blaming the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on Pete Buttigieg being gay.

Blaming him AND making trans-phobic comments about ‘chestfeeding’. Huh-huh, get it? Cause he’s a queer and gots kids, so he’s a ‘GIRLY MAN’?! Praise Jeebus, and God save ‘Murica!

But, I’m sure that, as always, this is just indicative of my tendency to exaggerate about the hatred, reach and rhetoric of ‘christians’ and Republicans. It’s probably just my desire to unfairly use their own words and actions to justify ‘persecuting them’ for their ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ that leads me to post about this.

Not its relevance to the discussion.

Not the fact that it’s further proof of Republican and ‘Christian’ awfulness that I’ve been talking about for years.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, like ’protecting children from Satan’ or ‘parents rights’, though. I’m sure this isn’t further evidence of what we’ve been talking about here: that republicans and ‘christians’ don’t see trans people as human beings.

Right?

California did make them change the name of the proposal to reflect what it does, so rather than an Orwellian name along the lines of "defending children" its actually being referred to as "proposal to limit rights of" and, biy, are the people behind it piiiissssed.

[zinderel]

California did make them change the name of the proposal to reflect what it does, so rather than an Orwellian name along the lines of "defending children" its actually being referred to as "proposal to limit rights of" and, biy, are the people behind it piiiissssed.

It does suck when they’re forced to be honest about their goals, doesn’t it?

This has almost no chance of succeeding, thankfully. But that it’s happening at all is worth bringing up. Especially since the push contains all of the by-now familiar buzzwords and sound bites we expect from far right ‘christian’ Republicans, at this point.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Trump won't be able to access any of the money from Truth Social for quite some time. It will be late September before he is allowed to sell anything, which will be about 6 to 7 weeks before election day - depending on what the stuff is worth by then. And then he'll still have to cut ads and buy time to air them, so don't expect any of that to come into play before October at the earliest.

Presuming there isn't a lein against it by then. New York will want their money.

And many stock analysts predict Truth Social's stock will be cratering soon because , the site is losing money. Its not making money and the Trumpsters buying it up ala GameStop back in 2021 , are headed to a big realization once they lose their shirts on it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The only difference this time is he sees the election as his only hope of avoiding prison. Will that be enough for him to consider tapping into his funds? It might, but I bet he still tries to stiff someone on payment even then.

Of course he’ll try and stiff someone. Cheating and grifting is as natural to Trump as breathing, he’s too old to change, even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t.

[Dalak]

I guess it perhaps might be helpful if we had something that could prevent those trans people who are born male and are considering career in sports from going through male puberty, so they would not have any advantage over cis women due to said male development. I'm sure many of them would welcome if there was some accessible medication that could do that and carried no stigma, so that their doctors could prescribe it to them and their parents would let them take it. Then, any advantage they might have in some sports might be diminished and they themselves would not have to doubt if their potential victory is fair.

Trying to ban puberty blockers even temporarily exacerbates this problem, there's no arguing around that.

Yes. If your argument is based on the notion of trans women athletes having a physical advantage over cisgender female athletes, then you would have to also argue that trans male athletes have a DISADVANTAGE against cisgender male athletes. So to be against both exposes you as transphobic.

If surveys showed that they were happy to allow trans-men to compete in cis-men's brackets I could maybe see that the feelings that it was unfair for trans-women to compete with cis-women might be genuinely about sport...but with the feelings being that trans-men shouldn't be able to compete it just seems like transphobic pushback hiding behind "fairness"

They argue that there's a Chess advantage too " The new regulations also state that if a player holds a women’s title, but changes their gender to male, their women’s title will be “abolished.”

However, if the gender change is from male to female, all previous titles will remain “eligible.”

Trump won't be able to access any of the money from Truth Social for quite some time. It will be late September before he is allowed to sell anything, which will be about 6 to 7 weeks before election day - depending on what the stuff is worth by then. And then he'll still have to cut ads and buy time to air them, so don't expect any of that to come into play before October at the earliest.

Presuming there isn't a lein against it by then. New York will want their money.

And many stock analysts predict Truth Social's stock will be cratering soon because , the site is losing money. Its not making money and the Trumpsters buying it up ala GameStop back in 2021 , are headed to a big realization once they lose their shirts on it.

Well that's a little something but to sum up all the other posts about it & Trump: Grifters gunna Grift.

Taliban leader vows to publicly stone women to death for adultery

Because horrible people will still do horrible things. Some would see this as proof that the US didn't go far enough with the Taliban, but I disagree with that premise as wiping them out would have resulted in other terrorist cells with different names making the same headlines.

Republican ‘christians’ are coming for queer rights in California.

Again.

Though, even if they get their way (the way they did with Prop 8), it won’t last long. California is populous, and tends to take a dim view of outside agencies (like the Catholic and Mormon churches) spreading hatred of, and lies about, its citizenry. As with Prop 8, I don’t expect this right wing hateful nonsense to last long, there. Which is one reason why republicans and ‘christians’ hate - and **** on - California so much…

Republican ‘christians’ are also blaming the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on Pete Buttigieg being gay.

Blaming him AND making trans-phobic comments about ‘chestfeeding’. Huh-huh, get it? Cause he’s a queer and gots kids, so he’s a ‘GIRLY MAN’?! Praise Jeebus, and God save ‘Murica!

But, I’m sure that, as always, this is just indicative of my tendency to exaggerate about the hatred, reach and rhetoric of ‘christians’ and Republicans. It’s probably just my desire to unfairly use their own words and actions to justify ‘persecuting them’ for their ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ that leads me to post about this.

Not its relevance to the discussion.

Not the fact that it’s further proof of Republican and ‘Christian’ awfulness that I’ve been talking about for years.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, like ’protecting children from Satan’ or ‘parents rights’, though. I’m sure this isn’t further evidence of what we’ve been talking about here: that republicans and ‘christians’ don’t see trans people as human beings.

Right?

California did make them change the name of the proposal to reflect what it does, so rather than an Orwellian name along the lines of "defending children" its actually being referred to as "proposal to limit rights of" and, biy, are the people behind it piiiissssed.

It does suck when they’re forced to be honest about their goals, doesn’t it?

This has almost no chance of succeeding, thankfully. But that it’s happening at all is worth bringing up. Especially since the push contains all of the by-now familiar buzzwords and sound bites we expect from far right ‘christian’ Republicans, at this point.

If people were forced to tell the truth when naming these pieces of sh-legislation and say the quiet part out loud when describing them the world would be a much easier to understand one.

[Dalak]

On the Subject of The Week

The original problem was with The Week inflating their numbers by using respondents who didn't identify as Transgender as well as Trans Women in their total which they rounded up against the rules (Another of many examples) to say they were all "students brought up as girls identifying as transgender". That is a lie in many noted ways thanks to recent reposts, but the least of which is that the results of the only study they cite do not reveal how the students were brought up or how they were assigned at birth in many cases - Just how they identify. Add in the fact that the article tries to defend 2 known peddlers of proven transphobic misinformation (Shrier & Littman) at the same time that it is making such a transphobic claim gives no room for doubt as to why they would lie in such a way. As an aside - If one were to make a reasonable attempt at making that number a legitimate one, they should remove the ones who didn't identify as transgender by any definition, and those who were openly Trans Men & Women to then calculate any potential break down based on that number first, and then add back in the ones who fit the criteria of the results you were looking for (Trans Men/Women). That result would have to take into effect any lack in self-reporting from Trans Women due to the increasing bigotry against them specifically over the years (BATHROOMS!) as well as several other serious variables that should be carefully considered in making a number that represented facts.

The new problem I've noted is that if the article is accepted in that such a spike from 1-in-2000 to 1-in-20 in identifying as transgender for 'those brought up as girls' is newsworthy, it's transphobic not to report the slightly smaller spike in 'those brought up as boys' identifying that way as well. 1-in-100 is the bar Mets set previously for such, so 1-in-40 or 1-in-60 would definitely apply compared to the original 1-in-2000. Choosing to exclude them shows the bigotry against Trans Women is a real thing that they KNOW is a real thing and they are choosing to report what they think will cause more of a moral panic aka "The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters".

Mets would rather do everything he's actively shown himself willing to do at this point to try and excuse The Week's dishonest reporting because he feels it is true despite the evidence presented, and anyone wanting to read all the posts in question could make their own laundry list of the dishonest and deceptive things in them. What he hasn't done is presented any evidence that The Week's reporters read or considered any other studies he posts, that they looked to confirm the chromosomal status of the respondents, or any of the other theories he's presented to make them seem factual.

That should be straightforward enough for anyone.

[Iron Maiden]

That is kinda old. There has been Trump teddy bears awhile that he’s selling to gullible idiots.

Trump is also peddling the Bible again during Holy Week. IIRC he's done that before for the 2016 election