We all know the Republicans are hot for the opportunity to strip trans people all of their rights, and are eager to inspect the genitals of every woman who tries to enter a women’s restroom. Of course, I’m a man, and I say I’m obviously a man (some may disagree), so this does not affect me in the slightest, because like a real man I lack empathy and don’t actually care about other people.

At least, that’s how I think they want society to be. Peel off the trans people, a tiny easy minority to target, and that’ll set a precedent and make it easier to oppress all the other people we’re not supposed to like. We must make America pure! I am so lucky to be a member of the ideal subset of humanity that is destined to be privileged even further, because enforcement is coming.

During an interview with reporters last week, Indiana Senator Mike Braun went beyond the usual Republican line that decisions about abortion rights should be left up to the states. The question of interracial marriage, too, he said, should be left to the states to decide.

Braun was responding to a reporter who seemed to be testing how far he would take his states’ rights philosophy: If the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade improperly interfered with individual states’ ability to set their own rules for abortion, as Braun argued, which of the court’s other decisions should be overturned on that basis? Should the court’s unanimous 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, which decreed state laws forbidding interracial marriage unconstitutional, also be overturned?

Braun said, emphatically, “Yes.” States will naturally have differing views on such issues, he continued, adding that “when you want that diversity to shine within our federal system, there are going to be rules, and proceedings, that are going to be out of sync with maybe what other states would do. That’s the beauty of the system.” He later tried to walk back the statement about Loving, claiming to have misunderstood the question, an implausible assertion given that the reporter reiterated and rephrased the question to check for understanding, which did not seem to bother Braun at the time.

It’s going to be a beautiful system, don’t you worry. We’re going to dictate who can marry, nobody will care about that, it’s all for the best. And that’s all!

Except…well, maybe we’ll also police gay marriage, and start cracking down on contraceptives.

Nevertheless, Braun’s comments reflect a broader shift among Republicans and those in the conservative legal movement. Emboldened by their new 6-3 majority on the high court, conservatives again and again have proven willing to challenge rulings seen very recently as firmly settled law. Case in point: Braun also indicated that the Supreme Court’s 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized contraception for married couples, should be overturned, a statement he did not walk back. And he is not alone in that position. Other Republican politicians, including Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn and several candidates in this year’s race for state attorney general in Michigan, have also denounced Griswold. And just last week, during Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Texas Senator John Cornyn attacked the court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

We’ve seen this before. The Republicans are just following the true spirit of America, of the sort that inspired another country.

The idea of banning Jewish and Aryan marriages presented the Nazis with a dilemma: How would they tell who was Jewish and who was not? After all, race and ethnic categories are socially constructed, and interracial relationships produce offspring who don’t fall neatly into one box.

Again, the Nazis looked to America.

“Connected with these anti-miscegenation laws was a great deal of American jurisprudence on how to classify who belonged to which race,” he says.

Controversial “one-drop” rules stipulated that anyone with any Black ancestry was legally Black and could not marry a white person. Laws also defined what made a person Asian or Native American, in order to prevent these groups from marrying whites (notably, Virginia had a “Pocahontas Exception” for prominent white families who claimed to be descended from Pocahontas).

The Nuremberg Laws, too, came up with a system of determining who belonged to what group, allowing the Nazis to criminalize marriage and sex between Jewish and Aryan people. Rather than adopting a “one-drop rule,” the Nazis decreed that a Jewish person was anyone who had three or more Jewish grandparents.

Won’t it be neat-o when that set of rules is enshrined in our constitution?

If you’re curious to know why Apple doesn’t manufacture iPhones in the US, the NY Times has the answer.

I’m sorry, but what? Let’s just reduce an economic issue to the physical characteristics of the work force. I suspect that skill and training and having good tools is more of a contributor to the ability of the Chinese work force, and the greatest virtue to an American capitalist company is the price of their labor. Despite my massive, sausage-like hands, I managed to do delicate microsurgery and single-cell work on insect nervous systems because I practiced a lot and had a beautiful hydraulic micromanipulator and an excellent microscope.

Do you think the Republican anti-education initiatives might reduce the availability of engineers? Don’t worry about the American electronics industry. All we have to do is hire delicate-fingered women at significantly lower wages, and legalize child labor.

I saw this on Mastodon:

No. Just no. Even if it were offered, which is pretty damned unlikely, this is a privileged persons idea of a compromise. We’ll let you have fair pay, 5 weeks paid annual vacation and 1 year paid maternity leave, if you just agree that no non-white, non-male, non-straight person will get those benefits? Solidarity matters, and I don’t think we should sell out a majority to get privileges for a minority.

OK, it’s not presented as an exchange of offers, we should just surrender to that European demand anyway. Fair enough.

This little meme was posted by Will Stancil. I’m wondering if I’m just too online, because I got the joke immediately.

In case you haven’t heard of him (you live a blessed life), Steve Sailer is a notorious and ubiquitous racist and far right pundit who haunts many comment sections. Well, he would be ubiquitous, if reasonable people didn’t insta-block him as soon as he tries to intrude on a conversation. All you really need to know about him is this bit from his wikipedia page.

Sailer, along with Charles Murray and John McGinnis, was described as an “evolutionary conservative” in a 1999 National Review cover story by John O’Sullivan. Sailer’s work has frequently appeared at Taki’s Magazine, VDARE, and The Unz Review. He used the phrase “Invade the World, Invite the World” in the 2000s as a criticism of American foreign and immigration policies.

Sailer’s January 2003 article “Cousin Marriage Conundrum”, published in The American Conservative, argued that nation building in Iraq would likely fail because of the high degree of consanguinity among Iraqis due to the common practice of cousin marriage. This article was selected for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, edited by Steven Pinker.

He’s not an “evolutionary conservative”: although he likes to claim the authority of biology and evolution in his pronouncements about race, he’s really just a guy with an MBA in marketing. He knows nothing about science.

Anyway, what made me laugh about the little cartoon is that I’ve been using the fact of finding Sailer babbling in a thread as analogous to the site flying the black death quarantine flag — back away quickly and never return. There’s something wrong with a site that tolerates his disease. It’s why I shun Matt Yglesias and Tyler Cowen and Razib Khan, and that Steven Pinker would actually publish his poison is another nail in his coffin.

The Trump administration has been on a rampage against institutions that support diversity, equity, and inclusion, and in particular has told the states that they aren’t allowed to tolerate transgender athletes. So they’re threatening to sue us, and California, and Maine, any state that similarly refuses to cave in to bigotry. Minnesota says “no.”

Minnesota quickly went on the radar of newly sworn in U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi after state leaders vowed to buck President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Bondi warned Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison that the Department of Justice is prepared to sue states that do not comply with Trump’s order. But Ellison indicated he will not back down, arguing that compliance would violate state’s human rights protections.

This isn’t just bigotry, it’s also political payback. Our treacherous Minnesota Republicans seen an opportunity to tear down Democrats.

Minnesota Republicans appear to see an opening with Bondi heading the Justice Department for a broader legal push against Democrats in the state.

“We write to inform you of years of rampant unchecked fraud occurring in our state due to failed leadership by Governor Tim Walz, his agencies, and legislative Democrats. We also ask for your assistance to investigate the growing fraud in our state,” state House Republicans wrote in a letter to Bondi earlier this month.

Our state office of higher education has sent us a memo. They aren’t accepting this, either.

But the Republicans have an alternate plan. The US Department of Education has put up a snitch sheet, a page called “End DEI“, where you, yes, YOU, can report all the schools that fail to burn witches torment trans kids.

It’s very 1984. Not discriminating has become an illegal discriminatory practice.

But please do report the University of Minnesota Morris — I’m sure people already are. This place supports our LGBTQ students and faculty…also our people who are members of other minorities. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The anti-DEI bigots are attacking, but we will fight back.

Niall Gooch is a very Christian man. He writes for the Spectator, a conservative British news weekly, but he also publishes in the Catholic Herald and in Premier Christianity. He must be a good Christian, right?

Who needs evidence, trials, lawyers, and juries? Just break out the calipers.

But really, I haven’t seen anyone discussing physiognomy as an indicator of behavior in ages (I don’t read Quillette). OK, though, if it’s a simple science (not that Niall Gooch has any knowledge of science) and anyone can do it, let’s try it.

This is Niall Gooch.

Diagnosis, anyone?

I’m going to say…gormless dweeb, not very bright but with a lot of unfounded confidence, not to be trusted with information or the dissemination thereof, shouldn’t be allowed outside the border of a small village.

Honest, I inferred that entirely from his face, not all from the stupidity of what he writes.

Health care workers are being harassed by an organization called “the American Accountability Foundation”. They’re getting letters threatening their jobs.

Federal health workers are expressing fear and alarm after a website called “DEI Watch List” published the photos, names and public information of a number of workers across health agencies, describing them at one point as “targets.”

It’s unclear when the website, which lists mostly Black employees who work in agencies primarily within the Department of Health and Human Services, first appeared.

“Offenses” for the workers listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, donating to Democrats and using pronouns in their bios.

Wait. Rewind.

…lists mostly Black employees…

What’s that?

…lists mostly Black employees…

Do not try to tell me that the anti-DEI crusade isn’t primarily driven by racism. Just like the anti-immigration policies.

This is America, and it’s racism all the way down.

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That’s not all. Here’s a memo from the US Military Academy.

They’re disbanding the Asian clubs, the Hispanic clubs, the Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers, all in order to comply with the president’s executive orders.

Our university president has spoken on the anti-DEI pronouncements coming from the president and his racist minions.

Dear students, faculty and staff,

As the federal government continues to propose new policy changes on issues ranging from diversity, equity and inclusion to immigration, I fully recognize that these developments have exacerbated uncertainty, concern and fear among some members of our University of Minnesota community. That is understandable given the rapid and regularly evolving changes emanating from Washington, D.C.

As President, I am writing to address any confusion and reaffirm my—and the University’s—longstanding commitment to fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment that best supports the needs of each and every individual across our five campuses, regardless of their citizenship status.

Public research universities like ours play an essential role in supporting and advancing a society that is humane and just. Here at the University of Minnesota, diversity, equity and inclusion is ingrained in our values, and it advances and elevates our mission.

I want to assure all students, faculty and staff that my leadership team and I truly value the activities that support diversity of thought and inclusion, which enhance our teaching and strengthen our research.

To further clarify, we have not rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Minnesota, and we are not making any preemptive changes to our existing programs.

Instead, we are focusing on our commitment to current employees and programs that contribute to this important work. My leadership team and I felt it was the responsible decision to pause expanding our current activities and hiring new personnel until federal policies are further clarified.

I also want to clarify the University’s position when it comes to international students and scholars.

First and foremost, I care deeply about our international community. We are a global university, and our international students, faculty and staff are a core component of our identity and our excellence.

International students and scholars have been—and always will be—an essential part of our University community. They, along with other employees and students who may be affected by newly proposed immigration policies, will continue to play a vital role in the success of Minnesota and our University well into the future. I am fully committed to their ongoing safety and success.

Personnel and resources are in place to support international students, faculty and staff who may be affected by these federal policy changes. I understand some members of our community have questions that are specific to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This webpage is a great resource for answers to frequently asked questions on this topic. Because this situation is rapidly evolving, our teams will continue to update the webpage to provide updated information and guidance.

I want to reinforce that campus departments of public safety, including UMPD on the Twin Cities campus, do not have a role in enforcing federal civil immigration laws. Accordingly, our officers do not view it as their role to inquire about an individual’s immigration status. Their focus remains on public safety, fostering trust and maintaining strong relationships across the University community.

All of us recognize that colleges and universities nationwide are under heightened pressure and greater scrutiny. That said, the University of Minnesota will not waver in its commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for students, faculty and staff from all over the world. We will stay true to our strong public service mission to ensure we remain one of America’s leading public research universities.

I have tasked a group of University leaders to monitor ongoing developments in Washington, D.C., and they are assessing how these decisions affect our community and operations. As has been our longstanding pledge, the University is fully committed to keeping all members of our community well informed so they can navigate this evolving, complex landscape.

Thank you for your support, your leadership and your collaboration as we move forward together as one University community.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Cunningham
President

That’s a lot of words. It would be more effective and clear if she just wrote, “Fuck you, Donald Trump.”

There are none of these mythical “DEI hires” employed on our campus — just the term “DEI hire” is a dog-whistle for racists, like “welfare queen” and a dozen other slurs. Every employee was hired for their job because they demonstrated an ability to do the work, whether they’re groundskeepers or electricians or professors. There have not and never have been “quotas”. DEI is part of a process to make sure we don’t overlook good people because of thoughtless bias, and to make sure that any employment opportunity is announced to every community, and to assure that we don’t create obstacles to participation. It is a universally good thing. If there’s a flaw in our current policy, it’s that it doesn’t go far enough — there sure are a lot of white people in the loftier levels of the faculty and administration, so DEI hasn’t done much leveling.

The kinds of people who complain about DEI tend to be closet racists who don’t understand DEI and imagine that it’s all about promoting people they don’t like to work alongside them. They’re partially right, but only because there are a lot of people they don’t like on arbitrary grounds. It’s impressive how often, when they complain about DEI, their eyes flick to any brown people or women or gay or trans people, who they’ll then blame for bringing down the quality of the work being done. They avoid specifics to simply blow their dogwhistle as loud as they can.

I think Henry Farrell gets it right.

The main glue that holds the anti-democratic right and libertarians together is a shared detestation for DEI. There is a stark choice ahead for those who value actual diversity of identities, cultures and beliefs, but who believe that DEI is being imposed on them. Do they think that the kind of culture that the Trump administration wants to impose – through far more sweeping and totalizing uses of state power – is going to be better or worse? If they have principled objections to the imposition of ideology by power, they cannot, actually, celebrate the likes of Chris Rufo, who have made it emphatically clear that government imposition of ideology, and the treading down into the dust of those who disagree with them is what they are all about.

Read the rest. There’s also more about the rise of the new Silicon Valley cults and the growth of libertarianism.

The old – sometimes uneasy but often productive – detente between libertarianism and left-liberalism has broken. Instead, people who used to be libertarians or classical liberals are more and more enmeshed with the illiberal right. Democracy is out. Founder-worship and admiration for Donald Trump are in. Elon Musk seems to be copying Shockley’s degeneration at speed-run mode, but he is also in an extraordinarily powerful position. Hundreds of people (I am pretty sure they are mostly in the previously mentioned category of young men looking for attention and advancement) have volunteered to work for Elon Musk’s DOGE, where they are about to start trying to rip the guts out of the U.S. state.