"A boy in a sports jersey stands with smaller girls on a court and then is seen, shirtless, inside a bathroom with them. A girl in a towel shrieks in terror."

"'Abigail Spanberger is as extreme as it gets,' says the narrator of the television ad that recently began airing in Virginia. A year after Donald Trump’s presidential campaign unleashed $37 million in transgender-themed issue ads against Democratic rival Kamala Harris, Republicans are returning to the cultural flashpoint ahead of next month’s elections, including Virginia’s race for governor, and plan to highlight it again in the 2026 midterm contests. 'Where is our common sense?' Winsome Earle-Sears, Virginia’s Republican lieutenant governor, said in an interview when asked about transgender athletes competing in female sports. 'If I have to tell you that water is wet, we’ve got troubles.'"

From "Republicans Target Democrats Over Transgender Policies in This Year’s Races/Ahead of critical midterm elections, GOP revives culture war strategy used by Trump in 2024’s presidential campaign" (Wall Street Journal).

Here's that anti-Spanberger ad:

#VAGov: Dick Uihlein-funded group Restoration of America PAC is up on TV with this spot --

Female voiceover:

"Abigail Spanberger is as extreme as it gets..."

"She's apparently all in on a horrifying gender mutilation. An irreversible sterilization of children" pic.twitter.com/gD0ytXwUIn

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) October 14, 2025

What a terrible issue for Democrats! They can't seem to back away from it.

Woe to the cartoonist who dares to satirize a black person.

I'm reading "VA Dems Are Getting Desperate: Powhatan County Dems Post Blatantly Racist Cartoon of Winsome Earle-Sears" (Twitchy).

Blatantly racist????

How is it even racist at all?

When a particular person is drawn — as an individual and not as a stereotype — it is not racist. It's important to be able to continue the art of cartooning and to treat black public figures the same way as other public figures. We need to be able to keep making fun of power-seekers and power-holders, whatever race they happen to be. The charge of racism here is wrong and dangerous. 

"If your li'l girl comes home and said she was forced to undress in a locker room with a biological boy, what would you say? She's crying!"

I asked Abigail what if one of her girls came home crying because she was forced to undress next to a man.

Her silence speaks volumes. pic.twitter.com/FtkM6ir9KT

— Winsome Earle-Sears (@winwithwinsome) October 9, 2025

Why wasn't the Democrat, Abigail Spanberger, sharp enough to come up with something to say?

I asked Grok to write an answer for Spanberger and got: "I would hug my daughter tight, wipe away her tears, and tell her I love her no matter what. Then I'd explain that everyone deserves to feel safe and respected at school, including transgender kids who are just trying to be themselves. We'd work with the school to make sure there are options like private changing stalls for anyone who needs them, because protecting all our children means building a community where no one is left out or made to feel ashamed."

I was surprised by "I would... tell her I love her no matter what." I think that implies that the mother's first thought is, Oh, no, my daughter is transphobic!

ADDED: Here's the whole debate, and I'm pinpointing the beginning of the locker room talk:

"The problem is here they want... White supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a Black mouth moving but a White idea through the running on the runway of the tongue..."

"... of a figure who justifies and legitimates the White supremacist practices. We know that we can internalize in our own minds, in our own subconscious, in our own bodies the very principles that are undoing us. So to have a Black face speaking in behalf of a White supremacist legacy is nothing new. And it is to the chagrin of those of us who study race that the White folk on the other side and the right wingers the other side don’t understand."

Said Michael Eric Dyson, talking about Winsome Sears, quoted in "‘A Black Mouth Moving’ That ‘Justifies and Legitimates’ White Supremacy: MSNBC Guest Says Winsome Sears Win Doesn’t Make GOP Racially Progressive" (Mediaite).

Do you know when you are speaking your own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? Are you sure? Do you know when somebody else is speaking their own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? I could see being eternally skeptical about whether anyone is ever truly speaking their own mind, 100% originality, but I'm just going to be skeptical of the people who choose to pronounce some and only some people to be the puppets of others. The selective puppet accusation itself might be channeling what somebody else is launching off the runway of your tongue.

When puppet accusations fly, I feel compelled — by my own true motivation of the heart — to post this video clip:

 

ADDED: Video of Dyson:

MSNBC guest on @WinsomeSears:

“There is a black mouth moving but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the white supremacist practices.” pic.twitter.com/P3O8ciTveG

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) November 5, 2021

This morning at 11:23 a.m., I texted Meade a photograph (and a couple updates about the Pennsylvantia election), and it went like this...