At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about anything you like.

The new Yahoo/YouGov poll — taken after Trump's indictment — has Trump with his largest lead yet.

Yahoo News reports.

2 weeks ago, it was Trump 47%, DeSantis 39% — 8 points ahead.

The new poll has Trump up 10 points, to 57%, and DeSantis down 8 points, to 31%. Trump is 26 points again. 

When Trump is pitted against the whole field of GOP candidates, he pulls a majority — 52% — up from 44%, with DeSantis at 21%.

"Highly anticipated cases have made the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court race the most expensive in the nation’s history."

"Top issues include abortion and redistricting — not transgender rights. But American Principles Project (APP) is part of a national, far-right movement to demonize transgender people and undermine their rights."

I'm reading "Anti-transgender ads favoring Daniel Kelly peddle fear, false info" (Capital Times).

I haven't looked at the ad yet, but I find it hard to believe that what it does is "demonize transgender people." I'm going to guess that the "demonizing" — to the extent that there is any — is aimed at the providers of treatments who have transgender persons as patients and to those who would regulate speech in schools and places of business.

"No one ever thinks that! No one ever thinks they’re Umbridge!"

Said J.K. Rowling, in Chapter 7 — "What If You're Wrong?" — of the podcast "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" (transcript), responding to this question from the interviewer, Megan Phelps Roper:

I’m really interested in the question of discernment. I think of this scene from one of your books. It was “Harry Potter in the Order of the Phoenix,” where Hermione, the hero, and Professor Umbridge, who was clearly in the wrong, have this showdown in class. Hermione says in a moment of defiance that she disagrees with something in her textbook and Umbridge berates her like, who are you to disagree with this expert who wrote this textbook and punishes her. Now to anyone reading this, it is so frustrating and unjust. But I venture to say that no one thinks they are the Umbridge.

Talked myself into buying the blue check.

I'm thinking the new approach will be more democratic, more marketplace-of-ideas, more about the actual writing in particular posts than the status of the speaker — and perhaps more magically surprising, like TikTok

— Ann Althouse (@annalthouse) April 1, 2023

"The presumption that gender-diverse identities are not real — that young people will eventually come to accept their birth assigned gender as their minds catch up to their maturing bodies..."

"... is not supported by the evidence and is likely harmful...."

Writes Marci L. Bowers, a gynecologic and reconstructive surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, in "What Decades of Providing Trans Health Care Have Taught Me" (NYT).

I was surprised to see the term "birth assigned gender." What's "assigned" at birth isn't "gender" but sex. Earlier in the column, the doctor does refer to "gender identities [that] do not match... sex assigned at birth."

But what is the science of this "matching"? Is it a medical problem not to "match"? 

What will happen on Twitter, now that the elite are no longer boosted by the old blue check system?

I'm reading a Twitter thread from Nathan Hubbard, who presumably is who he says he is, since he had a blue check when he wrote this last night:

1) As someone who was (briefly) in charge of the Twitter Media team - the group tasked with getting high profile people onto Twitter, and verification - AND as one of the few ever to voluntarily give up the blue check...

But you've got a blue check now. 

... I want to try to articulate how risky this policy change is.  

2) The reason the Twitter Media team existed was because *almost all* of the engagement on Twitter happens with tweets from high profile people/organizations across government, sports, music, business, news, whatever the Kardashians are, etc. They’re the lifeblood of the platform.

Are or were... but it doesn't have to be. TikTok works on the power of the individual message posted and uplifts complete nobodies if the platform users engage with it. 

At the Friday Night Café...

 ... you can write about whatever you want.

"An advance team of Secret Service agents... conducted a site tour of the courthouse on Friday to map Trump’s path in and out of the building..."

"... according to a law enforcement official involved in the planning. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the arrangements, said that 'dozens and dozens of agents' will be required to secure the former president’s travel between Mar-A- Lago, his Florida home and private club, and New York.... [T]he agency will take 'the necessary steps' to protect Trump from harm, including placing agents and officers in a bubble formation to separate him from approaching members of the public. But... the Secret Service has not sought any special accommodations in the court’s standard processing and arraignment procedure, the official said, such as closing off courthouse hallways to the public.... Court security officers will manage the former president’s movements inside the building, in the company of Trump’s security detail, and New York police officers will secure the outside streets surrounding the courthouse and along Trump’s motorcade route through the city...."

 

From "Secret Service tours N.Y. courthouse to prepare for Trump arraignment" (WaPo).

"In a contentious debate in Madison last week, in front of a standing-room-only crowd, the mutual contempt between candidates was palpable."

"[Daniel] Kelly kept pointing at [Janet] Protasiewicz and calling her a liar as she looked straight ahead; the event had a bit of the same vibe as the infamous second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Kelly inveighed against Protasiewicz for speaking in terms of policy outcomes rather than legal doctrine, calling her 'a candidate who does nothing but talk about her personal politics.'"

 
Writes Michelle Goldberg in "This Election Could Be the Beginning of the End of Scott Walker’s Legacy in Wisconsin" (NYT).

"Twitter’s system of account verification comes to an end Saturday..."

"... when, as the company’s owner Elon Musk announced earlier this month, all 'legacy' verified accounts will lose their blue check.... But if Musk thought that by stripping 'legacy' accounts of their verification, he could convert those account holders into Twitter Blue subscribers, at least when it comes to American media he’s mistaken...."

From "Sorry, Elon! NY Times, WaPo, LA Times and Other Major Outlets Won’t Pay for a Twitter Blue Check/On Saturday, the company’s verification system ends and blue checks will be available only to users who pay $8 a month" (The Wrap).

If this be humor, make the most of it.

 

Link.

Get ready...

Under Dudley & Stephens, a Cardozo opinion from 1999, Trump is totally going to be acquitted if he simply files a writ of coram nobis.

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) March 30, 2023

"The extreme lack of curiosity about the political ideology of the Nashville shooter, and what role that ideology may have played in motivating the massacre...."

The extreme lack of curiosity about the political ideology of the Nashville shooter, and what role that ideology may have played in motivating the massacre, is very conspicuous, but not at all surprising.

Highlighting the shooter's ideology is often the primary media framework: https://t.co/ydZGU2CfYg

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 30, 2023

"As she has evangelised about chakra healing and $75-per-month vitamin supplements, Paltrow's high-end 'yoga mom' spirit has overshadowed her film career."

"Even her exceptionally trim body, at 50, is another part of the brand: recently, she has spoken about a bone-broth diet which has been widely criticised as 'dangerous.' (She subsequently insisted that she has many days of eating 'whatever' and 'french fries.') There is something so absurd about Paltrow's image that it seems almost to transcend the disdain you might expect to be levelled at her for such flagrant unworldliness. To many, she's such a caricature of privilege, doing things that are so glossily removed from ordinary life.... inconceivably wealthy, hyper-fixated on things that most have never thought about (vaginal steamers, anyone?).... [I]n today's relentlessly critical social media discourse, many find her schtick so over-the-top that they can't help but find it entertaining."

BBC explains, in "Gwyneth Paltrow verdict: Why she divides, and fascinates."

Side note: She won the case. 

I trust that the jury ascertained that she and not the optometrist was the one who told the truth. 

Does that make her a less ridiculous figure in our pop culture?

"You’re actually super transphobic and I never want to share a space with you."

Said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to "Libs of TikTok" creator Chaya Raichik, quoted "AOC storms away from ‘Libs of TikTok’ creator on Capitol Hill" (NY Post).