So it turns out all these indictments of Trump are Trump’s political strategy.

Donald Trump is intent on leaning into his criminal cases to boost his 2024 campaign through the election next year, according to multiple people close to the former president, after he tested that strategy through multiple indictments and decided it gave him major political advantages.

That’s great. The more of a criminal he is the more votes he gets. What a shining city on a hill we are.

The summer also gave Trump the confirmation that blurring the lines between the legal effort and political effort was perhaps his best overall strategy, in the gamble that he could use the criminal cases to benefit his

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Nope, still not getting it.

Boebert takes another stab at “apologizing” and fails again for the same reason – the classic mistake of framing the behavior one is “apologizing” for as lovably passionate or eccentric or too intense or whatever the self-flattery organ comes up with.

See, this is the thing: if you do something wrong, you can’t apologize by telling us you did it because you’re so awesome. That doesn’t work. We can all see that you’re trying to convince us that you’re a fabulous person instead of apologizing.

In an interview on Sunday with the conservative One America News Network, the far-right Colorado congresswoman attributed the behavior – recorded on security camera footage – to what she described

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The adults are getting involved. Sure took them a long time.

The equalities regulator has said the Government must urgently publish its delayed trans guidance for schools to provide teachers with “much needed clarity”.

Marcial Boo, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s chief executive, revealed that the watchdog had been privately urging the Department for Education (DfE) to “expedite” their new guidance, amid wrangling in Government over how to respond to children seeking to change their gender identity in schools.

Wrangling in government over it – as if they were “activists” on Twitter.

Writing to campaigners, Mr Boo also admitted that the EHRC’s own official guidance, in place for almost a decade, had been wrong to tell teachers that

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Hmmm. If I were a passer-by I’m not sure I would find that a very persuasive slogan.

TRA#1: "What slogan can we use to convince the world that we are real women, who just want to live peaceful lives and have no violent intentions towards females?"
TRA#2: pic.twitter.com/8Dkau3eNLy

— Sam Morgan (@CrunchAlias) September 17, 2023

I get the thinking, maybe…It’s about being defiant, unafraid, in our face, unashamed, bold, brassy, blunt, real. It’s a sort of imitation of feminism, in a way – feminism that said all along we’re not ladies and we’re not girls, we’re women, with all that that implies. It’s not a dainty business, being a woman – you try pushing an infant human being … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on A policy vacuum filled with loonies.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that, due to a confluence of factors, modern society has become entangled in a cultural version of the Savior Complex. The psychologically exaggerated need to save other people has lead to the inadvertent creation of those who need saving: in this case, the Trans Child. Here the combined influence of Therapy Culture and nostalgia for civil rights battles seduces people into loving the pure and innocent Authentic Self suppressed by the Orthodox and bullied by Oppressors. These kids are vulnerable, weak, needy, hurt. They’re just like gay kids used to be in the bad old days. But they can save them! … Read the rest

The San Francisco Chronicle is venomous enough. The headline:

Anti-trans group, advertising as feminists, descends on S.F. for annual convention

Geddit? They’re lying about being feminists. Also they’re not gender critical, they’re haterz of tranz people.

San Francisco will host trans-denying activists for a convention. The twist is that they advertise themselves as a feminist organization.

News flash, Erin Allday [the “reporter”]: trans ideology is not feminist. Feminists are critical of trans ideology. The “twist” is not a twist.

San Francisco is hosting a “radical feminist” group aligned with anti-transgender efforts in the U.S. and abroad for a convention this weekend that is drawing fury from local trans and other LGBTQ individuals and allies.

Or to put it another … Read the rest

Sonia Sodha writes:

The argument about the relative importance of sex and gender identity – whether someone feeling they are male or female should replace the reality of sex in law and society – has become one of the most polarising identity issues of our time. But out of this toxic mess a sensible consensus has emerged: both parties have largely ditched commitments to enshrine in law the view that people should be able to self-declare their sex for legal purposes. It has at last been acknowledged that this would effectively dismantle women’s hard-won legal protections for single-sex spaces, services and sports, and these are not inconsistent with robust anti-discrimination protections for trans people.

Both parties have? I didn’t … Read the rest

Boebert tries to do the same thing – admit she’s rotten to the core while claiming to be a fine person apart from the rot at the core.

Lauren Boebert, the US congresswoman, has issued an apology after being kicked out of a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver for inappropriate behavior, an experience she has called “difficult and humbling”.

Boebert, a Republican representative for Colorado, and a male guest accompanying her were ejected from the musical on 10 September for vaping, recording video and disturbing other patrons during the Sunday performance. Video also showed them eagerly groping each other while in their seats.

Other than that they behaved impeccably.

Boebert and her campaign manager initially denied that she

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She hadn’t noticed until now?

Jenna Ellis – the Donald Trump lawyer who like the former president faces criminal charges regarding attempted election subversion in his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 – says she will not vote for him in the future because he is a “malignant narcissist” who cannot admit mistakes.

Why yes, of course he is, but he always has been, and that has always been glaringly obvious. It’s more glaringly obvious with him than perhaps anyone else on the planet. How could it possibly take until now to notice?

“I simply can’t support him for elected office again,” Ellis said. “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply

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A somewhat less blatantly partisan news article on the LWS rally in the Irish Examiner, but only somewhat, and not for long.

Hundreds of campaigners took part in rallies on opposing sides of the transgender debate in Dublin on Saturday.

Well, yes, but to be clear, the Let Women Speak rally was scheduled and then the “opposing” rally was added to the day’s festivities. It seems that a lot of people just can’t stand to see women getting together to say let us speak.

A large garda presence was visible in and around Merrion Square for the two events and metal barriers were erected to create a space between the rival demonstrations.

Again, making it sound like a football … Read the rest

This is stupid reporting. The Irish Independent:

A demonstration was held in Dublin city today in protest against a rally held by an ‘anti-trans’ campaigner.

Why does the protest against the rally come before the rally itself? Why isn’t the reporting about the rally first and only then the protest against it? And why say “by an ‘anti-trans’ campaigner” instead of something less pejorative? Why isn’t the lede more like “Gender-critical feminists held a rally in Dublin city today, and were met with protests”?

And that’s only the first sentence.

British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, better known as Posie Parker, held one of her Let Women Speak events in Merrion Square this afternoon.

A counter-protest was planned “in support of

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Originally a comment by maddog 1129 on Reasons.

The capture of the Trevor Project was a special stab in the heart/stab in the back to me. I remember Tim Gunn and other out gay celebrities telling gay kids, “It gets better.” These spokespeople were undoubtedly bullied as adolescent gay and lesbian youth, but they found that, as time went on, and they grew older, the circumstances of life did change. They became happy and successful gay and lesbian adults. The bullying of young LG people had led tragically to many suicides and suicide attempts. The purpose of the Trevor Project was to assure young LG people that, despite social ostracization from (usually religious) anti-gay bigots, they need not go … Read the rest

Nonsense from MP Angela Eagle part 2. It’s sad when people produce so much nonsense you have to address it in pieces.

Jo Grady, the union boss who was also on the panel at the fringe event, claimed people have freedom of speech, but not “freedom to offend”. The University and College Union leader said this was something she taught to her members, who include academics, lecturers and postgraduates.

She said: “Whilst it’s clear that gender-critical beliefs are protected, the form of expression isn’t. You might have freedom of speech, but you don’t have freedom to offend – particularly if that offence is enshrined within law, and I think that’s one of the things that we try and educate

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Why are so many women pretending not to know what they’ve known ever since they were about 10 years old?

Like Labour MP Angela Eagle pretending not to know why women don’t want men bouncing into the women’s toilets.

Gender-critical feminists want trans women to show their passports to use public lavatories, a veteran Labour MP has claimed.

Dame Angela Eagle, who is standing to be a Commons committee chairman, said lavatories were being “policed” at the expense of those who don’t conform to gender norms.

[Patiently but through gritted teeth] No, that’s wrong. That’s a falsehood. We’re just saying women need toilets/lavatories/restrooms for women and men have to stay out of them as men have always had to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Reasons.

Could we in principle change someone’s sex? Sure, but it would involve alterations so radical and so subtle that I don’t think it plausible, much less useful or ethical. Because what needs to change is not just a few body parts, but rather an entire suite of interpenetrating systems, all of which together compose the system we call sex. Transplant a functional uterus and ovaries into a man, and he’s still a man, because (a) that uterus is not from his body, (b) the eggs in the ovaries are not from his DNA, and (c) his body is not just unequipped to regulate those organs, it’s developed to maintain … Read the rest

Really heartening stuff.

https://twitter.com/T0MB0Y0/status/1702898558452564032 https://twitter.com/StandingforXX/status/1703008114537005110

First speaker is Helen Joyce.#LetWomenSpeakDublin pic.twitter.com/ep4FNKIBHE

— Brandubh (@brandubh4) September 16, 2023

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1703017607652102610 … Read the rest

Golly, Let Women Speak Dublin is huge.

What a turn out! #LetWomenSpeakDublin pic.twitter.com/htOrRBjUl4

— DJ Lippy (@terfasaurus) September 16, 2023

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1703001373208441006 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1702996880064418185

Also, witty.

https://twitter.com/brandubh4/status/1703007199235117248… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/TTEcclesBrown/status/1702736271716786455

“If it bothers you so much to possibly be in the bathroom with a trans person, who’s in a stall, with a closed door” – big smirk on the “in a stall, with a closed door” bit.

But here’s the thing. People can open the door, and come out of the stall. The fact that the man in the women’s toilet is in a stall with a closed door when a woman enters the room is not all that consoling or reassuring given the fact that the door is locked on his side, not her side. It’s all very well for smirky condescending bro in the pink bathing suit to pretend that a toilet stall is as impregnable as … Read the rest

From January 2022, a piece on the garbage fire that “conversion therapy” bans have made of child therapy:

My son has a great therapist. That sets us apart from, I think, the great majority of parents. Mental health care for children is difficult to get, and it’s even more difficult to get mental health care that doesn’t just check the box or blunder about, but actually helps a child. My son’s therapist, who he’s been seeing regularly for years, to help him work through a long list of problems including anxiety, depression, and being autistic, is a great therapist. But I can’t tell you his name.

Because the son also had gender dysphoria, and now doesn’t, and he didn’t … Read the rest

Jo Bartosch wonders “why the University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) has developed guidance on ‘trans-inclusive practice’.”

It does sound odd, doesn’t it. What “practice”? In what way do museums and galleries have any “practice” with regard to “inclusion”? I don’t want museums exerting any “practice” on me, I just want to walk around them seeing what there is to see.

There is a need for inclusive practice when it comes to people with disabilities – they don’t want to put stairs in people’s way, for instance. But there’s nothing about being trans that would require special “inclusive” arrangements. Neutral toilets maybe? One sad little neutral toilet for the occasional gender-haver?

Last week, a ‘Trans-Inclusive Culture’

… Read the rest