The Herald on Leith Arches and its smug abrupt rude cancellation of a scheduled event because Leith Arches doesn’t like its “views.”

An Edinburgh Fringe venue has axed a show involving Father Ted creator Graham Linehan following a number of complaints.

“You can’t have a show involving Graham Linehan, he knows which people are women!!!”

The writer was the “surprise famous cancelled comedian” at the night being promoted by Comedy Unleashed at the Leith Arches.

He was due to appear in the show alongside Bruce Devlin, Mary Bourke, Dominic Frisby and Alistair Williams on Thursday night.

Today is Tuesday. How charming of Leith Arches to do this with all of two days’ notice. What exquisite manners.

Taking to X, formerly known

It may be unlawful but it’s super enlightened, so no one will mind.

So Leith Arches wants to be number 7 on this list?

How many more before businesses learn that this is unlawful ? https://t.co/XQzghJe5co pic.twitter.com/rppwsAtrnh

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) August 15, 2023

It’s more coherent and human-grammar-based than the first frenzied Announcement, but it’s just as ridiculous.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Now ineligible.

Beware of anyone telling you there are clear answers here.

I’m sympathetic to the arguments in the paper, though I wouldn’t draw any conclusions without hearing an opposing view. But even the authors of that paper concede that the major precedent on the “self-executing” issue is a case from shortly after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and it’s by the then-Chief Justice Salmon Chase (in his capacity as a circuit justice), and it comes out the other way.

I don’t want to get into a long discussion about stare decisis and such. Suffice it to say that it’s a perfectly acceptable argument to say that Chief Justice Chase got … Read the rest

Sam Levine at the Guardian explains the “is he barred from running?” question this way:

Can Trump still run for president?

Yes. The US constitution does not prohibit anyone charged with a crime, nor anyone convicted of one, from holding office.

The 14th amendment, however, does bar anyone who has taken an oath to protect the United States and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Relying on that provision, a slew of separate civil lawsuits in state courts are expected in the near future to try to bar Trump from holding office.

… Read the rest

So agitated they can’t type a single coherent sentence.

Our Comedy Unleashed gig at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been CANCELLED by our venue following online pressure.

It is astonishing that a comedy night at the largest arts festival in the world should be prevented from going ahead, simply because activists are offended.

The… pic.twitter.com/JuepM6aad3

— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) August 15, 2023

“we would like to thank the public for bringing to our attention, about a comedian” – “via emails from, and rightly so, outraged members”

And they are an inclusive venue that excludes people who are accused of no one knows what via emails from, and rightly so, outraged members.… Read the rest

Timothy Snyder writes:

Section 1 of Article Two is one, but not the only, place where the Constitution defines who may run for president. Whereas Section 1 of Article Two has to do with a factors over which a person has no control, place of birth and legal status of parents, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment concerns how an American citizen behaves. It forbids officeholders who try to overthrow the Republic from holding office again.

It is obvious on a plain reading of this part of our Constitution that (absent a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress) Donald Trump is now ineligible for the office of the presidency. He took an oath as an officer of the

Why would any radio personality bring in India Willoughby of all people to talk about hate?

James O’Brien spoke to former Loose Women panellist and trans woman India Willougby after two men were stabbed outside a Clapham gay bar in a homophobic attack, as police hunt for the knifeman.

Why? Why not talk to a gay man rather than a man who calls himself a woman? Especially when the man who calls himself a woman is the venomous misogyny-mongering horror show that is India Willoughby?

India said to James: “You see attacks on drag queens, drag queen storytime. Now drag is not trans. Drag is gay culture and for me, thugs and bullies, they do not differentiate when you’re out

Detailed but irrefutable. Why “but”? Detailed and irrefutable are not incompatible or contradictory. He meant “and” but his brain tricked him, probably because he knows the “details” are inventions aka lies.

Trump’s attempt to do a version of this in a Sept. 2021 letter to Brad Raffensperger is literally a charge in the indictment. pic.twitter.com/fmrvBvETx3

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 15, 2023

… Read the rest

Norm Eisen and another lawyer (Amy Lee Copeland) on why the Georgia indictment is such a good thing.

Ms. Willis charges a wide range of conspirators from the Oval Office to low-level Georgia G.O.P. functionaries and is the first to plumb the full depths, through a state-focused bathyscope, of the conspiracy.

Her case also provides other important complements to the federal matter: Unlike Mr. Smith’s case, which will almost certainly not be broadcast because of federal standards, hers will almost certainly be televised, and should Mr. Trump or another Republican win the White House, Ms. Willis’s case cannot be immediately pardoned away. It offers transparency and accountability insurance. As Ms. Willis said in her news conference Monday night, “The

Racketeering.

• A Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump today, charging him with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy charges as part of a sweeping investigation into the effort by him and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.
• The 41-count indictment also names lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Ray Smith and several other people.
• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis enlisted a special grand jury last year that heard testimony from 75 witnesses.
• Among the best-known moments in the pressure campaign against Georgia officials was a call in which Trump asked Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed to beat Joe Biden.

That was indeed a moment. I … Read the rest

Forbes:

Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, on Monday saying Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan “shouldn’t” testify in grand jury proceedings this week regarding allegations that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in the state—and some legal analysts are saying the post could be witness intimidation or tampering.

…

Ryan Goodman, former special counsel in the Department of Defense, tweeted a screenshot of Trump’s post alongside a screenshot of a Georgia law requiring that a judge find the defendant “poses no significant risk of intimidating witnesses” before approving bail.

CNN’s top legal analyst, Elie Honig, said the post is “straight-up witness tampering, witness intimidation.”

…

Per Georgia law, anyone who

Victoria Smith on Mhairi Black’s contempt for women who are older than she is:

Ageist sexism is central to trans activism. The idea of “womanhood” that it promotes is bound up in the social construction of femininity, whilst utterly dismissive of the material reality of ageing female bodies. Through history, patriarchy has not just sought to define and exploit women as a sex class; it has done so in different ways depending on where women are in the female lifecycle. Trans activism, as an expression of patriarchy, does this, too.

…

Ageing female bodies interrupt the pornified fantasies of the likes of Andrea Long Chu, Julia Serano and Grace Lavery. They spoil the self-pitying narrative that depicts “cis women” as

Aha.

Andrew Weissmann explains why Trump may have a Georgia bail problem, "The exact words because this is the provision that the court has to find to release someone on bail in Georgia, is that the defendant poses no risk of intimidating witnesses." pic.twitter.com/dVIDTEOtla

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 14, 2023

Does Donald Trump pose no risk of intimidating witnesses? Apart from the fact that he does it in public and in all caps every day?… Read the rest

They wanted to find evidence of voter fraud in Georgia, so they did everything they could to find some.

Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.

Investigators in the Georgia criminal

MSP Patrick Harvie thinks men should be allowed to invade women’s sports.

His stupid little cardboard sign says TRANS PEOPLE BELONG IN SPORT which is of course repetition #18 billion of the Big Lie. Nobody is saying trans people don’t belong in sport; people who know their ass from their elbow say male people don’t belong in female sport. Men who claim to be women can still be in sport, they just shouldn’t be in women’s sport.

Conspicuous twit Xander Elliards writes:

PATRICK Harvie stood in solidarity with trans women at a protest on the final day of the cycling world championships.

The Glasgow MSP, who also serves as Active Travel Minister in the Scottish Government, was criticised

The Daily Beast lines up some lawyers who say Trump is indeed engaged in open witness tampering.

Donald Trump publicly insisted on Monday that a key witness in Georgia’s grand jury probe shouldn’t testify this week as ordered—a brazen ask that one legal expert described as “witness tampering in real time.”

Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, was the witness at the center of the early morning tirade from Trump, who has been raging for weeks as the Fulton County grand jury is seemingly inching closer to filing criminal charges against him over alleged efforts to meddle in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

While singling Duncan out on Monday, Trump misspelled his first name.

“I am reading

In more news from Georgia:

Former President Donald Trump on Monday launched a string of familiar attacks against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Monday as Willis is expected to begin presenting her election interference case to a grand jury later today.

In three all-caps posts on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump attacked Willis over her investigation, blasted media leaks, specifically urged “someone” to tell the grand jury he did not interfere in the election while continuing to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Witness tampering and DA intimidation right out in the open.… Read the rest

Joyce Vance six minutes ago:

Looking forward to the "find out" part of this pic.twitter.com/0DpyjoblS1

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) August 14, 2023

He’s blabbing about stuff from the disclosure docs!

Update: No he’s not; this is the Georgia case. My bad. I was so startled I didn’t pause to read any replies.

But still. Farking hell.… Read the rest

Via Tim Harris at Miscellany Room: Ron DeSantis and Prager U (not a university, just an initial!) explain slavery.

I could only stand 4 minutes.… Read the rest

Trump thinks he can do whatever he wants no matter what. He may turn out to be right.

Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case.

In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“She obviously wants me behind bars,” Trump wrote.

He’s jumping up and down in front of the judge saying “Nyah nyah you … Read the rest