… Read the restA judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House.
Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.
Engoron ordered that some of Trump’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York, and said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee the Trump Organization’s operations.
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All entries by this author
Beyond mere bragging
Sep 26th, 2023 3:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonGuest post: The banner of forced teaming
Sep 26th, 2023 3:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Mandatory shop bags.
How is it the shop’s business to have anything to say about a customer’s decision to accept or reject a shopping bag? The “Progressive Pride” flag is not, as we have discovered, a neutral statement. It’s no longer even friendly. It is the banner of forced teaming, of aggressive, insistent parasitism of trans activism on gay and lesbian rights. It is a statement of a political ideology and religious belief. It is the promotion of an anti-that is profoundly anti-women. It is the flag of an occupying army flexing its muscles in yet another power play, and the shop’s behaviour confirms it: they called the fucking police… Read the rest
Surrogacy Program Manager
Sep 26th, 2023 3:04 pm | By Ophelia BensonDonor Concierge introduced Kylee on Facebook in August 2020:
Introducing Donor Concierge’s new Surrogacy Program Manager: Kylee Warren!
Kylee joined Donor Concierge in 2020, and she has over 8 years of experience working in the third party fertility field.
Oh is that what they call it. “Third party fertility” – how elegant – how mollifying. It’s not renting a woman to cook someone else’s baby, it’s third party fertility. Public Relations wins another round.
… Read the restShe previously worked for a top U.S. fertility clinic, focusing on egg donation and gestational surrogacy. Kylee recently earned her Masters in Global Public Health and holds a BS in Health Sciences and Pre-Nursing. Kylee’s deep medical experience, passion for family building and leadership have
Most institutions have at least one
Sep 26th, 2023 11:08 am | By Ophelia BensonHelen Joyce explains one reason so many institutions have gone all trans-ideology:
…by now most institutions have at least one senior employee who has socially, and perhaps medically, transitioned a child—and who is likely to spend the rest of their lives justifying that decision to themselves.
It’s a terrible, difficult choice, what to do about it, she says: make their child furious and miserable, or make their child happy at least in the short term.
… Read the restBut that second option amounts to a promise to the child that parents cannot keep without involving everyone else in a pretence. If you tell your child that yes, he “really is a girl” or she “really is a boy”, you require all the rest
Mandatory shop bags
Sep 26th, 2023 9:58 am | By Ophelia BensonMeanwhile, if the shop hands you a carrier bag (one you have to pay for) and it has anything about trans world on it, it is against the law for you to refuse it.
2. In a ten minute phone call, which we have heard, the police advised that the customer was now banned from the shop and warned that she must not hand out any form of literature in the shop’s vicinity.
Yet again, the police are acting as TQI+ enforcers. @SuellaBraverman
— WeAreFairCop (@WeAreFairCop) September 26, 2023
How is the shop entitled to control who says what in “the shop’s vicinity”?
The police ignore rape but get very busy on gender heresy in public.… Read the rest
Kylee explains
Sep 26th, 2023 8:59 am | By Ophelia BensonHoly shit this is disgusting.
https://twitter.com/DonorConcierge/status/1702793565405925598The Valley Girl accent and vocal fry don’t help, but the content is………..the word for it doesn’t exist. I need a mashup of horror and disgust and rage. The sanctimonious bloodless corporate-speak about renting women to gestate babies “to the specifications” of the smart shopper – it’s grotesque and foul.
“What this matching process entails is a gestational carrier through a vetted agency that has undergone a stringent medical review”
Note that “that.” It’s not who, it’s that. A “gestational carrier” (which has to be some kind of machine, right?) is a thing that has undergone a stringent review by skilled engineers.
“a stringent medical review by the Donor Concierge Internal Medical Records … Read the rest
Integrity
Sep 26th, 2023 8:10 am | By Ophelia BensonWill it ever sink in? Will they ever get the point? Will they ever stop saying this?
At the end of the day we all deserve respect and recognition for who we are, and those who deny it are simply doing so because they are either deeply unhappy with their own lives, or so full of ignorance and prejudice that they cannot see their own cruelty.
— Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir (@UglaStefania) September 25, 2023
But it isn’t “for who we are.” THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. It’s “for who we are not.” The demand is for respect and recognition of a fiction, a game, a lie – a fiction-game-lie that intrudes on and weakens the rights of other people, … Read the rest
Hur hur we’re celebrating
Sep 26th, 2023 1:59 am | By Ophelia BensonWomen win a volleyball tournament. Men storm the court and run around jerking off.
Santo Amaro University has expelled several students after footage of them went viral this week.
The ugly scenes in São Paulo, Brazil, saw male students from the futsal team sitting on the sidelines watching the women’s volleyball team with their pants around their ankles.
After the team won the volleyball championship at São Camilo University, the players stormed the court and appeared to perform a group masturbation celebration.
As one does…if one has nothing but contempt for women.
São Camilo University confirmed the incident originally took place in April, though footage of the moment went viral over the weekend.
Cool cool. So it was no … Read the rest
Rosie Needs Money
Sep 26th, 2023 1:35 am | By Ophelia BensonThe new Dick and Jane book. See Dick pay for sex; see Jane used by Dick.
The city of Berlin has prompted outrage from locals after offering a graphic picture book on prostitution to children via its official website. The book, titled Rosie Needs Money (Rosi sucht Geld), is advertised as a resource for youth aged 6 to 12 years old.
For the girls in case they want to go into the trade, for the boys in case they want to look forward to paying women to be raped.
… Read the restBizarrely, the book concludes with quotes from children and young people who live in areas where street prostitution takes place. Most of the sentiment is overwhelmingly negative, and
Guest post: A pyramid scheme where the product is “progressive values”
Sep 25th, 2023 5:50 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Artymorty on Safe haven:
Even if we granted that adolescents who are “really” transgender would feel so bad they might commit suicide if they didn’t get surgeries to “correct” their genitals, the inextricable flipside of that is that adolescents who turn out to be “not really” transgender would feel so bad they might commit suicide if they did get surgeries which rendered their genitals “incorrect.”
Surely, then, it would be best to wait until they’re adults for surgeries. The risk of enduring a couple years in adolescence with the “wrong” genitalia is far outweighed by the risk of enduring the entirety of one’s adult life with genitalia that’s been surgically rendered “incorrect.”
That’s granting an … Read the rest
Be careful what you give a standing ovation for
Sep 25th, 2023 2:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonWouldn’t you think Canadian MPs would know a little about WWII? It’s a long time ago but not that long, and anyway it cast a very long shadow. A very very very fucking long shadow, on account of the many millions of people who were killed, and on account of the gruesome specter of genocide. On account of the UN and the UDHR, on account of nuclear weapons, on account of the Bloodlands.
A 98-year old was given standing ovation by the Canadian parliament during Zelensky's speech.
He was hailed as a hero for fighting against the Russians.
Yaroslav Hunk fought for the 14th division of the Waffen SS. pic.twitter.com/1J2lNywBM5
— UNN (@UnityNewsNet) September 24, 2023
The inanely grinning
Sep 25th, 2023 11:41 am | By Ophelia BensonGoverned by imbeciles:
It seems the ‘conversion therapy’ ban is over, for the time being at least. Thank God.
But let’s not forget the inanely grinning, brain-dead MPs (of all parties) who held up these placards
in May of last year, advocating a policy which would have criminalised anyone trying… pic.twitter.com/tudX3AGbDE
— Gareth Roberts (@OldRoberts953) September 25, 2023
Full tweet:
… Read the restIt seems the ‘conversion therapy’ ban is over, for the time being at least. Thank God.
But let’s not forget the inanely grinning, brain-dead MPs (of all parties) who held up these placards in May of last year, advocating a policy which would have criminalised anyone trying to *prevent* tomboy girls and camp boys from being steered towards untested
New science or new human rights?
Sep 25th, 2023 10:12 am | By Ophelia BensonSastra raises the perennial question of what we are talking about when we talk about how “some women have a penis” [and related subjects, which are infinite in number]. She asks if it’s a matter of new discoveries in science or new sensitivities to human rights, which is a very good question.
I was thinking about the purported “new sensitivities to human rights” yesterday, wondering for the billionth time why there is such heightened sensitivity to and compassion for men who claim to be women when there was never such sensitivity to and compassion for feminist women with their old sensitivities to human rights. Why are the sensitivity and compassion so very heightened, so frantic, so loud, so hyperbolic, so … Read the rest
Guest post: Four possible meanings
Sep 25th, 2023 9:59 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Sastra on Brain rot.
If “some women have a penis” does that mean:
1.) There have always been some women who have a penis, but we only now realize this because of new discoveries in science.
2.) There have always been some women who have a penis, but we only now admit this because of new sensitivities to human rights.
3.) Women-with-a-penis is a totally new thing, the result of advances in medical science.
4.) Women-with-a-penis is a totally new thing, the result of advances in human rights.
My guess is that people who believe “some women have a penis” would dearly love to say it’s #1, mostly push #2, and fall back on #3 … Read the rest
Safe haven
Sep 25th, 2023 8:59 am | By Ophelia BensonTattoo v neovagina.
In New York State, it is illegal for someone under 18 to get a tattoo, even with parental consent. But New York is a "safe haven" for minors seeking puberty blockers, and other gender transition procedures.
Think about that.
— Prof. Gary Francione (@garylfrancione) September 24, 2023
I think I get what the reasoning is from their point of view: gender transition procedures are (in at least some instances) literally life-saving. People will die without them.
If that thought is accurate the reasoning may possibly make some sense. But is it accurate?
Well, first, not all magic gender-havers claim to be suicidal, or threaten to act on suicidal thoughts, or do in fact commit suicide. Second, blackmail … Read the rest
Guest post: All too easy for the managers to appoint themselves priests
Sep 25th, 2023 8:37 am | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Francis Boyle on Who, literally, does she think she is?
I realise now that I was very naive to think, as I did for a long time, that the puritan impulse couldn’t survive in a pluralist culture. I’m not sure how the managerial mindset is related to puritanism beyond the fact that they both love putting things (and thus people) into boxes, but the two certainly find it easy to make common cause in promoting authoritarianism. Orwell is certainly relevant here but so is Mill. Without a willingness among the ordinary population (which is to say everyone who doesn’t see themself as a “thought leader”) to tolerate ideas they personally find disagreeable it is all too … Read the rest
Brain rot
Sep 25th, 2023 4:23 am | By Ophelia BensonMP says some women have a penis.
Yes really. An MP actually said that – on the record, in public. A woman MP said that.
I'll save them the bother of doorstepping me.
Yes some women have a penis.
It's clear that Tory allies will help with their #waronwoke
Vilification of trans people to distract from mess country is in.
How about asking MPs if they will eradicate Homelessness & Child Poverty? https://t.co/LtjeJUO45R
— Kate Osborne MP (@KateOsborneMP) September 24, 2023
It’s not “vilification of trans people” to say that women don’t have a penis.… Read the rest
Human rights but not for lesbians
Sep 25th, 2023 4:14 am | By Ophelia Benson
Breathtaking.
the australian human rights commission (AHRC) have published their preliminary view on the lesbian action group's application for a lesbian-only ('lesbians born female') event in melbourne. their preliminary view is, 'no'. pic.twitter.com/C5E0pId1Nj
— A/Prof Holly Lawford-Smith (@aytchellesse) September 25, 2023
the main reasons for refusing the exemption appear to be that we shouldn't make distinctions between women based on their sex, and that we shouldn't ask people personal questions. like, aren't you a man and therefore not a lesbian and therefore get out? pic.twitter.com/TkQWAYkoO0
— A/Prof Holly Lawford-Smith (@aytchellesse) September 25, 2023
No. Lesbians may not hold lesbian-only events. No.… Read the rest
Who, literally, does she think she is?
Sep 24th, 2023 2:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonI really would like to know if it’s normal for an administrator at a healthcare network to lie and threaten and rage at patients and/or employees of the network who don’t believe men can be women and who don’t subscribe to the new religion that underlies that claim. If it is normal it obviously shouldn’t be. What business is it of Chandra Berkan-Hozempa’s if patients or employees or both attend a protest? Or participate in it? Or have opinions she dislikes? How is it her job to send out furious denunciations and warnings about a protest that has nothing whatever to do with the body she works for?
She’s the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Island Health, by … Read the rest
Seek out another island
Sep 24th, 2023 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonOh good, there’s a source document. Let’s read it together.
Island Health is aware of the anti-2SLGBTQIA protests and counter-protests that are being planned across Canada on Wednesday, September 20th 2023.
And? What business is it of Island Health that there is a protest scheduled? Why does Island Health have to comment on it at all? Let alone threatening and libeling the protesters?
To be clear, Island Health respects the right for 2SLGBTQIA+ people to live in peace, without fear of discrimination, harassment and threat of violence, and recognize that the human rights of the trans and 2SLGBTQIA+ community are not up for debate.
Do they not get bored and embarrassed barfing out that endless string of letters over … Read the rest