Amanda Marcotte wonders why Murdoch is not trying to settle the Dominion case when settling is what he usually does.

I suspect the reason Murdoch and Fox News seem determined to stick this out is that they are just that worried about what impact an admission of wrongdoing would have on their reputation with their audience. The possibility of a jury ruling in their favor, which they could spin as a total exoneration of their tactics, is so important to them that they’re willing to take a big risk that the opposite could happen. A settlement, however, would remove all doubt about who was in the wrong. 

…

[A]s the Dominion filings showed, internal machinations at Fox News were precisely

… Read the rest

Woohoo International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate –

By promoting a man.

https://twitter.com/FaeJohnstone/status/1630960853192445952

He shouldn’t be honored to be featured in this campaign, he should be horrified at the invitation, and telling them to feature a WOMAN for International Woman’s Day.… Read the rest

Pink News is SHOCKED AND APPALLED by the misgendering crime spree in Newham Monday. The very reasonable and informative headline conveys PN’s shock and appallment.

Non-binary councillor storms out of chamber after being shamefully misgendered

Oh how shamefully shameful. Also how adult of a councillor to storm out because a colleague forgot to pretend he has a luxury gender identity with luxury pronouns to match.

The incident happened when Newham councillor Danny Keeling, who uses they/them pronouns, was speaking against Labour’s budget plans at a full council meeting on Monday (February 27) at Stratford Olympic Park.

There’s no such thing as “using” X pronouns—everyone has to use them. Your using eccentric pronouns about yourself does not repeat DOES NOT … Read the rest

A whole entire line of Trump corruption I for one didn’t know about:

Donald Trump made more than a billion dollars while serving as president, including $14 million in income from his business interests in Indonesia from 2015 to 2019, according to a CREW analysis of his tax returns. During that same period, he earned $234 million in total from businesses in foreign countries with interests in U.S. foreign policy. 

That’s so interesting because the normal thing to do on achieving political office is to divest oneself of business interests, by at minimum handing them over to other people to manage and maintaining complete separation between self and those other people. The idea is to get rid of all … Read the rest

When they force you to say the words:

A professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio will be paid $400,000 after he was disciplined four years ago for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns. 

Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State, was reprimanded in 2018 after he would not refer to a transgender student by her preferred pronouns. He had a warning placed in his file and was told to change the way he addresses transgender students “to avoid further corrective actions.” 

So a university – a place with, one would hope, some concept of respect for truth – ordered a professor to pretend a male student was a female student by calling him “her.” Not urged, … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Night Crow on Wasting time.

Part of the issue is that in the moment, anger feels good; it feels like the thing to do. It overrides all other moral and rational brakes in the brain because it originates from our primordial, original limbic system: the brain center of our most automatic emotions like fear and desire.…

What happens is that anger can lead to similar “rushes” as thrill-seeking activities where danger triggers dopamine reward receptors in the brain, or like other forms of addiction such as gambling, extreme sports, or even drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines. Anger can become its own reward …

There is also the psychological aspect of ego fragility and injury, often

… Read the rest

So what did David Paisley actually accuse Ceri Black of? Everything he could think of, it seems, some of it repeatedly.

Just one tiny sample:

Defaming Paisley by stating facts about his actions.

Defaming Paisley by reading out his own tweets.

Defaming Paisley by wishing him a happy Christmas, a soft pillow and a life full of love, as I wish for everybody.

Funny way to defame someone.

Causing significant “distress and anxiety” by reporting publicly that Paisley had reported me to the police.

Oh that’s a good one. Sparky takes a baseball bat to my knee, and I cause Sparky significant distress and anxiety by reporting publicly that Sparky took a baseball bat to my knee.

There’s much, much … Read the rest

What Rupert Murdoch did for Trump:

According to a new court filing from Dominion Voting Systems—which is currently suing Fox News for $1.6 billion—in 2020, Murdoch gave Jared Kushner, then the first son-in-law and an adviser to the president, “confidential information about [President Joe] Biden’s ads, along with debate strategy…providing Kushner a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public.” 

…

Given the way Fox treated Trump while he was in office—like he was the network’s lord and savior, and like its pundits had pledged a blood oath to him in the basement of its Sixth Avenue offices—the company’s owner having shared confidential information with Kushner probably seems neither shocking nor even that bad on the scale of

… Read the rest

Well I’ll just have to give you the whole sequence. It’s too maddening and too illustrative to condense.

That Newham Council clip in full:
“I’ve been informed that I’ve been misrepresenting the councillor's name. I should have said ‘them’ rather than ‘he’. So I do apologise for that. And I think that’s what affected him, is it? Them, sorry. So my apologies to him. To them. Sorry.” pic.twitter.com/QGMXdBNGyA

— Laurie Wastell (@L_Wastell) February 28, 2023

The woman at the end on the right gets up and talks to The Misgendering Criminal to explain where he went so very wrong. Many silent seconds elapse while she informs him of this utter bullshit. He then says he’s been informed, but in doing … Read the rest

A local government meeting interrupted so that one narcissist can make a long-winded repetitive tedious speech about making sure to use the wrong pronouns for The People of Special so that everything anyone says will become more confusing, and not just making sure to do it but making sure to do it INSTANTLY so that the poor overworked narcissist doesn’t have to do it himself.

It keeps going.

After one council member urges the chair to "make this a safe space for trans and nonbinary members", a second says, "I do apologise, and I'll personally apologise to him when he comes back." pic.twitter.com/4muNMSNpm7

— Laurie Wastell (@L_Wastell) February 28, 2023

“You have the power to make this a safe space … Read the rest

Charles Pierce on Murdochs and Foxes:

If I had to guess, I’d say that the lawyers having the most fun these days are the ones handling the defamation suit against the Fox News Channel and the extended Murdoch clan. Every now and then (most recently on Monday), they get to release another tranche of documents related to the case that make Fox look like the malevolent entity it always has been; that make the elite political journalists who have stood up for them over the years look like unusually useful idiots; and that make the Murdochs look like the invasive predatory species they are. This is a public service of immeasurable value. The lawyers must be convulsing with laughter

… Read the rest

The Guardian version:

A transgender woman found guilty of raping two women before transitioning has been jailed for eight years.

Is he a transgender woman though? Even in their terms? He “transitioned” after he was arrested. Does even the Guardian really think he really thinks he’s a woman?

Isla Bryson was convicted last month of raping two women – one in Clydebank in 2016 and one in Glasgow in 2019 – while still a man known as Adam Graham.

“while still a man” ffs. He didn’t magically change into a woman – he tried to get away with his sexual violence against women by claiming to be a woman.

She was found guilty of two charges of rape in

… Read the rest

ITV on that rapist fella:

A transgender rapist who raped two women has been jailed for eight years at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Isla Bryson, from Clydebank, was sentenced to eight years in prison with a further three years on licence.

…

The 31-year-old was convicted last month of raping two women: one in Clydebank in 2016; and one in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019; committing the offences while known as Adam Graham.

That is, committing the crimes before changing his male name to a female one.

Bryson met both the victims online, with prosecutors saying Bryson “preyed” on vulnerable women.

The case sparked an uproar after Bryson was initially housed in an all-female prison before being moved to

… Read the rest

Trans epistemology:

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1630566850898583553

In trans epistemology, statements that trans women who are convicted of violent crime will be barred from female prisons = statements that trans women are male predators. In trans epistemology the limiting clause “who are convicted of violent crime” becomes invisible, so that the statement becomes simply “trans women will be barred from female prisons.” Mind you, that is what ought to happen, but it’s not what the sentence Willoughby is fulminating about says. The sentence says one thing, and Willoughby claims it says quite another thing. That’s trans epistemology. … Read the rest

Simon Edge on the Guardian’s dereliction of duty:

It's now 17 days since the media first reported on @hannahsbee's book Time to Think, which chronicles in detail the medical scandal that led to the closure of the UK's only child gender clinic, GIDS. It has been covered exhaustively in virtually every paper. Except the Guardian.

— Simon Edge (@simonjedge) February 28, 2023

If you fail to report on the biggest medical scandal of the century, even though the story is everywhere else, you are part of the cover-up. You are deliberately hiding the story from your readers, who may well treat you as their primary if not only news source.

This is inexcusable at the best of times, but

… Read the rest

The struggle continues. Why why why WHY won’t people remember to call this man “they” or “them” whenever they refer to him? WHY????

https://twitter.com/Dannny_K/status/1630298903735152640 https://twitter.com/Dannny_K/status/1630304000359759876

He’s not really beyond annoyed and upset though, he’s thrilled that he gets to rant in public about how oppressed and bullied he is because people can’t remember to call him “they.”… Read the rest

One piece of good news…or at least one piece of bad news finally thrown out.

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1630267223238483968

That’s not all.

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1630267227579482113 https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1630267233313202176

And…

https://twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1630345336249098241… Read the rest

Hoo-boy. Listen to this.

https://twitter.com/BillboardChris/status/1630044414352695296

“We give puberty blockers to cancer patients so obviously they’re fine for trans kids right??”

Yes, absolutely, that’s definitely the way medical treatments are managed: if it’s prescribed for one thing then it can be prescribed for a different thing. All medications are completely interchangeable! Yippeee!… Read the rest

"I don't believe Isla Bryson is truly, and genuinely, a trans woman".

SNP's @HumzaYousaf is asked about the transgender woman who was last month convicted of rape and held in a women's prison before being transferred to a men's estate.#Ridge https://t.co/ZoMhCmTrtv pic.twitter.com/JSHTMzsoAP

— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) February 26, 2023

“Is Isla Bryson a man, or a woman?” Sophy Ridge asks.

Well I think Isla Bryson is at it if I’m honest, I think they’re a dangerous individual, a deceptive individual, I don’t think they’re a true trans woman, I think they’re trying to play the system for personal advantage; now what I can’t do, Sophie, is I can’t change law: the law, which has been the

… Read the rest

One of the funnier ledes of all time:

Sex education has been suspended in Isle of Man schools after a drag queen allegedly told 11-year-olds that there are 73 genders.

That’s what we’re calling “sex education” these days?

Parents of pupils at Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel, on the Isle of Man, have reported that Year 7 pupils were taught by a drag queen who told them there are 73 genders. 

And who parodied women in the process. Why are drag queens teaching anything?

Some 11-year-olds at the school were taught about oral and anal sex, while another group learned about sex change operations and were shown how skin graft taken from a girl’s arm could be used

… Read the rest