Steve Benen at the Maddow blog notes that Clarence Thomas has been pretty clear about his indifference to ethics.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is no stranger to questions about his ethical standards. The far-right jurist has, for example, faced awkward questions about incomplete financial disclosure forms. There have been related concerns about his appearances at wealthy conservatives’ political retreats, as well as his wife’s activism/lobbying on matters before the court.

And bless his heart he’s simply ignored all the concerns.

If you have a good memory, these revelations might ring a bell. The New York Times reported 12 years ago on the “ethically sensitive friendship” between Thomas and the GOP financier. Despite the fact that Crow’s company 

… Read the rest

Whaddya know. Clarence Thomas has been taking bribes for more than 20 years.

The bribes take the form of luxury vacations on the private plane and the Luxury Yacht of “real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.”

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer

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Gang boss and his gang respond as gang bosses and their gangs do.

In the 24 hours since former President Donald Trump’s arraignment, the presiding judge and his family have received multiple threats, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Law and order!

Unless it’s our crook.

The New York police detail assigned to the DA’s office is providing extra security to all affected staff members. Court officers, meanwhile, are boosting security for the judge and the court as a whole as a precaution.

Other steps have been taken, as well. Online bios of employees at the Manhattan district attorney’s office were recently removed from the DA’s website, according to a source familiar with the matter, because of troubling

… Read the rest

This vile disgusting man. (Sorry, drecky Musk and disgusting Don one right after the other but here we are.)

In the courtroom he had to sit still and shut up (with that incredibly childish scowl on his face) but when he got back to his palace of vulgarity he was Florida Mussolini again.

But as soon as the former president returned home, to his namesake ballroom filled with his adoring fans, he was a rock star again, and he snapped back to his usual combative posture, lashing out at the prosecutor and judge in personal terms, despite the latter’s admonition Tuesday to watch his words.

…

He did not bring reporters on the plane, as he has to recent

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Elon Musk is dreck.

Is NPR “U.S. state-affiliated media”?

Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, seem to think so. Over NPR’s protests, Twitter placed that label on its account Tuesday night, implying that the Washington-based nonprofit news organization is somehow connected to, if not controlled by, the federal government.

NPR is frustratingly crappy and dumb, but it’s not an arm of the government.

The designation puts NPR, which has 8.8 million followers on the site, in the same category as propaganda outlets like the Russian-government-owned RT and the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper. Both are also “state-affiliated media,” according to Twitter.

Notably, however, Twitter has not slapped that label on several media organizations that are substantially funded

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A Washington Post article on Title IX from last June:

Title IX celebrates its 50th birthday on June 23. Signed into law in 1972, the policy requires educational institutions that receive government funding to treat all sexes and gender identities equally.

Does it? Or does it require educational institutions that receive government funding to treat both sexes equally, with no mention of “gender identities”? I think we can assume it’s the latter, since no one was talking about “gender identities” in 1972, let alone a multitude of sexes.

This mandate has at once been phenomenally successful and disturbingly unfulfilled. In banning sex discrimination, Title IX fundamentally changed American education by creating the legal expectation of equality. Millions of people have

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Planning to disrupt.

A lot of people are planning to disrupt #LetWomenSpeakBelfast.

Their intention is to drown women out. To prevent us from speaking. To intimidate us into silence.

This is not a legitimate form of protest. This is thuggery.https://t.co/IMuxlT8g31 pic.twitter.com/CKTphRhcr5

— Brandubh (@brandubh4) April 5, 2023

Silencing women is not “solidarity.”… Read the rest

What Willoughby is so enraged about:

Ministers will consider advice from the human rights watchdog about amending a legal definition of sex – which would make it easier to exclude transgender people from some groups or services.

Changing the Equality Act term to “biological sex” would make single-sex services offers easier, says the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission).

Well yes but it takes all the fun out of it for men like Willoughby. If you can’t ruin everything for women what’s the point?

LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said it risks adding to a “manufactured culture war”.

Thus demonstrating complete indifference to women’s concerns about safety, privacy, dignity, comfort – about their right and ability to get away from men … Read the rest

Man who claims to be a woman thinks only of himself.

I am horrified by this.

I transitioned over 30 yrs ago & my body is not identifiably male. I’ve been sexually harassed and assaulted by men and I might be forced onto a … WHAT? A MAN’S WARD? This is madness!!!! I am disgusted. I’m speechless. https://t.co/Hbqfe2svVo

— Dr Rachel Mann (@RevRachelMann) April 5, 2023

Several women remind him of what he’s carefully ignoring.

Why is women's horror at sharing with any male not equal to yours? It's not about what you look like or for how long. OUR spaces and saftety are not a repository or sacrifice for your confused feelings about yourself. #LetWomenSpeak

— Miriam Cotton (@MimCotton)

… Read the rest

Willoughby is furious.

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643608993099661315

Look at the fake man calling the lesbian gay bisexual alliance “fake.”

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643617926124118016

Such a liar. It’s not about “barring trans people from loos.” Single-sex spaces bar men from women’s loos [and women from men’s].

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643617930674839552

Which is why “LGBT” is such a manipulative label. Why would lesbians want men in women’s toilets? The interests of the T are not the same as the interests of the L.

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643620709090963467

Notice what he doesn’t mention. A day for women. He doesn’t like to mention women. I wonder why that might be. (Kidding. We all know why.)

https://twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1643622744611868680

What “inequality” does he think he’s talking about? It’s not “inequality” for him to be kept out of women’s toilets … Read the rest

Starmer is as bad as Inside Higher Ed.

Keir Starmer is taking women for fools. He imagines he’s solved the contentious question of how to protect women’s rights while meeting the demands of gender dysphoric men and trans rights activists with his ingenious formulation: 99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis. That, he thinks, will reassure anxious floating voters and get his new target, Stevenage Woman, on side. Of course, he tells us, incredulous that anyone should suppose a sensible person like him would believe anything else, being a woman is biological. Well, mostly. Until it isn’t. There is the little matter of that 0.1 per cent.

If 0.1 percent can then any percent can. If you … Read the rest

Title IX was enacted to end sexual discrimination in higher education, i.e. discrimination against women and girls. The goal was to provide girls and women with resources and opportunities equal to those provided to boys and men.

We’re now in a world so fucked in the head that we have to pretend it was never about women and girls at all. Inside Higher Education has a long piece on Title IX in which the words “women” and “girls” never appear; not once. If you didn’t already know what Title IX was supposed to be, you would have little idea what the article is talking about. You would get that it’s to do with the Biden administration fixing some Trump messes, … Read the rest

I’m worried now. Trump says the US is going to hell.

“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” the 76-year-old told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida after he appeared in court.

Oh no, there are lots of crimes besides that.

While the charges relate to the payment to Stormy Daniels, prosecutors also released background documents which they say point to a pattern of trying to suppress potentially politically damaging stories.

They listed two other payments they say were made via the National Enquirer, a US tabloid whose publisher is a long-time ally of Mr Trump.

They allege $30,000 was paid to buy the

… Read the rest

Willoughby thinks he’s a brave activist as opposed to a bullying misogynist. Not good at self-knowledge, that one.

https://twitter.com/Phoebe2403/status/1643311203848953872

Men who claim to be trans are not comparable to “Black and Gay” [notice he didn’t mention women]; they’re comparable to the people who oppressed “Black and Gay” (and women). Willoughby isn’t on the side of the despised and rejected, he’s on the side of the bosses. He wants to boss everyone, especially women. He wants to push women aside and take over. He especially wants to force himself on us, calling our refusal “segregation.” He’s a very bad man.… Read the rest

So did Trump give a doorman hush money to cover up Sexual Relations with a housekeeper?

Maybe.

Donald Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records on Tuesday. Trump became the first former president ever to be indicted, for his role in disbursing hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. And what else was among those payments? A $30,000 payment to a former Trump Tower doorman for their silence about a potential Trump child out of wedlock.

It’s all so dignified, so impressive, so to the credit of all of us.

“In one instance, American Media Inc. (‘AMI’), paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child TRUMP had out

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Another censor on the job.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642459473187946497

Uh oh uh oh – somebody showed Adult Human Female and that must not be allowed.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642585947307950083 https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642588344755314688

Yes indeed, pubs have to be accountable for what people they let in and what films they show and what they talk about and whatever else occurs to us as we light the fire.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642591237117968394

Oh is that all. Modesty itself.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1643229638133444609

That’s all. It’s about getting the permission of every random rager before you make a move. You have been told.… Read the rest

Money that could have gone to someone starting a PhD doing real research.

https://twitter.com/OwenJHurcum/status/1643185300993200129… Read the rest

Let’s see what the Equality Act 2010 says about how to define “sex.”

Under the Equality Act 2010, ‘sex’ is understood as binary, being a man or a woman. For the purposes of the Act, a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate. A trans person can change their legal sex by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. A trans person who does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate retains the sex recorded on their birth certificate for the purposes of the Act.

Well there’s a train wreck. Sentence 2: “a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate.” Sentence 3: A trans person can change their legal sex by … Read the rest

What on earth is this supposed to mean?

We have advised the UK Government that a change to the Equality Act 2010 – so that ‘sex’ means biological sex – could bring clarity in a number of areas, but potential ambiguity in others.

We have suggested that they carefully identify and consider the potential implications. https://t.co/gi5IvgXqOV

— Kishwer Falkner (@EHRCChair) April 4, 2023

Saying “sex” means “biological sex” is a change? From what? What does it mean in the Equality Act now? Height, nationality, hobby?

We have provided advice to the Minister for Women and Equalities on the definition of the protected characteristic of 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010.

Find out more: https://t.co/EVpO3EQoaf pic.twitter.com/1xAKhKhdjY

— EHRC (@EHRC) April 4,

… Read the rest

Sea level is going to rise around Charleston.

The city is in the lowcountry region in South Carolina, and it is very, very low: more than a third of the houses in the city are at 10 feet above sea level or less. The first settlers saw mostly marsh when they arrived in 1640, stepping gingerly over scores of muddy creeks. Much of the city was built on fill – trash, oyster shells, wooden pilings, human waste, loose dirt – over centuries, and now nature wants its land back. Charleston’s residents have already become accustomed to frequent high-tide flooding on days when the sun is shining.

The message that climate change is happening, and happening quickly, is acknowledged by

… Read the rest