Hooboy. Donnie has a hit single.

A new single, “Justice for All,” featuring former President Donald Trump, from the J6 Prison Choir, reached No. 1 on iTunes’ top songs on March 11.  

The J6 Prison Choir is comprised of a group of men who were convicted after their participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The song includes the choir singing  “The Star-Spangled Banner” from jail before it climaxes with the prisoners chanting “USA! USA!” The “Justice for All” track has the performance of the national anthem interrupted by clips of President Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Armed insurrection is patriotic and loyal and everything good provided you sing this … Read the rest

Sorry but I have to sneer at Lauren Boebert some more.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., has announced that she will be a grandmother at 36 next month when her 17-year-old son’s partner gives birth to a son.

Her son’s what? Do 17-year-olds have “partners”?

Boebert staffers on Friday confirmed the announcement. Breaking from a meeting for an interview, Boebert verified her son and his girlfriend are not married and declined to reveal the age of the girlfriend, other than to say she’s over 14.

Soooooo she’s 15. Great. 15-year-olds are definitely mature enough to be parents; that’s definitely an ideal time to start pumping out the babies.

Boeberty family values:

You’d think the ACLU would be embarrassed to tell obvious lies in public.

This bill would cut federal funding from any school that allows trans girls to play on girls' teams.

It’s discriminatory, it’s unconstitutional, and it does nothing to address actual barriers in women's sports, like lack of funding, unequal pay, or harassment and abuse.

— ACLU (@ACLU) March 9, 2023

The second tweet gives away the fact that the first tweet is a lie. Clumsy.

A law that withholds funding from schools that let boys compete on girls’ teams is not a law “that would ban trans girls and women from sports nationwide.” The boys can still compete! On boys’ teams!

They may be at a disadvantage competing … Read the rest

The Telegraph says Gary Lineker is winning the fight the BBC tried to pick.

Gary Lineker is poised to return to work for the BBC next week as talks between the broadcaster and senior management figures continue. 

The Telegraph understands there is a growing confidence that the corporation’s lead sports presenter will return in time for next weekend.

It would bring a welcome end to the crisis that has seen sport coverage across the network disrupted or cancelled this weekend after fellow pundits, commentators and reporters refused to work in protest at the way Lineker had been treated.

…

Lineker has not said anything publicly since he was taken off air on Friday, spending his Saturday watching Leicester City 3-1

Remember when Republicans were the law n order party? It seems like only yesterday.

Even before the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the public would occasionally hear some Republican officials talk about cutting off funds to federal law enforcement. At an event last year, for example, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, the former chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, talked up possible priorities if the GOP took control of the House.

“There are things you can do,” the Arizonan said, reflecting on Congress’ power. “You start defunding some of these bad agencies. The FBI. The DOJ.”

So that…what? Ignorant sadistic real estate crooks could get away with more and more crimes?

After the search at

A man telling lesbians what they can and can’t do, what they can and can’t say, what they can and can’t think, how they can and can’t organize.

Serious questions should be asked.

Serious questions should be asked as to how The Lesbian Project, an organisation that exists purely to be trans-exclusionary, have managed to be featured in both the Telegraph, and on the BBC as part of Woman’s Hour, on the day of launch. (Hint: institutional transphobia)

— Mark Grimshaw (@MarkGComedyUK) March 9, 2023

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The evidence behind this surge in treatment.

It could be that there was a huge underserved population of adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria and getting no help, or it could be that a huge population of unhappy adolescents has latched on to “gender dysphoria” as the source and meaning of their unhappiness. It could also be a mix of both.

I find it frustrating how the entire medical profession has to tip-toe around the subject of gender distress, holding back from saying things that are obvious. It’s patently obvious that this is the first generation of adolescents experiencing anything like this, in terms of the number of adolescents affected, and the degree to … Read the rest

The BMJ reports gender dysphoria in young people is rising—and so is professional disagreement.

In a new report from The BMJ Investigations Unit, Jennifer Block, investigations reporter, looks into the evidence base behind this surge in treatment.

More adolescents with no history of gender dysphoria are presenting at gender clinics. For example, a recent analysis of insurance claims found that nearly 18,000 US minors began taking puberty blockers or hormones from 2017 to 2021, the number rising each year.

Meanwhile, the number of US private clinics focused on providing hormones and surgeries have grown from just a few a decade ago to more than 100 today.

It could be that there was a huge underserved population of adolescents … Read the rest

Flood insurance in Florida was always going to be a disaster waiting to happen. It’s happening.

During the insurance claims process, it’s standard for field adjusters, who are trained to assess damaged homes, to collaborate with those back in the office to make minor edits, discuss aspects of the claim and alter line items if, for example, the carrier has evidence that damage was from a prior event, according to adjusters and insurance industry experts. That is how the system is supposed to work.

But that’s not what has been happening in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Lee and others said.

Insurers are motivated to find every way they can to reduce the payout, but they’re not supposed … Read the rest

The Guardian Live on the BBC v Gary Lineker:

What we know so far:

Gary Lineker’s suspension from the BBC has been followed by dozens of presenters, pundits and contributors withdrawing from BBC duties this weekend.

As the corporation attempted to find a replacement host for Match of the Day on Friday, pundits Ian Wright and Alan Shearer announced they were pulling out of the show in solidarity.

Match of the Day is still due to air tonight, but without a presenter, pundits or commentators.

For My Fellow Americans: Gary Lineker is a former footballer turned BBC Match of the Day host; the BBC suspended him for tweets critical of Tory policy on refugees. People are lining up … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Would risk a backlash.

Certainly, one might examine certain propositions more carefully because of their provenance, but I hardly think it true or sensible to say that ‘nobody has any reason to believe anything you have to say’ on a particular issue on the grounds that ‘you’ are sadly wrong on other issues.

Yeah, I get that on an intellectual level, but I’m looking at this from the point of view of someone who wants the Green Party (when it actually is green and not pink and baby blue) to do better and have a greater influence on the policy positions of more mainstream parties. In going all in on … Read the rest

Don’t mention the war climate disaster.

The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of David Sir Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.

The BBC says not true, not true, they never planned to broadcast that episode. But…

Senior sources at the BBC told the Guardian that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right. This week the Telegraph newspaper attacked the BBC for creating the series and for taking funding from “two charities previously criticised for their political lobbying”

Mike Haubrich on being a Democrat and a gender skeptic:

I am the local party unit secretary in Minnesota for the DFL, which is an anachronistic reference to a 1940’s merger of the Democrats and the Farmer-Labor parties. Very few farmers in Minnesota belong to the DFL anymore as Minnesota is as reflective as the rest of the country in the rural-urban divide between Democrats and Republicans. Most labor unions work with the DFL, but I think that fewer members of the rank and file follow along with it. There are conflicts between environmentalists and labor, especially up on the Iron Range, as many people depend on iron ore extraction and refining for their livelihood.

Nothing is absolute, of

News from the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine:

The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board, (NHIB/UKOM) has deemed puberty blockers, cross-sex-hormones & surgery for children & young people experimental, determining that the current “gender-affirmative” guidelines are not evidence-based and must be revised. /1

— SEGM (@segm_ebm) March 10, 2023

The UKOM report asserts that future guidelines must rely on a systematic review of evidence rather than cherry-picking studies, and that all hormonal and surgical interventions must be restricted to research settings to ensure clear protocols, safeguarding & adequate follow-up./2

The existing Norwegian treatment guidelines for gender-dysphoric youth, based on a 2015 report ”The Right to the Right Sex,” closely mirror WPATH SOC7 “gender-affirming” model. Medical gender affirmation is widely available to youth,

The net might be tightening around Trump. Then again they might all chicken out again.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office recently signaled to Donald J. Trump’s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money to a porn star, the strongest indication yet that prosecutors are nearing an indictment of the former president, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a

Gaby Hinsliff reviews Time to Think for the Guardian, very very cautiously and queasily, and laced with questionable assumptions.

BBC journalist Hannah Barnes’s densely reported account of events inside the Tavistock Centre’s Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) in London, the country’s only specialist clinic for transgender children…

The book traces Gids’s evolution from its foundation in 1989 – offering a non-judgmental therapeutic approach to exploring gender identity…

The first two paragraphs and already we can see the assumptions doing their work – there definitely is such a thing as “transgender children” and there also definitely is such a thing as “gender identity” and we all know what they are and that they are definitely real. It’s called reification, and … Read the rest

Karen Ingala Smith on reading the names and not getting distracted:

Today, for the eighth year running, in the Parliamentary International Women’s Day debate, MP Jess Phillips read out the names of women in the UK who have been killed since the previous years IWD debate and where a man or men are principal suspects. This year the list contained the names of 107 women, the youngest, Holly Newton was just 15 years old, the oldest, Anne Woodbridge was 92.

I have been collating and commemorating UK women killed by men for 11 years, since the murder of 20-year-old Kirsty Treloar on the 2^nd January 2012.

I am grateful to Jess Phillips for amplifying my work and for

The Telegraph on The Lesbian Project:

“I could never have imagined,” says [Kathleen] Stock, who today is launching – along with [Martina] Navratilova (who[m] she has never met in person) and writer Julie Bindel – the Lesbian Project, a group that intends to champion UK women who are same-sex attracted.

…

[I]ts existence will infuriate those who see her and Bindel, along with their ally – and heterosexual – JK Rowling, as a trio of arch-Terfs (trans exclusionary revolutionary feminists), largely because of the animosity between some trans activists who object to lesbians refusing to have sex with transgender women who have male genitalia.  

The reporter must have been writing in haste. It’s a quartet, not a trio, … Read the rest

Waterstones says it’s not true it’s not it’s not it’s NOT.

Waterstones has refuted [rejected] accusations made on social media this week that it is failing to stock certain titles about gender, saying the claims are “of course… untrue”. 

Twitter users had claimed that Waterstones branches were refusing to stock Hannah Barnes’ Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children (Swift Press), with similar suggestions made about Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women by Victoria Smith (Fleet). 

Not so much refusing to as failing to. I saw no claims that Watersones staff were stupid enough to say “We refuse to stock it!” when asked. The claims are that it’s extremely difficult … Read the rest

The Washington Post shares more of Tucker Carlson’s texts that reveal what whoppers he tells on Fox News every night.

Like:

It’s so interesting that Carlson knows that about Trump and that it’s never stopped him helping Trump and harming Trump critics and opponents. What Trump is good at is destroying things so here we are helping him destroy the US, democracy, the climate, the rest of the world…

He knows but does it anyway. What a guy.… Read the rest