All entries by this author

There was catsup dripping down the wall

Jun 28th, 2022 5:24 pm | By

The incident of the catsup in the nighttime.

Same transcript via NPR:

LIZ CHENEY: The physical altercation that Ms. Hutchinson described in the Presidential vehicle was not the first time that the President had become very angry about issues relating to the election. On December 1, 2020, Attorney General Barr said in an interview that the Department of Justice had not found evidence of widespread election fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election.

Ms. Hutchinson, how did the President react to hearing that news?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: Around the time that I understand the AP article went live, I remember hearing noise coming from down the hallway. So I poked my head out of the office. I saw

Read the rest


New information

Jun 28th, 2022 4:55 pm | By

NPR has a transcript of today’s hearing on the January 6 [attempted coup].

Bennie Thompson: In the weeks ahead, the committee will hold additional hearings about how Donald Trump summoned a mob of his supporters to Washington, spurred them to march on the Capitol, and failed to take meaningful action to quell the violence as it was unfolding on January 6th. However, in recent days the Select Committee has obtained new information dealing with what was going on in the White House on January 6th and in the days prior, specific detailed information about what the former president and his top aides were doing and saying in those critical hours, firsthand details of what transpired in the office of

Read the rest


Murmurs through the hearing room

Jun 28th, 2022 12:02 pm | By

And one more thing. (This day of the hearing is proving to be startling.) NYT reporter Carl Hulse:

Murmurs through the hearing room as Mike Flynn refuses to answer whether he believes in the peaceful transfer of power and whether the Jan. 6 violence was justified, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

NYT reporter Peter Alexander:

To see a retired four-star general who swore an oath to defend the country and the Constitution plead the Fifth when asked if he believed in the peaceful transfer of power in America is another stunning moment today.

This country is in deep trouble.… Read the rest



The magnetometers

Jun 28th, 2022 11:44 am | By

Some observers are saying Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony indicates a seditious conspiracy.

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1541837956973043712

Doing what? It seems the people attending the rally on the lawn were checked for weapons first, so a lot of them were shut out, because of ALL THOSE GUNS. So then apparently the White House or Trump ordered the magnetometers removed…so that heavily armed people could attend the rally and then head for the Capitol, heavily armed.

It’s…yikes.

Read the rest


In the Beast

Jun 28th, 2022 11:33 am | By

So. According to new testimony from a Trump White House aide, Trump got violent when he was told he wasn’t going to the Capitol after the January 6 rally.

“I’m the fucking President,” he said. “Take me up to the Capitol.”… Read the rest



As poverty, climate change, and violence

Jun 28th, 2022 10:42 am | By

It’s a preview of the not at all distant future, too.

The number of people migrating globally has steadily risen in the past two decades as poverty, climate change and violence have led people to flee their homelands.

Climate change is only going to get worse, much worse and very fast, so poverty and violence will get worse too, and migrations are going to accelerate, and resistance to migrations will accelerate too. People roasted to death in the backs of trucks will be an everyday occurrence.

The bodies of more than 40 people who appeared to have crossed into the United States illegally were found on Monday in one of the worst episodes of migrant deaths on the southern

Read the rest


Inclusive of everyone except you

Jun 28th, 2022 9:34 am | By

Erase erase erase erase.

Menopause is for everyone.

The NHS has ditched the terms ‘women’ and ‘woman’ from its menopause guidance, despite ministers promising to crack down on woke gender-free language in medical advice.

Now MailOnline has found ‘women’ and ‘woman’ have also been omitted from official advice about the menopause, which is unique to biological females.

In its online overview about the menopause, NHS advice used to contain six gender-specific mentions. But it was updated on May 17 to remove the terms.

Experts have warned de-gendering medical advice could be dangerous for women by over-complicating vital health messaging.

NHS Digital, which manages health information webpages, told MailOnline it wanted to ensure language was ‘inclusive’.

One, the goal … Read the rest



But which people, which Americans, whose bodies?

Jun 28th, 2022 7:56 am | By

Janice Turner cops to having grown up thinking the feminist women who preceded her generation were dreary old has-beens.

Other political movements respect their elders even when their views no longer align with modern mores. Black Lives Matter would never forsake Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X; the LGBT movement deifies those who in 1969 bravely defied homophobic police at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Feminism alone lays waste to each preceding generation of leaders, campaigners and thinkers as impure, backward, irrelevant, wrong.

It’s true. That “second wave”? We weren’t really second at all, we just thought we were. I wonder often why feminism is that way, and if it’s rooted in the perceived need to Reject Mommy in … Read the rest



Not so fast, Nottingham Council

Jun 28th, 2022 6:51 am | By

This happened.

I can’t get the Twitter version to magnify but it’s readable if I copy it in here, so that’s what I’m doing, because we need to be able to read it.

“You cannot discriminate in the provision of services because you are prejudiced.”

Oh. Bump. How disappointing.

“Irrespective of what Stonewall has told you, I fear it is simply unlawful.”

“the cancellation was the product of misguided and systemically unlawful policy.”

Oh. Bump. Oops.… Read the rest



A million £ to refuse to say “women”

Jun 27th, 2022 5:46 pm | By

Boys and men get to be called boys and men, but girls and women don’t get to be called girls and women. Who made that rule I wonder? And why are so many people obeying it?

JL via The Spectator in A Week in the War on Women:

Young Scot is a publicly funded organisation which received a £975,000 grant from Scottish Government last year for various projects, one of which is the provision of information for young people.

Young Scot has produced advice about menstruation but there is no mention of ‘girls’ or ‘women’ in the text. Instead, it makes vague references to “Those of us that have both our ovaries and a womb” and “

Read the rest


A comrade

Jun 27th, 2022 5:15 pm | By

Eilis O’Hanlon in the Independent (Ireland):

The coalition now known as Trans Equality Together launched last Monday with the stated aim of ensuring “trans and non-binary people are equal, safe and valued”.

By Thursday, it had secured the signatures of such august bodies as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Amnesty Ireland and the National Women’s Council on a letter denouncing RTÉ for daring to host a debate on Liveline with women who refuse to bend to the notion that anyone with a penis must be automatically accepted as a woman if they say they are one.

So that’s what equal, safe and valued mean? That women are not allowed to say men are not women?

I don’t have … Read the rest



Taking precautions

Jun 27th, 2022 11:06 am | By

Emily Tamkin in The New Statesman on the overturning of Roe:

I could reiterate that the laws that will now go into effect in many states banning abortion in most cases will disproportionately impact poor people, and people of colour, who do not necessarily have the financial resources or the time to go out of their home state to seek an abortion. Or I could say that, though the impact will be greatest in states where abortion will be outlawed, the whole country will be affected; a burden will now be put on providers in states where abortion remains legal, and women in those states, too, will probably find it harder to schedule an abortion.

People, people, women. Why … Read the rest



Undue pressure

Jun 27th, 2022 9:19 am | By

Another win for theocracy:

The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former high school football coach from Washington state in a case about religious freedom and prayer in public schools. In a 6 to 3 decision delivered by Justice Gorsuch, the conservative supermajority decided in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that coach Joseph Kennedy’s Christian prayers after the games were protected by freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment. “The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Gorsuch wrote.

But of course an adult in authority over teenagers is not just exercising freedom of speech and religion by … Read the rest



Easy for some

Jun 27th, 2022 8:32 am | By

The tweet has since been deleted but the screenshots live on.

A former friend of Ivanka Trump has taken to social media to claim that she supported her in getting an abortion when she was younger.

In the since-deleted tweet, Lauren Santo Domingo, a high school friend of Ivanka’s, claimed to have taken Ivanka, first daughter of former President Donald Trump and former senior White House Adviser, to get the alleged abortion.

“Ivanka Trump you are noticeably quiet today,” Domingo’s tweet read.

“The high school friends who took you to get an abortion are not.”

Pass the brioche.… Read the rest



Trump’s triumph

Jun 27th, 2022 7:59 am | By

The horrors are rolling in.

Got that? In Ohio it’s now ILLEGAL to end a pregnancy that will produce a baby that can’t survive.

Read the rest


Over a cluster of cells

Jun 26th, 2022 4:42 pm | By

Another Savita Halappanavar, although this one survived – just barely, and no thanks to the Catholic hospital that tried to kill her.

I recommend reading the whole thing. There are a lot of details, so it’s a long thread. I’ll share just some.

Read the rest


See you in court

Jun 26th, 2022 4:06 pm | By

Game on.

Julie in The Mail:

My planned talk was cancelled on the ludicrous grounds that my views on transgender rights are ‘at odds’ with civic policy. Without speaking to me, or bothering to discover what I actually believe, the council decided to deny me the right to speak on their premises.

So I am going to sue them. On behalf of every woman who is being told to shut up and stay quiet, during the worst misogynist backlash I have witnessed in my lifetime, I’m taking the council to court.

They’ll hear very soon from my

Read the rest


Whose march?

Jun 26th, 2022 3:28 pm | By
Whose march?

Well I’ll be darned, here’s one that doesn’t go all coy about mentioning the W-people. Of course that could be because they’re asking for donations, so it’s not in their interest to piss off the people they’re asking to donate.

Read the rest


Guest post: Scope creep

Jun 26th, 2022 3:15 pm | By
Guest post: Scope creep

Originally a comment by Sackbut at Miscellany Room.

I attended a Rally for Reproductive Rights near the Alabama state capitol today. I missed the first part, but caught most of it. It was well attended; I’m no good at estimating crowds, but I think there were 300-400 people there.

There were lots of signs, at least 50, some of them rather clever. Lots of gender neutral language. I noticed 3-4 signs that mentioned “women”; one mentioned “female” in contrast to “men”. Maybe 3-4 signs were explicitly about trans people, including “abortion is not just a cis issue”.

There were members of a local abortion clinic escort group providing informal security. I know a number of these people, and I … Read the rest



Just talk over our heads

Jun 26th, 2022 12:22 pm | By

MSNBC generously gives us four men talking about abortion rights. I guess there just aren’t that many women in the world?

Read the rest