Gun company drops out of NRA convention:

The gun manufacturer that produced the AR-15-style assault rifle the Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooter used to kill 19 children and two teachers has shut down its social media accounts after being linked to the massacre. It has also reportedly dropped out of the National Rifle Association’s annual convention set to be held starting Friday in Houston. 

…The firearm Ramos used is reportedly made by Georgia-based gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, authorities and the company each confirmed. 

If the company confirmed then you can drop the “reportedly.”

The arms manufacturer states on its site, “At Daniel Defense, we celebrate the liberty of our country, the enthusiasm of our customers and employees, and the

Interesting. Three people who were scheduled to perform at the Gun Jamboree have sent regrets.

Several musical performers who planned to appear at this week’s National Rifle Association convention in Houston have withdrawn out of respect for the victims of the massacre in Uvalde, 279 miles west of the typically boisterous annual gun-rights gathering.

Out of respect for the victims? But why does respect for the victims entail not performing at the National Rifle Association convention? Presumably all musical performances all over the country aren’t being canceled, are they? Why these in particular?

Could it be, could it possibly be, that it suddenly doesn’t feel altogether right and good to celebrate The Holy Gun when The Holy Gun … Read the rest

It seems the reaction to the school massacre wasn’t as swift as it might have been.

Javier Cazares, a father whose 9-year-old daughter was killed in the massacre, said that officials have been misrepresenting the response of law enforcement during the shooting at Robb Elementary.

“They said they rushed in and all that, we didn’t see that,” said Mr. Cazares, who was outside the school during the attack and heard gunshots.

He saw police officers evacuating children, but grew angry, he said, when he did not see officers enter the school immediately. Mr. Cazares wanted to rush in himself to help his daughter, Jacklyn, saying he would carry his little girl out himself, but they told him to let

And another one.

Transgender cyclists are still competing in women’s races despite British Cycling suspending the policy last month that had allowed them to race in the female category.

Suspensions are for cis people.

However, trans female cyclists are continuing to compete in the women’s category. On May 8, Maxine Yates, a transgender downhill mountain bike racer, won the women’s 19+ category in the second round of BC’s DH National Series event at Fort William, Scotland, a competition in which ranking points were available. Yates is ranked first in the senior female category on the BC website.

Despite being a man.

The rider who finished second in the race at Fort William, Jane Page, has complained to BC that

Medical sociologist writes idiotic think-piece about abortion rights for the NY Times in which she’s so busy tapping all the required Stations that she obscures whatever it is she’s trying to say. Editors should just say no to this brand of crap.

Matt Lavallee was in college when he learned his girlfriend was pregnant. “The news scared me,” he said, acknowledging that an unintended pregnancy was an even more daunting prospect for his girlfriend. “But there was no question that abortion was the best option for us.”

…

We don’t often hear abortion stories from cisgender men like Mr. Lavallee, even though they are responsible for the overwhelming majority of the world’s unplanned pregnancies, and so often benefit when an

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Totally utterly completely solved. Boom.

Cruz: Have one door… and have that one door, armed police officers at that door. If that had happened.. when that psychopath had arrived, the armed police officers could’ve taken him out… pic.twitter.com/YnOCDs9GAZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 25, 2022

Except. Well, just a few details.

One, you can’t have just one door for every school.

Two, you can’t have two armed cops on duty at all times at every school.

Three, what are they supposed to do, “take out” everyone who approaches the door?

Other than that, PROBLEM TOTALLY SOLVED.

Updating to add a fourth tiny problem with Cruz’s otherwise brilliant plan:

NPR tells us:

Approximately 40 minutes to an hour passed

Ok it’s no fun to be a child blown to smithereens by a teenage boy with an assault rifle, but what about men who call themselves women? They’re the ones who really have a tough time.

Easier pic.twitter.com/UMac4299wi

— Serious trans vibes Comics (@AssignedMale) May 25, 2022

… Read the rest

Norway is so “progressive” it’s reactionary.

A Norwegian feminist could be facing up to three years in prison for allegedly “hateful” tweets directed at a male who claims to be a lesbian woman.

Christina Ellingsen, a representative of feminist organization Women’s Declaration International (WDI) is being investigated under hate crime charges for tweets she made between February 2021 and January 2022.

The tweets in question were replies directed at Christine Marie Jentoft, a representative of trans activist group Foreningen FRI. Jentoft is a male who identifies as a lesbian woman.

Ellingsen’s charges are centered around her questioning why FRI promoted the belief that men could be lesbians. While police are still investigating, if she is found guilty, Ellingsen

India Willoughby angrily asks what does Martina Navratilova know about sports. That’s a good look.

What does Martina know about it? And why do you think ancient tennis players and old swimmers from the 70s and 80s know ANYTHING about trans – or are they the better informed than actual sports scientists and doctors? Populist mob-inciting crap.

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) May 24, 2022

We don’t need to know anything about trans to say that men don’t get to invade women’s sports. The issue isn’t being trans, it’s being male. If you’re male, get out of women’s sports. Simple.… Read the rest

I’d be out of there at the speed of light.

Imagine how traumatizing it’d be for a child to survive a school shooting (or for the parent of a child who didn’t) — only to go to Target and see this. pic.twitter.com/OHlGZzN546

— Lakota Man (@LakotaMan1) May 25, 2022

… Read the rest

It’s so touching when a guy gets to combine his fetish with his job. Like for instance

Dr Jonathan Harrow MD, a man with two PhDs, who’s lectured on health at universities and had senior medical jobs all over the world and who mostly, it seems, presents and identifies as a man.

…

However, despite being so qualified in medicine, a few weeks ago he started a community job as a nurse practitioner. The role involves wearing a nurse’s uniform. He attended the interview dressed in women’s clothing…Since starting the job there’s been a common theme in his online posts – he wants people to validate his choice of wearing a nurse’s uniform, and alludes to the fact that

God? Why God of all people? He’s the biggest mass murderer of all time.

As for good moral values, MTG wouldn’t know them if they bit her on the ass. They start with respect for others, and that’s not her style at all.… Read the rest

Day after tomorrow.

Former president Donald Trump will headline a forum at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston this Friday — about a four-hour drive from where a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., killed at least 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday.

Trump said Wednesday he would keep the appearance, in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Yeah he’s a tough guy, he’s not gonna let other people’s agony stop him dancing on the graves of a bunch of kids.

The Memorial Day weekend event is the year’s largest for the gun lobby meeting after cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s set to take place over three days and “showcase over

Originally a comment by NightCrow on Cotton ceiling tweet.

CM: I don’t see that the workshop is necessarily coercive. We have no information about the contents of that workshop. AB’s opinion that it must be coercive is not substantiated.

Here’s the advertisement for the ‘Cotton Ceiling’ workshop preserved in its original context. Full transcript below; all emphases added by me.

Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers for Queer Trans Women, with Morgan M Page

Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling will explore the sexual barriers queer trans women face within the broader queer women’s communities through group discussions and the hands-on creation of visual representations of these barriers. Participants will work together to identify barriers, strategize

Laurence Tribe explains what’s wrong with the claim that overturning Roe v Wade would be like the ruling that overturned “a long line of decisions that had blocked minimum wage and maximum hours and other worker-protection laws in the name of employers’ rights of “private property” and the “liberty of contract”.”

Professor [Akhil] Amar treats as laughably naïve the observation by ACLU national legal director and Georgetown law professor David Cole that, although “Parrish took away some rights of business owners … its real effect was to expand rights protections for millions of Americans subject to exploitation by powerful corporations.” Amar’s rebuttal? He says, and I’m serious here, that it’d be equally legitimate to say that “Dobbs’ real

You have got to be kidding.

This is an MP! Not your neighbor’s 12-year-old, but an actual LibDem Member of Parliament.

Does she think most people love others because of their gender, or even their sex? Because if so she has to think most people love roughly half the people they encounter daily, half the people they’ve ever met, half the people shopping at Waitrose when she shops there, half the people on the bus, half the people walking down the street, half the people in the census.

Sex is generally (though far from always) a basic starting point for sexual and romantic love, kind of the way species is, but that’s all it is. Personality and “vibe” (and … Read the rest

Let’s revisit that article by Jo Bartosch last November about Stonewall’s calling a BBC investigation “equivalent to racism.” (It’s in the Daily Mail but you know the drill – the Graun won’t publish such things.) I did a post on it then.

Jo writes:

For many, it was a brave and long-overdue airing of an important and distressing subject: a painstaking investigation into claims that predatory trans women have been pressuring lesbians for sex, published on the BBC News website.

But a leaked email shows that the influential trans lobby group Stonewall attempted to suppress the investigation before it had even been published – and made the extraordinary claim that debating the issues was equivalent to ‘sexual racism’.

And today … Read the rest

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one whose hair caught fire on reading that “it is similar to South Africa attempting to racially integrate society” tweet. Far from the only one. Much conflagration ensued.

Many furious replies agree.

I don't think I ever heard a more homophobic thing.

— Lucia Crestfallen (@LuciaCrestfall2) May 24, 2022

https://twitter.com/McKittenCat/status/1529129578089832449 … Read the rest

The tribunal had a very interesting discussion today on the cotton ceiling and whether or not it’s coercive to call lesbians “exclusionary” for not wanting to have sex with men who claim to be women (aka “trans women” in the jargon). Ben Cooper questions CM (Cathryn McGahey QC) for a long time; it feels like shoveling very heavy wet snow.

One tweet and the rest as dialogue, with some punctuation and other tweaks for clarity which the tweeter doesn’t have time to include.

EJ: please post CM's witness statement in the chat.
BC: now on 1839, AB's overcoming cotton ceiling tweet
BC: page 238, you quote a sentence from ABs response that this is coercive sexual behaviour, describe this as

Activism:

A bench inspired by the final series of a Ricky Gervais TV show about loss has been broken into bits by vandals.

The After Life bench in Nottingham’s Arboretum was one of 25 donated to councils by streaming service Netflix and suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).

Nottingham City Council said the vandalism over the weekend was “unacceptable and heart-breaking”.

…

The authority said the bench was donated to the park in January via the Ricky Gervais show Afterlife. Ms Wynter added: “It’s been a symbol of hope and support to many people off the back of the series, which shone a light on loss, bereavement and mental health.”

Never mind all that, he mocks the … Read the rest