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

Ricky Gervais has thrown a stone into the festering pond.

Oh but

Ricky Gervais' new Netflix special is nothing more than an anti-trans garbage fire https://t.co/ijRXBaX9jE

— PinkNews (@PinkNews) May 24, 2022

… Read the rest

Heads he wins tails she loses. More on that hereditary baron trans woman guy, this time from Sam Leith at the Spectator:

Matilda Simon has applied to contest the next by-election for hereditary peers, in the hope of taking her hereditary seat as Baron Simon of Wythenshawe.

Waltzing Baron Matilda.

Matilda began life as Matthew Simon – becoming on the death of her (then his) father the second Baron Simon of Wythenshawe. But she has since transitioned and become Matilda Simon. And the Lord Chancellor last week approved her claim to the peerage and therefore gave her permission to stand the next time a seat becomes vacant among the hereditaries in the Lords. (That hereditary peers now have to

There’s a very particular difficulty with holding Trump to account, that is probably more acute than with most crooks. Just Security explains:

To prove that Trump criminally obstructed the electoral count proceeding, prosecutors would need to convince a 12-person jury that he acted “corruptly.” According to the D.C. courts, this means that “the defendant must use unlawful means or act with an unlawful purpose, or both” to obstruct the proceeding. In addition, the “defendant must … act with consciousness of wrongdoing,” which is defined as acting “with an understanding or awareness that what the person is doing is wrong” (emphasis added).

You can see where this is going to go.

In other words, it is not enough

Women are women. Men are not women. It’s pretty simple.

Man jumps up to explain in a very loud voice that this guy over here says he’s a woman so that’s all there is to it, sucks to be you.

Too bad they cut off the rest of the video as this man comes to the defense of the young woman on the stage. No: She's not like you. No woman or girl is exactly the same as any other. But we are girls and women. #TransWomenAreWomen #transgirlsaregirls. https://t.co/YQhdJzoCeX

— Dawn Ennis (She/Her/Hers) (@lifeafterdawn) May 23, 2022

… Read the rest

Birds are falling out of the sky in India.

Rescuers in India’s western Gujarat state are picking up dozens of exhausted and dehydrated birds dropping every day as a scorching heatwave dries out water sources in the state’s biggest city, veterinary doctors and animal rescuers say.

…

Doctors in an animal hospital managed by the non-profit Jivdaya Charitable Trust in Ahmedabad said they have treated thousands of birds in the last few weeks, adding that rescuers bring dozens of high flying birds such as pigeons or kites daily.

…

All heatwaves today bear the unmistakable and measurable fingerprint of global warming, top experts on quantifying the effects of climate change on extreme weather said on Wednesday.

Ok but let’s … Read the rest

It’s been hot in India.

While heatwaves are common in India, especially in May and June, summer began early this year with high temperatures from March, when the first heatwave arrived.

Average maximum temperatures for the month were the highest in 122 years.*

The Centre for Science and Environment, a think-tank, says that early heatwaves this year have affected around 15 states, including the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, usually known for its pleasant temperatures.

…

The effects are visible. Farmers say the unexpected temperature spikes have affected their wheat harvest, a development that could potentially have global consequences given supply disruptions due to the Ukraine war.

The heat has also triggered an increase in power demand, leading

Fabulous headline:

Friar Street is set to become the home of new vegan and queer space

Vegan and queer. All the fun in one place! Should we call it queegan? Veer? Vuighur?

A NEW vegan deli and non-binary clothing shop is set to open in the city centre. 

I don’t much fancy the idea of clothes and deli in the same space. Feels a bit nauseating somehow.

Flo will be opening up in Friar Street offering a safe space to the LGBTQ+ community.

Who’s Flo? Why are we suddenly talking about her instead of the deli-clothes mashup?

Owner Rie Vockins named the new store after their grandmother who was called Florence and called it a ‘phoenix from the flames’ after

We shouldn’t have to spell it out, Planned Parenthood defiantly yells.

Maybe not, but the fact remains that in this environment you do have to spell it out, yet you carefully never do. Including in this stupid evasive ad.

Who are the “we” in OUR bodies and OUR futures? Who are the people you’re talking about? Is there a word for them? Can you tell us what it is?

Actually your message is far from clear. It’s deliberately obscure. Yes, universal health care is a good thing; agreed. Everyone should have access to it; agreed. Abortion, however, is not something Everyone needs. It’s something women need, and for that reason, it’s something women have had to fight for. In other … Read the rest

An interesting item from the Allison Bailey tribunal.

This is coercive sexual behaviour. You were aware that this hadn't been given to CM
MW: yes
BC: did you click on links given
MW: no
BC: did you think her view on this was sustainable
MW: no evidential basis in her response to justify tweet
BC: how did you come to this if you

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) May 23, 2022

MW: most people would think 'with force'
BC: applying social pressure by calling someone transphobic to persuade someone to sleep with transwomen – that's coercive?
MW: I don't agree.
BC: what does cotton ceiling mean? AB concludes it means called lesbians transphobic if they

— Tribunal Tweets (@tribunaltweets) May 23,

Oh does he, does he really.

The pull-quote under “Emily” Bridges reads:

“I want to inspire people to be who they are.”

Really. How odd. How odd that he wants to do something he’s doing the opposite of in that very cover photo. If he wants to inspire people to be who they are then why not start with himself? Who he is is a man, but in that cover photo he’s pretending to be a winsome delicate young girl with seductive parted lips. (Do men ever pose like that? Passive, mouth ajar and ready?)

I wonder if there’s some way we could inspire him to be who he is (and in the process to stop ruining cycling for … Read the rest

Republicans v Trump and Trump v Republicans.

Republican governors hatched the plan months ago. Meeting at the desert Biltmore resort in Phoenix in mid-November, they agreed to confront a new threat to their incumbents: Former president Donald Trump was ramping up support for primary challengers as part of what one former governor called “a personal vendetta tour.”

The governors want to be re-elected. Trump wants to smash everything. It turns out there are drawbacks to having an evil toddler-brain as the Top Party Guy.

The gambit is set to culminate Tuesday in Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is heavily favored to defeat former senator David Perdue in a closely-watched primary. Trump recruited Perdue and made him his marquee

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany.

My alma mater (Western University, London Ontario, Canada) felt the need to do a bit of social media clean-up as a result of complaints received over a poster that, among other images, included one of two women in hijab about to kiss.

Western University posted the image on its Instagram account Tuesday to mark the international day against homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia. The poster was removed Wednesday after numerous complaints and a petition signed by more than 32,000 people requested the social media post to be removed.

(The International Day is officially a commemoration of the 1990 decision by WHO to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. The original … Read the rest

There are a lot of billionaires in London. A Guardian reporter and a sociologist did a walking tour of their enclaves.

We walk through Pall Mall’s clubland, with its austere buildings filled with hushed libraries and comfortable chairs to doze in, and on to Belgravia, the land of embassies, and once there to Eaton Square, which has been called Red Square, owing to the number of Russian billionaires who have homes here. They included Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska and Andrey Goncharenko. The first two have been sanctioned, but Goncharenko, CEO of a Gazprom subsidiary, who also owns the £120m Hanover Lodge in Regent’s Park, has not had his property impounded. Leasehold apartments in Eaton Square range from £2-£10m.

The

That’s the spirit! Just ignore those stupid women. What do they know about it?!

I actually haven't been getting flak and I certainly don't believe I need permission from feminists to report on gender. My reporting follows my curiosity and nothing else. And frankly, those of you who have "been at this for years" have done nothing but lose ground.

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) May 21, 2022

… Read the rest