Aw, sad, Trump is having second thoughts about picking the dangerous crazy guy.

Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

Haha! Fakeout!

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, according to The Atlantic. Vance was a symbol of the Trump team’s assuredness that they would win in 2024. Come Sunday, that assuredness appears to be shrinking.

“Most striking thing I

Violence against women a ‘national emergency’ in England and Wales, police say

Two million women are estimated to be victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency”, police chiefs have warned.

Crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence affect one in 12 women in England and Wales, with the number of recorded offences growing by 37% in the past five years and the perpetrators getting younger.

Really? Oh well, never mind. Now let’s talk about the persecution of our trans sisters.

The NPCC report, which analysed official data, said:

•  One in six homicides in England and Wales are linked to domestic abuse, or 100 out of the

Seen in journalism explains this new thing where the BBC puts men pretending to be women in the center of stories that aren’t specific to women or trans-everything.

The number of trans-identified men used as contributors on apparently random BBC stories has generated interest.

The BBC has its own contacts database but one resource it uses for stories/contributors is a company called NEON.
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https://t.co/qUD5rMGPW0

— SEENinJournalism (@JournalismSEEN) July 22, 2024

Emails from NEON will open with ‘we have five guests available today to discuss (insert story here)’.

As an example, they offer ‘social justice’ activists like Cleo Madeleine, a trans-identified male from Gendered Intelligence, who’s had airtime on the BBC several times.
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— SEENinJournalism (@JournalismSEEN) July 22, 2024

NPR wants women to conceal their slutty hair.

When the 2024 Olympics start this week, France won’t allow its athletes to wear headscarves during the games – seemingly in contrast with the Olympic charter’s calls for respect of religion and protection of human rights.

Rules about what competitors can wear are secular and impartial. Religion is simply beside the point.

A recent report from Amnesty International calls France’s restrictions on religious attire blatant discrimination and a researcher for the human rights nonprofit told NPR’s Morning Edition that, beyond being unfair, the move could cause systemic issues for women athletes in France.

The bans have a wider impact on women in sports, dashing the hopes of female athletes in France,

Normally, I think I wouldn’t be very keen on a prosecutor as the Dem candidate. They’re necessary of course, but the whole law & order lock ’em up crack down on the hoodlums thing tends to be vindictive right-wing racist dog-whistling. Normally. But given Trump’s flagrant criminality and hostility to all norms that don’t favor him, having a prosecutor up against him seems oddly reassuring.

Now that Biden has stepped aside — and with even more of her potential opponents planning to endorse her by the end of the day Monday — over a dozen advisers and close allies told CNN they think her candidacy will lean heavily on her background as a district attorney, attorney general and cross examiner in Senate hearings.

It is

BBC: cost of living.

At the top: a big glam photo of Emma Harris in a puffy-sleeves dress with flowing blonde hair. Caption: “Emma Harris says the fact that she can’t save for a deposit to buy a house makes her want to cry”

Only one in eight renters can afford to buy in the area in which they live, research suggests. High rent, bills and house prices mean it is more difficult for renters to buy their first home than it is for existing owners to move on, according to Skipton Group. Its new index, compiled by Oxford Economics, claims renters are four times less likely to be able to buy than homeowners.

Software engineer Emma Harris earns

Via Rev David Brindley, another case of researchers sabotaging their own research by including men in a study of women.

Submissions sought from ‘anyone who identifies as a woman, though they may have a different sex at birth’

Biological males who identify as female, and their doctors, are being encouraged to take part in a Victorian taxpayer-funded inquiry that was set up to investigate women’s pain, including chronic issues like endometriosis and menopause.

So they’re deliberately making their own research useless.

So what’s the point? Why not skip the whole thing?

The move has been panned by Women’s Forum Australia chief executive Rachael Wong, who said it “makes a mockery of women’s pain and women are understandably angry”.

Not a hoax.

BREAKING: in one of the most stunning acts of patriotism of my lifetime— & worst news possible for Trump — Biden is out pic.twitter.com/lDR2VkzVbl

— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) July 21, 2024

BREAKING: Biden quits. pic.twitter.com/sC0gOaXlRT

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 21, 2024

CNN:

President Joe Biden announced he will not seek reelection amid continued pressure following a disastrous debate performance last month that left many in his party questioning whether he should continue to seek reelection. He will serve out the remainder of his term.

So we’ve got about 15 minutes to campaign for Kamala Harris.… Read the rest

pic.twitter.com/RMIRvlSOYw

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024

… Read the rest

JL at The Glinner Update:

A medical journal has published an article by a group of trans activist academics which advocates the taking of testosterone by trans-identified females during pregnancy, despite the proven and potential risks to the unborn child.

The trans activist academics are not, repeat not, academics in medical fields. They’re all sociologists.

Monthly medical journal, Qualitative Research in Health, has published an article titled ‘Medical Uncertainty and Reproduction of the ‘Normal’: Decision-Making Around Testosterone Therapy in Transgender Pregnancy’.

Scare-quotes on “normal.” That’s the ticket. Deliberately invite birth defects because “normal” is in the eye of the beholder. Yay sociology!

The authors are Carla A Pfeffer, an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan

Now for the fun part: feeling grumpy after that BBC shock-horror over a “pride” flag I clicked on a feel-good item about a guy who takes his parrots to Primrose Hill to fly around.

Meet Happy and Scarlet.… Read the rest

The cops are in a fine old rage about the “hate crime” against a trans flag so I found myself wondering what the perps did to the flag that was so hate crimeish. Threats of murder and torture? Or not quite as harsh as that? So I went looking for the previous “hate crime.”

Pride flag vandalism investigated as hate crime

“As hate crime” – meaning it’s not actually a hate crime but the cops decided to pretend otherwise, because after all, trans people are the most persecuted injured threatened tormented people on the planet. Don’t come at me with your Uighurs or refugees or migrants in tiny boats or women killed by the Taliban, they’re happy as Larry … Read the rest

Oh my god not a flag!!!

The Beeb:

The Metropolitan Police has appealed to the public to help it identify a suspect after three painted Pride flags in north-east London were vandalised for a third time.

The incident, which happened outside Forest Gate railway station on 19 July, is being treated as a homophobic and transphobic hate crime, the force said. It follows previous incidents of damage on 23 and 26 June outside the same station.

Det Insp James Rush said the force would “not tolerate these disgusting, inexcusable hate crimes in Forest Gate”.

Do the police ever say they will not tolerate these disgusting, inexcusable hate crimes against women? Do the police even mention hate crimes against women … Read the rest

Lawyers accused of ‘dangerous and false’ trans suicide claims

That’s the Times saying that on Friday.

Activists lawyers are spreading “distressing and dangerous” claims that transgender children will kill themselves because of a ban on puberty blockers, a government review has found.

Professor Louis Appleby, the government’s adviser on suicide prevention, found that there was no evidence to support claims of a “surge” in suicides among trans children.

The Good Law Project, a campaign group led by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, has repeatedly invoked statistics on social media purporting to show an “explosion” in deaths among children being treated for gender dysphoria at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust.

He loves attention, but perhaps not that kind of attention. Maybe … Read the rest

God this is brutal. The Telegraph on Biden:

“Anyway” is a word that is constantly being used by Mr Biden – seemingly when he senses he is starting to lose track of what he is saying.

The US president sometimes uses it as a filler, giving himself time to marshal his thoughts before returning to the subject. More disconcertingly, he often uses it to change subject abruptly or trail off altogether.

…

Mr Biden uses “look” in a similar manner to “anyway” – to throw himself a lifeline when he cannot remember how a sentence is meant to end.

The tactic, if not elegant, puts a stop to the long silences that marred his debate performance and stops him

Hm. Should we get in a huff because the Royal Parks admit that there are some aspects of the Albert Memorial that are a tad shall we say embarrassing?

I would say nah. The empire stuff is embarrassing. Also – and the Telegraph leaves this bit out – Al’s Mem has always been seen by many as a tad vulgar, to say the least. It’s also always been seen by many as an ugly blot on a beautiful park. It’s never been universally embraced as just a wonderful gift to the nation. Let’s not forget: Q. Victoria was considered very self-indulgent and derelict for going into such complete seclusion after Albert died. She had a job to do and she … Read the rest

Oh man. There isn’t enough cringe in the world to deal with this one. Jolyon Maugham claims to be in receipt of a drooling mash note from someone Very Important, but when you go to read the mash note you find that it’s obviously written by Joly himself. Nobody else on the planet could or would possibly have written it. I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t realize how obvious that is. It’s like “I agree with PollyO” all over again.

Excuse me excuse me. People don’t talk like that.

Cringe cringe CRINGE.… Read the rest

We’re waiting for the wings to fall off before we decide to make an emergency landing.

Democrats were caught in an apparent stalemate on Saturday as a dug-in Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Donald Trump.

In the weeks since his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the 81-year-old Biden has attempted to fight off calls for him to step down from the top of the ticket amid concerns that his age and mental acuity are no longer up to the job.

Well you can see his point. There’s no need … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Alan Peakall on Progress has a plan.

Perhaps better history teaching covering the real ugly complexity of the moral struggles of the past should be part of the solution. A good example to start with would the the checkered relationship between the anti-slavery Republican Party of Lincoln and the nativist penumbra adjacent to it which gave rise to a vociferously anti immigrant state government in Massachussets with a sterling record of socially reformist measures. Instead popular culture gives us Gangs of New York.

Around the beginning of the current century the aphorism that Marxism filled a God-shaped hole was succeeded by the wisecrack that European integration filled a Marx-shaped hole. I think that Francis … Read the rest

Jolyon must be feeling So Important.

Review dismisses claims youth suicides rose after NHS curbed puberty blockers

A government-ordered review has dismissed claims that suicide rates in young people with gender dysphoria have risen sharply since the NHS restricted access to puberty-blocking drugs.

A report by the government’s adviser on suicide prevention also found that the claims – made by the campaign group the Good Law Project – were not supported by data and could prompt children under the age of 18 to take their own life.

See there? A shoutout to Jolyon and his project – a shoutout saying he was wrong at best and lying at worst, but hey, it’s still a shoutout. He does love attention, that … Read the rest