I’m stealing that punchline.

Amazed this still needs saying, but some don't seem to have got the memo. If calling me 'transphobe' and 'fascist' was going to scare me out of speaking up for women's rights, it would have happened years ago. Whatever the square root of not giving a fuck is, that's where I am.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 17, 2024

… Read the rest

Some people have stealing luggage privilege.

Former Biden-administration nuclear official Sam Brinton, charged with felony suitcase theft, pleaded guilty to petit larceny in a sweetheart plea deal in Virginia that results in no jail time for him.

…

Brinton, who identifies as non-binary, uses they/them pronouns, and dresses in women’s clothes, worked as deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy before being sacked following his luggage-theft scandal. His appointment as a nuclear-waste official in the Biden administration was widely touted as a historic accomplishment for the LGBT community.

But there is no such community. The T is the cuckoo in the nest.

In February 2023, he was charged with grand larceny for allegedly taking Tanzanian designer’s

Department of weird priorities:

Police Scotland is paying its officers to take part in Pride parades at the same time as it is cutting back on fighting crime and scores of staff are leaving. The revelation was described as “setting a dangerous precedent” for the under-fire force which is grappling with financial issues.

Cops are being encouraged to represent the service at LGBTI events in exchange of either pay or a day off in lieu. It comes as cuts see some communities without a local bobbie to deal with issues.

Dealing with crime is a lower priority for the police than marching in Pride parades.

Just Pride, mind you. Not any other kind of march. Nobody else matters … Read the rest

Shun the witch and her witchy Report:

The New Statesman can reveal that tomorrow (Wednesday July 17) the governing body of the British Medical Association (BMA) – the doctors’ trade union – will vote on whether or not to “disavow” the Cass Review.

To “disavow.” They might as well say it has cooties.

The motion, first drafted as an emergency measure in June, was not discussed at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) last month. BMA rules would suggest that for it now to be going to the union’s governing body, the proposal has gained the support of at least 10 members – about one in six – of the BMA’s Council in the intervening weeks. That makes it

Well that’s a kind of activism I guess.

A former SNP activist who once tweeted how he wanted “beat the fuck” out of feminists has been jailed for six years for a series of sexual assaults. Cameron Downing, 24, preyed on six victims at locations across Scotland during a course of conduct which began when he was just 16-years-old.

Whaddya know. Rape and fantasizing about beating the fuck out of feminists in one guy. Who could possibly imagine?

Downing, a former Drama student and an equalities convenor for the SNP’s London branch, spent his trial denying any wrongdoing. The accused told the jury in his evidence that they identified as being non binary, said he hadn’t been threatening the male

Anti-Trump Republicans are aghast.

JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t – overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the… https://t.co/l0O64J3pSj

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) July 16, 2024

"Other days, [Republicans] plead, 'No, no. Trump is just like Buckley, Goldwater, Reagan — their natural heir. A little rough around the edges, maybe — but their descendant and perpetuator nonetheless.'

No sale."https://t.co/wWcNaZYa8O

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 16, 2024

"The selection of J.D. Vance confirms that the Trump movement now is a full-on authoritarian movement.

Funny kind of “teaching.”

Your weekly reminder that the author who thought it a 'dangerous ideology' to encourage 3-6 yr olds to celebrate their body & what it can do for them teaches 9-11 yr olds on the cusp of puberty that some people are neither boys nor girls. And the book world agrees. pic.twitter.com/wfNAF9SPuW

— Rachel Rooney (@RooneyRachel) July 16, 2024

That’s a very weird passage. Very silly, obviously, but also very weird. If it’s true that people can be “non-binary” and “not a girl, and not a boy,” then why is the author (Clara Vulliamy) having to explain it? Why isn’t it just common knowledge? She assumes it’s common knowledge what girls and boys are, so why doesn’t … Read the rest

New York state is suing a county to force it to let males ruin female sports.

New York’s attorney general sued Nassau County on Monday to block enforcement of a new law banning transgender athletes from playing in girls’ and women’s sports at county-owned parks and facilities.

The issue is not that they’re “transgender” but that they’re male. Males should not be playing in girls’ and women’s sports. (Nor should girls and women who are on testosterone, but for some strange reason that doesn’t come up as much.)

In the complaint, Attorney General Letitia James said the new law, “Fairness for Women and Girls in Sports,” is “in fact not an act of fairness,” but entrenches “regressive and

Behold: an idiot.

What an utter ass https://t.co/Q9bu9CyezO

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) July 15, 2024

…this idea that like well, ok, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy, and so getting rid of them, and making it easier for people to shift spouses, like they change their underwear, that’s gunna make people happier in the long term. And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, I’m skeptical, but it really didn’t work out for the kids in those marriages, and that’s what I think all of us should [clip ends]

So it works out for kids to grow up in a family where there is violence, … Read the rest

From the Times live updates:

The sweep of Cannon’s decision was a surprise at the Justice Department. The outcome was not. Jack Smith’s team saw the Trump documents case as essentially stalled out for months because of Cannon’s slow pace and had more or less written off the possibility of a trial this year.

That’s probably because the Justice Department and Jack Smith are aware that Cannon is a freakishly underqualified judge appointed by the freakishly underqualified Trump to serve Trump’s interests as he tries to get away with anything and everything.

Even before her bombshell decision on Monday to dismiss former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has made any number of unorthodox

Look if you have to borrow a megaphone are you really ready to change the world?

Three lawyers a year ago on why Cannon shouldn’t be involved in this case at all:

Soon after the news broke that Donald Trump will become the first former president to face federal criminal charges—37 counts that include willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents, and false statements—it was also revealed that Judge Aileen Cannon is scheduled to oversee the case. In our view as experts with more than a century of collective experience in judicial and other ethics questions, that cannot stand. She must recuse herself from the case or, if she refuses, be reassigned by the appropriate judicial oversight authorities.

But she wasn’t, and here we are.

 Cannon 

I’m looking around for some law people takes.

Judge Cannon just did the unthinkable: She dismissed the Trump classified documents case on the repeatedly rejected basis that DOJ violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause by appointing Special Counsel Smith at all! DOJ must appeal right away. On SCOTUS, only Justice Thomas took that view in Trump v. United States. This finally gives Jack Smith an opportunity to seek her removal from the case. I think the case for doing so is very strong.

Judge Cannon just threw out Trump's classified documents case citing Jack Smith's unconstitutional appt.

This is a blatant distortion of the law — the 11th circuit won't let her off the hook

I will discuss on @CNNi

Guido Fawkes on the pompous absurdity and absurd pomposity of Mr Maugham:

Jolyon Maugham has been having quite the weekend – mainly consisting of a meltdown over Wes Streeting’s decision to continue the ban on puberty blockers being given to children. He issued advice to every trans family: Evacuate the UK now…

The fox-beater has been barraging Wes Streeting with tens of “questions” including such killer takedowns as: Why are puberty blockers still allowed to be used in clinical trials but not outside of them? To be fair to Jolyon, he isn’t a medical expert…

Last night Jolyon threw off the blinders of privilege and declared himself in possession of the “skeleton key” to “

Jolyon is outdoing himself in the pomposity stakes.

A wonderful thing about Jolyon is that he combines all the flaws of the great British comedy characters – Pooter, Fawlty, Partridge, Brent – while having absolutely none of their redeeming qualities. pic.twitter.com/qLcNUMvMmD

— Gareth Roberts (@OldRoberts953) July 15, 2024

Just look at that. Hello Government Person, if you ignore what I, alone among mortals, am telling you, bad things will happen. Yes I really am that important.

How do people not get that marching around shouting about how important you are is not a good look?

If you’re wondering who Pooter is, he’s the diarist of Diary of a Nobody. Hilarious book, a must-read.… Read the rest

Sigh. Of course. Trump’s judge has thrown out the documents case.

The federal judge overseeing the classified documents charges against former president Donald Trump has dismissed the indictment on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed, according to a court filing Monday.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ruling is a remarkable win for Trump, whose lawyers have thrown longshot argument after longshot argument to dismiss the case. Other courts have rejected similar arguments to the one that he made in Florida about the legality of Smith’s appointment.

But none of that matters, because he had the good luck to be able to put his own chosen patsy in that job and she is doing the … Read the rest

Ursula Doyle speaks up:

My name is Ursula Doyle, and I have worked in book publishing for more than thirty years. Since 2008 I have worked at Hachette UK, one of the UK’s leading publishing groups, first at its Virago imprint (a sub-brand of the publisher) before setting up my own imprint, Fleet, in 2016. Fleet publishes a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, and Fleet authors have between them won numerous awards, including four Pulitzers.

In 2020 I published Kathleen Stock’s influential book on sex and gender, Material Girls. Since then, I have been a target for abuse by colleagues in the book industry, who have used social media to accuse me of – among other things … Read the rest

Gender critical women are the new…what…bosses? Priests? Scabs? Enslavers? Colonialists? The new all-powerful sneering unjust overlords who need to be overthrown and punished.

1. If all cis women at Hachette were polled today to ask if they were happy for trans women to share the same facilities then the overwhelming majority would say yes. To say ‘all women’ in H’s employ are being discriminated against because of a policy we WELCOME is ludicrous pic.twitter.com/8uoVJjsoPE

— Ella Gordon (@EllaSGordon) July 14, 2024

Sighing as I write because I know how horny the terfs get when anyone gives them attention, but also can’t let statements like this go unchallenged within our industry, so here we are. Looking forward to the usual, not-at-all

I’m taking a look at the publisher Hachette’s incloosion policy. I’ve spotted something quite funny (in its own warped way).

It lists a bunch of networks – AgeWise Network, AllTogether Network, Accessibility Network, Gender Balance Network – ah yes that’ll be the one, let’s look at the caption under that one.

The Gender Balance Network aims to eliminate the gender pay gap by focusing on equal recruitment and progression for all genders, at every level of the business.

What?

What is this “the gender pay gap” of which they speak?

If you google it you find it’s the pay gap between men and women. This doesn’t surprise you, because that’s what it’s always meant. What else would it mean?… Read the rest

So now the church is ordering people to forget all that pesky sciencey crap about human bodies and just focus on the soul believe Gender Dogma.

Church of England set to issue advice telling teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’ around biological sex as critics argue new guidance is pushing gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth

Church of England advice for teachers has been criticised for pushing the gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth rather than a biological fact.

Guidance set to be issued to thousands of schools states that a transgender man is someone ‘who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man’, and a transgender woman ‘was