This is one way we know trans women are not women.

…yes they are.

In fact, the more violent your threats…the more urgent the debate becomes.

(Image from 'Trans Army' FB page). pic.twitter.com/5uFP6ZLg8P

— gender is harmful (@genderisharmful) February 7, 2021

That’s not “activism.” It’s not struggle, it’s not consciousness raising, it’s not social justice. It’s just an image of an angry man brandishing a bat studded with nails, by way of telling us we are under orders to agree with him that he is a woman, and that refusal will be met with murderous violence.

I don’t want to be any kind of ally with men who threaten to smash women to death for failing to agree that the … Read the rest

Oh ffs.

Trump lawyer wants to suspend the trial during his “sabbath” because it’s “mandatory” for him.

David Schoen, 62, has written to senior figures of both main parties in the US Senate asking for an agreement that the trial [be] postponed from 5.24pm on Friday until Sunday so that he can observe the Sabbath. In the letter, reported by the New York Times, the lawyer apologises for any inconvenience, adding that “the practices and prohibitions are mandatory for me … so I have no choice.”

Blah blah blah. Mandatory according to whom? A particular version of the imagined sky daddy. He might as well say it’s mandatory for him to take two days off to say prayers to … Read the rest

Interesting. Liz Cheney is thinking about criminal investigation of Trump.

In extraordinary remarks on Fox News Sunday, Cheney made specific reference to the “massive criminal investigation” on the Capitol insurrection that is now sweeping the country. She said that the probe would cover “every aspect” of the events of 6 January and look at “everyone who was involved”.

But she reserved her most pointed words for Trump. “People will want to know what the president was doing,” she said. “They will want to know whether the tweet that he sent out calling Vice-President Mike Pence a coward while the attack was underway was a premeditated attempt to provoke violence.”

The impeachment trial in the Senate starts Tuesday.

Last

… Read the rest

This is a puzzler. I’m seeing people laughing at a column by Virginia Heffernan for its clueless entitled snobbery crossed with self-righteous “liberalism,” which sounded odd to me because when I first encountered her writing she was a libertarian with some modest leanings in a more leftish direction. Also, she was sharp, and the writing in this piece is very dim – so the piece must be a parody, right? Surely? Poe’s law?

Let’s see…

Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.

How am I going to resist demands

… Read the rest

The Green Party is losing women:

Dozens of activists have quit the Green Party in protest at the election of a transgender campaigner as head of its women’s group.

That is, at the election of a trans woman as head of its women’s group. Quite a few women think that positions of that kind should be for women rather than trans women. We think that because women are still far from being equally represented in top jobs, let alone over-represented, so to make a man who identifies as a woman (which is not the same as just plain being one) the head of a party’s women’s group is insulting to women.

The exodus, involving at least 40 women, follows

… Read the rest

The misogynist hyperbole is out of hand.

The misogynist hyperbole on this topic is so out of hand that it's hard to know if/when/why to react (or ignore) but in case it means anything to @jk_rowling or anyone else that journalists like me speak up: I think Strangio's is an absolutely appalling, libellous remark https://t.co/hHPrKPOIEC

— Susanna Rustin (@SusannaRustin) February 6, 2021

https://twitter.com/oliverburkeman/status/1358158283249512453 … Read the rest

One small good thing:

Activists in Indonesia on Thursday lauded the government’s decision to ban public schools from making religious attire mandatory, a move that followed national outrage over non-Muslim students being forced to wear a hijab.

Muslim students shouldn’t be forced to wear it either, of course, not even by their parents.

The special autonomous province of Aceh, which enforces sharia law, is exempt from the decree, Education Minister Nadiem Makarim said.

So stay out of Aceh.

Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said schools in more than 20 provinces still make religious attire mandatory in their dress code, so the decree was a positive step.

“Many public schools require girls and female teachers to wear

… Read the rest

She’s still there though.

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1293593435258093575… Read the rest

Interesting. You know all that $$$ Trump raised with the “stolen election!!!” claims? He’s taken a big chunk of it for himself. I’d have thought that was just plain fraud, but what do I know.

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, which never received a cent from the former president, moved an estimated $2.8 million of donor money into the Trump Organization—including at least $81,000 since Trump lost the election.

Doesn’t that look like theft?

In addition, one of the campaign’s joint-fundraising committees, which collects money in partnership with the Republican Party, shifted about $4.3 million of donor money into Trump’s business from January 20, 2017, to December 31, 2020—at least $331,000 of which came after the election.

The money covered

… Read the rest

The charges are piling up.

All 56 FBI field offices are engaged in a huge investigation that ranks alongside the biggest the bureau has conducted. As Michael Sherwin, acting US attorney for Washington DC which is leading the hunt, has put it: “The scope and scale of this investigation are really unprecedented, not only in FBI history but probably DoJ history.”

…

Already the number of people who have been arrested, either by the FBI, Capitol police or local Washington DC officers has reached 235, spanning more than 40 states. As the investigation widens and deepens, the focus is tightening on anyone considered to have acted as a coordinator of the action in an attempt to take out

… Read the rest

Oh you mean if we tell thousands of damaging lies about you on our very popular “news” channel you’re going to sue us? For real???

Lou Dobbs is out at Fox Business, just a day after the voting machine company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against him, the cable news network and several purveyors of the debunked theory that its technology was used to commit massive voter fraud.

It wasn’t really a “theory,” bunked or debunked. It was a story. Trump wanted a story so they made a story for him.

After the initial threats were made, Fox News and Fox Business ran deposition-esque segments on the shows of the three anchors now sued by Smartmatic — Dobbs, Maria

… Read the rest

It just always has to be misrepresented. From a Guardian piece on the sacking of Joanna Cherry:

Some SNP MPs described a “palpable sense of relief” within the Westminster group this week, along with a degree of frustration that action had not been taken sooner. As one MP said: “The party has a hard-won reputation for being socially liberal, pro-equality, and any perception that our politicians are not has a terrible effect on younger supporters in particular, and with that comes the fear that they will go to the Greens at the next election.”

So the implication is that Cherry, and the rest of us pesky feminists who don’t agree that men can become women, is socially conservative and … Read the rest

Can that nice man who defiled Pelosi’s office go home if he promises to be good? No.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the detention of an Arkansas man photographed with his feet on the desk of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol, describing his behavior as “brazen” and “entitled” after excoriating his defense lawyer over “frivolous” claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

In ordering the detention of Richard Barnett, Chief Judge Beryl Howell said the charges he faces, including unlawfully entering the Capitol grounds with a weapon, are “in some ways, too benign sounding to fairly describe what happened.” The judge went on to describe the deadly events that took place at the Capitol

… Read the rest

Oh hooray, the scales have fallen from my eyes and I have been educated, curly blonde red eyeshadow boy has EXPLAINED FEMINISM and everything is different. Thank god for curly blonde red eyeshadow boy and his hatred and contempt for women!

https://twitter.com/LabelFreeBrands/status/1357836235398516737… Read the rest

Still at it.

Erasing women.

The Bill on Maternity Leave for Minsters is all about "pregnant people"

https://t.co/fyx2lszrAh pic.twitter.com/iUC3BOHQKF

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) February 5, 2021

“the person is pregnant”…… Read the rest

Should Trump get intelligence briefings?

Uh, no. He shouldn’t have been getting them for the past four years and he sure as hell shouldn’t be getting them now.

President Joe Biden said that former President Donald Trump should not receive intelligence briefings even though they typically have been given to other former presidents.

Biden told CBS News in an interview that Trump was “unfit to be president” and his “erratic behavior” is why he should [not] have access to the nation’s classified information.

…

Biden added, “I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the

… Read the rest

Intent doesn’t matter?

https://twitter.com/marcatracy/status/1357806202277797889

Use/mention distinction.

Also…

Many articles in a Sunday newspaper are first posted online earlier in the week. February 7 is the print date from the archive. It appeared this week online.

— Bill Dedman, investigative reporter and author (@BillDedman) February 5, 2021

Maybe there’s more to it.

The Daily Beast is patting itself on the back for being the source:

The New York Times on Friday announced the ouster of science and health reporter Donald McNeil Jr., who The Daily Beast reported had allegedly used racist language while on a 2019 trip with students to Peru.

McNeil, formerly the paper of record’s top reporter on COVID-19, leaves amid fallout from an incident that occurred during a 

… Read the rest

More “Jessica”:

https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1353537371023630336

They’re so bitchy, do they need Tampax, do they need Midol, are they all PMS hur hur hur?

https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1357480835964751875 https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1357694475515011079

I’m sure that will go well for him.… Read the rest

Chase Strangio is just straight-up libeling people now.

The reality is that people like JK and Shrier and all the rest of them are closely aligned with white supremacists in power and their rhetoric in turn creates dangerous policy proposals and eventually laws. We have a lot of mobilizing to do. https://t.co/YltsTKIc1s

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) February 5, 2021

I hope JKR has a word with Chase. She’s not bashful about introducing her lawyers to libelers.… Read the rest

An old acquaintance continues to contribute to the gaiety of nations.

The Canadian trans person who sued female beauticians for refusing to wax their balls has made more than 30 emergency calls to the fire brigade in the last three weeks. Each time responders arrived, there was no emergency, just Jessica engaging in 'inappropriate and lewd conduct' pic.twitter.com/31P4b0mjMw

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) February 5, 2021

That’s the erstwhile Jessica Yaniv, of course, after another whimsical name change. It seems there’s a celebrity Jessica Simpson, so no doubt Yaniv will be suing her for impersonation soon.

He did sue his local health service just a couple of weeks ago, so while he was also harassing the Langley fire department. Busy guy.… Read the rest