Sometimes they do take my breath away. This is one of those times. The Miami Herald reports:

Immigration court staff nationwide were ordered by the Trump administration to take down all coronavirus posters from courtrooms and waiting areas.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which falls under the Department of Justice, told all judges and staff members in an email Monday that all coronavirus posters, which explain in English and Spanish how to prevent catching and spreading the virus, had to be removed immediately.

So that immigrants will have a better shot at catching the virus, I guess. Which is breathtaking even for them.

“This is just a reminder that immigration judges do not have the authority to post,

… Read the rest

That “protest” outside the women’s meeting last night was even more vile than the contemporaneous tweets indicated.

https://twitter.com/ruthserwotka/status/1237316952491806721

It takes a little effort to puzzle out the image. It’s a guy in a hoody with a mask over his face, with a zipper where his mouth would be, and a pink-wrapped phallus.

The leather mask worn by Cook had a zipper where his mouth was – look at the mask worn by the person in the picture from last night and it is exactly the same – so someone was dressed as a notorious rapist outside a meeting of women. Absolutely horrific.

— James Martin (@Jim_Lancashire) March 10, 2020

… Read the rest

More on the smoke bombers near Grenfell Tower trying to bully women out of speaking for women’s rights.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1237151327555371009 https://twitter.com/charmalotta/status/1237123375455186945 https://twitter.com/luluchops1/status/1237143797944987651

We're meeting within yards of #GrenfellTower and the man's rights mafia bullies outside have just set off smoke bombs. Hey, @lisanandy @Keir_Starmer @RLong_Bailey do you still stand up for this spiteful, willful, Orwellian crap? #ExpelMe

— Bessie Smith (@BeeeWonderful) March 9, 2020

https://twitter.com/VPointon/status/1237123712501121033 … Read the rest

I haven’t found any non-Twitter reporting on this yet. I hope there will be some.

https://twitter.com/IvanaOpinion/status/1237124051933507589

abuse from the protesters, had their photos taken by them & were generally subjected to intimidating behaviour. At the end of the meeting they set off smoke bombs right outside. The meeting was close to the Grenfell Tower site. The last speaker was @luluchops1 – 2/

— Rachel Corry (@rjcorry) March 9, 2020

Smoke bombs. Near Grenfell Tower. Because women meet to defend women’s rights.… Read the rest

Wait wait wait hold the phone.

https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1237135871721308165

So Trump is going to have to be quarantined?

Thoughts and prayers, people, thoughts and prayers.… Read the rest

It’s the turn of the NY Times to run a think piece by a trans woman full of empty slogans and bereft of argument.

A contentious row began last month, when the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights announced itself with 12 pledges, which ranged from recognizing trans people’s oppression — at risk of hate crime and denied equal access to public services, health care, housing and employment — to supporting the expulsion of members who express transphobic views.

Some people had the gall to object, especially to the threat to expel members who commit a crime with no definition or examples offered.

To many, the sight of a center-left party failing to support trans rights without equivocation must be

… Read the rest

Laurie Penny is at it again.

The question is not ‘are trans women women?’
The question is ‘are trans women people?’
Do you believe that trans people are human beings, people like who deserve safety, dignity and protection from violence just like anyone else? Or are trans lives an abstract concept to you?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 8, 2020

Will you look at that. ” The question is ‘are trans women people?’” No it isn’t! Nobody says trans women are not people. Skeptics of trans dogma say trans women are men, and correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure men count as people.

Laurie, this is a ridiculous question. Of course we all (apart from total scumbag

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Tim Harris on The patriarchy that oppresses us all.

I refuse to be defined by MY biology. That’s what more than a century of feminism has been fighting for.I will be defined by MY values, MY ambitions, the company I keep, the work I do, the mistakes I make, the entertainment I enjoy and the people who love me.

At least she appears to admit she has a ‘biology’, though she appears to prefer to be without it. One notices that it is first of all by ‘MY values, MY ambitions’ that she would be defined, and then by a few things that ‘I’ do or enjoy, and in last place by ‘the people who … Read the rest

David Remnick on the horror of having Trump in charge during a potential epidemic:

Donald Trump is incapable of truth, heedless of science, and hostage to the demands of his insatiable ego.

Recall, since the start of the coronavirus crisis, the litany of bogus assurances, “hunches,” misinformation, magical thinking, drive-by political shootings, and self-stroking:

“We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

“By April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

“The Obama Administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be detrimental to what we’re doing . . . ”

“We’re going very substantially down, not up. . . . We have it so well under control.

… Read the rest

What is wrong with these people?

As Congress worked to pass an $8.3 billion emergency funding to address the mounting coronavirus outbreak on Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida wore a large gas mask on the House floor.

Gaetz posted an image of himself wearing the mask on Twitter Wednesday, later tweeting that he had ultimately decided to back the funding bill, but “didn’t feel good” about its cost.

Reviewing the coronavirus supplemental appropriation and preparing to go vote. pic.twitter.com/wjJ4YY4VZz

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 4, 2020

Hurr hurr. Nothing funnier than a disease outbreak that kills people.

Just two days later, Florida announced that two people had died after contracting the virus, including one of Gaetz’s own

… Read the rest

Philosopher Jennifer Saul jumps on the “bash Suzanne Moore train:

Suzanne Moore, a columnist at the Guardian, says she identifies as “a woman who won’t go down quietly.” But to many, she’s a trans-exclusionary radical feminist — a TERF. Some say TERF is a slur. It isn’t. But it is a misleading term for anti-trans activists like Moore.

So Suzanne Moore doesn’t get to identify as a woman who won’t go quietly, but men do get to identify as women. Moore is to be doubted and called names, but men who say they are women are to be shielded from those nasty women (like Moore for instance) at all costs. Meet the new feminism, the opposite … Read the rest

Alex Massie at the Spectator wonders why so many people who work at the Guardian appear to hate journalism.

That is the first and most glaring conclusion to be drawn from the extraordinary letter signed by 338 Guardian and Observer employees lamenting the paper’s willingness to run a column written by the great Suzanne Moore earlier this week, in which Moore argued that “we have gone through the looking-glass and are being told that sex is a construct” and that “you either protect women’s rights as sex-based or you don’t protect them at all”.

The signatories to the letter sent to Kath Viner, the paper’s editor, deplore what they deem the Guardian’s “pattern of publishing transphobic content” though, vexingly,

… Read the rest

Trump isn’t going to like this.

The government’s top infectious disease expert on Sunday said that the coronavirus outbreak is getting worse and warned elderly and sick people to think twice before traveling or circulating in crowds.

The remarks from Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, signaled a change in tone from health officials representing the Trump administration, making it clear that the outbreak is past the point where it can be prevented from spreading or easily tracked. That contrasted with the more measured language from some Trump officials including Vice President Mike Pence.

“Measured” is a flattering word for it. I would call it recklessly minimizing.

“If you get infected, the

… Read the rest

Even the UN.

Not in the other languages, mind – those other women get to keep their name. But Anglophone women? Nah, they’re too second wave and privileged and phobic.

Womxn
Trans
Genderqueer
Femme
Mujer
女人
Mulher
женщина
Donna
Mwanamke
女性
Frau
Kadın
Γυναίκα
Կինը
Femina
महिला
Mulher
নারী
Vrouw
여자
Babae
Manਰਤ
النساء

Today we celebrate every woman who resists patriarchy, insists on equality and persists for a better future. #IWD2020

— UN Women (@UN_Women) March 8, 2020

… Read the rest