Yes how dare women think they can ever withdraw from the male presence, even in a rape shelter? They’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
We are extremely disappointed by the City of Vancouver’s intent not to fund our public education work and the message it sends to the women who seek out a women-only group as part of their resistance to male violence.#VanCityCouncil #fail #women #womenresistance #womenonly pic.twitter.com/GPqltxw7ty
— VancouverRapeRelief (@VanRapeRelief) February 20, 2020
As she delivered her sentence, Judge Amy Berman Jackson delivered a defense of facts, accusing Roger Stone of disregarding them in his case.
“The truth still exists. The truth still matters,” Jackson said. “Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t, his pride in his own lies are a threat to the very foundation of this democracy.”
Despite America’s current divisions, Jackson said that the condemnation of Stone’s disregard for the truth “should transcend both parties.”
I don’t know why the Guardian decided to downgrade that into “facts.” Truth includes facts but that’s not all there is to it.
… Read the restHouse intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said Roger Stone’s sentence was “justified” and warned that a presidential pardon in the
Updating to add the conclusion: 40 months.
The Guardian live is following the hearing in Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s court.
The federal prosecutors and Roger Stone’s lawyers argued in court over whether the former Trump associate had obstructed his own criminal case by posting about it on social media.
As a reminder, Stone was slapped with an expanded gag order last year after he posted an Instagram appearing to show Judge Amy Berman Jackson and the crosshairs of a gun.
Jackson warned in court today that the post could have incited violence against her and merited a sentencing enhancement, denouncing Stone’s behavior as “intolerable.”
Awww just a bit of boyish fun.
… Read the restUnder questioning from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, federal prosecutor John Crabb defended the original
None of this is how it’s supposed to be.
Trump is tweeting while Stone’s sentencing is in progress. If Barr doesn’t resign after this, he has no credibility with anyone – DOJ, courts, the public. Hard to see how he can remain in place IF he cares about DOJ & the rule of law more than power & politics. https://t.co/pGCMDH6Ai4
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 20, 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1230530810081677320
… Read the restThe Judge wants to know who wrote the 2nd sentencing memo DOJ submitted in the Stone case, the one the reflected Trump’s views not the law & the facts. Can’t think of a legit reason for a prosecutor to decline to answer the court’s question. https://t.co/VePHLMbKJO
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 20,
The sentencing hearing for Roger Stone is happening now.
Jackson spent much of the first hour of the hearing criticizing Stone’s actions.
Stone’s actions “led to an inaccurate, incorrect and incomplete report” from the House on Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign, Jackson told the court. She also said she believed Stone’s threats to witness Randy Credico deserved a stronger sentence.
In other words Stone’s actions meant that the Mueller report couldn’t nail Trump. The perjury did what it was meant to do.
… Read the restStone also potentially threatened her on social media, the judge said.
“I suppose that I could say Roger Stone didn’t intend to hurt me … it’s just classic bad judgment,” Jackson said, then dismissing that idea.
Pride parade shuts down a lesbian event. Makes sense.
… Read the restA lesbian event has been removed from Sydney, Australia’s LGBT Pride after a vocal minority protested the participation of a popular lesbian YouTuber with critical views towards transgender self-ID.
Arielle Scarcella runs an LGBT-centred YouTube channel with over 630,000 subscribers.
She has also spoken out against self-ID laws which have enabled biological males to be transferred to women’s prisons after the commission of serious offences, such as sexual assaults. In 2018, Scarcella collaborated on a video with Blaire White discussing how lesbian sexual preferences that do not include an attraction to biological males who transition to female were not “transphobic.”
Les-Talk was originally planned to be one of the events
Queensland police have revealed that a man who killed his wife and three children by dousing them with petrol and setting them alight had a history of domestic violence and was known to them.
Not just murder but murder by extreme agony.
… Read the restBut in comments that have shocked domestic violence campaigners, the force says they are keeping an “open mind” about suggestions the 42-year-old Rowan Baxter had been “driven too far” and are appealing to people who knew the couple to come forward to understand his motives.
…
On Thursday, Det Insp Mark Thompson confirmed domestic and family violence orders had been granted against Baxter, saying there had been “a number of engagements of
Jane Clare Jones reads another piece by another trans activist, this one by
Torr Robinson, a person with they/them pronouns who is the Trans Officer for London Young Labour and one of the founders of the recent pledge defaming Woman’s Place and calling for us to be expelled from the Labour Party.
Is it a good piece? It is not. Does it contain surprises? It does not.
The piece is called For Trans Liberation, and this idea is summoned throughout. There is, however, no specification about what Torr is calling for liberation from, or what the specific demands for liberation are.
There never is. There is never any explanation of what “trans rights” are, either. There is … Read the rest
Oh gee, some House Republicans are unhappy about Blagojevich’s commutation.
Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich profusely thanked Trump for commuting his prison sentence in a press conference today.
He would, wouldn’t he.
“We want to express our most profound and everlasting gratitude to President Trump,” said Blagojevich, appearing alongside his family. “How do you properly thank someone who’s given you back the freedom that was stolen from you?”
Says the guy who wanted to sell Obama’s Senate seat for $$$.
… Read the restBut others are less thrilled about Blagojevich’s commutation, considering he was caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat.
A group of House Republicans from Illinois released a statement yesterday calling Blagojevich “the face of public corruption” in the
Can we impeach him again?
President Trump offered to pardon Julian Assange if he agreed to cover up the involvement of Russia in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee, which were later published by WikiLeaks, a London court was told Wednesday.
Assange’s lawyers are arguing that his case is political as opposed to criminal (so he shouldn’t be extradited).
… Read the restEdward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lawyer, said Wednesday that a message had been passed on to Assange by former Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Fitzgerald said a statement produced by Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, showed “Mr Rohrabacher going to see Mr Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way
Be brazen and you can get away with it.
For Trump, the very public nature of his efforts to corrupt law enforcement is a key feature of those efforts, not a byproduct of them that he pathologically can’t control.
If he does it publicly, it’s no longer corruption, it’s policy.
Barr is getting restive because Trump keeps tweeting about DoJ matters even though Barr gave him a very strong hint that he should quit it.
… Read the restBut Trump “has told those around him he is not going to stop tweeting about the Justice Department,” the Post report continues. According to officials, “Trump considers highlighting what he sees as misconduct at the FBI and Justice
Sure, Hogan Gidley. Whatever you say.
“The president is against aggressive sentencing,” whether it’s Alice Johnson or Rod Blagojevich, spokesman Hogan Gidley says on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/uxLnm6mFn4
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 19, 2020
Aaron Rupar at Vox 9 days ago:
President Donald Trump is campaigning on criminal justice reform efforts that reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders, while suggesting he’d like the American justice system to work more like ones in authoritarian countries where drug dealers are executed after “fair but quick” trials.
Well, exectution is a reduced sentence in a way…
… Read the restJust days after his Super Bowl ad and State of the Union speech highlighted his support for legislation that makes a modest effort to reduce prison sentences
Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said President Trump called him to say he should not backtrack on comments he made about Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s electability as a gay man.
“Hell, the president even called me about this!” Limbaugh said Monday on his show. “He said, ‘Rush, I just got to tell you something. Never apologize. Don’t ever apologize.'”
Which is all you really need to know about him. His core philosophy of life is to be indifferent to the needs of other people, to put himself first no matter what, to be a shit and to defend being a shit, to go on being a shit no matter what.… Read the rest
Who is Joe Grogan? According to his Twitter bio:
Assistant to the President & Director of the Domestic Policy Council Tweets may be archived: http://wh.gov/privacy
Which is kind of creepy since he apparently thinks of most of us as an occupying enemy.
Just landed in California. POTUS power swing through occupied territory. https://t.co/3juICy6NHN
— Joe Grogan 45 Archived (@joegrogan45) February 19, 2020
Power swing? What does that mean – that Trump and his goons will be shooting at people?
God I wish this were over.
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1229930791205056512… Read the restBrendan O’Neill is wrong about most things but not about the hot new trend of pretending reality can be altered by saying a magic word or two.
Imagine if a politician went on TV and said ‘The Earth is flat’. Or ‘Man didn’t really land on the Moon, you know’. We would worry about that politician’s fitness for public life. Well, Dawn Butler has just done the trans equivalent of that. She appeared on Good Morning Britain yesterday and said babies are born without a sex.
There are a lot of things you could say that about. Babies are born without a language. Babies are born without a religion. Babies are born without a driver’s license. Babies are born … Read the rest
The Nation piece the ACLU shared is by Dave Zirin, who does not have any personal stake in whether or not girls and women can continue to compete against other girls and women without an admixture of some boys and men who “identify as” women. He’ll be fine either way.
Naturally his piece reflects that indifference.
There is a right-wing campaign afoot using the presence of transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming women in sports as a stalking horse to attack the already limited and precarious civil rights held by the trans community.
That’s just a lie about “gender nonconforming women.” Nobody objects to gender nonconforming women in sport or on women’s teams. Nobody.
… Read the restAround the country, legislation is being introduced
The ACLU is still at it.
Trans and nonbinary people won’t simply be used as pawns.
Politicians who want to come for our rights, you’ll have to get through ALL OF US.https://t.co/2Xq59fbTq2
— ACLU (@ACLU) February 18, 2020
The image doesn’t really help them make their case – it comes across as a threat rather than a brave expression of solidarity. Miller and Yearwood are both conspicuously much bigger than the girls on the girls’ team, so the image just looks as if they’re going to run over us.… Read the rest
Trump is having an explosion of pardoning convicted rich corrupt white dudes today, when he’s not too busy pumping out illiterate tweets.
He’s commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the guy who tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat for $$$$.
I want to be clear how utterly despised Blagojevich was in his own party in Illinois (a Democratic powerhouse).
He was impeached 114-1. He was convicted in the IL Senate 59-0.
He tried to sell Obama's Senate seat for profit. He does not deserve commutation.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) February 18, 2020
But Trump knows better.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1229844681149833216Little did the shy boy from Queens ever dream he would some day be able to remedy the injustice.
… Read the restIt's outrageous that
The purification continues.
My support for trans rights has never been conditional. That’s why I signed the pledges despite opposing bureaucratic solutions to deeper problems.
My position is consistent: unrepentant transphobes/misogynists/antisemites etc. should be expelled where education does not work.
— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) February 18, 2020
And what are transphobes? Whatever the loudest trans activist says they are, of course.
Yes, as I’ve said above, unrepentant transphobes/racists/misogynists etc. should be expelled.
The Labour Party should educate those who are ignorant rather than ideological. And if they don’t respond to education, they should also be expelled.
— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) February 18, 2020
So feminist women who are “ideological” in the sense of continuing to think that women … Read the rest
