Morning Star reports on the WPUK meeting on Saturday:

Woman’s Place UK (WPUK) know better than most how challenging it can be, simply being able to gather together to discuss women’s rights. Many of their meetings have suffered intimidation, threats of violence, even a bomb scare.

A group of around 30 protesters did make a brief appearance as delegates arrived, claiming that the organisers were trans-exclusionary.

How dare women gather to talk about women’s rights.

In the packed hall, Pragna Patel, co-founder of Southall Black Sisters, helped kick-start the day, telling the crowd: “What a hopeful moment in history we have reached as feminists — and I know you’re thinking ‘what is she talking about’?”

Her optimism sprang, she

… Read the rest

Yes but also a bit of no.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1224325600770428928

I suppose it’s probably true that he thinks “the base will love this” with every insult, but I also think he does it because he likes it, and that that’s who he is. He’s a profoundly nasty man, one who lashes out in rage at anybody who annoys him, no matter how close or loyal. Nastiness aka cruelty is at the core of his being, and one of his favorite activities.

It does appeal to the base, though, and how depressing is that? A hefty fraction of the population is thrilled and amused and energized by deliberate hostile cruelty and bullying from a gilded real estate fraud who frauded his way into … Read the rest

It’s all about the coastal elites. Never mind soaring inequality, never mind low wages and de-unionization and crumbling schools, none of that matters, the real issue is coastal elites who don’t paint names on their barns. Well not names exactly; one name. But let’s pretend we mean names in general.

This take explains so much…

Coastal elites can’t fathom someone having so much pride in their President they would paint the roof of their barn…

Somehow they will manage to be shocked all over again this November. #tcnt https://t.co/wSFmMWT2tW

— Nick Zerwas (@NickZerwas) February 2, 2020

Would Nick Zerwas have said the same about, say, a grandchild of sharecroppers who painted OBAMA on the roof of a barn?… Read the rest

Why yes, this is what we’ve been saying all along.

I love having “transitioned to female” but oh gee I do miss the benefits of male privilege in business/career matters. My technology clients pay attention to me when I use my dudely real name and gosh darn it I miss that.

It’s so unfair that I have to think about this!

/sarcasm

Image via Lady Mondegreen… Read the rest

More video of men preventing women from talking.

https://twitter.com/kobakills161/status/1223838577957560320… Read the rest

At the Seattle Public Library last night:

I thought this uploaded last night. Anyways, video of the five who were arrested & removed from SPL #Newmisogyny (the 4 in front of me & the dude in a red dress behind me). pic.twitter.com/V5gzh339jN

— Amy Eileen Hamm (@preta_6) February 2, 2020

Men shouting so that women can’t speak. New boss same as the old boss.… Read the rest

“Happy Brexit Day”

Aka we hate you and think we now have licence to persecute and shame you.

BBC Norfolk:

“Happy Brexit Day” notices telling residents “we do not tolerate” people speaking languages other than English have been posted at a block of flats.

Who’s we, one wonders. Whatever damn fool wrote that notice is not the “we” of everyone living in that block of flats.

A resident of Winchester Tower in Norwich first spotted them at 06:00 GMT on Friday, as first reported in the Eastern Daily Press.

The man, who does not want to be named, has reported the signs – which he said were on every floor – to the police.

Full text:

As we

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Papito on “Morality” sounds better than “submit or else.”

I was idly contemplating these themes this morning as I walked down to the greengrocer for limes. I passed by the house of one of my daughter’s friends, whose parents had pulled her out of her very progressive school for a more traditional school that didn’t impress me very much, with the goal of later attending a school my son found utterly dehumanizing. I like the girl, and her parents as well, but why they would make such a choice didn’t really compute for me until I remembered that they are practicing Catholics (as opposed to cultural Catholics or recovering Catholics, no offense intended please). The doctrine … Read the rest

CNN is harsher than the Post.

The Department of Justice revealed in a court filing late Friday that it has two dozen emails related to the President Donald Trump’s involvement in the withholding of millions in security assistance to Ukraine — a disclosure that came just hours after the Senate voted against subpoenaing additional documents and witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, paving the way for his acquittal.

The filing, released near midnight Friday, marks the first official acknowledgment from the Trump administration that emails about the President’s thinking related to the aid exist, and that he was directly involved in asking about and deciding on the aid as early as June. The administration is still blocking those emails from the

… Read the rest

Oh is that so.

Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged in a midnight court filing Friday the existence of two dozen emails that reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine.

Was there a “neener neener” attached?

The Department of Justice filed a response to a lawsuit seeking access to unredacted copies of those communications. Heather Walsh, a lawyer for the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to the court that 24 of those emails were protected under “presidential privilege.”

“Specifically, the documents in this category are emails that reflect communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President’s immediate advisors regarding

… Read the rest

More from #WomensLib2020:

https://twitter.com/ruthserwotka/status/1223657584516837380

Fifty years ago I was 15. I’m so grateful to the women who campaigned, organised, wrote, and empowered other women, so that my life could be so different from that of so many girls who went before me. I want my granddaughters to enjoy the same rights #sisterhood
#WomensLib2020

— Jane Waring (@warijan) February 1, 2020

The hashtag du jour is #womenslib2020 for today’s @Womans_Place_UK event. Sorry I can’t be there. There’s nothing that makes me prouder than standing alongside you lot.

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) February 1, 2020

Feeling so sad for young women outside chanting ‘be nice’ while inside there’s a range of fantastic stalls covering different aspects of women’s rights & now they

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There was a Women’s Party UK event today at University College London aka UCL.

https://twitter.com/8RosarioSanchez/status/1223526343507349505

There were also people protesting the event – not godbothering fanatics who think their god ordained that women should be subordinate and submissive, but genderbothering fanatics who think women should shut up and let men who say they are women do all the talking.

https://twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1223542898521772033

It seems only yesterday that women were allowed to meet and talk and organize around women’s rights and women’s concerns without others on the left protesting this suspicious activity.

What do they think this conference is? #WomensLib2020 pic.twitter.com/zgUGrDgknA

— Helen Staniland (@helenstaniland) February 1, 2020

Sweet summer child there on the right – no, trans lib is not women’s lib. … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on “Militant secularists” again.

What values exactly, is there some secularist tome I can refer to

Barr probably knows, but assumes his audience doesn’t, or that they agree with him, that the only value they are really concerned about is the value of freedom to make up your own mind about god. The freedom to send your children to school without being converted to a believe they find unacceptable.

Barr believes that what secularists want is like what Christians want – to send their children to school to have their beliefs reinforced, and to convert all the other little kids to their beliefs. Some secularists probably want this, but on the whole, we want … Read the rest

I hate quoting National Review…

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said earlier this week that she would only nominate a Secretary of Education who was pre-screened by a “young transgender person” in order to ensure that her pick would be “committed to creating a welcoming environment, a safe environment, and a full educational curriculum for everyone.”

Wellllll…except for women of course. But that’s ok, women are such a tiny minority compared to transgender persons.

Speaking Sunday at a townhall in Iowa, Warren responded to a question about how to address a lack of LGBTQ history and sexual education in public schools.

That’s a bad question in the first place. L and G are not the same as T, and … Read the rest

Of course he has.

US President Donald Trump has lifted restrictions on the deployment of anti-personnel landmines by American forces.

Trump never met a form of violence (against other people of course) he didn’t like. So landmines linger on for decades after the war or insurgency or invasion is over, killing and maiming generations of children, farmers, and other people rash enough to walk in places where there are unexploded mines buried out of sight, so what? It won’t be Donald Trump they blow up so who cares?

The decision reverses a 2014 Obama administration ban on the use of such weapons, which applied everywhere in the world except for in the defence of South Korea.

Of course … Read the rest

This is a very bad and stupid piece of writing.

Earlier this month, the Seattle Public Library decided that it will allow a group of trans-exclusionary “radical feminists” (TERFs) to hold an event centered on rejecting the rights and identities of transgender people.

The first sentence, and already so bad. It wasn’t earlier this month, for a start, but more to the point, the library did not decide it will allow a group of trans-exclusionary “radical feminists” to hold an event centered on rejecting the rights and identities of transgender people. The library accepted a booking from a feminist group to discuss and defend the rights of women in the context of ever-broader demands from men who … Read the rest

Bet you haven’t seen anything this wack before!

https://twitter.com/FakeSermon/status/1223085223136632832

I don’t think it’s wrong, sinful, for a girl baby to have a sleeper on.

BUT.

Of course there’s a but.

It’s not sinful if she’s just, like, a month.

But hey once she knows those things are PANTS –

That’s whOle other kettle of fish, my friend. Whole other.

Men wrap each leg. Women DO NOT. Are we clear? This is a rule straight from God, so don’t be getting it wrong, or you know what will happen.… Read the rest

If Ivanka Trump invited me to a feminist event she was hosting at the White House would I feel flattered and hop right along? Hell no. I’m not the only one.

The Washington Post is now reporting that eight anti-trafficking organizations have decided not to attend an Ivanka-planned White House event on Friday ostensibly dedicated to combatting human trafficking, citing the administration’s inhumane policies. The event is centered around a new federal law that designates trafficking as a felony offense.

“We have such a chasm between rhetoric and reality. I don’t think any of us have the desire to be a part of a photo op,” said Martina Vandenberg of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, one of the organizations

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China is making gigantic efforts to fight the Coronavirus. Laurie Garrett says the US won’t be able to match China’s efforts should the need arise.

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is – not just for the public but for the government itself, which

… Read the rest