NBC’s interview with Barr:

Attorney General William Barr said he still believes the FBI may have operated out of “bad faith” when it investigated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and he contends the FBI acted improperly by continuing the investigation after Donald Trump took office.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Barr essentially dismissed the findings of the Justice Department’s inspector general that there was no evidence of political bias in the launching of the Russia probe, saying that his hand-picked prosecutor, John Durham, will have the last word on the matter.

Except that’s not how it works. The inspector general oversees the Justice Department, not the other way around. Barr’s personal prosecutor doesn’t get to … Read the rest

Banana Republic stuff:

Attorney General Bill Barr’s NBC News interview attacking the FBI stunned many legal and government experts on Tuesday.

After Barr criticized Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s finding that the FBI’s investigations into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential election was justified, he also accused the FBI of running a “bad faith” investigation and said actions like that represent the biggest threat to the integrity of American elections.

Don Moynihan, a professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, was astonished by the attorney general’s attacks on the law enforcement agencies that he oversees.

“The Attorney General is saying that the FBI is a bigger threat to the United States than Russia,” 

… Read the rest

Julie Bindel is not impressed by Jo Swinson.

On the Today programme this morning, Jo Swinson, in her bumbling, inarticulate and irritating fashion suggested that biological sex does not exist. Yes, that’s right. A woman who has said, on many an occasion, that her female sex has given an unfair advantage to the male party leaders during the election campaign due to sexism, has effectively undermined her own argument. Because, for sexism to exist, so too must biological sex.

Indeed, and for male party leaders to have an unfair advantage over female candidates, there have to be male and female – real male and female, not subjective feelings of having a male or female essence or soul or idenniny.… Read the rest

The Seattle Times has a piece on the campaign to bully the library into canceling the feminist event scheduled for February 1. It’s a classic of the type, in treating The Trans Community as The Oppressed Group and feminist women as the oppressors – not just the oppressors but the obvious oppressors, the eternal oppressors, the everyone knows they’re oppressors oppressors. It’s as if that whole thing where people started to realize that it wasn’t somehow written into the laws of the cosmos that women had to be second-class citizens had never happened.

All the more pathetic since it’s a woman who wrote the piece. This woman:

“Libraries are an institution…situated in a society that is inherently sexist &

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by KB Player on Any Man.

Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was on Today Radio 4 BBC this morning. Sarah Ditum spoke about it on LBC.

“When the leader of the Liberal Democrats was asked, “Do you recognise biological sex exists?”

J Swinson replied: “Not on a binary – I don’t think things are as binary as is often presented. Yes most people are male or female.”

“I think it’s an answer that sounds extremely strange if you haven’t been immersed in the whole debate about sex and gender for a really long time,” said Sarah Ditum, feminist critic and columnist, “the problem for Jo Swinson is the Liberal Democrats have cultivated … Read the rest

Call me crazy but maybe an active volcano is not an ideal tourist destination? Possibly?

Because

This is so hard to believe. Our whole tour group were literally standing at the edge of the main crater not 30 minutes before. My thoughts with the families of those currently unaccounted for, the people recovering now, and especially the rescue workers… pic.twitter.com/mn704hobRk

— Michael Schade (@sch) December 9, 2019

There are 5 dead and 8 missing.

The survivors were taken off the uninhabited island by boat or by helicopter. Emergency services have so far been unable to search the area because of dangerous conditions, with plumes of smoke and ash continuing to rise above the volcano on Tuesday.

Tourists had been

… Read the rest

Abortion rights? The Supreme Court looks the other way.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a Kentucky law requiring doctors to describe ultrasound images and play fetal heartbeat sound to abortion seekers.

…

Challengers, including an abortion clinic, argued that the law forced patients to see the images even if she didn’t want to, and that it violated doctors’ First Amendment rights.

…

Civil rights groups blasted the court’s decision not to take up the challenge.

“By refusing to review the 6th Circuit’s ruling, the Supreme Court has rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “This law is not only unconstitutional, but as

… Read the rest

They just can’t get this right. The BBC on Jo Swinson and the LibDems and “reform” of the Gender Recognition Act:

Critics of the Lib Dems plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act, including some women’s rights groups and Christian organisations, have warned that it will make it easier for someone born as a man but now identifying as a women to gain access to women-only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, prisons and women’s refuges.

No. They have warned that it will make it easier for any man to gain access to women-only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, prisons and women’s refuges, whether he identifies as a woman or not.

Ms Swinson was challenged on the

… Read the rest

Let’s hear from more women in philosophy! Philosophy as a discipline is notoriously bad at hiring women, so let’s strain every nerve to fix that.

Unless we don’t like them, of course.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1204067165776863232… Read the rest

Guy from InfoWars busking at the impeachment inquiry.… Read the rest

Trump, addressing a Jewish audience, regales them with anti-Semitic tropes.

On Saturday, speaking before the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida, President Trump engaged in the anti-Semitic trope of a Jewish obsession with wealth. Discussing Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan for a wealth tax, he said that Jews in the audience should “be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes.”

Geddit? Money? Jews n money?

He doubled down on the bigoted tropes, broadcasting a harmful claim about Jewish business dealings. “A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well, you’re brutal killers,” Trump said. “You’re not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me.

… Read the rest

Hannah Mouncey explains how cruel and unfair it is to exclude him from women’s anything:

I cannot lie—it would have been terrific to have been able to provide the trans community with a visible symbol of the fact that progress is being made towards greater acceptance, but if society is not at that stage then so be it. That time will come, and it is only because we shine a light on these situations and use our own negative experiences to give others strength, that we will eventually make the progress we as a community wish would happen today.

I am not myself actively involved in the trans community, short of attending the Transcend Christmas party each year and speaking

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Appearance counts.

This whole sorry saga reminds me heavily of Nhlanhla Nene.

Siyabonga Nene, Nhlanhla’s son, and his business partner Muhammad Amir Mirza had approached the Public Investment Corporation for a business loan when Nhlanhla was in charge there.

The plan was that their company, Indiafrec Trade and Invest would use the money to buy a 50% stake in S&S Refinery LDA in Mozambique.

The thing is – Nhlanhla was in fact furious with his son for the attempted use of him as a connection, and it was only after Siyabonga resigned from Indiafrec Trade and Invest that eventually the loan went through.

Siyabonga so far as anyone is aware, never saw … Read the rest

Trump is terribly worried about his dear friend the Saudi king.

When a Saudi Air Force officer opened fire on his classmates at a naval base in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday, he killed three, wounded eight and exposed anew the strange dynamic between President Trump and the Saudi leadership: The president’s first instinct was to tamp down any suggestion that the Saudi government needed to be held to account.

Hours later, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter that he had received a condolence call from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who clearly sought to ensure that the episode did not further fracture their relationship. On Saturday, leaving the White House for a trip here for a Republican fund-raiser and a

… Read the rest

News from India:

An Indian woman who was set on fire on her way to testify against her alleged rapists has died of her injuries.

The 23-year-old died late on Friday after suffering cardiac arrest at a Delhi hospital. She had 90% burns.

She was attacked on Thursday as she was walking to a hearing in the rape case she filed against two men in March in Unnao, in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Cis privilege.

H/t Holms… Read the rest

Biden continues to be a jerk.

Joe Biden vehemently defended how he handles criticisms of his son Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine Friday night, one day after he got into a heated exchange with a man who asked him about his role in his son’s work at a campaign event.

“Every time I’ve been asked about it, my response has been, ‘This is about Donald Trump, period, period, period,” the former vice president told reporters aboard his campaign bus in Iowa Friday night, when asked about his answers to questions about his son.

That’s not for him to say. He did nothing when his son accepted a lavishly compensated job that he would never have been offered if he … Read the rest

The Sunday Times reports:

A woman who asked for her NHS breast-screening to be carried out by a female-born clinician was pilloried as a transphobe by a hospital trust.

Clare Dimyon, 54, who was raped as a teenager and is a lesbian, wrote formal letters asking to be seen by a “natal female” when she went for a mammogram on Christmas Eve last year.

She made clear that after being violated by a man when she was “little more than a child” she did not consent to intimate procedures being carried out by people born as boys.

Hey you know what, we shouldn’t have to cite traumatic experiences to want a woman doing that job. I’ll tell you why: … Read the rest

The Seattle Public Library is (of course) being flooded with how dare yous.

Due to the very high volume of response we are receiving about a Feb. 1 Women's Liberation Front private event, we are unable to respond to every comment. Each is being tracked and taken seriously. For more, please see our Chief Librarian's statement:https://t.co/cQwhRtcAv4

— Seattle Public Library (@SPLBuzz) December 7, 2019

One source of the very high volume of response is on reddit:

The Seattle Public Library is hosting a TERF event on February 1st. If you have time, please call and leave a complaint, (206) 386-4636

What group is this? r/MtF. Not an umbrella group for trans people but a group specifically for men … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on We can’t tell.

Trans activists have insisted their goal is to remove all distinctions between transwomen and women, but they have an unspoken secondary objective: the removal of all distinctions between transwomen and men. And when your group is literally indistinguishable from men, you don’t get to simultaneously argue that your group is distinguishable from them. If these people insist they aren’t men, why the hell are they working so hard to dismantle every possible metric, every check and balance that could be used to separate “genuine” transwomen from ordinary men?

It’s trans activists who insisted on removing all material distinctions between transwomen and men, complaining that womanhood was being guarded by … Read the rest

So why did Essex cancel the seminar? Well it’s like this…

https://twitter.com/mattlodder/status/1202724292892536834

Oh no, clearly it’s something else altogether. Mice in the walls, perhaps?

https://twitter.com/moose_malloy/status/1202892890202087424

Ohhhhh, concerns were raised about the speaker. Say no more. In that case what could the university possibly do but cancel the seminar? Concerns. [shudder] It doesn’t bear thinking about.

https://twitter.com/moose_malloy/status/1202952629820760067

They literally just raised concerns! That’s all! There is nothing sinister about that at all whatsoever, and it is never a herald of glass-shattering levels of outrage and protest and shrieking and threats.

Let us all pray that no one ever Raises Concerns about us.… Read the rest