Overturned:

Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sexual assault and rape was overturned by New York’s highest court, reopening the landmark case that fueled the #MeToo movement and highlighting the challenges of holding powerful men accountable.

Many accusers of the former Hollywood movie mogul condemned Thursday’s decision, with the actress Ashley Judd telling reporters it was “an act of institutional betrayal.”

But maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was purely a matter of law and due process and all that.

In a bitterly divided 4-3 ruling, the state Court of Appeals said the trial judge made a critical mistake by letting women testify that Weinstein assaulted them, even though their accusations were not part of the charges he faced.

The

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Good one.

☠️☠️ cartoon! ☠️☠️ pic.twitter.com/zrnxjBsmJh

— Grizelda Cartoons (@GrizeldaG) April 22, 2024

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Here we see the problem with BBC reporting:

Girl, 13, charged after Ammanford school stabbings

Ok, we think, it’s the BBC, so…is the girl really a girl?

And we can’t tell by reading the piece.

A 13-year-old girl has been charged with three counts of attempted murder after two teachers and a pupil were stabbed at a school in south-west Wales. Dyfed-Powys Police said the teenager was arrested at the scene at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire.

Two teachers and a teenage pupil were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening stab wounds. They have all since been discharged.

And thanks to all the previous lying about the sex of various men who claim to be women, we can’t be sure … Read the rest

Trans trans über alles, über alles in der Welt.

The German Parliament, or Bundestag, passed one of the world’s most far-reaching sex self-determination policies on April 12, despite protests from women’s rights campaigners. The Self-Determination Act (SBGG) establishes ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic and allows parents to change the sex marker on their children’s documents from birth.

Hello Germany? That’s not self-determination. It’s parental determination.

Supported by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition and promoted and supported by the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the SBGG also creates the potential for citizens to be fined up to €10,000 (approx. $10,800 USD) for revealing a person’s given name and birth sex without their permission.

So the lie is protected by the … Read the rest

I can’t understand this at all. It seems as batshit crazy as trans ideology.

Supreme Court justices in Trump case lean toward some level of immunity

But Trump is the living breathing knockdown argument for why immunity is a really really bad idea.

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled sympathy on Thursday to the argument that presidents have some immunity against criminal charges for certain actions taken in office as it heard arguments over Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to undo his 2020 election loss.

He claims immunity for trying to steal the election. It’s an absurdity.

D. John Sauer, the lawyer arguing for Trump, painted a dire picture of the presidency without immunity.

“Without presidential

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Where would they be without the silly platitudes and the deceptive wording? At a complete loss, that’s where.

Scottish Greens shout

We must ensure that young people are supported and that their lived experience is at the heart of trans healthcare, says the Scottish Greens health spokesperson, Gillian Mackay MSP.

Why? Why must we or they or anyone make sure that anyone’s “lived experience” is at the heart of her/his/their healthcare? Healthcare isn’t a “lifestyle” choice, it’s a technology to prevent and cure illness and injury.

In a question to the Minister for Public Health, Jenni Minto, Ms Mackay said: “Many young people will be concerned about the effect of last week’s decision to pause the prescription of hormones on

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Ok here’s “Olly” of “Pop n Olly” –

I don’t like it – the minute plus 8 seconds I managed to watch – but then I’m primed not to like it. But then I’m primed not to like it for reasons, and some of the reasons are right there. He’s too fucking perky. I didn’t like excess perky when I was five, let alone older than that.

But more to the point, there’s a creepy mismatch between the perky bubbly twinkly presentation, meant for toddlers who don’t know many words yet, and the subject matter. If you’re going to do a tv series explaining “gender” and “identity” and “romantic love” and “sexual orientation” and “privilege” and “discrimination” and … Read the rest

Without the verbal tricks and cheats and concealments it would crash and burn in seconds.

https://twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1783057122487361755

Like that. In the first tweet it’s “sex” but in the second one it’s “legal sex” – meaning, of course, fake sex, pretend sex, not sex, unreal sex. But the switch is not mentioned, it just happens, as if inevitably. It’s smoke and mirrors, aka lies, and it shows what a cheat the whole thing is.

https://twitter.com/Finn_Mackay/status/1783058040280826018

There again. Of course trans people have human rights, and nobody says they don’t. The issue is that there is no such thing as a right to force everyone to agree you are the sex you are not. Trans people have the human rights that humans … Read the rest

In school. In SCHOOL.

https://twitter.com/JournalistJill/status/1783162925609300139

IN SCHOOL.… Read the rest

A whistle blower steps up:

I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor. 

Jamie Reed worked for several years at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teenagers and young adults who were HIV positive.

Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a transman, and together we are raising my two biological children from a previous marriage

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Oppositional defiance disorder:

Prosecutor Chris Conroy captured the quintessential Donald Trump in a single sentence at the ex-president’s hush money trial on Tuesday.

“He knows what he’s not allowed to do, and he does it anyway.”

Conroy was referring to Trump’s incessant testing of a gag order protecting witnesses, court staff and the jury. But there’s rarely been a better description of the presumptive GOP nominee’s entire approach to business and politics – or the way he’s promised to behave if voters send him back to the White House.

Business, politics, and everything else. He considers himself special, and entitled to defy whatever he feels like defying. Nobody gets to disobey him, but he gets to disobey everyone.

Only

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One lawyer’s view:

Agree. Trump's lawyers are likely to argue that while he came right up to the line he didn't cross over. But that's bunk. Either the gag order has teeth or it might as well not be there at all. https://t.co/1DyP6MmAt5

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 23, 2024

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Trump is busy testing them even as we speak.

This, posted after the disastrous gag order hearing this morning where the Judge told Trump's lawyer he was losing credibility with the court, resolves the issue of whether or not Trump might show better judgment now that the trial is underway. The answer, unsurprisingly, is no. pic.twitter.com/QBdTYD7HI3

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) April 23, 2024

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Now there’s a trial within the trial. The trial has been paused while the judge and the lawyers discuss what to do about Trump’s nonstop violations of the gag order.

Trump was warned he could face sanctions if he violated the order, “and here we are”, the prosecutor says.

They are now going over each of the social media posts where Trump allegedly broke the order, including one he reposted from Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer, who is now serving time in prison for extortion, tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement.

…

Some of the most striking moments so far have occurred when prosecutors have recited Trump’s own words back at him as he sits here in court.

Just

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A tiny flicker of hope?

The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”. Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, expressed support for women who express gender critical views, saying that they should not be “stigmatised” for saying them.

The Labour shadow justice secretary – not the Eating People’s Faces shadow justice secretary.

It comes after Wes Streeting earlier this month admitted that he had been wrong to say that “trans women are women” in the wake of the Cass review into NHS gender care.

If trans women are women then what does the “trans” in “trans women” mean? It’s double dipping, that’s what it is. They don’t … Read the rest

The public humiliation of Trump got under way this morning. It may be the only consolation we ever get.

The prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, presented to the jury that Trump’s “catch-and-kill” scheme with the National Enquirer was entirely geared towards helping the Trump 2016 campaign.

Colangelo contended there were three parts to the alleged conspiracy: that the National Enquirer would run positive coverage, the National Enquirer would attack political opponents and that the National Enquirer would act as the eyes and ears for the campaign to detect and suppress negative stories.

Journalism at its finest.

During much of Colangelo’s opening statement, Trump appeared uncomfortable in his seat with his brow furrowed while the unsavory details of the alleged affair with Daniels

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The Daily Mail three days ago:

A transgender runner who outraged many by entering last year’s London Marathon as a woman has revealed she won’t list herself in the female category when she runs the race again on Sunday. 

Glenique Frank, 55, sparked controversy last year after she competed in the female category of the colossal race in the English capital last April, with Olympian Mara Yamauchi claiming it was ‘wrong and unfair’. 

“Glenique.”

[T]he charity runner from Daventry is again preparing to take on the gruelling 26.2-mile race on April 21, albeit in a different category than last year. 

She is expected to compete as a non-binary athlete instead, a category that was introduced by marathon organisers

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Maximum self-determination at last:

The German Parliament, or Bundestag, passed one of the world’s most far-reaching sex self-determination policies on April 12, despite protests from women’s rights campaigners. The Self-Determination Act (SBGG) establishes ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic and allows parents to change the sex marker on their children’s documents from birth.

Entschuldigen sie Deutschland but that’s not self-determination. That’s the opposite of self-determination. Parents changing the sex marker on a newborn’s documents is parental determination, not self determination. Verstehen sie?

No, actually, it’s just that Genevieve Gluck Reduxx worded it confusingly. What she meant was that the law lets parents change their children’s sex marker retroactively, starting at age 5.

But arguably the most troubling aspect of

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There’s a situation at Columbia:

Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation from the White House and New York officials.

The atmosphere is so charged that Columbia officials announced students can attend classes and even possibly take exams virtually starting Monday – the first day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday set to begin in the evening.

Tensions at Columbia, and many universities, have been high ever since the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas. However, the situation at Columbia escalated in recent days after university officials testified before Congress last week

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Originally a comment by Artymorty on There’s no shame, no apology.

I have a sickening feeling that one reason the medical interference has been seen as okie doke is because so many people were doing it at the same time. There’s a “community” being built, and when there’s a “community,” well at least you won’t be lonely with your ruined body, you’ll be able to find other people in the same boat. Once that stops being the case, the interference stops looking quite so progressive. What does this mean? That much of the fervid proselytizing for medical interference has been recruitment – so that people who have already trashed their bodies will have a pool of potential fellow-miserables. A

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