All entries by this author

Guido, you’re blocking

Jul 9th, 2019 9:49 am | By

No, Trump can’t use his Twitter account as his official presidential account and still block people who say things he doesn’t like.

A federal appeals court says President Donald Trump can’t ban critics from his Twitter account. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel agreed with a lower court judge who said Trump violates the First Amendment when he blocks critics. In May of last year, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled the president was violating the constitutional rights of Americans by blocking them and thus, making them unable to see the president’s tweets.

The latest ruling came in a case

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Queen cannot say the same

Jul 9th, 2019 9:40 am | By

The spectacle of Donald Trump lecturing other people on how stupid they are.

But wait, there’s more.

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Guest post: Being an adult human female is not a club or a clique

Jul 8th, 2019 4:35 pm | By

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Which twin has the view?

(Notice Williams isn’t simultaneously trying to redefine “man”? Funny, that.)

Kinda gives the game away, doesn’t it?

Why do they define womanhood like this? Because it effectively excludes trans women from the class of women because trans women are not biologically identical to cis women.

GC feminists are just mean girls who are trying to keep transwomen out of the clubhouse. Changing the rules, moving the goalposts out pure spite.

“Centering” transness turns the dictionary itself into a transphobic, TERF plot to deny the REAL Cool Girls their due rights. When you think the universe is supposed to revolve around you, any bits that don’t are … Read the rest



This would put people at risk, if it were true

Jul 8th, 2019 3:44 pm | By

Cool story but is there a shred of truth in it?

Londoners Against Transphobia

Unfortunately, we had to cancel the planned protest against Women’s Place UK and Fairplay for Women due to concerns about the safety of attendants. We heard rumour of a counter-protest by more….’radical’ elements of the anti-trans community. This would have put people attending at risk of physical and psychological harm. If you wish to organise your own protest, please keep in mind that Posie Parker and Dr Julia Long may organise a counter protest where the aim may be to incite violence. We apologise for the situation, this was not how this wanted to go. If anyone ever claims that TERFs are being intimidated and silenced,

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Free to be a football star

Jul 8th, 2019 3:16 pm | By

Katie Herzog at The Stranger says Women’s Soccer is a Very Dykey Sport:

There’s a couple of major differences between women’s soccer and men’s soccer. One: The U.S. women are good at it. Two, women’s soccer is a hell of a lot gayer.

Yesterday, “content producer” Alex Binley from ITV News published an article about why, exactly, so many dykes excel at this sport.

Binley says it’s because there’s so much homophobia in the male version.

It’s hard to argue with that. Outside of the U.S., Canada, and a few other countries, soccer is both the most popular and the butchest sport on the block. Games tend to hyper-masculine environments, which are not exactly the most welcoming of men

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“I can say things about him” exclaims giant baby

Jul 8th, 2019 11:58 am | By

Trump says it’s fine for Trump to insult anyone he feels like insulting, but not the other way around. That’s Justice According to Toddlers.

Of course, there is damage to relations between the UK and the Trump White House too.

Mr Trump likes to dish out insults and criticism (remember his frequent belittling of Theresa May over Brexit, and his all out verbal attacks on the mayor of London) but he is pretty thin-skinned when the verbal arrows are aimed at him.

“Pretty” thin-skinned? He goes ballistic at the smallest criticism and even disagreement.

As the Foreign Office launched an investigation into the source of the leak to the Mail on Sunday, Mr Trump told reporters in New Jersey:

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A Jeffrey Epstein wannabe

Jul 8th, 2019 11:07 am | By

But this Never Happens:

Toronto police say a 22-year-old man is facing charges after he allegedly recorded women in a changing room at a popular shopping mall in the city on Saturday.

Officers allege the man, who cannot be identified because of a publication ban, went into a clothing store at the Eaton Centre at about 4 p.m. and entered a unisex changing room.

They allege the man then placed a “homemade recording device” on the floor between change room stalls and recorded multiple women changing.

They say one of the women noticed the device and notified both security and police.

Investigators say they found numerous video clips of unknown women on the man’s device.

Must be a mistake. … Read the rest



Some of the photos were discovered in a locked safe

Jul 8th, 2019 10:45 am | By

The Epstein hearing is today.

Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed a criminal indictment Monday charging billionaire Jeffrey Epstein with having operated a sex trafficking ring in which he sexually abused dozens of underage girls, allegations that have circulated around the politically connected businessman for years.

Epstein, 66, was arrested Saturday night at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey aboard his private jet upon returning from Paris.

Later that evening, federal agents executing a search warrant of Epstein’s mansion in New York City recovered and seized a “vast trove” of lewd photographs of young-looking women or girls, prosecutors said in a bail memorandum.

Some of the photos were discovered in a locked safe along with compact discs with

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Which twin has the view?

Jul 8th, 2019 8:46 am | By

Trans philosopher Rachel Anne Williams wrote this piece a year ago but the opening move snagged my attention.

Gender critical feminism aka “radical feminism” is the view that womanhood is best defined by reducing the category of “woman” to essential biological properties shared by cisgender aka non-trans women.

No. One, radical feminism is not a synonym for gender-critical feminism. Two, saying that woman=adult human female is not a “view,” it’s just a definition. That’s how we use the word; that’s what the word means. (Notice Williams isn’t simultaneously trying to redefine “man”? Funny, that.) That’s what the word (and its equivalent in many many other languages) means and has always meant going back as far as we can peer. A … Read the rest



Language guide

Jul 7th, 2019 4:51 pm | By

It seems that Amherst issued a guide to woke language but had to withdraw it hastily because of the storm of derision. But it was preserved. It’s woke all right.

(Isn’t this where I came in? Writing a satirical version about 100 years ago.)

It’s in sections. There’s a section for -isms, starting with Ableism and Ageism. Then there’s…

CISSEXISM

The system of belief that cisgender individuals are the privileged class and are more natural, normal or acceptable than transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary and/or gender-nonconforming people. This belief manifests as the systematic denial of rights to trans and nonbinary people and their routine mistreatment.

Hmm yes very fair and impartial. Let’s tweak it a little:

REALITY

There are two sexes,

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Highlights

Jul 7th, 2019 3:19 pm | By

Time to equalize their pay, no?

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Professionals within the prosecutor’s office

Jul 7th, 2019 11:27 am | By

Following up on the Alexander Acosta angle – Raul Reyes at CNN says he should resign. (The url indicates the piece dates from last March, but the headline says it’s updated, so it’s a mix of then and now.)

Until recently, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta was probably one of President Donald Trump’s least controversial Cabinet members. But now he is facing rising pressure over his handling of a sex offender case involving a well-connected billionaire.

On February 21, a federal judge ruled that Miami prosecutors, led by then-US Attorney Acosta, broke the law when they arranged a plea deal for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2008 without conferring with his victims. Although Epstein was accused of trafficking children for sex,

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Call Ken Starr

Jul 7th, 2019 11:11 am | By

A little more on the dashing little-girl fancier Jeffrey Epstein:

Saturday evening, federal agents carried out a search of his townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, according to witnesses who spoke to the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown, who has reported extensively both on Epstein’s alleged crimes and on a deal he received from the US attorney in Miami in 2008 during an investigation involving more than 30 underage victims.

Epstein is currently being held in New York, and is expected to be arraigned on Monday at a bail hearing in federal court in Manhattan. An anonymous source told the Herald they believe the hearing could allow Epstein to escape trial: “If they grant him bail,

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Define “upsetting” and “hateful”

Jul 7th, 2019 10:44 am | By

Opposing accounts are still opposing.

The National Theatre has denied accusations it refused to serve members of the LGBT community in its Green Room bar due to “gender or sexuality” discrimination.

No, it was due to “not flattering trans delusions” discrimination.

A group of lesbian women, straight women and men visited the bar on Friday  – the night before London’s Pride celebrations – and claim they were refused service and asked to leave by staff.

The “and men” is kind of interesting. I guess men are welcome no matter what and don’t have to fill out the form stating whether they’re gay or straight? But women do? Because _____?

The National Theatre confirmed it was investigating the claims although

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His administration will remain self-interested

Jul 7th, 2019 9:26 am | By

In the least surprising news ever, the UK ambassador to Washington is not impressed by the Trump administration. Someone leaked his emails to the Daily Mail.

In the messages, the UK’s ambassador Sir Kim Darroch said the White House was “uniquely dysfunctional” and “divided” under Donald Trump.

“We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction-riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept,” he said.

Ya, neither do we. Also on the list of no hopes that: less ignorant, less corrupt, less nepotistic, less xenophobic, less rights-abusing, less authoritarian.

Although Sir Kim said Mr Trump was “dazzled” by his state visit to the UK in June, the ambassador warned that his

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One count of sex trafficking of minors

Jul 6th, 2019 6:15 pm | By

Jeffrey Epstein’s hobby may have caught up with him at last.

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.

For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on

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His living room wasn’t tidy enough

Jul 6th, 2019 4:07 pm | By

Another “prosecute the victim” story.

One evening last summer, Mikhail Khachaturyan decided that his living room wasn’t tidy enough, so he summoned his three teenage daughters one by one and doused each with pepper spray.

There was little unusual about this evening in the Khachaturyan household, according to court records, except for one thing: The sisters decided they couldn’t take the violence and abuse anymore.

They waited until their father fell asleep in his rocking chair and attacked him with a kitchen knife and a hammer. He put up a fight, but died within minutes.

The Khachaturyan sisters, now aged 18, 19 and 20, were charged last month with premeditated murder, in a case that has drawn outrage and

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Send the victim to prison

Jul 6th, 2019 3:12 pm | By

Male boss sexually harasses female underling. She records one of his phone calls. She is sentenced to six months in prison.

Indonesia’s top court has rejected an appeal by a woman who was sentenced to six months in prison for recording and sharing a phone conversation she had with her boss to prove that he was sexually harassing her.

The Supreme Court said Baiq Nuril Maknun was guilty of spreading “indecent” material.

Her boss reported her to the police in 2015 after the recording was circulated.

Rights groups condemned the ruling.

Nuril had complained of getting lewd phone calls from the head teacher of the school she worked at in Mataram, a city on the island of Lombok.

So … Read the rest



Guest post: It’s not a myth

Jul 6th, 2019 2:41 pm | By

Guest post by Josh Slocum

Some people I know and respect have protested that academia is not in the grips of increasingly Maoist “liberal/progressive” young people. They say that it’s a right wing overreaction to isolated incidents. They then point out all that the right wing is doing to ruin the academy and strip colleges of funding.

Let me deal with the second claim first.

Yes. It’s a fact that corporatist politicians have slashed the budgets of our colleges and universities. Yes. I deplore it. Like you, I recognize it’s a huge institutional problem.

But as for “lefty madness is an isolated incident,” I part company with you. In fact, I think you’re dangerously wrong. Just wrong, not malicious. I’m … Read the rest



The melting of that great liberatory moment

Jul 6th, 2019 12:05 pm | By

I hate it when I agree with Brendan O’Neill, but it does happen sometimes. He’s dead-on with this one.

It’s Pride Month, all month because it’s the anniversary of Stonewall, which was a fine thing.

The gains made by gay-rights warriors over the past five decades have been amazing and important.

But the melting of that great liberatory moment into today’s bland and virtually mandatory forced Pride shenanigans is depressing. It tells a broader story about the demise of radical politics. The riotous counterculturalists of the Sixties and Seventies demanded freedom. They didn’t give a damn what the ‘moral majority’ thought of them  — they just wanted the moral majority to leave them alone.

(It’s not quite that simple. … Read the rest