Whiny male union boss tells women to shut up and take it. The union he’s boss of, I’m told, is 75% women.

.@UNISONSteve has decided he wants a private space where he gets to choose who's allowed to see him. pic.twitter.com/vDbNsqtPet

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 30, 2024

.@UNISONSteve has decided he wants a private space where he gets to choose who's allowed to see him. pic.twitter.com/vDbNsqtPet

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 30, 2024

He gets to choose who can see him, but those stupid bad phobic women who don’t want men watching them in the locker room do not get to choose who can see them. Bitches.… Read the rest

Snowless in October.

Japan’s Mount Fuji remained snowless on Tuesday, marking the latest date that its slopes have been bare since records began 130 years ago, the country’s weather agency said. The volcano’s snowcap begins forming on 2 October on average, and last year snow was first detected there on 5 October.

But because of warm weather, this year no snowfall had yet been observed on Japan’s highest mountain, said Yutaka Katsuta, a forecaster at Kofu Local Meteorological Office.

…

Japan’s summer this year was the joint hottest on record – equalling the level seen in 2023 – as extreme heatwaves fuelled by climate change engulfed many parts of the globe.

If it’s any comfort, Mount Rainier is never … Read the rest

Get the labels right.

Fascism is a form of authoritarianism, but not all authoritarians are fascists. Fascists have a transformative political project: to create a homogeneous people devoted to a messianic leader and to mobilize society for the sake of violent racial conflict. By contrast, monarchs or technocratic authoritarians – think of military dictatorships in Latin America – can be perfectly self-effacing: Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship during the 20th century was headed by a decidedly uncharismatic Portuguese economist, António Salazar. Fascists, on the other hand, base their legitimacy on popular acclamation: they celebrate mass rallies and create a spectacle of power.

So far Trump is filling the fascist bill without breaking a sweat.

So far so Trumpist, it would seem:

The Jackie Green tweet is from 2018 but it’s still worth noting.

Gender ideology is a boy not wanting to play with boy toys so he has to have surgery to correct a “birth defect”.

If you actually just listen to “trans people”, the whole game is exposed. pic.twitter.com/hvN996lsYf

— Sall Grover (@salltweets) October 28, 2024

So the punishment for playing with girly toys is castration?

Seems harsh.… Read the rest

What we can expect if he.

Priority numero uno is immigration, where Trump has promised to launch “the largest deportation program in history” and begin a promised legal war against birthright citizenship—the constitutional rule contained in the 14th Amendment that children of immigrants are automatic citizens if born in America.

Both of these are long-term projects. There will be a lengthy legal fight if Trump suddenly declares a constitutional guarantee no longer operable. There will be logistical and legal challenges with attempting to uproot millions of people out of their communities. The first shots in each of these fights, however, will likely come in the form of day-one orders.

But Trump has more urgent business, because he’s a convicted … Read the rest

No you didn’t.

Former President Donald J. Trump said that Michelle Obama had made a “big mistake” by criticizing him, as he responded on Monday for the first time to her recent searing comments about his mental state.

“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” said Mr. Trump, who in 2011 spent weeks spreading the lie that Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, was actually born in Kenya, with the insinuation being that he was therefore illegitimately in office. He added, “She opened up a little bit of a box.”

No, he didn’t always try to be so nice and respectful. He never tried to be that. He doesn’t do nice and respectful. He expects nice … Read the rest

Mediaite reports:

The PAC founded by billionaire Elon Musk in support of Donald Trump dropped a new ad on Sunday labeling Vice President Kamala Harris “a C word” that America “can’t afford.”

Musk founded America PAC, a super PAC in support of Trump, in July of this year. He’s been speaking at rallies for Trump, including Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York City, and until recently was running a million-dollar-a-day contest for registered voters in swing states who signed a petition put out by the PAC. Those giveaways were suspended after a warning from the DOJ.

But the PAC has continued other activities, including campaign ads like the one shared Friday, which as of Sunday evening

They want to have it both ways.

The rally began with Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and podcast host, assailing Puerto Rico – in the city that’s home to the largest Puerto Rican population on the US mainland. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans also live in battleground Pennsylvania, where Harris campaigned on Sunday.

“There’s a lot going on, like, I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” he said. “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The line was well-received by Trump supporters who filled the historic arena in Midtown Manhattan. Trump has recently taken to calling the US “a garbage can for the world” when he rails

Yes this is what we need – people setting fire to ballot boxes.

Authorities are investigating after at least two ballot boxes were set on fire Monday morning in the Portland, Oregon, area.

Police responded to a call about a fire in Portland about 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. An “incendiary device” was placed inside the box and security personnel extinguished the fire, officials said.

A second ballot box was set on fire early Monday morning at a bus station in nearby Vancouver, Washington, according to the Vancouver Police Department. When officers arrived, they found a “suspicious device” next to the box, which was smoking and on fire, police said.

The Clark County

Wait a minute let me stop you right there.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Fox & Friends: "I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian rather than the truths that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had … the crowd, they didn't mind." pic.twitter.com/Kq7OlNv5P5

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 28, 2024

Fox bro: “…the mainstream media picked up on the comic’s comments, which were offensive, been denounced by the campaign n everybody else, what went on with that?” Sleazybarbie, talking like a weary mommy adjudicating a squabble between toddlers: “Look, it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste.” Well ok then. … Read the rest

AP headline:

Trump’s Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults

Crude, racist, and sexist.

With just over a week before Election Day, speakers at the rally Sunday night labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies

Training medical staff to ignore physical realities:

Women are ‘transphobic’ if they do not want to share a bathroom with a transgender colleague, NHS staff have been told.

As always, the issue is male colleagues, not “transgender” colleagues.

Women’s rights campaigners wrote to NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard to criticise the ‘partisan and ideological’ training and demand that it be amended earlier this month.

Last night, after being contacted by the Mail, the NHS admitted that it has since withdrawn the training module and that it will be replaced ‘in the next few weeks’. 

…

The training manual, which included five ‘case studies’, required staff to answer ten multiple-choice questions to test whether they are discriminatory.

In one section

A friend writes:

Let’s talk about the vice president.

There are memes and arguments going around that Kamala Harris has performed badly (or not at all) as our vice president. The White House and the Democrats have not done much to educate the public about her role and accomplishments.

And that’s probably true of most vice presidents. The only memory I have of Mike Pence is his action to prevent a coup when Donald Trump wanted to stay in power after losing an election. And my recollection of Joe Biden in the Obama administration is almost entirely limited to humor about his friendship with the president.

The Constitution requires only two things of the vice president. They must take on … Read the rest

It’s not a belief though.

Wes Streeting said “something has gone wrong in our society” as he met NHS nurses fighting to keep biological males out of a women’s changing room in their hospital.

The health secretary confirmed his belief that sex is biological, according to the “Darlington Five” nurses, who handed in a 48,000-name petition at No 10. It called for party leaders to “stand up for women” to ensure they had access to single-sex changing rooms and lavatories.

It’s not a belief. Knowing that men are not women [because their “biological sex” is male] is not a belief. Not knowing that men are not women can be a belief (as opposed to just a mistake and/or lack … Read the rest

The Scottish Greens will redouble efforts to improve trans healthcare in Scotland, working on practical ways to protect and expand access to gender affirming care. #SGPconf https://t.co/ZFriXxLLf7 pic.twitter.com/oGuoyapork

— Scottish Greens (@scottishgreens) October 27, 2024

You know…it occurs to me to wonder what’s “green” about this.

What’s the goal? All kinds of high-tech fiddling with people’s bodies, using lots of resources, for a goal that’s both impossible and the antithesis of letting nature take its course. For what? For a silly fairy tale, for a game of let’s pretend. How is it green to cheer that on when the reasons for it are so flimsy?

It’s a bad fit.… Read the rest

The stink gets even worse.

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

And that’s not just a matter of Bezos having a busy day.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Oh yes? What kind of reservations?

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are

Target the…community centers?

Pro-Palestine protesters have been filmed “aggressively intimidating” attendees at a Jewish community centre as Metropolitan Police officers were accused of “sitting in their cars”.

A group of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside West Hampstead’s JW3 community centre earlier today. Tel Aviv-based newspaper Haaretz was hosting a conference at the JW3 in North London, with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ex-Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr Nasser Alkidwa in attendance.

…

An eyewitness claimed there was “very little police presence” as only a “handful” of officers actively responding to the protest. They also accused a number of officers of remaining seated in their vehicles nearby rather than confronting the crowd.

Another video heaped more pressure on Scotland Yard after

Well, she’s not wrong.

Michelle Obama stood before a few thousand people at an event center in Kalamazoo on the first day of early voting in Michigan and confessed she was frustrated — and a “little angry” — at some of the things she’s heard about why people are holding back on support for Vice President Harris.

Speaking directly to the stark gender divide that polls show is a feature of this presidential campaign, Obama railed against “the lie that we do not know who Kamala is or what she stands for,” saying too many voters are shrugging off former President Donald Trump’s character and his track record on a wide range of issues.

…

“I hope you’ll forgive

It’s never possible to hate women enough. There’s always more to be done.

What is the “end game” here? Forbid #women in #Afghanistan to breathe?
What is particularly astonishing to me is that like the rest of humanity, every single one of those issuing and enforcing these edicts came from a woman’s womb and has/had a mother at some point. To be so keen… https://t.co/Dn7XYBTwhg

— Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls (@UNSRVAW) October 27, 2024

… Read the rest

That’s so Trump.

Trump says his biggest White House mistake was hiring ‘disloyal people’

It’s like those people who say “My biggest fault is being too generous/kind/caring/empathetic.”

Those comments – which also described “neocons”, or neoconservatives who generally aim to promote democracy, as “bad people” – came days after the Trump White House’s former chief of staff John Kelly said the Republican nominee in the 5 November election met the definition of a fascist.

Oh that kind of “disloyal” – disloyal to him personally, in the sense of being aware of his many massive flaws. Loyal to the country, loyal to the people, loyal to his values, but not loyal to The Monster.… Read the rest