Poor Trump, he can’t even get Brett Kavanaugh to agree that he has the powers of an absolute monarch.

A Washington, D.C., appeals court issued a blistering takedown Tuesday of Donald Trump’s arguments that he has “presidential immunity” against criminal proceedings—including a savage citation from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he cannot be prosecuted for trying to change the 2020 election results because he has presidential immunity. One of his arguments is that the separation of powers prevents state and federal officials from judging official presidential acts. He claims that the 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison established this precedent.

But “former President Trump misreads Marbury and its progeny,” the three-judge panel said in

Republicans say Trump had every right to try to steal the presidency via insurrection.

As officials across the country consider whether to bar former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot over his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, a contingent of House Republicans are trying to bolster his claim that he did nothing wrong.

More than 60 Republicans — led by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and Representative Elise Stefanik of New York — said Tuesday they had signed onto a resolution declaring that Mr. Trump “did not engage in insurrection.”

Babes we all saw him do it; he did it on live tv.… Read the rest

Pushing gay men to be inclooosive of women who call themselves men: peak progressiviosity.

Generations of gay men were taught to be ashamed of desiring male bodies specifically – and now @LNER is pushing its own version of this old homophobia. A 'non-cisgendered gay man'? That's a woman. We know the difference and we are not ashamed to state it. pic.twitter.com/xNVRq977E6

— Jonny Best (@JonnyWorst) February 6, 2024

[Mimsy voice] “This version has different shades of green and blue to include non cisgender gay men.”

Well dudes whatcha waitin for?… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Seanna Watson on Mandatory Xianity.

Canada still has one too:

The purpose of the National Prayer Breakfast is to unite leaders in our capital in order to pray together, build relationships, and seek to walk together in the spirit of Jesus Christ. The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual Christian event and is historically offered under the auspices of the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons on behalf of the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast Group.

It’s also sponsored by the Canadian Fellowship Foundation, which appears to be related to the US group of the same name (though details are sparse, and I occasionally have wondered if Sharlet might know … Read the rest

Khadija Khan at the Freethinker:

The culture of intolerance that has grown over time in the UK has undermined the ethos of British schools. As Islamist zealots grow stronger in influence in our society, a number of schools known for their secular, inclusive and apolitical approach, such as St Stephen’s Primary School, Parkfield Community School, Batley Grammar School, Kettlethorpe High School, and Barclay Primary School, have been caving in to their demands one after the other.

There has been an attempt by Muslim fundamentalists in the UK to politicise educational institutions, in order to gain clout in [the] social and political sphere.  And now these nefarious elements have come out in force to assert their intolerant

Good news but with a catch.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to President Biden.

We should damn well hope so. But he’ll just take it to the Supremes and they’ll roll over for him.

The unanimous ruling, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, handed Mr. Trump a significant defeat. But it was unlikely to be the final word on his claims of executive immunity: Mr. Trump,

Another win.

🚨🚨Dundee Women's Festival🚨🚨

Please see attached our statement regarding our exclusion from the Dundee Women's Festival 2024 Programme of Events. pic.twitter.com/Sz16Kxl4VD

— Women Won’t Wheesht (@WWWheesht) February 5, 2024

More from The Courier:

A campaign group controversially excluded from Dundee Women’s Festival is now being invited to take part in the programme.

Women Won’t Wheesht, a grassroots women’s rights organisation in Scotland, heard on Monday from solicitors acting on behalf of the festival to confirm their inclusion.

The climbdown comes after the group claimed it would consider legal action after being told by festival organisers last month that their application had been rejected.

It’s so inspiring when feminist women are excluded from women’s events because they’re not … Read the rest

The BBC squeals:

Royal Court play Cowbois aims to put ‘trans joy’ centre stage

Surely that should be joi?

A Royal Court play aims to bring trans stories to a new audience in London with an LGBTQ+ take on the Wild West.

Which is it? Trans, or LGBTQ+? Trans, apparently, so why does the BBC call it LGBTQ+?

I suppose we know why. They do it to further the campaign to force-team the LG with the T. Why that’s part of the BBC’s job is a mystery too profound for me to solve.

The producers of Cowbois say the play, first seen at the Royal Shakespeare Company, is for everyone but particularly those less familiar with trans identities.

Writer Charlie

BBC reports excitedly on another installment of Mock Women:

The first Derbyshire Drag Showcase has been announced.

The event, which is being held at Derby’s Museum of Making, has been set up to support Derby and Derbyshire’s drag scene and local LGBTQ+ performers.

We get not one not two but three glam photos of men in exaggerated womanface. Next up: the BBC reporting giddily on a minstrel show, with three photos of people in exaggerated blackface. Right? That’s going to happen, isn’t it?

Mr Webber explained why the museum was the place of choice for the first-ever drag showcase the county has had to offer.

“We fully appreciate that drag is an art form and it’s all about making,

Apparently there’s an epidemic of women not being kind enough, so the manufacturers of T shirts for women and girls are stepping up to fix the problem. Julie Burchill has the details:

We may no longer accept the old saw, ‘boys will be boys’, as an excuse for everything from arson to zoophilia. But the icky trend for ‘be kind’ clothing is aimed squarely at one sex. As the social commentator, Laura Bishop, tells me: ‘While shopping for my kids I noticed that there are so many items of clothing which say “be kind”. They are all in the girls’ and women’s section. Every. Single. One. It’s like indoctrination.’

Indoctrination into what?

Submission. Self-abnegation. Putting up with whatever is … Read the rest

“Gender studies” academic Susan M. Shaw muddies the waters:

We don’t really have much research-based evidence to say definitively that trans women have a disproportionate advantage in sports. Right now, we’re mostly working out of our deeply-held and rather largely unexamined assumptions about biology and gender.

We do have much research-based evidence to say definitively that men have a disproportionate advantage in sports, and that’s all that’s required.

We could live in a different world. We could live in a world where male advantages simply evaporated the instant the man says “I’m a woman.” But we don’t live in that world. Multiple male advantages are baked in, and don’t go away even for men who take cross-sex hormones.

As

Aw look at Colin “Katy” Montgomerie bullying a teenage girl.

The 95+ replies are…acerbic.… Read the rest

We still have “National Prayer Breakfast.” In the government. FFRF tells us:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation reiterates its disapproval of the National Prayer Breakfast held today, including President Biden’s involvement, the U.S. Capitol venue and the overarching Christian message.

The 71st annual event, although technically private, had an even stronger appearance this year of being sponsored by the federal government because it took place for the first time in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Historically, when under the open sponsorship of the Fellowship, a shadowy Christian nationalist group, the main event took place at a hotel.

Steps, innit. Start out in private and inch your way into the god damn Capitol building.

There was reading from scripture,

It’s a step.

Voters in Paris have approved an effort to drastically increase parking fees for large sport utility vehicles and other heavy cars, the latest move by Mayor Anne Hidalgo to reshape the French capital with environmentally conscious and pedestrian-friendly policies.

It’s nice how the two go together. Walking around does minimal harm to the environment, and massive cars are a bad thing in more ways than just the contribution to global hotting.

Paris residents who park in their neighborhood will not be affected. Neither will taxis or other professional vehicles, or people who use larger vehicles because of a disability.

The city authorities had argued that big S.U.V.s and other large cars emit more greenhouse gases than

More on the Newcastle United craziness:

A female football fan was banned from matches over social media posts that were deemed transphobic after a “Stasi” spying investigation by the Premier League.

A special unit set up to root out racism in the game was used to comb through comments made by Linzi Smith, a gender-critical Newcastle United supporter, even though the posts had nothing to do with football.

And even though knowing that men are not women is not racism.

Ms Smith, who is gay and promotes lesbian, gay and bisexual rights and women’s rights, was put under investigation by the police, the Premier League and Newcastle United after expressing strong views on trans ideology on her personal account

There’s just no pleasing some people. A high school in Brookfield, Connecticut, was kind enough to put a tampon dispenser in a boys’ toilet room only to have it torn out of the wall minutes later.

It’s all part of a new state law that goes into effect this fall. Local and regional boards of education shall provide free menstrual products in women’s restrooms, all-gender restrooms and in at least one men’s restroom for 3rd to 12th grade students. 

Just in case an 18-year-old boy decides he wants a tampon and can’t wait to go to a drugstore or ask a friend or steal one from a sister.

One parent in town, who wished to stay anonymous, was disheartened to

The Telegraph:

A coalition of gender-critical groups have accused Stonewall of “targeting” the female boss of Britain’s equalities watchdog. 

Led by women’s rights organisation Sex Matters, which believes biological sex takes precedence over self-identified gender, the 39 groups said Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chairwoman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, was being attacked for taking action to protect women.

They said Stonewall had subjected her to the same sort of “unreasonable, vexatious complaints” used to harass ordinary women at work.

The groups have signed a letter to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (Ganhri), which has been persuaded by organisations such as Stonewall to carry out a “special review” into the EHRC, claiming it is anti-trans.

What … Read the rest

Ok, we see his written answer. Now what?

Jon, as it happens we had a written question on this at the @CambridgeUCU + @OUbUCU hustings last week, to send in today.

Because it's a 156 page judgment + the case itself exposes the damage of Twitter "pile ons", please see my written answer rather than a tweet: pic.twitter.com/d33fwG5ylz

— Ewan McGaughey (@ewan_mg) February 5, 2024

Nasty stuff tucked away in among the boilerplate babbling about undefined “inclusion” and “rights.”

“I am completely committed to equality, inclusion, and freedom,” he says, as if others were committed to inequality, exclusion, and slavery. Inclusion of what? Freedom to what?

“UCU will never be baited into the right-wing culture war” – meaning what? That … Read the rest

Uh, yeah.

This frightens and horrifies me. pic.twitter.com/oecp44f1dG

— Iseult (@iseult) February 4, 2024

The tweet Iseult saw was then deleted, but there are others.

May 14th I will be participating in Burning Day. The Israeli flag has become a symbol of oppression, subversion, and genocide.

They censor our speech. They undermine our governments with bribery and blackmail. They've captured our media, banks, and virtually all of academia.… pic.twitter.com/gdmocxNjnO

— I Abject (@Abjectivist) February 4, 2024

“They’ve captured our media, banks, academia”…golly gee that sounds familiar, i.e. exactly what the Nazis used to shout, when they weren’t too busy dropping the zyklon B pellets into the “showers.”… Read the rest

Well now that’s just silly.

Dead people should be able to change their gender, says Labour MP

Dead people can’t change anything, on account of being dead.

A Labour MP has called for the law to be changed so transgender people can have their gender changed posthumously in official records.

Well they can’t do that either, because people of any kind can’t do anything posthumously. They can leave instructions for other people to do things, but they can’t posthumously do them themselves. Aren’t journalists expected to know how to use words?… Read the rest