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 among Bezos-owned businesses that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Hours after Bezos kneecapped the Post, big noises at one of his other companies met with Trump.

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

If that’s true…well. It’s bad. Very very bad.

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

Thus making it easier for the aspiring authoritarian to become an authoritarian for real. Good thinking!

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 it appeared to show an officer rebuke a dog walker who showed the pro-Palestine protesters the middle finger. Campaign group Stop The Hate UK said: “Yet again, the Metropolitan Police is failing to protect the Jewish community in London.”

Jews are like women. They’re sly, deceitful, manipulative, weak…in short, we hate them.

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 me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn,” the former first lady said in her first appearance on the campaign trail with Harris.

“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.

Obama described Harris as a “grown up” with a clear set of policies, and said she fears “too many people are willing to write off Trump’s childish, mean spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump,’ rather than question his horrible behavior. Some folks think he’s funny.”

All that. It’s endlessly depressing and disgusting. Just imagine: once upon a time we didn’t have to think about Trump at all, ever.

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

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.

Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan at Miscellany Room.

Driving home earlier tonight I was listening to Billy Bragg’s Changing Times, a documentary about protest music that originally aired in 2019. Bragg was speaking with the British folk-punk singer, Tom Robinson, about Robinson’s ‘British gay anthem’, (Sing if You’re) Glad to Be Gay.

For those not familiar with the song, here’s a brief précis culled from the song’s Wiki page:

The song was originally written by Tom Robinson [an out gay singer] for a London gay pride parade in 1976.

“Glad to Be Gay” is built on four verses criticising British society’s attitudes towards gay people. The first verse criticises the British police for raiding gay pubs for no reason after the decriminalisation of homosexuality by the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.

The second verse points to the hypocrisy of Gay News being prosecuted for obscenity instead of magazines like Playboy or the tabloid newspaper The Sun, which published photographs of topless girls on Page 3. It also criticises the way homosexual people are portrayed in other parts of the press, especially in the newspapers Daily Telegraph, Sunday People and Sunday Express. The third verse points out the extreme consequences of homophobia, such as violence against gay people.

In the final verse, the song makes a plea for support of the gay cause. This part, originally intended as a bitter attack on complacency of gay people at the Pride march in 1976, became a rallying call for solidarity from people irrespective of their orientation.

So far, so clear. The song was a straightforward protest song about the treatment of and attitudes towards gay men in the 1970s I remember the song well; I even saw it performed live at a Tom Robinson Band gig in 1979/80 and joined in the singing with the rest of the audience. It was a strangely joyous experience being in a throng of spiky-haired punks, young gay men, ‘normies’ like me and a whole lot more disparate groups, all linking arms and belting out the chorus “Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way”. I remember hearing him being interviewed about the song many times on radio and TV and he always explained the song in terms of gay men. And yet for some reason, in the interview with Bragg he said “Of course, back then [the ’70s] ‘gay’ meant something different than it does today. It was an umbrella term covering the whole LGBTQIA+ community.”

I’m a straight male and even to me, hearing this gay man (possibly even a gay icon to a generation of British gay men) who had been so outspoken about gay rights suddenly come out with such an obviously dishonest, revisionist statement was absolutely shocking. I can barely begin to imagine how those gay men who looked to him throughout the dark days of the ’70s and ’80’s must feel. ‘Utterly betrayed’ probably doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Apologies for the length of that rant, but it was six hours ago that I heard it and I still can’t quite get my head around it.

There was a new batch of laws telling women to shut up in late August:

New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.

The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.

Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses.

But that wasn’t enough, so now there’s more.

They’re still allowed to say “Yes master” when their owners tell them to spread their legs, but that’s it.

So now Republicans are just straight-up saying what the hell let’s decide everyone voted for Trump and give him the votes before they’re counted.

The newly elected chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, suggested that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled state Legislature should consider awarding the state’s electors to Donald Trump before all votes are counted, according to a video of his remarks posted on social media on Friday.

Citing North Carolina counties hit by Hurricane Helene where residents may have difficulty voting, Harris said during a Q&A at a Maryland county Republican Party dinner Thursday night that it “makes a lot of sense” for the state Legislature to convene a joint session to allocate the state’s electors on Election Day, Nov. 5.

From a certain point of view it does make a lot of sense. The trouble is, that point of view is that a criminal unqualified dangerous crazed fool should be president whether he got enough votes or not.

The Maryland GOP congressman was responding to remarks at the Talbot County Lincoln-Reagan Dinner made by a pro-Trump activist, Ivan Raiklin, who proposed to the audience that Trump and others should call on GOP-led state legislatures in multiple states, including North Carolina and swing states like Arizona and Georgia, to convene on Election Day and award their electoral votes to Trump.

Sure. Why not? Just skip that whole voting thing.

Harris played a role in the GOP’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He attended a Dec. 21, 2020, White House meeting between Trump and House Republicans, where they strategized how to reverse the election results, according to the Jan. 6 committee.

In other words where they strategized how to steal the election.

Trump did an interview with that Joe Rogan fella, who is apparently very popular with the bro contingent or something. Said one stupid thing after another, so what else is new?

But this is a bit special:

Trump said that he hadn’t ruled out there being life in space.

“There’s no reason not to think that Mars and all these planets don’t have life,” he said, referring to discussions he’d had with jet pilots who’d seen “very strange” things in the sky.

He meant “there’s no reason to think” or “all these planets do have life” but never mind, we can’t expect him to keep track of all those nots. Anyway that’s special because there is in fact every reason to think that Mars and all these planets don’t have life. There is now a lot of evidence on the subject and it all points to nope. What he means is that he doesn’t know of any reason to think there’s no life on Mars, because he’s a profoundly ignorant sack of wind.

I am in receipt of an email today from Devon Graham at American Atheists, about Ron DeSantis’s frenzied efforts to force Florida women to stay pregnant against their wills.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been abusing his administrative powers and spending unprecedented state resources in a religiously motivated bid to quash Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban and enshrine reproductive health care access in Florida’s state constitution. 

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which DeSantis oversees, launched a website alleging the initiative “threatens women’s safety” and is paying for public service announcements urging Floridians to vote no on the measure.

(That’s ambiguous. I think it means the agency launched a website and also is paying for announcements, as opposed to the initiative threatens women’s safety and is paying for announcements.)

Those letters were signed by John Wilson, who at the time was working as the department’s general counsel but has since resigned and become something of a whistleblower. Wilson alleges it was DeSantis’ top advisors who developed the legal strategy, drafted the letters, and pressured him into signing them. He was also “directed” to “execute contracts for outside counsel” to assist in censoring their political opponents. It’s been reported those contracts will cost Florida taxpayers up to $1.4 million. 

Last week, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against the DeSantis administration and didn’t mince words in his ruling: “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.” 

Undeterred by constitutional constraints, DeSantis has continued to hold a series of campaign-like rallies with anti-abortion doctors across the state. At one of these events on Monday — the first day for early voting here in Florida — Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez told attendees, “We cannot go to church and pray like Christians and turn around and vote like atheists.” The Associated Press reported that because she and DeSantis are appearing at these “press conferences” in their official capacities, state resources are being used for planning and travel.

I can’t be entirely sure what Nuñez meant by her comment, other than to say the quiet part out loud: Banning abortion is about forcing a single, narrow religious stance on the rest of us. Did she intend to insult us atheists in a “you throw like a girl” kind of way, and/or is she implying that real Christians can’t be pro-choice? Respectively, I’m not offended, and that’s not true.

I think it has to do with valorizing belief in approved fictions. People “pray like Christians” because they believe the fictions of Xianity – the always absent but very real god, the always absent but very real child of the always absent god, the importance and beauty and utility of chatting with and to and at the absent god and the absent god’s absent child, and the overriding importance of the process inside a woman’s body that will after 9 months result in a baby.

Trump promises to imprison everyone who resists him.

Trump would disagree he’s said that the way Colonel Jessup disagreed that he ordered the Code Red on Santiago.

Bezos did it.

The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year — or ever again — breaking decades of tradition and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.

But the newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters revealing that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over GOP nominee Donald Trump in the election.

“The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” the article said, citing two sources briefed on the events.

…

The Post on Friday evening published a third article, signed by opinion columnists for the newspaper, who said, “The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake.”

“It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years,” the column said. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”

Blink twice if you’re being held captive.

Uh oh.

Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Putin for two years, says report

The Wall Street Journal, citing several in-post and former US, European and Russian officials, reported that the conversations between the two men ranged from the personal to the geopolitical and included a request from the Russian leader not to activate his Starlink ​​satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to the Chinese leader and Putin ally, Xi Jinping.

The implications of a secret channel of communication between Musk and Putin are enormous for western security. The Tesla tycoon is a key player in the US space programme and has a high-level security clearance. His company SpaceX launches US national security satellites, his Starlink satellite communications system is critical to the war in Ukraine, and he runs one of the world’s biggest and most influential social media platforms, X, which has provided a vehicle for Russian disinformation campaigns.

Other than that, it’s no big deal.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Taking all the medals.

My heart breaks to see the Alliance Defending Freedom in there alongside the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls. It’s horrifying that the ADF and Reem Alsalem are mentioned side-by-side so casually. And it’s sickening to see so many men and women I thought were allies participating in ADF-organized events.

The ADF are hardcore Christian nationalists who devote massive amounts of effort into recriminalizing homosexuality, and throughout the world, trying to prevent the decriminalization of homosexuality. I don’t hesitate to analogize them as an anti-gay parallel to the KKK. I think they are vile, ignorant bigots of the very worst kind.

There was a time just a few years ago when many — if not most — people online who were vocal critics of gender identity ideology cited their allegiance with gay rights and their fear of a backlash against us as one of the primary reasons they were in this fight.

I guess they had what NASA and the intelligence community call a “failure of imagination“: they didn’t foresee that THEY THEMSELVES would be the ones whose principles would wear down and erode to the point that they became soft on gay rights. But in hindsight it seems kinda obvious: who else would the backlash manifest itself through?

Within GC circles lately I’ve seen gay men called the f-word (the homophobic slur one); I’ve seen arguments that we don’t deserve HIV prophylaxis because AIDS is some kind of necessary moral punishment for promiscuity; that we shouldn’t be allowed to raise children because we’re abnormal and it’s bad for kids; that we’re innately immoral; that we’re pedophlile-adjacent “perverts”…

I don’t know what’s worse, the hardcore GC people who directly engage positively with this bullshit, or the next rung out who shrug and keep their heads down when they see it. I think I might be literally the only person in the GC sphere to be loudly pointing out these awful anti-gay developments that are infiltrating into the core of the movement. And it’s been suggested to me more than once by progressive people that the best way to deal with it is to simply ignore it, lest all that bigotry against gays disillusion me and drive me away from the “greater cause”. The thinking seems to be, don’t call attention to it, or you might make it stronger, because our enemies are watching. But MY thinking is, if you don’t call attention to it, it dominates all by itself no matter who’s fucking watching — y’all are literally giving the game away.

(And as if the natural state of right-wing assholes is to stomp around and make themselves heard, and the natural state of GC liberals is to quietly tolerate them, like to demonstrate our remorse over woke extremism or something?)

My primary cause is gay rights. I’ve suffered so much abuse — even homelessness in my teens and unspeakable other abuses — for no reason other than that I’m a feminine gay man. I cannot ever chill out about anti-gay bigotry and bias. It riles me up. It makes me mad, and it makes me speak my mind. So sue me!

It is in fact my passion for gay rights — as well as women’s rights, having been raised by a feminist single mother who taught me well — that informs my criticism of gender identity ideology. So I get sick to my stomach when I see groups like the ADF holding hands and throwing parties with people who I thought were my fucking friends.

And I’ve just now learned that the ADF are apparently the very group who succeeded in overturning Roe. So I don’t know what anyone is fucking thinking anymore, getting in bed with these assholes.

It seems everyone is being incredibly short-sighted these days. The mind reels…

I’m still unable to understand this, and so is everyone in Ireland.

“Barbie Kardashian” admitted making threats and was found not guilty of making threats.

How can a jury find a defendant not guilty of a crime he has said he committed? How can a judge tell a jury to find a defendant not guilty of a crime he has said he committed? How does this make any sense at all?

Most bewildering lede ever:

Barbie Kardashian, who admitted in court to issuing threats to rape and torture a female prisoner, and threats to sexually assault a female prison officer at Limerick Prison, was acquitted on Friday of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to the two women.

Because rape and torture are not “serious harm”? Is that the justification?

Earlier on Friday, the accused, a transgender woman, told her trial she had wanted to “torture” a female prisoner, Tegan McGhee, when she threatened to rape her on February 25th, 2023.

Kardashian, who denied one count of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to McGhee, intending that she would believe the threat would be carried out, was found “not guilty” by a jury of seven women and five men following a four-day trial at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court.

So it’s “Kardashian” deciding that rape is not serious harm and therefore he didn’t threaten to cause serious harm to McGhee, he merely threatened to rape her. Why would a jury adopt his definition of serious harm?

Kardashian had told the trial she had also wanted to rape prison officer Roisin Linnane, but that this would not have been a realistic threat, as she was locked up alone in her cell for 22 hours a day, and that she threatened Ms Linnane that she would “molest” and sexually assault her by “putting my hands between her legs and grabbing her vagina” as this would have been a “realistic” threat.

And the jury acquitted him.

The jury found Kardashian “not guilty” of three counts of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Ms Linnane, intending her to believe the threat would be carried out.

Despite the fact that he said that’s what he did.

Kardashian admitted in court to making a threat to rape McGhee and making threats to “sexually assault” or “molest” Ms Linnane.

“I wanted to punish them for life for making false allegations about me … I wanted revenge,” Kardashian said.

Therefore the jury found him not guilty of doing that.

What are they smoking??

Oh zing.

There’s a new report from the UN.

Female athletes worldwide have lost nearly 900 medals to transgender-identifying male competitors who have intruded into women’s sports.

Titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” the August study conducted by the United Nations found that by March 30, 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 women’s division events across 29 different sports were defeated by transgender-identifying men. Male athletes have taken over 890 medals from female athletes, the report said.

“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.

Created by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, the report was presented to the U.N. General Assembly last week. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International was also at the U.N. with prominent female athletes to demand that the body protect safety and fairness in women’s sports. The event featured Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, U.S. collegiate athlete Lainey Armistead, ADF International CEO Kristen Waggoner, and Alsalem.

Addressing the General Assembly, Alsalem noted that male intrusion into women’s sports has raised the risk of sexual harassment, assault, and voyeurism not just in the sporting arena but in the locker room and bathroom.

Meanwhile, men who consider themselves enlightened and progressive say all this is perfectly fine.

Alsalem argued that the international and national sports governing bodies have abdicated responsibility over the issue by allowing transgender-identifying men to compete in women’s categories, with the only restriction usually being that male entrants meet testosterone requirements.

“Impunity fosters the culture of silence and injustice, and that is brought about in part by the autonomous regulatory frameworks of sports organizations that we have, which non sufficiently incorporated human rights lens or framework in the work, and they tend to prioritize reputation and winning over justice and accountability to victims, she added.

They also tend not to give a flying fuck about women.

Meanwhile across the pond –

He didn’t mean it, you see.

A 22-year-old transgender woman, accused of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to a fellow inmate and a prison officer at Limerick Prison, has been found not guilty on all charges.

Barbie Kardashian had denied three charges and told gardaí that she never intended to carry out the threats.

But he was accused of making the threats, not of intending to carry them out. He admits making them, and that’s the charge, but they found him not guilty anyway.

Over the past four days, a jury of seven women and five men have heard evidence against Ms Kardashian, who is an inmate in Limerick Prison.

Fellow prisoner, Tegan McGhee, said she threatened to rape her on a date in February last year after a row over complaints about the accused not cleaning the prison showers. Prison officer Róisín Linnane also gave evidence of threats of sexual violence against her by Ms Kardashian on two dates in June last year.

Both witnesses said they were shocked and terrified by the threats.

But they’re just women, so they don’t matter all that much.

After being questioned by gardaí the accused confirmed she did make the threats against the two witnesses, but that she never intended to carry them out, and that they were made in a fit of rage after being falsely accused of leaving the prison showers in an unhygienic condition.

But making the threats is what he was charged with.

Following the verdict Ms Kardashian smiled, clenched her fists in celebration, uttering “yes” and whispered to her legal time that she was so happy.

I bet he is.

The former (now retired) editor of the Washington Post:

The fix is in.

The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year, breaking decades of tradition, and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.

The newspaper also Friday published an article by two staff reporters saying that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the election.

“The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” The Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the events.

We are owned by right-wing billionaire bros.

The announcement came days after the head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board resigned in protest after that paper’s owner Patrick Soon-Shiong decided against running a presidential endorsement.

Soon-Shiong, like Bezos, is a billionaire.

What I’m saying. We’re at their mercy.

The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the newspaper’s staff, in a statement posted on the social media site X said it was “deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make a decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election.”

“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Guild said in the statement, which noted the paper’s reporting about Bezos’s role in the decision.

Bezos’s “role” – that’s a good one. It is his decision. He bought it, it’s his. Billionaires get to control us.