There’s a certain amount of schadenfreude…

And Trump is still digging.

“Indicating me.” On the other hand, I’m surprised to see he knows to use the possessive with the gerund.

Clear your calendars for March 4 next year.

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Monday for early March, laying out a schedule that was close to the government’s initial request of January and that rebuffed Mr. Trump’s extraordinary proposal to push off the proceeding until nearly a year and a half after the 2024 election.

The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, issued at a contentious hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, to start the trial on March 4 potentially brought it into conflict with two other trials that Mr. Trump is facing that month.

The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on the same day. A second trial in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, is set to go to trial on March 25.

This is what happens when you commit a lot of crimes.

Mr. Trump has made no secret in conversations with his aides that he would like to solve his uniquely complicated legal woes by winning the election. If either of his two federal trials is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matters altogether.

That “could seek” is very polite. Of course he’s going to pardon himself if he gets the chance.

More incloosive excloosion.

LGB Alliance Australia tells us:

Victoria’s new Pride Centre in St. Kilda has rejected an application to hold a lesbian-only event at the Centre.  The Lesbian Action Group, a group of lesbians from Melbourne and Central Victoria, have applied for an exemption from the Australian Human Rights Commission to hold a female-only lesbian event. They wanted to celebrate International Lesbian Day in October at the Pride Centre. The exemption, if granted, would legally exclude males, heterosexuals and males who identify as women. 

…

It must be noted that the Pride Centre has held trans-only events.

Some animals are more equal than others.

The Pride Centre is the first of its kind built in Australia, specifically purpose-built for members of the LGBTQ community’s use. That the Victorian Pride Centre has rejected the Lesbian Action Group’s application for a lesbian-only event shows how they are unfairly discriminating against lesbians – a group who should supposedly be able to access the centre – and favouring some letters in LGBTQ over others.

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with misogyny could it?

The Pride Centre told the Lesbian Action Group:

On this occasion the Victorian Pride Centre must reject your booking request. 

Your initial booking request, which resulted in a quote for services, did not indicate the nature of your event or the subsequent identification that you would be seeking an exemption from the Australian Human Rights Commission and naming the Pride Centre in your submission. 

The Pride Centre exists to support the LGBTIQ+ community.  Inclusion, diversity, acceptance and belonging are essential to the organisation’s values. The VPC’s purpose is to connect, support and amplify LGBTIQ+ voices, resources, services, and groups so that our communities are cohesive, resilient and thrive.    

Well, you can’t do all those things at once. Some of them fight with each other. You can’t support inclusion and diversity at the same moment, because sometimes the diverse want to hold an event just for their own diverse selves. Just one event, just for them, in their diversity. What the Pride Centre is doing here is celebrating inclusion at the expense of diversity.

Our Constitution provides that the Pride Centre’s object is to promote the reconciliation, mutual respect and acceptance between groups and individuals in Australia and the promotion and protection of human rights. The VPC achieves this in part through facilitating within the Pride Centre events in support of equality, diversity and inclusion for the LGBTIQ+ community.

But so then it’s not in support of inclusion for people who aren’t part of the “LGBTIQ+ community”, right? It excludes straight “cis” people who aren’t “Queer” (whatever that means)? You can’t both have a “community” for a particular kind, or set of kinds, of person, and have generalized “inclusion.” You have to pick one.

“The centre is a beacon of hope, a welcoming and inclusive space for all LGBTIQ+ community members and their allies.”

But not non-LGBTIQ+ community members.

So it’s inclusive but exclusive; exclusive but inclusive.

Your request to hold an event that excludes and seeks to legally discriminate against people on the bases of their sex, sexuality and gender is inconsistent with the Pride Centre’s purpose. 

And yet the Pride Centre is for people who are not straight or “cis” so it discriminates against people on the basis of their sexuality and gender idenniny.

It’s called having it both ways.

Listen up: roomer are strong. Make a note of it.

Hooboy. Miss the point whydoncha.

SO WHY ARE YOU TELLING RILEY GAINES THAT INSTEAD OF TELLING WILLIAM “LIA” THOMAS???

Look at Peter Tatchell going out of his way to belittle and insult women.

No. No people are women “based on gender identity” just as no people are horses based on species identity. There are no people who are biologically male but women anyway. Women are the only kind of women there is; trans women are men. Men can feel womany all they like, but they don’t get to push us off the bench because of their womany feelz.

And fuck Peter Tatchell for trying to demolish our rights by saying this. Fuck him and all his friends and everybody else who is hell-bent on pretending women don’t get to have their own category.

Sonia Sodha in the Graun on the mindless excitement about altruistic hysterectomy:

…the UK’s first womb transplant was reported last week – transferred from an older sister who has had children to a younger sister with a rare condition that means she could not otherwise carry a pregnancy. Articles were packed with quotes from doctors heralding this as a profound development, the “dawn of a new age”, according to the chair of the British Fertility Society.

…

I couldn’t believe how little discussion there was of the risks to the woman donating her womb. Hysterectomy – the removal of a woman’s womb – is described by the NHS as a “major operation”, with all the risks that involves, only recommended if other treatment options are exhausted. I know friends who have experienced debilitating symptoms because of early menopause who have begged doctors for a hysterectomy, only to be told that no doctor would approve it because it’s major surgery that is not medically necessary.

But then again, of course, it’s only women, so does it really matter that it’s risky?

Read the medical papers and the list of risks for living womb donors is dizzying: urinary tract infections, faecal impaction, wound infection, bladder hypotonia, leg and buttock pain, anaemia, respiratory failure during anaesthesia, depression, early menopause. One in 10 donors in 45 analysed cases have required further surgery. The medical team that carried out the UK transplant have developed techniques that have reduced but certainly not eliminated these risks. How did none of this make it into the news reports?

Frankly I think the younger sister should have refused.

How do you ensure that consent is meaningfully given in light of these risks? Is it even ethical to allow an individual to take these risks to try to improve someone else’s fertility? There are parallels with altruistic surrogacy, where a woman carries and gives birth to a baby – a risky endeavour – for someone else. What about the emotional pressure, which might be self-inflicted, that means a sister or mother might feel they ought to donate a womb or offer to carry a baby?

Maybe it’s not worth worrying about. Maybe soon people will stop worrying about infertility because they’ll be so worried about bringing children into a world in flames.

Yeah, free Sarah Jane so that he can tell crowds to punch a terf in the face again and again and again.

Germany makes trans ideology compulsory.

Here, Frauen, look at the men taking over the sex you thought you were. Look at them and OBEY.

From the Law Library of Congress:

On May 9, 2023, the German Federal Ministry of Justice (Bundesministerium der Justiz, BMJ) and the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, BMFSFJ) published a proposal for a self-identification law (self-ID law) (Gesetz über die Selbstbestimmung in Bezug auf den Geschlechtseintrag, SBGG) that would allow transgender, nonbinary, and intersex persons to change their gender entry and first name at the civil registry without any bureaucratic hurdles.

It’s the ministry for women yet here it is making the word “women” meaningless. Not very for women, if you ask me.

Affected persons whose registered gender does not match their gender identity must simply state at the civil registry that they would like to change or completely delete their gender entry, that the new entry matches their gender identity, and that they are aware of the consequences of the declaration. (SBGG § 2, paras. 2, 3.) They may choose one or more new first names. (§ 2, para. 3.) As an alternative, affected persons may select one or more new first names to match their gender identity without changing the gender entry. (§ 2, para. 4.) Minors 14 years of age or older may make the declaration themselves but require permission from their legal representative for the change. The permission may be replaced by the family court if it does not contradict the child’s best interests. (§ 3, para. 1.) For persons under 14 years of age or for persons who are subject to various types of guardianship, only the legal representative may make the declaration. (§ 3, paras. 2, 3.)

What could possibly…

Nah.

No, lesbian is not an “umbrella term.” It has a crisp precise meaning. It’s not men’s to repurpose. Leave the umbrella at home, wear a hoody, and go away.

Kathleen Stock asks:

Have you heard about the latest injustice in women’s sport? No, I don’t mean the disparity in pay or prize monies in comparison to men’s professional teams, or the relative lack of access to high-quality facilities.

Hell no, who cares about that? No, the burning injustice is keeping men out of women’s cycling.

Such is the tear-jerking tale presented to us by the cyclist and trans woman — that is, biologically male — Emily Bridges in this month’s edition of Vogue, objecting to British Cycling’s recent move to make the elite female category actually do what it says on the tin. Alongside a photogenic selection of newsreaders, entrepreneurs and nepo-baby models, Bridges is the only sporting figure featured as a member of “The Vogue 25” power list of the “women defining and redefining Britain in 2023”. And there’s an accompanying opinion piece in which Bridges argues that trans women should be admitted into women’s cycling in order to “diversify” an elite sport. Doing so, we are told, would also help “challenge” other inequalities, such as those involving “power, class, money and capital”. The athlete is pictured wearing a Ralph Lauren sweater (£300), satin trousers (£229) and a titanium watch by luxury brand Audemars Piguet (price available on request).

Plus, he’s a man. He’s a man woofing about challenging inequalities, like for instance by letting him do women’s cycling so that he’ll be sure to win. (He doesn’t actually want lots of men to do women’s cycling. You may be able to work out why if you think hard.)

[I]t seems some kinds of perceived unfairness are harder for this young cyclist to tolerate than others. Racing against people whose genetics mean they have little hope of catching you at full pelt? Fine. Politely asking people with penises to compete against other people with penises? Completely unacceptable, apparently. The piece closes with a rousing commitment to fight British Cycling’s decision “in the courts and the streets”.

Allons enfants eh?!

Contrary to what Vogue apparently thinks, allowing males to compete in women’s sport doesn’t “diversify” it, just as letting cheetahs run in men’s sprint races wouldn’t diversify male sport. As a political value, diversity is not an end in itself, and has no particular value for its own sake. 

But it’s a buzzword. Without our buzzwords we are lost. It goes with “community” and “inclusion.” We must be a diverse incloosive communidee.

Vogue doesn’t care, though. The fact that its power list contains Bridges but no female athletes — none of Britain’s brilliant running, footballing, cricketing, tennis-playing or hockey-playing heroines — shows just how seriously it takes women’s sport, which is not at all. Professional sport is where a woman gets obsessive, fierce, sweaty and shouty and loses herself in pursuit of winning — caring not one bit if her hair gets out of place, her clothes torn, or if she gets a ball or an elbow in the face. If every woman behaved like that, where would high-end women’s magazines be?

In a clinch with Luis Rubiales, no doubt.

The Taliban continues to find new places to tell women to stay out of.

The Taliban government have banned women from visiting the Band-e-Amir national park in Bamiyan province.

Afghanistan’s acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, said women had not been observing hijab inside the park.

And therefore they will be fucking every man inside the park and nobody will know who anybody’s baby is ever again and the world will fall to pieces. Put the women in a smaller box!

Band-e-Amir is a significant tourist attraction, becoming Afghanistan’s first national park in 2009.

And now it’s not a national park any more, because half the population is told to stay out.

The Taliban have a history of implementing bans on women doing certain activities on what it insists is a temporary basis, including preventing them from attending schools in December 2022.

The ban on visiting the Band-E-Amir national park is the latest in a long list of activities that women have been prevented from doing since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Most recently, the Taliban ordered hair and beauty salons in Afghanistan to shut and in mid-July stopped women from sitting the national university entrance exams.

If they can’t put women into smaller and smaller boxes what is the point of them at all? They need a purpose in life.

The Palmer Report is reassuring:

Republicans love nothing more than inventing doomsday narratives about how they’ve supposedly already won, and the media loves nothing more than hyping those empty doomsday narratives for ratings. Usually these kinds of silly narratives fall apart of their own accord, as everyone is able to see in hindsight that the particular “magic wand” in question never existed. But one doomsday narrative that just won’t go away is the notion that Georgia Republicans are going to be able to remove Fani Willis from power and thus magically save Donald Trump. In the hope of putting this one to bed once and for all, let’s review why this isn’t really going to be a story, so we can move on from it.

Months ago a series of headlines popped up claiming that Georgia Republicans had given themselves the ability to remove District Attorneys from office. But that’s not what actually happened. Georgia Republicans could have written this legislation any way they wanted. But they made a point of not giving themselves the ability to remove District Attorneys, and instead granted that power to an independent review board starting in October.

If Georgia Republicans were actually looking to remove Fani Willis, they’d have granted themselves the ability to remove her. And they’d have given themselves that ability immediately, so they could have gotten rid of her before she brought indictments. Instead they gave that power to someone else, on a delay. It seemed obvious right then and there that they weren’t trying to get rid of Willis, they were just trying to create the appearance that they were trying to get rid of Willis. Why? It’s an easy opportunity to fire up Trump’s base and fundraise off it.

It’s the exact same reason Jim Jordan just announced House hearings into Fani Willis. There isn’t anything that Jordan can do to hurt Willis or help Trump, but he’s sure going to make it look like he’s trying to hurt Willis and help Trump. These things are always about appearances. Specifically it’s about baiting the media (on the left and right) into running stories which falsely imply that Republicans do indeed have these kinds of magical powers.

Oh. Well if that’s true…I’ll stop tearing my hair out.

Palmer goes on to say there’s no sign Georgia Republicans are that keen, nor is there reason to think they would succeed, nor is there reason to think the attempt would survive the inevitable court challenges.

That’s the most maddening aspect of all these magic wand ideas. Not only are they generally based on an idea that isn’t a real thing to begin with, it’s also laid out as having the ability to magically succeed without any consequence, or pushback, or legal challenge. It’s one side waving a magic wand and the other side saying “Oops, we’re doomed” and falling through a trap door.

Hahahaha ok good to know, I’ve been feeling all oops we’re doomed and falling through a trap door this afternoon.

Meanwhile back in the real world, Fani Willis clearly isn’t worried about being magically removed from power. If she were, she would have brought her indictments a long time ago. She had a grand jury window back in May, which she reportedly passed up when some of the fake electors agreed to immunity deals which made her case against Trump stronger. If she thought she were up against some kind of magical ticking clock, she’d have brought her case as soon as she could, in the hope of getting it to trial more quickly.

Remind me to be more suspicious of news media hype.

They may be able to sabotage the whole thing.

[Trump’s] Republican allies are rallying to his defense—seeking not only to run political interference for him, but also remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from office, potentially undermining the prosecution entirely.

…

In a Facebook post earlier this week, State Senator Clint Dixon accused the DA of prosecuting the ex-president to become “some sort of leftist celebrity,” and said he would call on a newly-formed committee of political appointees to “take action” against her. That commission, approved by Republican Governor Brian Kemp in May, was ostensibly created to make it easier to oust progressive, reform-minded DAs. “I am not gonna stand idly by as rogue or incompetent prosecutors refuse to uphold the law,” the governor said ahead of the law’s signing. In this case, of course, Dixon and the Republicans are seeking to use the law to target Willis not for any reform efforts, but explicitly because she brought charges against Trump and his allies. In his Facebook post, Dixon acknowledged the “reality” of the Trump indictment in Georgia “is one of the reasons we passed a law.”

“There’s a one-hundred percent chance that’s going to happen,” as Clark Cunningham, a professor of law at Georgia State University, told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC Thursday night.

So that’s just great.

Unlike in the federal cases brought by Jack Smith, a conviction in Georgia would not be subject to presidential or gubernatorial pardon—and the RICO charges in the state mean he’d almost certainly face jail time if found guilty. To hobble that prosecution would be an extraordinary and outrageous move. But these are desperate times for Trump—and it has his allies, in Georgia and beyond, reaching for desperate measures. “We’re not going to keep putting up with this,” Sarah Palin said on Newsmax Thursday night, seemingly calling for “civil war” after Trump’s surrender. “We do need to rise up and take our country back.”

We get open mobocracy or we get civil war. Fun times.

Janice Turner on women as spare parts factories:

Throughout the exultant coverage of Britain’s first womb transplant, I waited for news about the donor. We met the shiny-eyed, triumphant surgeons who’d worked a Sunday in their special double operating theatre. We learnt about the recipient, born without a uterus, now having periods and waiting to start IVF. But of her sister who had donated her womb there was just a cursory, “she’s recovering well”.

The gravity of her sacrifice was wafted aside, although this was a radical hysterectomy, removing not just the uterus and cervix but the “cuff” (upper part) of the vagina. Given the complex transplant process it took many more hours, with greater surgical risk than a conventional hysterectomy, an operation that can throw women into menopause, cause blood clots and nerve damage, make sexual climax weaker, even unachievable. A tenth of womb donors suffer complications and need further surgery.

It’s not something a sister should let a sister do. It’s not something a friend should let a friend do; it’s not even something a stranger should let a stranger do. It’s too much. It’s way too much.

There are already concerns about women being coerced to donate. In the UK case, the 42-year-old donor sister had borne two children and completed her family. Many of us would give a life-saving kidney to a sibling. But now there’s a new yardstick of sisterly love. If you have no further use for your womb, why hoard it? Women in conservative cultures could also face strong parental pressure.

And life-saving is a whole different thing from chance of gestation-saving.

The surrogacy industry has also laid the way by erasing women as human beings with rights, needs and feelings from the whole reproductive process. Celebrity couples pose with a new baby while the woman who carried and gave birth to it is invisible, a “gestational carrier”, never a mother.

Maybe we should focus on just manufacturing people, and leave women out of the equation altogether.

Yo, guys, your contempt for women is showing.

The Spanish football federation has threatened to sue Jenni Hermoso, the player at the centre of a row over its president’s conduct, for lying and defamation.

Lots of luck with that seeing as how he planted that unwanted kiss on her in full view of a global audience.

It has also threatened to sue the 79 women’s football players who signed a letter in which they refused to play for their country as long as Luis Rubiales remained in his post.

In a statement, the federation said it would take the “necessary legal action” and told the players that “playing for the national team is an obligation on any member of the federation called upon to do so”.

Bros before hoes yeah?

“At no time did I consent to the kiss,” Hermoso said in a statement. “I won’t tolerate having my word doubted, much less have people inventing things that I didn’t say.”

Shortly after the incident, the federation issued a statement in which Hermoso purportedly said the kiss was consensual and that she and Rubiales enjoyed a close relationship.

First assault her, then lie about her in an official statement. Good look, boys.

In a written statement, Hermoso said: “I don’t want to interfere in the legal process but I feel obliged to report that the words used by Sr Luis Rubiales to explain what happened are categorically untrue and are part of the manipulative culture that he himself has created. I have not been respected.”

The federation reproduced a series of still photographs of the incident that it claimed showed that Hermoso lifted Rubiales off his feet and was not only willing but an instigator of the kiss.

In fact, she tried to rape him, right? No, make that she did rape him. And she got him pregnant, and then walked away. Yeah? What’s the Spanish for “Karen”?

In an interview with El País, Miquel Iceta, the sports and culture minister, said: “I regret that for Spain, a country admired around the world as a champion of rights and freedoms, this episode has taken us back to an image of machista Spain in which women’s rights are not respected. It’s a backward step.”

Iceta added that as the federation had stood by Rubiales, the government would now take the necessary measures to remove him from his post.

Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s acting vice-president, said: “Señor Rubiales doesn’t understand what he’s done. He’s not up to the job. He should resign and save us the embarrassment. The days of impunity for macho behaviour are over.”

Give him the boot.

The Telegraph has a whole slew of articles on Trump’s mugshot and other aspects of his arrest. I get the sense they don’t admire him all that much.

Trump ‘loses two stone and gains an inch in height’

Donald Trump has grown an inch and lost more than two stone according to the measurements recorded during his booking at a Georgia jail.

It is unclear how his details were recorded by Fulton County Jail on Thursday, but it is thought Mr Trump may have given his own measurements.

The former president’s details were recorded as 6ft 3in (190.5cm) and 215lbs (97.5kg), which is considered by doctors as “overweight” but no longer obese.

The details suggest he is more than 24.2lbs lighter than in April, when he was booked in Manhattan for a separate case over “hush money” payments.

His measurements then, at 6ft 2in and 240lbs, would push him over the threshold for obesity, with a body mass index of 30.81.

Do we think he’s lost 24 pounds recently? No we do not.

Mr Trump’s White House doctors tried to help him lose weight during his tenure as president, by hiding cauliflower in mashed potato dishes and recommending that exercise machines [be] installed in the building.

Well you can install exercise machines in every room of the building but you’re not gonna get Lazy Boy to use them.

Donald Trump becomes first ex-US president to have mugshot taken

The 45th president is pictured striking a hostile pose, with his eyebrows contracted, lips pursed and a menacing scowl on his face.

And Trump and his goons plan to use it.

Mr Trump has seen a surge in polls in the wake of his four indictments and believes he can effectively market the mugshot to mobilise his supporters, who believe the charges are politically-motivated.

“This mugshot will forever go down in history as a symbol of America’s defiance of tyranny,” said a Trump campaign fundraising email.

Well yes, but not in the sense the trumpies mean it.

There are a number of people who genuinely believe that they are trapped in the wrong body, and they want to be recognized as the gender that their mind and soul have always told them that they are.

People can genuinely believe lots of things that aren’t true, and even things that are obviously absurd. Religions are good at coming up with whole elaborate systems of untrue things for people to believe. Trans ideology is very like religion in this sense.

The entertainment industry is also quite good at coming up with untrue stories for our entertainment and even enlightenment. The Wizard of Oz is not true, but it’s a good story. Big is not true, but it’s a good story.

We are our bodies. We may dislike aspects of them, we may dislike everything about them, but they are still ours and not anyone else’s.

No. No, he really doesn’t. Even in their terms he really doesn’t. I mean come on – an unconvincing dyed combover? A dyed blond combover on a man in his seventies? “Looking hard” would be a grizzled crewcut, not brassy strands fluffed and pasted over a naked scalp. And the fake tan. And the dumb perpetual blue suit red tie white shirt. And the fact that he looks like a spoiled child who just broke his favorite air-rifle.

He’s petulant, whiny, demanding, greedy, self-involved. It’s true that he has no morals or scruples or empathy, but that by itself doesn’t make him what Fox fool means by “hard.”