The complete replacement of thought by wild assertions keeps surprising me, at least when it’s done by people who identify as Dr.

People “have autonomy over who they are” declares the doctor. Really? Do we? Do we have the autonomy to be absolutely anything we can put into words? Can we be dinosaurs, planets, the universe? Can we be a tooth, a bulb, a pebble, a cell, an atom?

The reality is there are very narrow limits on what we can be. We can grow and change and learn, certainly, we can improve or deteriorate, we can change ourselves to a considerable extent, but we can’t be just anything, and we especially can’t be just anything simply by saying so. We can’t be surgeons or engineers or lawyers simply by saying so; we have to put in the years of training first. We can’t be snakes or oceans or blizzards even with training. We can’t be the sex we weren’t born even with training.

Trump wants to be handcuffed, I guess kind of like Jesus schlepping the cross.

Donald Trump has told advisers that he wants to be handcuffed when he makes an appearance in court, if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels, multiple sources close to the former president have said.

Go ahead! Make a martyr of the poor saintly starved man!

Trump’s increasing insistence that he wants to be handcuffed behind his back for a perp walk appears to come from various motivations, including that he wants to project defiance in the face of what he sees as an unfair prosecution and that it would galvanize his base for his 2024 presidential campaign.

But above all, sources said he was deeply anxious that any special arrangements – like making his first court appearance by video link or skulking into the courthouse – would make him look weak or like a loser.

I kind of think he might be overthinking this a little. Being handcuffed wouldn’t actually make him look strong or like a winner.

People close to Trump were said to be unsure whether he is serious about being handcuffed and doing a perp walk, but he may be thwarted in his supposed ambitions if the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, decides against handcuffing him and refuses to allow him to be marched past the cameras.

Well then his millions of fans will pour into the street demanding that he be marched past the cameras in handcuffs. Maga!!

But the students were expressing their beliefs.

A West Midlands school has been criticised for failing to “teach controversial issues in a way that is safe for everyone”, after a gay Muslim speaker was challenged by students and later received death threats on social media.

An external report on Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury was commissioned after the incident in November last year, in which students questioned the speaker on his views about homosexuality and Islam.

Khakan Qureshi, founder of the Birmingham Asian LGBT group, was invited to the school’s sixth form to speak on “diversity in the face of adversity”, but the session appeared to descend into chaos, videos posted on social media showed.

After Qureshi said there wasn’t anything in the Qur’an that said homosexuality was a sin, students could be heard saying he was “offending people” and “advocating the wrong thing”.

Oops, that wasn’t the plan.

Teachers intervened, with one describing the students’ comments as “homophobia” and another using a reference to 9/11 to explain how the UK was a “tolerant society”.

The incident at the school of 1,500 students led to parents forming the Wood Green Academy Action Group, which said pupils were fearful about returning to school after the incident.

An independent report, sent to parents last month and seen by the Guardian, concluded: “There is clear evidence there is insufficient awareness and experience to be able to deliver the teaching of controversial issues in a way that is safe for everyone.”

I think the Guardian is being annoyingly evasive here. It looks as if the issue is that some Muslim students took the conservative goddy position that homosexuality is indeed a sin, and some teachers intervened, and now some Muslim parents are angry. That’s what it looks like, but unfortunately the Guardian is being coy about it.

The action group, which says it represents more than 300 parents, said the incident was the latest in a long line of concerns about the school, and their frustration was directed towards how the school had handled the situation rather than the speaker himself.

Are the 300 parents of any particular religion?

The group said it had collected other complaints from pupils and parents, including a pupil being harassed for wearing a long skirt and headscarf, the school refusing to create a designated prayer room, mothers being denied entry to the school while wearing a veil and teachers failing to intervene in bullying.

So…the 300 parents are Muslims? Is it taboo to say so?

The action group said it had sought the advice of a legal team, and was pushing the Department for Education (DfE) to launch another review, but was committed to working with the school.

“We want to work with the school, not against it, but at the moment what they’re doing feels like a tick-box exercise,” a representative said. “We want some real accountability. We got a report, but we still feel like nothing is happening. They say they’re engaging, but nobody is believing that engagement.

“We just want parents to be heard, and students to be safe and have their faith respected.”

Oh their faith. They want their faith to be respected. Well why didn’t you say so?

It really is odd to write a story of this kind so very vaguely. If you have to be that vague maybe just don’t report it at all.

Qureshi said although the clips posted on social media showed only a snippet of his two hours in the classroom, which also included some reasonable debate with pupils, he had found the incident distressing.

“I know that they are young people, and young people do have questions, but it was the element of hostility that bothered me,” he said.

He said he had received death threats and online abuse when the clips went viral on TikTok, but had received no “formal apology from the school itself or any support” and the external report, which he was not consulted on, had made for difficult reading.

“It did lay the blame with the school and the teachers more than anything, and I’m not sure that’s helpful,” he said. “To me it’s quite worrying that the mindset of my childhood in the 70s and 80s, that you cannot be gay Muslim, continues here in the 21st century in the UK.”

And you can’t even get honest reporting on it from the Guardian.

In the video clips of the incident, pupils can be heard saying Qureshi was “advocating the wrong thing” and asking him: “Do you agree that being gay and Muslim is wrong?”

In a separate clip, a teacher can be seen telling students: “I’ve had enough. We live in a diverse and tolerant country. Twenty-one years ago a group of Muslims smashed airplanes into buildings to kill thousands of people. At that stage people stood up and said we should not condemn Muslims for what a few have done, because we are a tolerant society.”

He went on to say that if the students “cannot live with the ethos of the school”, which is to “allow people to live the way they want”, then they could attend a faith school instead.

Finally we get a clearer picture. The school is not a “faith school” and there was a clash between faithy students and secular teachers.

A spokesperson for the school said pupils were taught “the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. We promote equality of opportunity and diversity effectively”.

“However, we accept that we did not get it right on this occasion. That is why we initiated an external and independent investigation into this incident and why we have apologised for the upset caused. We repeat that apology today.”

Maybe it can’t be done. Maybe it’s not possible to teach fundamental values of mutual respect and tolerance while also avoiding all subjects that could “cause upset” to religious believers.

Another consignment of “Why can’t you just support trans rights, why are you so cruelly opposed to trans rights, all the good people are for trans rights, you are such a demonic enemy of trans rights” without any pesky detail about what actual rights they’re talking about. Like…

Wonderful you, you’re so empathy, you’re so kind with your so sorry and your sad emoji, but what exactly are the trans rights you’re defending? Also: nobody says trans people “shouldn’t exist.” That’s a stupid but all the more effective lie. The issue is not existence, the issue is fake idenniny and encroachment on the rights and protections of other people – to be exact, of women.

What does “apparently” mean there? In your head, yes? Because of course women who object to men in women’s spaces of course are interested in the crisis of male violence against women, including intimate partner violence or stranger violence. Very interested. That’s exactly why we don’t want men in our spaces, even if they say they are trans women. It’s not at all “apparent” that we don’t care, it’s “apparent” only to you and only in the sense that it’s the nearest insult you could find in a hurry.

Bad journalism strikes again.

The latest stop on anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s Let Women Speak tour in Tasmania saw the self-described women’s rights activist swarmed by hundreds of protesters who drowned out the relatively small number of people who turned out in support.

The spirited response left Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, complaining about a lack of police protection and gave fuel to Kiwis hoping for a similar reaction when the tour arrives in Aotearoa this weekend.

Keen-Minshull has widely criticised policies that support the transgender community and has been labelled as an anti-trans activist.

In the first paragraph the New Zealand Herald calls her “the self-described women’s rights activist” and in the third it says she “has been labelled as an anti-trans activist.” She can’t win, can she. If she says what she is the Herald sneers at her, but the Herald is fully entitled to tell us she’s “been labeled” as a demon.

The Mercury reported that around 40 anti-transgender activists from Let Women Speak attempted to hold their rally yesterday outside Hobart’s State Parliament building, but were outnumbered ten-to-one by counter-protestors, who pushed the smaller group back onto the steps of parliament and chanted over their attempts to speak, leaving them effectively surrounded.

Shorter: counter-protesters outnumbered and bullied the Let Women Speak protesters, thus rendering them unable to speak. The Herald implies this is a good thing.

Isla McGregor from Let Women Speak Tasmania told The Mercury that organisers had contacted Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services Felix Ellis to complain of “severe bullying, harrassment, noise abuse, and being spat on.

“Many protesters begged members of Tasmania Police to protect them. They refused,” she said.

In other words no, don’t let women speak; make sure they can’t speak. Women don’t matter.

Stop women speaking.

I trust you’re as prurient as I am and are wondering what Trump said about DeSantis when he popped like popcorn yesterday. I have ascertained what it was that he said. It’s a classic of trumpery.

Breaking his silence on Donald Trump’s legal troubles, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday criticized the Manhattan district attorney who is pursuing charges against the former president and vowed his office would not be involved if the matter trickles into Trump’s adopted home state.

But DeSantis, a rising rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, stopped well short of offering support for the former president and instead seemed to poke fun at the situation Trump has found himself in as he attempts a political comeback and a third campaign for the White House. A grand jury is in the final stages of determining whether Trump should face charges over an alleged payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels related to a supposed affair.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said as laughter broke out at a news conference in Panama City, Florida. “I just, I can’t speak to that.”

Laughter!! How could they laugh?!! This must not go unavenged.

The dismissive quips traveled quickly across the state to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has decamped while he awaits for word on the New York grand jury’s findings. His allies immediately started attacking DeSantis across social media, suggesting he would face a political price for failing to recognize Republicans are rallying around Trump amid his mounting legal threats.

Trump responded in a statement posted to his social media site, Truth Social, leveling a series of personal attacks against DeSantis.

“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!” Trump wrote.

That’s dignified! That’s not childish at all! That doesn’t sound a bit like a nine-year-old boy losing his temper at snack time.

Kevin McCarthy is kind of tired of all this law enforcement nonsense.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday sought to downplay the legal case related to a hush-money payment by former president Donald Trump to an adult-film actress, saying it involved “personal money” and shouldn’t be able to be prosecuted under the statute of limitations.

“I think you know in your heart of hearts that this is just political,” McCarthy told reporters at a House Republican retreat in Orlando. “And I think that’s what the rest of the country thinks. And we’re kind of tired of that.”

The rest of the country? All of it? Nah, bub, what many of the rest of the country thinks is that it’s tragic and pathetic that this awful, empty, crooked, trashy man was ever president. That’s what we think.

Trump is popping like a whole bushel of popcorn these days.

Donald Trump’s Republican allies in the House are doing what the former president taught them to do – use government power to try to keep his legal threats at bay.

That’s what Congress is for, right? Shielding a corrupt criminal ex-president from the long arm of the law?

Trump’s calls for protests, meanwhile, have authorities on edge in New York, where security cameras and barricades have been erected, and in Washington amid painful flashbacks to his incitement of violence to further his personal and political ends on January 6, 2021.

…

And an ugly spat broke out between Trump and his potential top rival in the GOP nominating race, Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor took a jab at his one-time mentor by suggesting he didn’t know anything about “paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” while also condemning what he said were political prosecutions. Trump responded with a vicious counter-attack full of unsubstantiated innuendo about his rival’s private life, which previewed a potentially nasty GOP primary campaign and hinted at the ex-president’s fury over what he sees as disloyalty from DeSantis.

Well that’s attractive. How pleasant it is being saddled with an ex-president who carries on like the cheapest of cheap mobsters in a movie about cheap mobsters.

The witch trial of Moira Deeming continues.

Liberal divisions over a bid to expel Victorian MP Moira Deeming from the party room are expected to deepen, despite leader John Pesutto claiming an early victory after an attempt to delay a vote over her future failed.

Liberal MPs will decide early next week whether Deeming should be expelled from the parliamentary party, after she attended a rally headlined by British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen where neo-Nazis were photographed performing the Nazi salute at the weekend.

Deeming has vowed to fight the expulsion and says she has done nothing wrong.

How dare she, right? Saying she’s done nothing wrong by attending a feminist rally! She must be a witch!

Pesutto’s letter of motion, addressed to Deeming, was publicly released on Tuesday morning, outlining the allegations she “conducted activities in a manner likely to bring discredit on the Parliament or the Parliamentary Party”.

He alleges Deeming attended the rally despite Keen being “known to be publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activist”.

“Known” by whom? What does “associated with” mean?

From what I can tell she’s accused of consorting with demons because the demons show up at her rallies and she doesn’t magic them away. An accusation is not a conviction. I suspect the accusers just want to shut her down, and accusations of consorting are an easy path to that goal.

The London police force is a mess.

The Metropolitan police is broken and rotten, suffering collapsing public trust and is guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia, an official report has said.

…

The 363-page report details disturbing stories of sexual assaults, usually covered up or downplayed, with 12% of women in the Met saying they had been harassed or attacked at work, and one-third experiencing sexism.

…

The report found a bullying culture, frontline officers demoralised and feeling let down by their leaders, and discrimination “baked into the system”.

But the people in charge are pushing back.

Sir Mark Rowley, the force’s commissioner since September, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic that Casey insisted Britain’s biggest force deserved.

Attaboy! You tell those politically correct inspectors where to go.

Rowley said he wanted more time to study Casey’s recommendations, but said he accepts the findings. He said he accepted Casey’s factual findings about racism, misogyny and homophobia in his organisation and they were systemic, but neither he nor the Met would accept they were “institutional”, claiming it was a political term.

Hey, you know what else is a political term? “Police.” Of course it’s political, because the whole thing is political. What else would it be?

The current Home Office is opposed to the idea of institutional racism.

The Tory Home Office that is.

Until now, Rowley has generated a small degree of hope with his vows to reform, but Andy George, the chair of the National Black Police Association, said: “The commissioner is wrong to once again fail to accept the Met is institutionally racist. We risk repeating history and cannot let this moment pass as another missed opportunity.”

The Guardian gives the last word to Harriet Wistrich.

Harriet Wistrich, of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said Casey’s findings were “without precedent in its unswerving criticism of a corrupt, institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic police force”.

She said the two government inquiries after the Couzens scandal should be given greater powers and placed on statutory footing.

Because of the institutional racism and misogyny.

The BBC’s environment correspondent on the new IPCC study:

“The message in terms of urgency, I think, is stop burning fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible,” Dr Friederike Otto, one of the report’s authors told BBC News.

“It is not because we are lacking some important piece of technology or some important knowledge. It is because so far, the sense of urgency has been lacking in the places where the important decisions are made.”

It’s because we live in the present, and the people who run things can’t or won’t change the way we live. Planes gotta keep flying, cars gotta keep rolling off the assembly lines, oil gotta keep being pumped out.

While it is easy to think that scientific reports on climate change are all about governments and energy policy, the IPCC has been moving to highlight the fact that the actions that people can take make by themselves make massive difference to the overall picture.

But if governments and corporations don’t change what they’re doing how are people by themselves supposed to be motivated to take action? What’s the point of deciding not to take that flight when everyone else is still taking that flight?

Huge supportive crowds outside Trump Tower today.

Wait, though.

It sounds cuddly and friendly…until you think about it. People wanting to “join” you, whether you invited them to or not, whether you want them to or not, whether you have told them to go away and leave you alone or not, are not being warm and loving and full of solidarity – they’re being creepy, intrusive, demanding, and ultimately domineering and rapey.

We don’t have to welcome everyone who wants to join us, no questions asked, no matter what. It depends. In a public place where anyone can be anywhere then yes, people can join you. If you’re in a park or a theater or a restaurant, people can join you in those spaces. But if they want to join you in your living room, your kitchen, your shower? No, then you get a veto.

Being a woman is more like being in your shower than it is like being in a park. Men can’t join you in it without hogging the soap and knocking you over. Not invited.

This is disgusting – especially the cheers and applause at the end. Yayyyyyyy women are drastically under-represented in the LibDems and we just shut down a question about it yayyyyyyyy everybody hates women yayyyyyy.

World is on brink of catastrophic warming, U.N. climate change report says

Leading scientists warned that the world’s plans to combat these changes are inadequate and that more aggressive actions must be taken to avert catastrophic warming.

Must be but won’t be.

The report released Monday from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the world is likely to miss its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — within a decade. Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end.

That’s not quite the right way to put it. All lives are finite. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could end millions of additional lives early.

The IPCC report shows humanity has reached a “critical moment in history,” IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee said. The world has all the knowledge, tools and financial resources needed to achieve its climate goals, but after decades of disregarding scientific warnings and delaying climate efforts, the window for action is rapidly closing.

The knowledge, tools and financial resources but not the will or the ability.

Both the U.N. chief and the IPCC also called for the world to phase out coal, oil and gas, which are responsible for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile people keep buying SUVs and going on cruises and taking planes.

Fish populations are dwindling, farms are less productive, infectious diseases have multiplied, and weather disasters are escalating to unheard-of extremes. The risks from this relatively low level of warming are turning out to be greater than scientists anticipated — not because of any flaw in their research, but because human-built infrastructure, social networks and economic systems have proved exceptionally vulnerable to even small amounts of climate change, the report said.

…

In 2018, the IPCC found that a 1.5C world is overwhelmingly safer than one that is 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the preindustrial era. At the time, scientists said humanity would have to zero out carbon emissions by 2050 to meet the 1.5-degree target and by 2070 to avoid warming beyond 2 degrees.

Five years later, humanity isn’t anywhere close to reaching either goal. Unless nations adopt new environmental policies — and follow through on the ones already in place — global average temperatures could warm by 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, the synthesis report says. In that scenario, a child born today will live to see several feet of sea level rise, the extinction of hundreds of species and the migration of millions of people from places where they can no longer survive.

Or the child born today will be one of the millions wiped out by floods or droughts or crop failures or the perils of migration.

Also in Spectator Australia, Alexander Voltz on the criminalization of women’s rights:

John Pesutto has declared his intention to expel Moira Deeming from her position as a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party. Deeming’s crime? She attended an event that was hijacked by neo-Nazis.

Imagine if a thunderstorm had rolled in during the event, and a bolt of lightning destroyed a trash bin. That would have been her fault too.

On March 19, at 2:15 pm, The Guardian reported the Victorian government’s rightly grim view of these neo-Nazis and their behaviour. ‘Nazis aren’t welcome,’ tweeted Daniel Andrews. ‘Not on Parliament’s steps. Not anywhere’. The Guardian also made mention of Deeming’s attendance at Let Women Speak.

Then, at 8:55 pm, The Age broke that, because of Deeming’s supposed ‘links’ to a ‘neo-Nazi rally’, Pesutto was seeking her expulsion.

Oh look, that’s the article I just ripped for not ever spelling out what Deeming’s wicked views are. I didn’t realize it was the first to break the story.

We might only hope that Paul Barry takes The Age’s Sumeyya Ilanbey to town in Media Watch’s next episode; hers has got to be one of the most misleading headlines yet printed in 2023.

Except reporters don’t usually write the headlines, it’s the editors who do that. But the whole damn article was appallingly evasive and empty while still accusing Deeming of horrors. I think Ilanbey should be busted down to the traffic beat.

[T]he incontestable point is this: the event concerned issues affecting women and women’s rights. It had nothing to do with neo-Nazism at an operational level, and that is why John Pesutto, as a matter of principle, is totally erroneous to seek Deeming’s expulsion for her attendance.

Deeming did not invite the neo-Nazis to the event. There is no evidence to suggest Deeming engaged with the neo-Nazis at the event. Following the event, Deeming in fact tweeted that she was disappointed that police could not do more to stop the neo-Nazis from flaunting their hate.

It’s so typical though. Grab any straw to punish women for saying no to men, including men in skirts and heavy makeup.

I really hope this blows up in Pesutto’s face.

Edie Wyatt at Spectator Australia on the naughty women:

Moira [D]eeming was recently elected to the Victorian Upper House, and is a former local councillor and school teacher. In her maiden speech, Deeming presented a clear platform for women’s rights and talked about her broad association with more left-leaning woman in solidarity against gender identity ideology.

The women’s rights rally has since been skirmished by neo-Nazis who proceeded to do a Sieg Heil salute on the parliamentary steps where the women were speaking.

…

It is interesting to note that Antifa were present to protest the women’s event but at no point objected to the neo-Nazis. The neo-Nazis were dressed in very basic black shorts and T-shirts and black masks and carried a sign that said ‘destroy paedo freaks’ (which is a sign the women’s campaigners would not have carried, obviously).

That is interesting. It’s almost as if the whole point is to demonize feminist women no matter what, while letting misogynist men and indifferent men and outright Nazis off the hook. It’s almost as if a hell of a lot of people just hate feminist women, full stop, and can’t believe their luck at getting this free pass to fling shit at us on all occasions.

Many women at the rally, including Māori woman Michelle Uriarau, Co-Founder of women’s group Mana Wāhine Kòreo, said the salute was ‘chilling’. Moira Deeming is also a Māori woman and was reading out a letter from a Muslim migrant at the rally, she seems an unlikely person to be targeted as a white supremacist by her own party.

Yebbut the trans thing: that means men can jump up and down on her to their hearts’ content, because she has Views, that no one bothers to spell out but that nevertheless are evil and wicked and not at all permissible.

…the event on Saturday was long planned and co-ordinated with the Victorian Police, event organisers made public warnings that far-right groups were expected and not welcome. The motivation of the far-right groups can only be speculated, but for my money they attend for their own social media optics, for the clashes with the trans activists, and for the flashpoints that feed the new social media political landscape. It is also extremely convenient for the Andrews government, which has taken gender identity policies to draconian levels, to associate all resistance with Nazis.

And by “all resistance” they mean feminist women. Feminist women are Nazis; boom; that will shut the bitches up.

The Age solemnly repeats the stupid lies. The reporter has a thumbnail photo in a full hijab, so we know she’s very progressive.

Opposition leader John Pesutto will move to expel controversial Liberal MP Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party room after she attended a rally that has been associated with neo-Nazis.

Has it all, doesn’t it – “has been associated with.” By whom? Oh, you know, people who want to expel her. “Associated with” in what sense? Oh, you know, was in the same area as. Were the neo-Nazis part of the rally? No, they invaded it against the wishes of the women who were there to talk about women’s rights. Ok so how is that a reason to expel her??? Oh, you know, we want to, and it’s there.

In other words this is sly, derogatory, underhanded, shit reporting.

Deeming attended the Let Women Speak rally organised by British anti-trans rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull at Parliament House on Saturday.

More sly, derogatory, underhanded, shit reporting. KJK is not anti genuine rights of trans people, she’s anti new, claimed, bogus “rights” that demolish women’s rights.

About 30 people from neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, dressed in black and most with their faces covered, attended the protests on Spring Street supporting Keen-Minshull, repeatedly performing the salute and holding up a sign using offensive anti-trans language.

Uninvited, unwanted, unprevented by the cops. It’s not the women’s fault that the Nazis invaded.

Pesutto on Sunday night announced he had met with Deeming earlier that day, and discussed her involvement in “organising, promoting and participating in a rally with speakers and other organisers who themselves have been publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists”.

“Associated with”; see above.

The opposition leader moved against Deeming, whose views on transgender issues are well documented, because she was promoting the event and had attended a karaoke night with the organisers.

Note the total failure so far to spell out what’s wrong with the actual views of the women at the rally. Could that be because they know there’s nothing wrong with them?

Deeming also appeared in a video with Keen-Minshull, who made comments that in the UK trans rights activists were posing as neo-Nazi agitators at women’s rights rally to smear their cause.

And that can’t be true because the reporter and the opposition leader are determined to stamp KJK and Deeming as Nazi-fans.

Pesutto said her planned expulsion was not about restricting free speech, but denouncing the actions of a Liberal MP who associated with people whose views were “abhorrent” to his, the party’s and the wider community’s values.

Which views? What are these views that are so abhorrent to The Wider Community? They haven’t named one yet.

“The Liberal Party I joined and which I am now honoured to lead, must strive to represent all Victorians,” the opposition leader said. “Regardless of religious faith, race, sexual preference and identity, Victorians everywhere should know that the Liberal Party is inclusive and can be a voice for them.”

Again – airy nothing. What are the evil views???

Senior Liberal sources, not authorised to comment publicly, said Deeming was hauled before the parliamentary leadership team late on Sunday to explain her conduct at the rally and why she remained until the end even when a group performed neo-Nazi salutes on the steps of Parliament.

The leadership team, made up of Pesutto, David Southwick, Georgie Crozier and Matthew Bach, were adamant Deeming’s views were incompatible and she must be expelled from the party room.

What views? She still hasn’t said. This is shockingly bad reporting.

There are several more paragraphs. Still no information about “the views.” Journalistic malpractice.

Moira Deeming issued a longer press statement about the Let Women Speak rally.

PRESS RELEASE MOIRA DEEMING LIBERAL MP – WESTERN METROPOLITAN REGION Personal statement: I have been informed that there will be a vote in the Liberal Party room to determine whether I should be allowed to remain or be expelled from the Parliamentary Party. Let me clear – I have done nothing wrong. Those who organised the Let Women Speak event on the weekend have done nothing wrong. Despite this, a select few members of the Liberal leadership team have condemned me unjustly. This is an inflection point for the Liberal Party in Victoria. There are two paths the Party must choose from. Does it accept the utterly false premise that anyone who chooses to speak out reasonably, constructively, and legally is somehow an endorsement for anyone at all who happens to show up at a public event? Are we truly suggesting that we let Daniel Andrews decide the rules about who is attached to and responsible for who? This from a Premier whose own Party was found to have rorted the tax payer over the scandalous red shirts affair and yet apparently has nothing to do with it and bears no responsibility or accountability for it. Or will the Liberal Party choose this moment to draw a line in the sand and stand on our principles. I believe that Victorians want us as Liberals to stand up to the bullying from Daniel Andrews. They’ve had enough of the spin and the slander. And enough of women and girls being silenced about the extraordinary challenges we face. My intention is to fight and to remain a member of the team. I hope that my colleagues draw the line and say enough, and that I am able to fight alongside them. I hope that when I have the opportunity to present the facts as they occurred, that my colleagues will stand on principle and vote down the motion to have me expelled. Background statement: On Saturday 18th of March, I attended the ‘Let Women Speak’ event hosted by ‘Standing For Women UK’ (SFW). SFW advocates for the reinstatement of reasonable biological-sex based rights and against the irreversible and harmful medical transitioning practices used on gender non-conforming, autistic and gay minors. This organisation and its goals are mainstream and global, supported by high profile members and leaders of every mainstream political party in the world. The Melbourne “Let Women Speak” event was attended by Muslims, Christians, Atheists and members of the Greens, Labor, LDP and Liberal Parties. I announced on International Women’s Day, in Parliament that I’d be in attendance and invited Natalie Hutchins to join me, because she is the Minister for Women. Due to threats of violence from extreme left activists including the notorious Antifa, I was approached and asked if I could drive international speaker Kelly Jay and her security guards to park in Parliament House car park, for safer passage to and from the Parliament House steps. I sought and gained permission from Parliament services to do so. The event was very ably organised by Angela Jones, a left-wing, pro-gay rights Jewish woman, who liaised with Victoria Police to arrange a buffer zone between her event and any counter protestors. This is why I and the other attendees were horrified to see masked men all clad in black inside the buffer zone. We thought that we were going to be attacked. However, the police did not seem worried and were talking with them over at the edge of the line. Later I saw the police seemingly usher these men right through the centre of the buffer zone in between our event and the counter protestors, which is when I saw those men raise their hands in a Hitler salute. I, along with the few others who were facing them from the front were horrified, but relieved that the police were moving them on. 1/2

After the event I was informed that these masked men had in fact mounted Parliament House steps outside of our view on the other end and performed a Nazi salute, and that members of the SFW group asked the police to make them leave, but were informed that the Police had no powers to move them on due to Labor’s removal of those powers. The Let Women Speak event saw several women injured by the extreme left counter protestors who infiltrated the event. I was assaulted and injured, along with multiple other women, including one who was taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious. They also became violent with police and punched police horses, forcing the event to finish early. I condemn their actions, and call on others to condemn this violence against peaceful women. I also condemn of the actions of the masked men in black who were later identified as Neo-Nazis, who gate-crashed the Let Women Speak event. Most of the LWS supporters did not realise who they were until they were being escorted out by Victoria Police, when they did the despicable Nazi salute. I completely reject the beliefs of National Socialists (Nazis) and I have seen first-hand the impact that the Holocaust had on a family member. None of those organising the event had any involvement with these men, as has been confirmed by Victoria Police, the Australian Jewish Association and all the organisers themselves. If Daniel Andrews had not repealed the ‘move on’ laws, they could have been removed. The ‘move on’ laws need to be strengthened and I also welcome moves to ban the Nazi salute. And I hope that the concerns of women and girls will finally be deemed worthy of attention. 2/2

Statement by Australian Senator Claire Chandler:

STATEMENT ON WOMEN’S SEX-BASED RIGHTS

The biggest fear of women and girls concerned about the loss of single-sex spaces, services and facilities is being forced to share space with violent, dangerous men.

There is no more dangerous or violent group than Nazis. This is an obvious fact confirmed repeatedly by warnings from security and intelligence services.

It is preposterous to suggest that women and girls fighting for the sex-based rights of women and concerned above all about male violence would want the most violent and dangerous men – Nazis – anywhere near a women’s rights event.

Over the last few years I have spoken to thousands of women concerned about laws which enable males to enter female sports, facilities and spaces. Protecting single-sex female services is a completely mainstream and widely supported position. Many of the women who advocate for female single-sex spaces are victims of sexual abuse, or male violence. Many are women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Much of the public commentary over the last 48 hours blaming women for the actions of dangerous men has been disgusting and defamatory.

Serious questions should be asked about why women in Victoria needed permits and protective security to hold an event speaking about women’s sex-based rights, yet Nazis were allowed by Victoria Police to stroll through in balaclavas and performing Nazi salutes. Any laws designed to criminalise Nazi hate symbols which allow Nazis to walk down a public street performing Nazi salutes are clearly inadequate and should be strengthened. Police and security services should be empowered to go after and shut down all Nazi groups operating in Australia.

It is of great concern to me that once again, the media and many commentators have chosen to blame women for the actions of violent men. It is documented over and over again that women face violence, death threats and sexualised abuse for speaking up about sex-based rights. Hundreds of police were in attendance to protect the women attending an event called ‘Let Women Speak’ from violence.

Yet when those hundreds of police allow balaclava clad men to perform Nazi salutes in a public place and the entire apparatus of Government claims they were unable to prevent it – the media chooses to blame a handful of women speaking about women’s rights.

It’s Karenism.