Sigh. The rot is everywhere.

Citizens Advice is facing a backlash from staff for an “ideological instruction” to wear gender pronoun badges.

…

Dame Clare Moriarty, its £170,000-a-year chief executive, told all staff last month that pronouns are “an important way of affirming their gender identity” and “we shouldn’t assume someone’s gender based on their appearance”.

No they’re not and of course we should.

Her internal memo on Citizens Advice’s intranet, seen by The Telegraph, added: “You can help to normalise sharing pronouns by sharing yours. We’ve created some button badges with different pronouns that can be fastened to a lanyard or your clothing.”

But we don’t want to “normalise sharing pronouns.” Sharing pronouns is utterly moronic and also bad.

The charity has introduced the badges in national offices and via suppliers for regional teams, while its IT team has drawn up instructions on adding pronouns to email signatures.

…

The four-page guide says that “the pronouns used to refer to you are an extension of your name” and getting someone’s pronouns wrong is “misgendering”, meaning staff must “thank them for correcting you and let them know it won’t happen again”.

How do adult people allow themselves to get this stupid????

Staff are told to consult Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence if they want more coaching.

A Citizens Advice benefits adviser, who received the memo, told The Telegraph: “I know many who are deeply unhappy with this kind of ideological instruction, especially at a time of economic crisis for our clients, which is what ought to be the priority for Citizens Advice.”

“Never mind about your heating bill, I want to talk to you about our Lord and Savior my pronouns.”

In another memo this year, the charity explained to staff on why it is a “trans-inclusive service”, saying it is “particularly important to be explicit” about this because of prejudice and harm faced by trans and non-binary communities.

What harm. Tell us about the harm. Be specific and concrete. What harm???

It said that being trans-inclusive means that “as an organisation, we recognise that trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary people are non-binary; we demonstrate this in the way we interact with colleagues and with clients”.

They can’t “recognise” that because it’s not true. You can’t “recognize” that giraffes are salmon, because it isn’t true. You can’t “recognize” that men are women, because it isn’t true.

Ms Moriarty said in response to the criticism: “Speaking up for people who face intense disadvantage is part of our charitable purpose. We want to create a service where everyone is comfortable coming to us for help, and a workplace where everyone belongs.”

But they don’t. They want to create a service where many people will feel acutely uncomfortable going to them for help, and a workplace where people who know the difference between women and men don’t belong.

She said personal opinions are recognised, adding: “We encourage respectful dialogue and ask all staff to be mindful about discussions that affect some people more directly, and more personally, than others.”

Except women. They just have to deal with it.

Teamster honcho Sean O’Brien:

When in doubt, do it to the workers.

President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy.

That is, Biden broke a strike for paid sick leave. Railroad workers have to go on working despite not having paid sick leave, while Musk and Bezos count their billions.

The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15 on Thursday to impose a tentative contract deal reached in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers, who could have gone on strike on Dec. 9. But the Senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers.

Listen, if you want paid sick leave, you should be born to rich people and go to Harvard. If you fail to do that, well, fuck you. Now get back to work.

Railroads have slashed labor and other costs to bolster profits in recent years, and have been fiercely opposed to adding paid sick time that would require them to hire more staff.

Gotta make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It’s the American way.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien harshly criticized the Senate vote on sick leave. “Rail carriers make record profits. Rail workers get zero paid sick days. Is this OK? Paid sick leave is a basic human right. This system is failing,” O’Brien wrote on Twitter.

He’s not wrong.

I saw this tweet and tracked down the particulars.

First, the news release:

Please send us your recommendations on how to deal with the mistreatment of women and girls in sport in Canada.

Second, the reply to Coach Blade:

Now, I haven’t read Coach Blade’s brief but I’ve been following her with great interest for a long time so I think I have a pretty educated guess about what she said. And the Standing Committee on the Status of Women said thanks but we threw it out, bye.

So even Elon Musk has a limit.

Elon Musk, Twitter’s chief executive, said late Thursday that Kanye West would be suspended from Twitter after the rapper and fashion designer tweeted an image of a swastika inside the Star of David. Mr. Musk said the post violated the social media outlet’s rule against the incitement of violence.

…

The indefinite Twitter suspension happened on the same day that [West] had appeared on a podcast hosted by the Infowars conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, during which he told Mr. Jones, “I like Hitler.”

Speaking of Alex Jones, he’s just declared bankruptcy. I’m wondering if he’ll be able to go right on “hosting” Infowars while not paying the victims of his sadism what the court ruled he owes them.

Before his suspension, [West] had also tweeted an unflattering photograph of Mr. Musk being hosed down on a yacht.

“This is fine,” Mr. Musk tweeted in response to the image. “This is not,” he wrote in regard to the swastika post, confirming [West’s] suspension.

Speaking of names, I knew one of West’s children was named North, haw haw haw, but I didn’t know there were four and all four have joke names. The other three are Psalm, Chicago, and Saint. What a horrible thing to do to your own kids.

Pink News on the investigation into Mermaids:

The Charity Commission has confirmed it has opened a statutory inquiry into trans children’s charity Mermaids after safeguarding allegations were raised.

A regulatory compliance case was opened in September of this year, which has now been formalised.

This began after several articles were published in right-wing publications, which portrayed Mermaids as posing danger to children.

Geddit????? There are no safeguarding concerns really, it’s all just right-wing publicationing.

The inquiry will focus on three areas of Mermaids, its work and how the charity is run. This includes investigating potential misconduct or mismanagement, whether the trustees have fulfilled their duties under charity law and into the administration, governance and management of the charity.

Blah blah blah but really it’s the fault of the LGB Alliance.

Mermaids came under increased scrutiny after its challenge to the charitable status of anti-trans lobby group LGB Alliance went to court.

And it lost the case.

Mermaids has argued in its case that LGB Alliance does not comply with two key criteria for charitable status under the Charities Act 2011 – that an organisation’s objectives “give rise to tangible, legally recognised benefits that outweigh any associated harms”, and that they “benefit the public or a sufficient section of the public”.

Many LGBTQ+ people were horrified when, in the hours following the November shooting in Colorado Springs Club Q – where a trans woman was among the victims – LGB Alliance responded to the tragedy saying it stood in solidarity “with LGB people”.

That’s the last paragraph of their coverage of the investigation into Mermaids. Impressive stuff.

Trump is running out of road.

In another big victory for the Justice Department Thursday, days after it won convictions of far-right Oath Keepers insurrectionists, an appeals court halted a third-party review of material taken by the FBI from Trump’s Florida resort…

In another blow to the ex-president on Thursday, a federal judge ordered former Trump White House lawyers to give additional grand jury testimony after dismissing Trump’s claims rooted in attorney client or executive privilege…

On another legal front threatening Trump, his former short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn became the latest acolyte of his to be ordered to testify before an Atlanta grand jury. This investigation is specifically looking into Trump’s 2020 effort to reverse his loss in the swing state.

Wallop wallop wallop. The servants are standing by with mops.

The Justice Department’s run of major victories is finally calling into question one of Trump’s lifelong strategies to avoid accountability – the use of the courts to delay or jam up cases against him in endless litigation.

It probably would have gone on working for him if he hadn’t decided to expand his operations to the White House.

And the rulings by judges, in some cases Republican appointees, are also sending a message that Trump’s massive and often risible claims of executive and attorney client privilege are an unreliable shield against investigation. Trump’s penchant for appealing all the way to the Supreme Court – and the conservative majority that he built – does not seem to be working so far either, after the high court declined to intervene on his behalf in several key cases in recent weeks.

Risible and penchant – they’re bringing out the words Trump doesn’t know.

Mermaids inquiry ratchets up.

The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into the transgender charity Mermaids after identifying concerns about its management. The regulator said the inquiry — its most serious form of investigation — was triggered by “newly identified issues” around the youth charity’s “governance and management”.

It had already announced a compliance case into Mermaids following safeguarding concerns, but a statutory inquiry marks a significant ramping up of its examination of the charity. It will try to establish if there was any mismanagement or misconduct by trustees.

The commission said today that Mermaids’ response to the initial compliance case “has not provided the necessary reassurance or satisfied the commission at this stage”.

Tick tick tick.

A bit of frivolity – a barrister explains why The Good Law Project is so bad and stupid, with that huge smug headshot of the kimono guy for extra laughs.

What happened? Well, there was a two day hearing involving a King’s Counsel and three other barristers for the GLP, and another King’s Counsel and two more barristers for the government. That is an expensive two days. 

What did the GLP want? Well, they weren’t actually clear initially, so we’ll come back to that later. But it was all to do with the issue of ministers using private emails and private WhatsApp or other messaging services for government business. The GLP were determined to stop that. They failed.

…

The argument used by the GLP in this case was confused. And it’s right to note that the judges were extremely angry that the case had been brought at all. Now, because I know judges, their anger is obvious to me, I hope it’s obvious to all. Here it is: 

‘The fact that a claimant is unable or unwilling to particularise the relief that they seek, may be an indication that the claim should not be pursued.’ 

Heh heh heh. Cold sarcasm in judges=extreme anger. Fair enough.

This can be translated as, ‘the fact that you can’t even say what you want us to do about this thing you are pretending is really important is a good indication it isn’t important and you should not have wasted our time’. 

Which can be translated as ‘You can’t even say what you want us to do you hopeless preening goons so why the FUCK are you wasting our time and everyone’s money?”

Some commentary on the Special Master ruling:

There are lots more like these. Fun reading for a change.

Appeals court strikes down special master in Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case

A federal appeals court panel on Thursday halted an outside review of thousands of documents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence, ruling that a lower-court judge was wrong to appoint an expert to decide whether any of the material should be shielded from criminal investigators.

…

Trump sought the outside arbiter, known as a special master, after the FBI executed a court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago, his home and private club, on Aug. 8, retrieving more than 13,000 documents related to Trump’s time in the White House. About 100 of the documents were classified, and some contained extremely sensitive government secrets, according to court records.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of Florida agreed to appoint Judge Raymond J. Dearie of Brooklyn as special master to review the documents, rejecting the Justice Department’s argument that presidents do not retain executive privileges after leaving office.

Who ya gonna believe, the Justice Department or an underqualified judge appointed by a criminal lunatic?

H/t Screechy Monkey

Originally a comment by Papito on Call the expert.

Every once in a while one of these misogynist twerps spurts out a rant that lays out all the hatred they normally try to keep hidden.

Not only does young master Baron insist that all women must agree with him on the definition of feminism, but he insists that if they don’t, then they are imposing the patriarchy. Not him, the man who is telling women what they are allowed to think, but them, women who refuse to listen to a man. That, per Aidan, is the true patriarchy.

This argument reminds me of the schoolyard taunt “I’m rubber, you’re glue! Words bounce off me and stick to you!” No, the man telling woman what to think isn’t representing the patriarchy; he’s rubbery liberation, if only those damn women would listen. Boioioing!

The silly little fellow can’t even keep his words straight. First he claims British feminism excludes a kind of women (and, in doing so, somehow slavery something…), but then his obvious distaste for the W word takes over, and it’s all “trans people” from there on out. Of course, that slavey, husbandy old British feminism is perfectly happy to include the subset of trans people which are women. It’s just the men who are trans people who aren’t included as women. But Baron can hardly bring himself to say “women” except as a sort of curse word. Oh, holy trans people, put upon by those horrible, aggressive, perpetrating… women.

Is this young fellow so unfamiliar with being outside that he imagines great packs of aggressive, perpetrating women roami up and down the streets looking for nebbishy ideologues with blue hair? Is this what his (slavey, husbandy) mommy told him would happen if he goes outside? And which people are these hardcore feminist street thugs beating up, the trans people who are women or the trans people who are men? Where is this immense amount of physical assault Aidan thinks women are committing? Video after video, event after event, arrest after arrest has trans-identifying men committing physical assault against women. Day after day. Where is any demonstration of it happening in the other direction? He’s a paramedic; do you think his ambulance is picking up scores of trans people who have been physically assaulted by women?

I suspect it’s simply that Baron believes that not only can he insist women agree that they’re not feminists, he is, and he’s not the patriarchy, they are, but that he’s not of the violent cohort, they are. Rubber, glue, QED.

The stubborn facts about violence include that men commit violence at much greater rates than women do. And that doesn’t change at all when these men become trans people. Still men, still violent at higher rates, still on average bigger and stronger than women. And no, those facts don’t give a damn about Aidan Baron’s feelings.

Heaven help the woman who gets picked up in Aidan Baron’s ambulance.

Man puts himself in charge of feminism.

Sure, what’s not to like?

KANYE WEST PRAISED Adolf Hitler during a Thursday interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. 

“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,” Ye said. “Also Hitler was born Christian.”

Especially Hitler. Plus he was born Christian, so obviously good & bringing something of value to the table.

“I see good things about Hitler also” Ye said. “I love everyone. Jewish people are not going to tell me you can love us, and you can love what we’re doing to you with the contracts, and you can love what we’re pushing with the pornography. But this guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that.”

Hitler didn’t invent jack shit. He got highways built so that he could speed up the Anschluss.

“We got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time,” Ye said after the show returned from break.

Yeah no we don’t.

Of course she does.

Sturgeon rejects UN concerns about reform of Scotland’s gender law

She rejects women’s concerns, too. Men who claim to be women are the only people who matter.

Nicola Sturgeon has described the concerns of a UN special rapporteur about plans to reform how people change their legal sex in Scotland as “not well founded”.

During a robust session of first minister’s questions, Sturgeon also said Shona Robison, the minister in charge of the controversial gender recognition reform bill, would meet the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, next week.

The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, repeatedly challenged Sturgeon to delay the bill – which was the subject of the Scottish National party’s biggest ever backbench revolt last month – after a highly critical letter from Alsalem to the UK government.

In it she raised concerns that the reforms “would potentially open the door for violent males who identify as men to abuse the process of acquiring a gender certificate and the rights that are associated with it”.

But Sturgeon is entirely confident that men who want to abuse women are far too honorable and decent to exploit trans idenninies in pursuit of their hobby.

Sturgeon said the bill had gone through lengthy public consultation and was undergoing intense parliamentary scrutiny. “It’s really important that we remember all of us see protecting women and girls as a priority, but I hope all of us also see protecting the rights of trans people as important too,” she said.

But what rights? It’s not a “right” for men to go into spaces reserved for women.

Sackbut pointed out this cloying image:

Naaaaaaaaah.

That’s just the old self-esteem movement updated for even more solipsistic times.

No, parents shouldn’t treat their children like gods. No, parents shouldn’t be constantly wooing their children like lovers. No, parents shouldn’t be training their children to think they’re miraculous and supernatural. Unconditional love, yes; an infinite stream of flattery, no.

And this “become yourself” shit needs to die. As I keep saying to the point of monotony, the cult of the self needs to die. Encourage children to have a spine, think critically, resist peer pressure when necessary, all that, but obsess over a special unique magical Self, no.

With only four or five weeks to do anything with them, the House Dems finally have Trump’s tax returns.

Sort of.

The supreme court ordered the release of six years of returns last Tuesday, rejecting Trump’s plea to stop the treasury from acting.

On Wednesday, the release of the tax returns was first reported by CNN. According to the network, which cited an unnamed aide to the Democratic committee chair, Richard Neal, Democrats on the panel were due to be briefed on Thursday on the “legal ramifications on section of the tax law that … Neal used to request Trump’s tax returns” but would not immediately see the returns.

Well let’s do all this as slowly as possible so that nothing will happen before the Republicans take over the House.

It had long been customary, though not required, for major party candidates to release their returns. But Trump was the first major-party presidential candidate in four decades not to release his tax returns, as he sought to keep secret the details of his wealth and the activities of his real estate company, the Trump Organization.

Which is one of many reasons it’s not a cute or fun idea to make a corrupt real estate profiteer a head of state. Crooks have the wrong kinds of motivation for the job.

Joan Smith on another heartbroken dude:

In an interview veering between self-pity and entitlement, Bridges claimed to be ‘heartbroken’ after being refused permission to ride for Wales as a woman in the Commonwealth Games. (British Cycling has suspended its policy on transgender athletes while it carries out a review.) Bridges also claimed to understand the anxieties of female athletes who don’t want to compete with biological males, but dismissed them because ‘I am not a man’. 

Which is funny, because he is a man, and this whole business of dismissing women’s anxieties about being displaced by him and men like him is the very thing women are anxious about.

Not many people, one would guess, really believe that men can become women, but trans activists have created a climate where the fear of being labelled ‘transphobic’ inhibits honest responses. Bridges’s interview is an egregious example, linking criticism of trans participation in women’s sport with the murder of five people in an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs last month. The deaths of two trans people in the attack ‘are directly related to dehumanisation and demonisation of trans people in the media, online, and in debates such as those about sports,’ the cyclist claimed.

It’s tempting to observe that ‘directly’ is doing a lot of work there, but it’s more important to ask whether anyone at ITV Wales actually read this piece of malevolent hyperbole before they tweeted a link. Doesn’t anyone at the channel feel uneasy about publishing a claim that female athletes who defend sex categories in sport are in some way responsible for the actions of a mass killer in the U.S.?

My guess is no, no one at the channel does. It’s the fashionable thing, to see women as the enemy and trans people as their poor fragile trampled victims.

They have got to be kidding.

An Oxford student union official has apologised for her supposedly trans- exclusionary stance after objecting to the abolition of the women’s officer role.

Ellie Greaves, the vice-president for women at Oxford’s student union, put out a statement after a backlash against her comments in The Times.

The union is replacing its women’s officer with a liberation and equalities representative from next year. The reorganisation of union leadership will keep the same number of roles — one president and five vice-presidents — but female students will lose a dedicated women’s officer. The union said this was because the role was created at a time when women could not get full degrees and colleges were segregated, and that the position prioritised one protected group over others.

And because women are bitches and cunts and Karens and don’t deserve any kind of protection or rights or officer or anything else just for them. Bitches.

Sharon Udott, president of the Oxford Feminist Society, said: “It’s incredibly important to have a women-focused role in 2022. To say that it is redundant in this day and age is an incredibly privileged position to hold. From violence against women to advocating for increased support and funding for women’s health, these issues don’t change when the year does.”

Well she’s going to be on the naughty step.

Students took issue with some of her comments, The Oxford Student website said on Tuesday. She was asked at a student council meeting last week: “What do you have to say to the hundreds of students who were consulted regarding [the role review] . . . who agreed that this would be a good change for inclusivity, equality and the priority of intersectionality?”

What do you have to say to the hundreds of students who think inclusivity, equality, and the priority of intersectionality=women don’t matter? What do you have to say to the hundreds of fucking fools at this university who cannot wait to get rid of every trace of feminism until no one even remembers it was ever a thing?

They must have beaten her up, because she went full grovel.

Greaves issued a statement on Tuesday, saying: “The comments I made in the article contribute to a bio-essentialist, narrow-minded narrative of what being a woman is, including the prioritisation of women over minorities. I cannot apologise enough for the damage and hurt I have caused the trans community.”

Fuck the trans community. What about the hurt they’ve caused women? When is someone going to apologize for that? When is someone going to apologize enough for that?

Oxford Student Union said of changes to the women’s officer position: “The role has not been replaced but augmented to include more underrepresented and marginalised communities who currently do not have sufficient representation.”

What communities? You know – men who say they are women.

And another thing. It’s so typical of the maudlin hand-wringing hanky-drenching sympathy for men who claim to be women along with complete indifference toward actual women. Look at this insulting dreck:

Awwww, his journey, cheating women at their own sport. His “competing at an elite level” but actually not doing that because he competes against women and he has the advantage that male athletes have. Imagine a news outlet getting all soppy and flattery about a big hulking adult male competing against children. Why is it not ok to cheat children that way but it’s fine to cheat women?

Awwwww social media backlash – but isn’t that because he cheats? Because he’s a cheater? Because he cheats women, and it’s not fair?

“THE RACE TO BE ME” forsooth. But that’s not what it is, it’s a race to be someone he’s not, in order to cheat at his sport.

It’s possible that he really does have “gender dysphoria,” that he really does want to “live as a woman,” but even if it is, that doesn’t justify his cheating. He should stay out of athletic competition if he can’t stand to compete against his own sex. End of story.