Great god almighty.

Rape survivors met with Sandy Brindley to talk about their fears around self-identified trans “women” at the [Edinburgh] Rape Crisis Centre. After the meeting got going it became clear that Brindley had brought along an activist academic (who, we know from what we read yesterday, was Brindley’s girlfriend), without asking or warning the rape survivors, or even saying who she was or explaining why she was there. The way I understand it is that the rape survivors had asked to meet with Brindley. Not random other people, and sure as fuck not her squeeze who is a trans-ideologue. Brindley simply imposed that situation on them, without asking, without mentioning, without explaining. It would be bad behavior even if the uninvited guest had been a warm ally of the rape survivors. Since she was very much not that, it’s completely outrageous.

And what this terrible person told them is, of course, even worse.

Survivors of rape have no rights in law to expect a female-only service. Picture it to yourself: a woman, uninvited, tells a group of rape survivors they have no right in law to expect men to be excluded from the service they sought at the RAPE CRISIS CENTRE. A woman they never asked to meet with, dumped on them by the woman they did ask to meet with, who is the boss of the rape crisis centre in question. It’s Trump-level insult and sadism.

And there’s all the rest of what this pair of fiends told the women.

It’s like putting a rabbi in charge of Nazi pogroms.

There was a lesbian march in Leeds Saturday.

Well we can’t have that, can we.

No, we can’t have that. We must change the subject to men who call themselves women, and berate the lesbians who marched for not being inclooosive of men. Women must never be allowed to exclude men from anything. Women are dangerous subtle enemies, and can never be trusted.

What a fool.

What a fool, and a tool, and a liar.

Sandy Brindley needs to gtfo.

The head of Scotland’s leading sexual assault support service is facing growing demands to stand down amid the fallout of a damning report into the running of a centre in Edinburgh.

Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, resigned as chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre after an independent review commissioned by Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) concluded that she had failed to behave professionally while in charge of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC).

A number of women’s groups have joined the Harry Potter author JK Rowling in now calling for the head of RCS, Sandy Brindley, to resign as well.

Why? Because she carries on as if men who pretend to be women 1. are women and 2. matter more than women.

Clare Blom, of the grassroots campaign group Women Won’t Wheesht, said: “It is unforgivable that, even now, she is unwilling to be accountable for her own conduct, or the conduct of others she enabled by her lack of judgment.

“The women of Scotland need and deserve better and she should do the right thing and resign to allow someone to take over who is willing and able to prioritise vulnerable women over the desires of entitled men.”

Instead of the other way around, which is, unbelievably, what she’s been doing.

On Sunday Brindley was attacked by Rowling after being accused of canvassing sexual assault survivors for testimonials in a bid to save her job.

“Attacked” is the wrong word in this context – a context in which women are constantly called foul names for defending women’s rights. Rowling didn’t punch Brindley in the face.

Brindley had told the Sunday Mail she had no knowledge of calls for her to quit and has been backed by some survivors.

But Rowling wrote on X: “Asking rape survivors to get you out of massive self-inflicted PR problem is unfortunately right on brand for the head of Rape Crisis Scotland.

“What are these women there for if not to protect the careers of those running the service?”

Won’t somebody please think of the brindleys?

Dialing the misogyny up to 11.

The issue about Mridul Wadhwa as CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre is not that it’s a “crime” but that it’s wrong. They’re not identical. There’s a hell of a lot of wrong in the world that is entirely legal.

It’s wrong for Wadwha to put himself forward as head of a rape crisis centre because he’s a man. The very fact that he’s insensitive and brutal enough to do so…or, more likely, that he’s malevolent and sadistic enough to do so. Anyway the point is that it’s bad, not that it’s against the law. We can talk about things that are bad even if they’re not criminal.

It’s not that Wadwha “caught the eye” of gender critical feminism, it’s that gc feminism is determined not to hand women’s rights and institutions over to men just because men like Wadwha want them. It’s not the fault of feminists that Wadhwa did what he did, and we have every right to object to his doing it.

We don’t “scream” women’s rights; we try to defend women’s rights. Sneering jeering fleering men like Willoughby are always on hand to accuse us of whining or flirting or screaming or giggling, but that’s because men like Willoughby, and Willoughby himself, have contempt for women and enjoy airing it in public.

Wadwha, who is A MAN, went for and got the job that should obviously be a woman’s job. He got it because he “identified” as a woman (as opposed to being one) and too many people are way too gullible about “trans rights” and “trans activism” and “trans women.” Willoughby is another man who claims to be a woman, and he’s keen to talk angry smack about women who resist the male takeover.

I’m tired of it.

Holeeeee shit.

Take a deep breath before reading.

Complete horror show.

Vance cheerily admits he’s just making shit up.

In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.

Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.

Asked by the CNN host Dana Bash whether the false rumors centering on Springfield, Ohio, were “a story that you created”, Vance replied, “Yes!” He then said the claims were rooted in “accounts from … constituents” and that he as well as the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, had spoken publicly about them to draw attention to Springfield’s relatively large Haitian population.

Yunh-uh like the way Hitler created stories to draw attention to Europe’s relatively large Jewish population. No problem, nothing to see here.

Vance ultimately defended his endorsement of the lies about Springfield as calling attention to the immigration policies at the White House while Harris has served as vice-president to Joe Biden.

That’s what lies about despised groups of people do, they call attention. Then once the attention is called, the next steps can be anything from insults to genocide.

Be careful what you call attention to.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The naughty apparatchiks.

The sheer number of “GC twitter” people on board with Trump’s (and the Manhattan Institute bros’) racist bullshit makes me sick.

A lesson I learned from the New Atheist movement comes to mind, a little line I started mentally sneering at people as I began to sour on the skeptic bros who flooded the meetups-in-the-pub and the comment threads on the blogs: Dude, it’s not a great feat of intellectual prowess that you figured out god doesn’t exist. The debate about religion is far more complex and interesting and important and relevant for what it reveals about the flaws in humans’ ability to think — the fact that highly intelligent people can fall under the spell of god-bothering, and the impact it’s having on society.

The people who never got past “Hurr durr, Christians are so dumb” always seemed, quite frankly, less pleasant to be around than many of the well-intentioned, thoughtful theists with whom I passionately disagreed about religion.

Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with people openly mocking the stupidity of Christianity. I didn’t disagree with what the “hurr durr” lot were saying. It’s just that by itself, they weren’t saying much, and in their lack of interest in the deeper ideas that swirled around the religion-atheism debate — the impacts it had on politics and social progress and justice and all that — they were revealing to me that they weren’t really my kind of people.

So it is with the “GC” movement, for lack of a better term. “Hurr durr look how dumb the libs are acting with all this troony nonsense” is a fair criticism. Liberals are indeed acting incredibly dumb about crossdressers and gender benders. But by itself it doesn’t offer anything but condescension, and without the broader context (well-intentioned people thinking they’re doing good by gays and women, but being misguided, for example) it can very quickly turn into a sour, anti-humanist right-wing self-serving attitude.

I’ve frankly had it with a lot of the people in the gender-critical twittersphere. My gender atheism hasn’t waned one bit, but I’m far less interested in socializing among the GC folks than I was a couple years ago, given that it’s turning into a right wing “hurr durr” fest. The Libs-of-TikTok-ification of the gender discourse is fucking tedious.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Biden exercised his parole authority.

What’s not to like about a greedy, self-serving, self-centered, misogynistic, racist, thin-skinned, shallow-minded, easily-played, abusive, boorish, ignorant, hubristically over-confident, braggadocios, felonious, dishonest, twice-impeached, dayglow-orange, Dunning-Krueger poster-boy, and aspiring dictator? Why should anyone have second thoughts about handing over the Presidency of the United States to such a man for a second time? The United States is just lucky that his desire to remain in office unconstitutionally at the end of his term, and the amplification of that desire by his deluded supporters, was exceeded by their collective stupidity. There may not be such luck if it comes to a second round if those around him have learned from the mistakes of the first attempted coup.

Seriously, “dislike” has very little to do with it. It’s not just that he’s “uncouth” or that he “rubs me the wrong way.” He doesn’t just flout norms, and “tell it like it is.” He is fundamentally unfit for public office, and manifests multiple traits that run counter to the continued survival of the political foundations of the country he seeks to take control of. He’s a menace to the Constitution, being both ignorant of its provisions, and contemptuous of the limitations it places upon the power he craves. These character traits of his were obvious for years befor he ran for office, and in any other candidate, would have instantly destroyed their political career. That Trump managed to be win power despite them demonstrates a fightening support for dictatorship amongst his supporters, and shows that the United States is in deep trouble. They can’t see, or accept the fact that the desire to hurt their putative enemies comes at the price of self-immolation. Trump is a wrecking ball. The only thing that matters to Trump is Trump, and if retaining his throne and crown means the destruction of the Republic, that’s a price he’s willing to let others pay. But don’t send him the bill; he’ll stiff you.

Laughing at JD Vance:

Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator JD Vance continues to stoke outrage against foreign-born members of his own constituency, sharing video footage with his 1.9 million social media followers that he claimed showed African migrants in Dayton, Ohio “eating cats” — but instead appears to show nothing more than poultry cooking on an outdoor grill.

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance posted Saturday on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

What kind of dang hillbilly doesn’t know a plucked chicken when he sees one?

The video was originally posted by the right-wing Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo, who offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone that could provide “proof” of cat-eating immigrants in Ohio. 

Why? Why the hell would anyone waste 5 grand on such a fatuous project?

See? See the puddy tats??

Backlash was swift, with replies ranging from, “I find it strange that a self-professed ‘hillbilly’ doesn’t know what whole chickens look like,” to, “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT CHICKENS LOOK LIKE WITH THEIR LEGS ATTACHED YOU F****ING DIPSHIT.” Oliver Alexander, an open-source intelligence analyst, weighed in, sharing images of plucked chickens looking remarkably similar to whatever was being grilled in the video. “Clearly chicken you weirdo. Dude’s never seen chicken that wasn’t dino-nugget shaped,” he wrote.

Rufo did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. The Vance campaign declined to comment on the record. An expert at the National Chicken Council did not reply to inquiries.

Those poopyheads at the National Chicken Council are such snobs.

Today in Leeds:

But.

Of course there’s a but.

Must say no to the women. Must not allow the women to speak up.

Of course he did.

Court finds Trump Tower violated environmental laws and endangered fish in the Chicago River

After several years of litigation, a Cook County judge has found operations at Trump Tower violated state and federal environmental laws that protect the fish in the Chicago River, the Illinois attorney general’s office announced Wednesday.

…

Cook County Circuit Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson on Monday granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, finding Trump International Hotel & Tower at 401 N. Wabash Ave. liable on all counts. This means there will be no trial. Raoul’s office is seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief, to be determined by the court at a future hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

“Effectively, what was found is, there’s no question that they have done all the things that they were accused of doing,” Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, told the Tribune.

A lawsuit filed in 2018 by then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan alleged the cooling system intake structure at Trump Tower siphoned water from the river so powerfully that it sucked in fish and trapped them against its screens, resulting in the death of thousands of aquatic organisms. Because of the system’s capability to pull in more than 20 million gallons of water from the river per day, federal law required extensive studies of its environmental impact and of fish populations in the river. The building also pumps water back into the river that is up to 35 degrees hotter.

Advocates say the Chicago River is healthier now than it has been the past 150 years. It is home to all kinds of animals, including migratory birds, beavers and turtles, as well as 80 species of fish — up from fewer than 10 in the 1970s. The system has become a natural resource for local businesses and recreation.

Count on Trump to do the opposite of all that.

A Tribune investigation in 2018 found that none of the other buildings holding cooling intake permits — nearly a dozen high-rises along the river — had similarly violated applicable rules. Most other downtown buildings, including many on the river, rely on different methods to keep cool, such as cooling towers connected to the public water system or an underground network of pipes that deliver chilled water from a handful of “ice batteries.”

But not Trump. Trump is a maverick. Trump does whatever Trump wants. Trump is a gleaming bronze symbol of doing whatever the fuck he wants all the time no matter what.

How Trump got sidetracked:

Donald Trump wanted to spend this week attacking one of Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ biggest political vulnerabilities. Instead, he spent most of the week falsely claiming that migrants are eating pets in a small town in Ohio and defending his embrace of a far-right agitator whose presence is causing concern among his allies.

Trump’s repeated parroting of unfounded social media rumors about Haitian migrants in Ohio eating pets stole headlines during a trip West, including stops in Arizona and Nevada, late this week. The promotion of the claims overshadowed a series of speeches aimed at the economy and blaming Harris for border security failures.

Well, you can see why though. Which is more fun, the economy or personalities? Exactly.

Trump, in a news conference in California on Friday, promised “large deportations” from Springfield, Ohio — the town that has become a political flashpoint as Republicans, including Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, spread false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets.

The city of Springfield notes on its website that approximately 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants live in Clark County, and that Haitian immigrants are there legally as part of a parole program that allows citizens and lawful residents to apply to have their family members from Haiti come to the United States.

With or without pets.

He also pointed to a Venezuelan gang in Aurora, Colorado. Continuing to use dehumanizing language to describe undocumented immigrants, Trump said “nests of bad people” are being emptied into the United States. “It’s like an invasion from within and we’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country. And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.”

“The people of Ohio are scared,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get so bad. You know what we’re experiencing now is they’re just getting settled in.”

Trump reiterated the same themes later Friday at a rally in Las Vegas. “We are under invasion just like it was an army, except in many ways it’s more difficult because they don’t wear a uniform, you don’t know who the hell to go after,” he said.

To go after. He’s such a lovely lovely man.

About those naughty immigrants in Springfield, Ohio…

In addition to Tuesday’s debate, Trump held a news conference Friday in which he rambled without evidence about how Haitians had descended on Springfield “and destroyed the place”.

When Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017, some thought the new residents could help the city regain its former vigor as a once-thriving manufacturing hub. Once home to major agricultural machinery companies in the mid-20th century, Springfield has lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.

That helps explain how they were able to find places to live: there must have been a fair amount of vacant housing.

“They came to us for one reason: they were looking for ways to find out how to work,” Casey Rollins, executive director of the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Springfield chapter, said of those who came to the Ohio city from Haiti.

“So we got together immigration lawyers and interpreters to figure out how to help them work. We are getting them online and getting them to apply [for work permits]. We wanted workers here [in Springfield] – they want to work.”

It’s the Rust Belt. It’s been losing people and jobs for decades. Some places, I think it’s safe to assume, are more short on housing and some are more short on jobs, while some are short on both.

Haitians and immigrants from Central American countries have been in high demand at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables – where they’ve been hired to clean and package produce – and at automotive machining plants whose owners were desperate for workers due to a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Labor shortage. Immigrants in high demand. Trump’s vicious questions answered.

New Caribbean restaurants and food trucks have opened across south Springfield where once abandoned neighborhoods are now bustling with residents. A popular Haitian radio station has been broadcasting for several years. And every May, thousands turn out for Haitian Flag Day that’s celebrated at a local park.

And the phrase “abandoned neighborhoods” is not some journalistic fantasy – it’s a thing that happens, and it’s bad. Detroit, for instance, is just plain rotting away in some nabes.

But there’s a but.

But the glut of new arrivals has also stretched hospitals and schools in the area, angering many locals who resented their presence. The outrage reached a crescendo last August, when an 11-year-old boy was thrown from a school bus and killed after its driver swerved to avoid an oncoming car driven by a Haitian immigrant who didn’t have an Ohio driver’s license.

The child’s death fueled anger and racism on Facebook and at Springfield city commission meetings, where public comments about immigration have often run for more than an hour. Locals upset by the growing immigrant community wondered if they were being taken over – if Springfield had become ground zero for the baseless “great replacement theory”.

Soon, rightwing extremists seized on Springfield’s unrest.

Aaand we’re off to the races.

The Associated Press last March on the “eeek eeek eeek migrants” question:

In his Super Tuesday victory speech, former President Donald Trump elevated false information that had gone viral on social media, claiming the Biden administration secretly flew hundreds of thousands of migrants into the United States.

…

Trump said during his speech, “Today it was announced that 325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown – migrants were flown in airplane, not going through borders … It was unbelievable. I said that must be a mistake. They flew 325,000 migrants. Flew them in over the borders and into our country.”

But migrants are not being flown into the U.S. randomly. Under a Biden policy in effect since January 2023, up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela can enter the country monthly if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport, paying their own way. Biden exercised his “parole” authority, which, under a 1952 law, allows him to admit people “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

…

Biden has exercised parole authority far more than any of his predecessors, which Trump calls “an outrageous abuse” that he will end if returned to the White House. Biden has granted entry — by land or air — to at least 1 million people using parole, not just the 327,000 who flew from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua or Venezuela though December.

Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesperson, said Wednesday that reports of secretly flying people into the country were “categorically false” and that Cubans, Haitian, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans were “thoroughly screened.”

Which is more than Trump can say.

He’s a wannabe Hitler now, screeching about rounding people up and mass deporting them.

Donald Trump has said he will mass deport migrants in a small Ohio town that has been rocked by baseless claims that its Haitian influx are eating pets and park animals.

“We’re going to start with Springfield,” Trump said on Friday, adding the town had been “destroyed” by immigration. He mentioned a second city in Colorado, which right-wing commentators have falsely claimed is in the hands of a Venezuelan gang.

Springfield officials say that the debunked claim of pet-eating has sent shockwaves through its community, and has led to violent threats that have shut schools.

Wake up, BBC: don’t call people an “influx.” That’s trumpy talk.

Trump was asked whether he was considering a visit to the town during a press conference at his golf course in Los Angeles on Friday.

“I can say this, we will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio – large deportations. We’re going to get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela,” he said.

He’s a foul, disgusting man. He taints us all (us Yanks) with his foulness.

A damning summing up:

JK Rowling is leading calls for resignations across Scotland’s rape crisis service after a report found a centre in Edinburgh had “damaged” survivors.

It’s not so much that she’s leading them, I think, as it is that she’s got the clout to get people to listen. Maybe that’s what “leading” means in this context, but I doubt she wants to be portrayed as the boss, or to get all the credit.

The author intervened after Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, quit as chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) having been found to have “failed to set professional standards of behaviour” and for not understanding “the limits on her role’s authority”.

Pff. He systematically bullied everyone there, especially the women who needed the service.

For critics of Rape Crisis Scotland, the row erupting about ERCC symbolises the ideological capture of the Scottish government by trans activists.

It is the ideological capture. No need for symbolism; it’s the thing itself.

This week’s report on the ERCC, commissioned by Rape Crisis Scotland, found that Wadhwa had failed to ensure the centre carried out its primary function: to deliver services to women and girls who have experienced sexual violence.

Its practices “caused damage” to survivors and some “did not feel safe” using it, according to the author, Vicky Ling, a legal specialist.

During her research, Ling asked the ERCC for further information on the women-only services it provided but was told there was “very little demand” for them.

Anyone believe that? Anyone at all?

It emerged that for a 16-month period until February this year “there were no protected women-only spaces available through ERCC unless they were specifically requested”.

These people make me feel stabby.

Good. news.

Oh no oh no there’s a wacko hanging around with Trump, that will ruin everything.

The presence of hard-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer alongside Donald Trump on the campaign trail in recent days has raised questions, including from some Republicans, about the influence the controversial former congressional candidate may have on him.

Seriously! Because otherwise he would be entirely rational and thoughtful and able to utter a coherent sentence.

[O]n Tuesday, [Loomer] travelled to Philadelphia on board Trump’s plane for the presidential debate in the city. Perhaps the most memorable moment of that debate came when Trump repeated a baseless claim that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating domestic pets in a small Ohio city. “They are eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.

City officials later told BBC Verify that there have been “no credible reports” this has actually happened. Trump said he was repeating claims he had heard on television, but the theory was aired by Ms Loomer just a day before the debate. On Monday, the fringe pundit and social media influencer repeated the claims to her 1.2m followers on X.

While the level of access Ms Loomer has to Trump is unclear, and his running mate JD Vance has also spread the baseless theory, Ms Loomer’s post and her presence in Philadelphia has led some Republicans to blame her for the former president making the unfounded claim on stage.

Right, because normally he doesn’t make unfounded claims at all ever.

Another outspoken Trump supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene, took issue with Ms Loomer this week over her comments questioning Harris’s race and a post in which she said the White House “will smell like curry” if Harris – who is partly of Indian descent – is elected. Greene said Ms Loomer’s comments were “appalling and extremely racist” and did “not represent who we are as Republicans or MAGA” – prompting a flurry of furious messages in her direction.

That’s great. The Trump maniacs are now brawling over who is the most maniacal. The answer is: ALL OF YOU.

Aha, another turn of the screw, so to speak – Wadhwa already had a fancy new job. His talents must be off the charts.