Alex Jones is liable.

Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, is responsible for all damages in two lawsuits stemming from his false claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a “giant hoax,” a judge ruled this week.

District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County, Tex., issued default judgments Monday against Jones and Infowars after he did not comply with court orders to give information in a pair of 2018 lawsuits brought against him by families of two children killed in the 2012 massacre. Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence to the court supporting his damaging and erroneous claims that the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., which killed 26 people, 20 of whom were young children, was a “false flag” operation carried out by “crisis actors.”

And “damaging” is putting it mildly. Imagine being a parent of one of those young children and knowing that Alex Jones is playing this kind of sadistic game with your child’s murder.

Gamble’s ruling, which was unsealed Thursday, lambasted Jones and his website’s parent company, Free Speech Systems, for having “intentionally disobeyed” the court’s requests and showing “flagrant bad faith and callous disregard” in not turning over documents related to this and other lawsuits filed against him. Jones has already lost several defamation lawsuits related to his Sandy Hook falsehoods and was previously ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to families who have sued him. Nine families have sued him over the years.

I hope he has to get a job at a Dollar Store.

I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

There are many many more furious retorts, but they’re all replies so the Guardian tweet would reappear with each one so I’ll leave it at that.

The Guardian is trolling us.

Pregnant and breastfeeding people are facing abysmal vaccination rates and increasing health risks from the Delta variant, and they urgently need to be vaccinated, experts warn.

…

Only one-third of pregnant adults in the US have received the Covid vaccines – less than half the vaccination rate of all American adults. And stark disparities exist among different communities, with only 15.6% of Black pregnant people vaccinated so far.

At the same time, pregnancy is a risk factor for serious illness from the coronavirus. Being pregnant and unvaccinated doubles the risk of needing intensive care for those who have Covid, and leads to a 70% increased risk of death. In August alone, 22 pregnant people died from the virus.

…

It’s also important to vaccinate breastfeeding parents, both to form a cocoon of immunity around newborns and to pass antibodies through the milk, experts say.

New research reveals the Delta variant is hitting pregnant people harder than ever before. A study published this month found the hospitalization rate for pregnant patients more than doubled since last year, because of the Delta variant.

The byline on this contemptible Newspeak garbage is Melody Schreiber. Why the Guardian editors allow it (or do they mandate it?) is more than I can figure out.

“We’re very concerned that this is hitting a relatively under-vaccinated group because pregnant patients have lagged behind the rest of the population in getting the vaccine. And because they’re more vulnerable to severe illness – it’s bad now,” Adhikari told the Guardian.

Anna Euser was 32 weeks pregnant when the shot was offered to her late last year, and she took it immediately.

At that time, there were no data from the clinical trials about how well the vaccines worked in pregnant people. But Euser is an obstetrician/gynecologist and an associate professor of maternal fetal medicine for the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She had seen first-hand the way Covid wreaks havoc on pregnant people and their families.

She may have known they were women, too, but we can’t be sure.

Now, thanks to volunteers like Euster, we do have data on how safe and effective the vaccines are among pregnant and nursing people. She was one of 827 participants in a study finding the vaccines were very safe.

But because of the rise of cases and lagging vaccination rates, Euser is now having difficult conversations with some of her unvaccinated patients: what happens if they need to deliver the baby early to help the parent fight off Covid? Who will make decisions for the baby if the parent is intubated and can’t talk?

“We really are trying to do the best for our patients and recommend vaccination, but there’s a lot of baseline hesitancy in many people,” Euser said.

Part of the reason is because pregnant and breastfeeding people are frequently bombarded by misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

“We’re dealing with coordinated misinformation campaigns, and they definitely target pregnant people,” Dr Cecília Tomori, director of global public health and community health at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, told the Guardian. “Fertility, reproduction and children are main anti-vax targets from way back.”

I wonder if Euser and Tomori really did say “people” when they meant “women,” or if Schreiber altered what they said.

Now, amid the wave of cases and deaths, experts are pleading with pregnant and breastfeeding people to speak with trusted sources of information, like their doctors, about getting vaccinated.

I hope the experts are not doing that while erasing the words “women” and “mothers” from their vocabulary.

Note: the word “women” doesn’t appear once in the article or headline or subhead. Zero.

Updating to add a pathetic detail from Melody Schreiber’s About Me page:

Melody reported on health and gender in Rwanda in 2019 on a reporting fellowship with the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). 

So she’ll accept a fellowship from a women’s foundation, but she won’t use the word “women” in an article on pregnancy and COVID.

Trans-identifying man Laurel Hubbard has been named New Zealand Sports Woman of the Year. Who has not been named that?

None of these women made the cut, but Laurel Hubbard did. Hubbard didn’t win anything at the Olympics, but he made the cut.

Why?

It has to be because he’s a “trans woman” i.e. a man who identifies as a woman, and because he’s the first such man to take a woman’s place at the Olympics.

Why is that something to reward? Why is it something to make Sports Woman of the Year?

I would really like to know what the thinking is.

Man named sportswoman of the year.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard has been named sportswoman of the year by the University of Otago. 

So insulting. They’re rubbing our noses in it.

She is the first transgender winner of the award in its 113 year history celebrating sporting greatness. 

He is the first man to win the award for women.

Ms Hubbard competed at the Tokyo Olympics earlier this year in the 87+ kg womens’ weightlifting. 

Mr Hubbard.

Ms Hubbard, who transitioned in 2012, qualified for the Olympic Games after the International Olympic Committee changed their rules to allow women to compete if their testosterone levels are below a certain threshold. 

Mr Hubbard qualified for the Olympic Games after the International Olympic Committee changed their rules to allow men to compete if their testosterone levels are below a certain threshold. Which is ridiculous, and profoundly unfair to woman, because men retain a slew of physical advantages even if they lower their testosterone levels.

She released a statement after qualifying for the Games through the IOC thanking them for their inclusivity.    

‘I see the Olympic Games as a global celebration of our hopes, ideals and values and I would like to thank the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible,’ she said.

The IOC didn’t make sport inclusive and accessible, it made sport less inclusive and accessible to women, at the behest of one selfish entitled pig of a man.

But…

Everything in his power?

Really?

Then why did he sack Joan Smith without a word of explanation?

Why has he ignored her since? Why has he refused to explain or meet with her or anything else?

It was entirely within his power not to sack Joan. She wrote the damn book on the subject. He should apologize and ask her to come back. That’s entirely within his power. Empty boasting helps no one.

Originally a comment by tigger the wing on Women’s fault.

This is how I remember things were for those of us born in the fifties. When I left secondary school in 1976, all general education was still being run, and paid for, by the government. So they had a vested interest in making sure that, insofar as possible, only those teens who would stick at studying and actually gain a good degree were funnelled into university. So kids were tested at eleven to assess what kind of further learning they were suited to, and the more academically-minded kids were sent to grammar (arts and sciences track) and technical (engineering track) schools, and those of a more practical bent were sent to secondary moderns (vocational training track). Of course, regardless of the intent of the inventors of the ‘eleven-plus’ pseudo-psychological/IQ test, everybody regarded it as a simple ‘pass or fail’.

Above all this, and quite separate from it, was the for-profit educational system, of fee-paying schools. Public schools being those which would accept any child whose parents could afford the fees, and private schools being those which had stricter criteria (in addition to being able to afford the fees/qualify for a bursary or scholarship).

Regardless of intent, with few exceptions the working class kids largely went to secondary moderns and, after getting their CSEs, went into basic jobs such as shop assistants and labourers, or community college; after earning City and Guilds certificates, they went on to become nurses, secretaries and mechanics. The middle class kids largely went to grammar and technical schools, and armed with GCEs went into nice, middle-class jobs; or, with ‘A’ levels, university; and became doctors, vets, engineers, architects and the like. The upper class kids went to Oxbridge and became lawyers, CEOs and politicians.

The socialists didn’t like this at all. Dividing kids into classes at the age of eleven on the basis of an elitist IQ test is manifestly unfair, so Labour tried their best to destroy the old three-tier system and make all children go to the same secondary schools regardless of their class, and receive the same education and study for the same exams (GCSEs). It worked; unprecedented numbers of working class children started to qualify for a university education, and join the middle class. The reactionaries didn’t like this at all; they like to have people stay in nice categories for them to boss about. At the first opportunity the Conservatives introduced fees for attending university again, putting social climbing once again out of reach for most. However, once your university is making a profit from its students, you’ll want to have as many students as you can get in through the door. Community colleges became universities, and could issue degrees instead of certificates. The reactionaries have responded by regarding a basic bachelor’s degree as the equivalent of a nice set of ‘A’ levels or a certificate, thus making it harder for anyone to get into a good job to earn the money needed to pay for a university education.

Add in the rise in house prices fueled by wealthy speculators, and thus cripplingly expensive mortgages, ‘Boomer’ parents like me have found it very difficult to have enough money in savings to pay the costs of educating our children, never mind helping them with housing. The only winners have been, as usual, the upper class. Don’t blame ‘The Boomers’ for the current situation; blame the wealthy, and the left wing parties for being too absorbed with ambition and in-fighting to fight for the rights of their natural constituency.

WHAT???????????

Yes definitely because the police are always so understanding when people resist arrest, as everyone knows. So stupid of Sarah Everard not to shout “NO!” and flag down a bus (because there is always a bus coming down the street at any given moment, and the drivers always stop for people waving at them nowhere near a bus stop).

The BBC has the aftermath:

A police boss who said women “need to be streetwise” about powers of arrest in the wake of the Sarah Everard case has apologised for his remarks.

North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott sparked fury when he said Ms Everard “never should have submitted” to the arrest by her killer

But her killer was a cop. When a cop arrests you…

During Couzens’ sentencing at the Old Bailey, it emerged he had tricked Ms Everard, originally from York, by falsely arresting her for a breach of coronavirus guidelines.

Speaking on BBC Radio York earlier, Conservative Mr Allott said women should be aware this was not an indictable offence – one considered serious enough to warrant a prison sentence or crown court hearing.

And so you just walk away from the cop, and the cop lets you walk away, and everything is just fine.

Nicola Sturgeon tweeted it was not “up to women to fix this”.

“The problem is male violence, not women’s ‘failure’ to find ever more inventive ways to protect ourselves against it. For change to happen, this needs to be accepted by everyone,” she said.

Legal commentator David Allen Green added: “There is not a competent lawyer in the country that would have advised Sarah Everard to resist arrest by a police officer with a warrant card.”

Allott has apologized and withdrawn the comments. I suppose what he was doing was running the scenario in his head and trying to intervene. I think we all do that. If only – if only – if only – if only she had gone another way, if only she had left an hour earlier, if only he had had a flat tire – if only she had realized he couldn’t arrest her for that, and run like hell screaming her head off.

But we can’t intervene in the scenario. We can’t do anything at all.

The Stonewall thread:

Sinister liars. If they succeed in making sport a “safe haven” for trans women then it won’t be safe for women. Why should women have to give up sport or risk injury in order to make it safe for men who identify as women? How is that fair?

Stonewall.

Without any evidence?

Not making history:

Two German politicians from the Greens have made history by becoming the first transgender women to win parliamentary seats in Sunday’s national election.

Two men have won parliamentary seats in Sunday’s national election.

That’s not making history. The fact that they call themselves trans women doesn’t make it history.

“It is a historic victory for the Greens, but also for the trans-emancipatory movement and for the entire queer community,” Ganserer, 44, told Reuters, adding that the results were a symbol of an open and tolerant society.

What do trans people need emancipation from?

Topping the priority list for Ganserer, who was elected to Bavaria’s regional parliament in 2013, is an easier procedure for ratifying a change of gender on identity documents.

Which would mean more men intruding on women, whether they’re invited to or not.

And what are these bad clever women supposed to do?

Men fall behind women, and that’s a problem

More female graduates will change work for the better but create a dangerous pool of underachieving and alienated men.

Oh I see, it’s our fault. We create dangerous pools of alienated men who don’t do much. How do we create them? By being cleverer and doing more. The evil just never ends, does it. It might be best to kill most of us off, even things out a little.

Via

It seems the police had plenty of hints about Wayne Couzens but didn’t act on them.

The Guardian understands that an investigation into Couzens’s phone, which was seized after he was arrested for the attack on Everard, revealed he was part of a WhatsApp group involving police officers now under investigation over alleged misogynistic, racist and homophobic messages, sources say.

…

New details of previous indecent exposure claims against Couzens emerged on Thursday. A man was accused of being naked from the waist down in a car in Kent in 2015, and of twice exposing himself at a London McDonald’s days before the murder, with details of cars linked to Couzens in both instances passed to police.

A simple registration plate check, available to police on systems belonging to the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency, could have linked Couzens to alleged offending, but officers failed to identify him, the Met assistant commissioner Nick Ephgrave confirmed, and no action was taken before Everard’s murder.

The thing about that is, it’s easy to say they should have acted now that we know what he did, but it wouldn’t have been that easy before he did it. It’s hard to remember to adjust for that “they didn’t know then” piece of the story. I had to keep nudging myself as I read, to remember that they didn’t know what he was going to do before he did it, so the pants off wasn’t the Obvious Flag then that it is now. But that’s not to say it isn’t a damn good reason to do something about the pants off cop. Do we want sex creep guys as cops? No. Laurie Penny would say just don’t look, but that’s not adequate.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating whether chances were missed by Kent in 2015 and the Met days before the murder of Everard, to identify Couzens as a threat to women.

…

The victims commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird, told the Guardian that chances had been missed. “He was accused of flashing when he was in Kent and nothing came of that and three days before he murdered Sarah, he was accused of flashing again,” she said.

“Where was the red flag that should have gone up after these incidents? Surely better notice should have been taken of that. There should have been an intervention. If he were arrested for that, the chances are he wouldn’t have been able to do what he did.”

Well, the police have an awful lot of transphobia to worry about these days, it keeps them busy.

You couldn’t make it up.

Fallon FOX?????? He’s the trans-identified guy who broke a woman’s orbital bone, aka eye socket, in a fight.

Some safeguarding inspiration.

Dangerous to women? Meh. We don’t care.

Fight 4 the equal right of men to kickbox women.

Graham Linehan responds to Matt Lucas, starting with a phone call from Lucas a few months ago begging not to be cited for throwing women under passing buses.

He told me that with a big gig coming up, he had to stay out of trouble. I agreed to lay off, because he seemed to understand that he had called the whole thing wrong.

So Lucas shits on the LGB Alliance anyway.

Matt, I’ll say again what I just sent you in a text. Kate and Bev have been fighting for the rights of gay and gender-nonconforming people since before you were born. Allison Bailey is a lesbian barrister who Stonewall tried to have fired for standing up for her rights. You have smeared them all disgracefully.

Your tweet shows that you “don’t care to know” lesbians who are being harassed and coerced by entitled , aggressive AGP men, who are using trans rights as a cover for their abuse. You “don’t care to know” the gay men who are facing the same pressure from young, straight women who are convinced they are gay men. You “don’t care to know” the young women, many of them gay, who have had their bodies taken from them because they fell into the trap of gender ideology at a young age.

Never mind all that L and G nonsense, it’s all about the T now.

Not literally “whole” though.

It’s not his whole life. It’s what remains of his life, but that’s not the whole of it. It is in fact a much smaller piece of his life than the piece he stole from Sarah Everard by murdering her after he raped her. He’s 48.

Another witness testifies.

What does he mean by “anti-trans”? That the LGB Alliance wants to harm trans people, or exploit them, or oppress them?

No, of course not, he just means that the LGB Alliance doesn’t view trans people as literally the sex they identify as, and that it defends the rights of lesbians and gay men.

Victoria Smith quotes Andrea Dworkin’s “The only good woman is a dead woman.”

Self-styled good men are very good at feeling sad about women that bad men have killed. They are not so good at thinking these bad men might have anything to do with them, let alone that the “epidemic” of male violence against women and girls might be the responsibility of male people as a sex class. They’re worse still at listening to women who might have an analysis — one built up over decades of feminist scholarship in addition to personal experience — into why male people, and not female ones, feel entitled to do what they do. These men are good at seeing women as victims, and crying about woman victims, providing these victims know their place and aren’t actually able to speak. The moment a victim speaks, she turns bad.

Unless “she” is a man, of course. Trans women are allowed to speak all they want, but women, no.

Men can describe us as fearful — poor, little fearful princesses, waiting for our princes — but the moment we name what we fear, this fear becomes an irrational phobia. Men can pity us fretfully walking the streets — a pity forever tinged with that manly sense of superiority — but the moment we ask for spaces of our own, we are selfish hoarders of privileges we don’t deserve.

We’re dinosaurs. We’re abusers of women who are men, who are infinitely more vulnerable and persecuted than we mere women are.

Even knowing the rules — having had them identified decades ago — you still have to ask what kind of man sits there, declaring he wants to do more for victims, after months of saying fuck all about the rape and death threats a female colleague has been receiving from members of his own party? What kind of man is that incapable of making the connections? A man who likes the idea of himself saving passive victims, but wouldn’t dream of putting his neck on the line for the sake of a woman who hasn’t yet been hurt, or at least not hurt enough to meet his passive victimhood standards. A man who treats female victims of male violence as the mirror reflecting himself back at several times his actual level of goodness and integrity.

Read every word.