Even Simone Biles can be a pretext for sadistic bullying from the Fox party.

On Fox, a growing cadre of white, male rightwing sports talking heads sharpened their claws, ignoring the racial and gendered nuance of Biles’ experience. On his Fox Sports radio show Doug Gottlieb claimed Biles hasn’t faced criticism in her career. “For years, women have said, all we want to be judged as is equal,” he opined. “Generally, we don’t have any sort of critique for our female sports teams. On one hand you want to be viewed, treated, and compensated the same as the men, but on the other hand whatever you do, just don’t be critical of us.”

On the one hand you want to be equals, but on the other hand you keep saying you have rights. What a puzzler, yeah?

Clay Travis has taken over many of the radio slots occupied by Rush Limbaugh since the conservative commentator’s death. On another Fox show, Travis also said that Biles has been held to a different standard and said she should apologize to her fellow gymnasts for quitting. “She wasn’t there for them, and that represents a fundamental breach of the most important aspect of team sports.” And uber-conservative pundit Charlie Kirk went even further on his podcast, calling Biles “selfish”, “immature”, “a shame to the country” and a “sociopath”. He added: “Simone Biles just showed the rest of the nation that when things get tough, you shatter into a million pieces.”

Then how did she win all those medals? If she shatters into a million pieces when things get tough, how on earth did she ever get so good at her sport?

Silly questions of course, because they don’t mean any of it, it’s just a performance. A stupid ugly sexist racist performance. No prize.

It’s an interesting idea, that a member of Congress should be able to encourage a violent attack on that same Congress because his team lost an election, and then get the government to act as his lawyer. The DoJ isn’t persuaded.

The Justice Department rejected a request by Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks for legal protection in court against a lawsuit linking him to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Brooks, former President Donald Trump and others were sued by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., earlier this year. Swalwell alleges that Brooks and others named in the lawsuit helped incite a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6 during a pro-Trump rally.

Swalwell alleges it and the rest of us watch clips of them doing it.

Lawmakers can, at times, receive legal protection as an “employee of the government.” That is allowed when their actions are considered to be done within the scope of their duties.

So, is trying to overthrow the government within the scope of their duties as a member of the government? I’m gonna go with no. The DoJ dressed it up as “he was engaging in a political campaign” but we get to just say Nope.

Why indeed?

Originally a comment by cluecat on A full wax.

This has been an issue in a number of settings – particularly gymnastics and related sports. A number of us have taken the point deduction that comes with departing from uniform expectations in competitions. Those deductions can be substantial – going from a near-perfect score on technical grounds, to ending up placing last as a direct result of the clothing/appearance penalty. A penalty applied only to female athletes in these settings – the males rarely have points deducted on these grounds.

I have competed wearing leggings in some sets, and others have worn the “boy’s” uniforms – a vest or mens’ leo with shorts. We were all penalised for refusing to wear skimpy, impractical, undignified (and inevetably sexualised) clothing. There is no technical advantage to the high-leg leotards; it doesn’t help the gymnast in any way, or benefit any aspect of the performance – the whole reason for wearing the leotards is “that’s what female gymnasts wear”. There is literally no reason to prohibit wearing leggings or shorts.

Gymnasts are penalised for having bra-straps showing beneath a leotard, or any hint of underwear generally visible – this often results in gymnasts being unable to wear anything under the leo, and having to temporarily glue the thing in place for competitions to avoid extreme embarassment (plus further deductions of points). With this expectation of near-nudity comes the chance for predators to abuse their targets – it’s clearly related to the clothing limitations; predators see it as part of the excuse for their behaviour.

Finally a number of international competitors are refusing this indignity – the German team have been competing in full suits; basically the equivalent of long-sleeve leo and matched leggings. This is exactly what a lot of gymnasts would like to wear, given the choice. It’s much more dignified, and still shows the technical “lines” etc.

Also, if the guys can wear shorts and the judges are still able to tell if their routines meet the requirements, then what reason can possibly be offered for why the girls cannot wear the same? Apart from sexism, there’s nothing.

The very fact that these athletes keep having to insist that they are, in fact, athletes, not decorative things for gross dudes to drool over, is still infuriating. We should not be penalised by males for insisting on practical, dignified attire in which to perform our sports. Women are still fighting to be seen as Real People, not accessories for males, and access to sport is part of that.

How many girls have turned away from these chances to understand their own strength and capability because they face these demands to perform their incredible feats in ridiculous outfits?

How often are brilliant girls, demonstrating their hard work and dedication in magnificent performances, belittled and dismissed because stupid people want to focus on what the girls are wearing, and whether they look sufficiently doll-like and decorative, or whether they meet some other bizarre male fantasy?

Nobody expects the dudes to look decorative. They get to be sporting professionals and be recognised as such without having to fulfil anyone’s fantasies. Males get to be Real People by default.

So that’s a relief anyway.

And not just Mo Brooks…

No need to imagine, we’ve been watching it.

I saw a tweet by Amy Siskind saying the Pillsbury Dough Boy of Fox News is now mocking today’s January 6 hearing, and after I got my breath back I looked for more. Aaron Rupar, as so often, obliges.

And in case that’s not enough –

“Hysteria” and “grift” – yes it’s all just a big con game. The 611 thousand dead would confirm if they could still breathe.

From a comment by iknklast on How to threaten power.

There is a battle between faculty and administration right now, both of whom claim to support high standards, but who identify that differently. High standards to the faculty means that you actually educate the students in what they came to learn; high standards to the administration means they are happy. They are doing battle right now with English and Math because they are trying to remove basic competencies in reading and mathematics that we currently require for graduation; the administration says that held up several students from getting their degree on time. Yeah. It’s more important that they graduate than that they learn anything.

They’ve also made it possible for students to get their degree without ever taking a science class. They added Psych 101 to the science curriculum; it is full to overflowing every semester while hard science classes are slipping in numbers. They used to put students in my Environmental Science course for the “easy” science…until it became obvious that it is not, in fact, easy, at least not if it’s taught correctly. I do not hold hands and sing Kum Bay Yah with my students, and we don’t sit around all semester learning about recycling for the 2000th time. They get the science of how the environment works, and why you shouldn’t try to get all chemicals out of the environment, and so forth. No New Age silliness in my class, just science.

So the administration did what any self respecting educator would do…they multiplied awards by giving them some sort of certificate for almost anything. A certificate for this class, a diploma for a couple more classes, and then a degree at the end. A student could probably come out with a dozen or two “awards” for doing nothing more than taking classes.

Meanwhile I’m sitting through harrowing ‘training’ sessions that tell me we should not give students deadlines; it’s too much pressure. Yeah, right. So next Sunday A.D. is fine if that’s when they want to turn in the paper? After they’ve been graduated for twelve years, because we don’t want to hold up anyone’s graduation just because they can’t read or do basic arithmetic? And we should let the student select how they are assessed. The example they give is to allow a student to do interpretive dance to demonstrate their knowledge of mitosis. So the fuzzy subjective feel good nonsense from elsewhere will begin to pervade the sciences, and we no longer have anything that can live up to the name of education.

From a comment by Rob on Systemic v individual.

I’m not going to enumerate all the examples of serious cultural, institutional and systemic racism in western society. Any reasonable person just needs to open their eyes to see the ocean we swim in. CRT was initially adopted by law schools as a tool for analysing the effect of laws (past and present) and the way their application affected people coming into contact with the legal system (police, courts and prisons). Remember this isn’t just kumbaya-singing hippies at universities, but hard headed lawyers from a wide ranging political and social spectrum. You can find plenty of non-academic lawyers and prosecutors online who give meaningful and specific examples of current systemic racism in the ‘law’ and a number who write about the racist background of specific laws and classes of law that still exist, but were designed to target black people.

Let’s not get started shall we on on the number of States in the US that are actively gerrymandering their Districts to disadvantage black voters, and who are also changing their voting procedures to specifically disadvantage not all Democratic voters, but overwhelmingly those of black or latino background.

Even if, for arguments sake, we say that there is only historical racism, that still doesn’t remove the consequences of generations of past active racism. Multigenerational disadvantage and poverty – laws around redlining, the ability to work (or refuse work), violent destruction of black wealth, refusal to allow loans on an equal basis, underfunding of public utilities, healthcare and education. That’s what creates ‘black’ culture.

NZ, as I’ve said before, has its fair share of racists (and racism deniers), but as a society we have been making a conscious effort for the last generation to redress some of the inequalities that exist. That has included reparations to Iwi groups, some of whom have invested wisely and created employment and wealth for their people and some not. Recognition of language, incorporation of cultural values and consultation into Government policies. Even so, we still have much worse outcomes for health, education, housing, imprisonment for Maori compared to non-Maori. A recent large study of health outcomes found, as an example, that when a particular subset of patients’ case files were examined (late middle aged obese male smokers with heart conditions), if you were white you were more likely to be referred by your doctor for further tests, medication and treatment. if you were Maori you were more likely to be sent home and told to quite smoking and exercise more. Maori are more likely to rearrested, and imprisoned, for the same crime than white people. Dysfunctional Maori families are far more likely to have their children ‘uplifted’ than non-Maori similarly situated.

There are rays of sunshine. These things are part of national debate and there is wide acceptance at Government and within many professions that things need to change. Schools that have made even token changes to adopt elements of Maori language and culture have found that students become more engaged and outcomes improve.

The best evidence that there is a systemic issue is that when people do try to change the system, the very structures and practices themselves make shifting outcomes slow and difficult and easily eroded. I don’t believe that NZ is unique and I don’t believe we are the worst country in the world with respect to these issues.

Well. That takes some nerve.

Really?!

No.

Stefanik’s claim is that the Capitol police raised concerns about security and that Pelosi “prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety.” But there’s a catch: their safety is not Pelosi’s jurisdiction.

It should go without saying that the main person who bears responsibility for the violence that occurred on Jan. 6 is former President Donald Trump, whose lies about the election being stolen are what inspired a militant set of protesters to gather in Washington. He then directed that very group he convened to head to the Capitol and told them to “show strength.”

But as far as who was responsible for security vulnerabilities that day [is concerned], Pelosi again is far from the guilty party. Capitol security isn’t the speaker’s responsibility. It’s the duty of the Capitol Police, along with the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms.

You know who else didn’t do anything about Capitol security that day? Dolly Parton! Also Angela Merkel, also Meryl Streep.

Nor is the House speaker responsible for the Capitol Police’s shortcomings. As the president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, Jane Campbell, told CNN, “The speaker of the House does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol, nor does this official oversee the Capitol Police Board.” Furthermore, the former Capitol Police chief has testified that Pelosi was not involved in decisions about the deployment of the National Guard in the run-up to Jan. 6.

But she should have been. Never mind that that’s not her job, she should have done it anyway. The whole thing is her fault.

Speaking of shorts on the men and tiny tiny underpants on the women, Gail Dines points out something I think of every time I see those damn photos and clips –

No discussion in mainstream media about the need for women athletes to have a full Brazilian wax to wear the hypersexualized, pornified skimpy outfits. Aside from the very painful procedure, women often bleed during the wax, get infections, and it hurts when the hair grows back. Could you imagine men having to wax their pubic area in order to compete in sports? And the mostly male coaches get to have a bird’s eye view of the women’s crotches, and we know that Larry Nassar is not just one bad apple!

Seriously. They can’t possibly wear those awful little rags without getting all their pubic hair yanked out, and they are forced to wear the awful little rags. It’s a god damn outrage.

CNN on the treason hearings:

The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack at the Capitol held its first hearing on Tuesday with harrowing testimony from four officers who shared their stories of being attacked by the rioters.

…

One by one, the four officers who testified Tuesday — DC Metropolitan Police Officers Daniel Hodges and Michael Fanone, and Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Sgt. Aquilino Gonell — recounted their gut-wrenching stories about how they were attacked and their lives were threatened on January 6.

Witnesses and committee members were verklempt at times.

H[odg]es described how he was forced to scream out in agony as he was pressed between the rioters and a metal doorframe. Fanone described how he was dragged into the crowd, beaten and electrocuted repeatedly with his Taser.

“I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm as I heard chants of ‘kill him with his own gun,'” Fanone said. “I can still hear those words in my head today.”

Dunn’s testimony included detailing pro-Trump supporters hurled racial epithets at him, calling him the n-word, something he said he had never experienced while wearing his police uniform. He described afterward how he sat down with another black officer “and told him about the racial slurs I endured.”

“I became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?'” Dunn said.

Gonell, who served in Iraq, said he was more afraid working at the Capitol on January 6 than at any point in serving a war zone. “I remember thinking to myself, this is how I am going to die, defending this entrance,” said Gonell, who couldn’t hug his wife when he returned home the following morning because he was covered in chemical spray.

Many Republicans in Congress, and Trump and his goons, are pretending it didn’t happen or was no big deal (or in Trump’s case, of course, both, often in the same sentence).

The officers said the rioters they fought against were terrorists. Woven into the stories about how they and their colleagues were attacked — and in some cases badly injured — the officers expressed outrage that the violence launched by pro-Trump supporters was being ignored by the very lawmakers they protected that day.

“I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room. But too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist, or that hell wasn’t actually that bad,” Fanone said.

“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!” Fanone continued, raising his voice and slamming his fist on the table in one of the most powerful moments of the hearing.

And these are the cops who survived to tell us about it. Not all of them did.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the committee, asked Gonell specifically about Trump’s comments that the crowd was loving.

“It’s upsetting. It’s a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create this monstrosity,” Gonell said. “I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day, that he claimed that so many rioters, terrorists, were assaulting us that day.”

The hit man sent them.

Aaron Rupar is following the January 6 hearing for us.

As the man said – powerful.

Labour is not supporting Rosie Duffield, Labour is instead doing what the trans “activists” and “allies” ordered them to do, and “investigating” her.

LGBT+ Labour said its demand “comes after a pattern of LGBT-phobic behaviour culminating in the endorsement of tweet from a person arrested on terrorism charges which accuses members of the LGBT+ community of being ‘cosplayers’”.

And? Is LGBT+ Labour seriously pretending zero such “members of the community” are cosplayers? Many such members go on at great length about their cosplaying.

Never mind that, heads they win tails we lose.

Update, 6.50pm: A Labour spokesperson said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of homophobia or transphobia extremely seriously. This complaint will be fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures.” It is understood that the party is looking into the matter.

I wonder if the Labour Party takes all complaints of misogyny extremely seriously.

Kidding; I don’t really wonder; of course they don’t.

Oh the confidence of a man who knows nothing at all about it.

But how do women keep predatory men out of women’s change rooms when we’re not allowed to keep men out of women’s change rooms? They don’t show up with labels on you know.

The poor poor man, and the poor poor men who say they are trans – how terrible it is that all these witchy women won’t just shut up and do what we’re told.

You have GOT to be kidding.

All of a sudden the ugliest most right-wing Republicans care about treatment of prisoners – when the prisoners in question are white guys who did absolutely nothing wrong apart from invading the Capitol, assaulting cops, trying to assassinate members of Congress, and making an energetic attempt to overthrow the government and install a dictator.

It’s enough to make you projectile-vomit.

Speaking of female v male sport clothes…

It’s almost as if the whole point is to…

Check out this complete fuckwit answering demands for specifics and evidence with a tweet of his own which is just another string of assertions. “Show me some evidence!” “Ok here’s me saying things!” Doing this over and over again. The conceit plus stupidity is quite something. Complete fuckwit inexplicably has 248 thousand followers.

“But why should we believe you that Rosie Duffield is so wicked?”

“Because I said so in this other tweet!”

Scene: a sporting goods store in Montana. A guy spots Tucker Carlson and gets in his face.

In a confrontation that swiftly went viral, a Montana man told Fox News host Tucker Carlson: “You are the worst human being known to mankind.”

The man, identified on Instagram as Dan Bailey, posted the video of the encounter in a sporting goods store on 23 July.

…

Fox News’s most-watched host, a key influence on rightwing politics and invective, has recently come under fire for questioning vaccines against Covid-19 while refusing to say if he has had one, and for stoking racial division.

“Questioning vaccines” is putting it politely. Really what he’s doing is encouraging people not to get them, and to tell everyone else not to get them. During a pandemic.

In a statement, Fox News said: “Ambushing Tucker Carlson while he is in a store with his family is totally inexcusable – no public figure should be accosted regardless of their political persuasion or beliefs simply due to the intolerance of another point of view.”

Nonsense. Some public figures should be confronted, and Tucker Carlson is way high up on that list. Vaccinations are not just a “point of view,” they’re life and death. Tucker Carlson is literally telling people to die and to encourage others to die. Yes, he deserves to be embarrassed and irritated in a sporting goods store.

Pink News is trying hard to punish a woman MP who says that only women are women.

LGBT+ Labour are calling for Rosie Duffield to lose the whip and be suspended from the party after an alleged “pattern of LGBT-phobic behaviour” from the Canterbury MP.

Yes the pattern is “alleged” all right, and the allegation is false.

LGBT+ Labour’s statement comes after Duffield liked a tweet by Kurtis Lemaster yesterday (25 July) that stated the word “queer” is being reclaimed by “heterosexuals cosplaying as the opposite sex and as ‘gay’”.

Why would that be a reason to remove the whip and suspend her from the party? They don’t say.

Rosie Duffield’s history of anti-trans activity

That is, her history of saying things Pink News doesn’t like.

The row began at the start of August 2020, when Rosie Duffield insisted that “only women have a cervix” and doubled down on accusations of transphobia by labelling the backlash against her comments a “tedious Communist pile-on”.

Well guess what, only women have a cervix. Men don’t have a cervix. Women don’t have testicles. If saying that is a reason to suspend people from the Labour party that party is not fit for purpose.

PinkNews has contacted the Rosie Duffield, who has repeatedly denied she is transphobic, for comment.

Pink News is a sewer.