Bex Stinson is “Head of trans inclusion, Stonewall.” The meaning of “trans inclusion” of course is not the ordinary, commonly understood meaning of inclusion, but a new and paradoxical meaning: the “inclusion” of men with women and women with men, when the included identify as the other sex.

Nicola Adams is

a British former professional boxer who competed from 2017 to 2019. She retired with an undefeated record and held the WBO female flyweight title in 2019.

Bex Stinson is of course lying when he says Nicola Adams “is trying to prevent trans people from playing sports.” Saying men should not compete against women is not saying they should not play sports. It’s pretty simple.

Man who identifies as woman wants other men who identify as women to be able to box against women despite their large physical advantage. I wonder how long it will take for Trans Allies to see how grotesque this is.

Does it even matter that Trump goes to Michigan and incites violence against its governor? Yes, it does.

After Donald Trump attacked Gretchen Whitmer at a rally in Michigan on Saturday, prompting chants of “Lock her up!”, an aide to the governor said: “Every single time the president does this at a rally, the violent rhetoric towards her immediately escalates on social media. It has to stop. It just has to.”

…

At his rally in Muskegon, Trump targeted Whitmer several times, criticising state rules to stop the spread of coronavirus, calling her “dishonest” and making light of a rightwing plot to kidnap her – and possibly to kill her – that was foiled by the FBI.

He’s behind in the polls, and this is what he does to try to claw his way back. Trump’s America is a mean abusive rage-driven hell of bullies and the people they persecute.

On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Lara Trump, wife of Eric Trump and a campaign surrogate for her father-in-law, said the president “wasn’t doing anything I don’t think to provoke people to threaten this woman at all.

“He was having fun at a Trump rally and quite frankly, there are bigger issues than this right now for everyday Americans people … he wasn’t encouraging people to threaten this woman, that’s ridiculous.”

He was “having fun” at a Him-rally by shouting venom at a Democratic woman while his audience cheered and screamed “Lock her up.” Of course he was encouraging them to threaten “this woman.”

Make.him.go.away.

How the pro-murder for “blasphemy” side sees things:

Salih is the editor of 5 Pillars. It’s fascinating to see his anxiety about oppression and brutalization of Muslims in France as a response to the murder of a teacher by an engraged Muslim. Obviously Muslims in France should not be oppressed or brutalized, because no one should, but if we’re going to talk about “terrible violence” what about that teacher?

Not his problem, it seems.

The teacher didn’t show his pupils “blasphemous caricatures” because “blasphemy” is a word that doesn’t mean much to people who don’t share the religion in question. It’s not “blasphemy” for me to say Jesus is not sitting at God’s right hand, because I don’t adhere to the religion that says Jesus is too so sitting at God’s right hand. Believers may see it as “blasphemy” but that’s their problem. Some people think it’s a form of blasphemy to tell the truth about Donald Trump, but that’s their problem. Some people think it’s a form of blasphemy to say that men are not women, but that’s their problem.

This is a guy who fancies himself a news editor.

Remember – some vigilantes were just arrested by the feds for plotting to abduct this same governor and “put her on trial.”

More on the Paris nightmare:

Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine , north-west of the French capital, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old man who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.

Because of a cartoon.

Earlier this month, Paty had shown a class of teenage pupils a caricature from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo during a moral and civic education class discussion about freedom of speech, sparking a furious response from a number of parents who had demanded his resignation. Before presenting the caricature, the teacher reportedly invited Muslim students to leave the classroom if they wished.

Afterwards, the father of a 13-year-old girl who did not leave the class posted a video on YouTube claiming the teacher had shown a “photo of a naked man” claiming he was the “Muslim prophet”. The father called on other parents to join him in a collective action against the teacher, whom he described as a “voyou” (thug).

In other words the father lied and the teacher was murdered.

Jean-François Ricard, France’s anti-terrorist prosecutor, said the teacher had been “assassinated for teaching” and the attack was an assault on the principle of freedom of expression. “This is the second attack to take place during the Charlie Hebdo trial which shows the high level of terrorist threat we face,” Ricard said.

…

Ricard said: “The first investigation shows the victim had during a 4th year class a discussion about freedom of expression as allowed under the national curriculum.” Later a parent posted a complaint on Facebook about the professor showing a “naked picture” of the Prophet. This same parent went to the school to complain, and later posted a video with the message “stop”. The father then went to the police station with his daughter to lodge an official complaint against the professor for the distribution of “pornographic images”.

That is, an official complaint full of lies.

Macron visited the scene of the attack on Friday evening. “One of our compatriots was assassinated today because he taught pupils freedom of expression, the freedom to believe and not believe,” he said. “This was a cowardly attack on our compatriot. He was the victim of a typical Islamist terrorist attack.”

…

The hashtag #JeSuisProf (I’m a teacher) was spreading on social media on Saturday. It is reminiscent of #JeSuisCharlie, which emerged as a global wave of support for the journalists and staff of Charlie Hebdo killed in 2015.

Brilliant. Well done us.

More than 68,000 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the US on Friday, the highest number in a single day since July, further confirmation the country is in the midst of a coronavirus resurgence.

That’s the worst it’s been since the end of July. Wrong direction, folks.

Cases dipped from August to mid-September. But public health experts have long feared a rise in cases as the weather starts to cool, leading people indoors, where the virus is more likely to spread. Cases are increasing in a majority of states, particularly in the northern midwest, including the Dakotas, Montana and Wisconsin – where Donald Trump was due to stage a rally on Saturday night.

This week, the US has averaged 55,000 new cases a day, a 60% increase compared with mid-September.

“You can’t enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, on Friday, while discussing the difficulties the virus will present in the coming weeks.

You can’t but we are.

Fauci says we’re still in the first phase, because the count has never gone down enough to say that phase is over.

New cases reached 4,100 in Wisconsin on Friday, a record daily high. The state has set up overflow hospital facilities and the national guard is manning extra testing sites.

Joe Biden currently leads Donald Trump by about seven points in Wisconsin, generally considered a battleground state. On Saturday Trump was due to stage a rally in Janesville, about 175 miles away from La Crosse, Minnesota, his intended venue until local officials urged the president to move the rally amid a surge of cases.

That’s confusing. They mean he was going to do the rally in LaCrosse but now he’s doing it in Janesville.

While incidents of coronavirus transmission in open-air environments have not been documented as thoroughly as viral spreading in indoor settings, Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, a Democrat, suggested it was reckless for the president to draw thousands of people together in a “red zone” for transmission.

“The president could do two things: one is maybe not come to these two municipalities and cities that are ranked right up towards the top of all the places in the country [for infections],” Evers said.

“The second thing that could be done is for him to insist that if people are there, they wear a mask. He can make that happen. He could wear one too. Those are the two things that he could do to make sure that it doesn’t become a super-spreader event.”

He could do that but he won’t.

Originally a comment by iknklast on Zero more years.

In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters

This is one of the things that annoys me. Always saying this, without noting that the ailments he described were not in many cases ailments, but signs of a country that has people that are diverse and many of them have sentiments more in line with the modern world than with the one Trump voters long for. It’s time to quit playing this game of saying things in a way that sounds like he was describing legitimate bad things, things most of us could agree are bad, but which Trump didn’t solve.

The things that “struck a chord with many voters” include racism, misogyny, homophobia, nastiness, name calling, contempt for the disabled, contempt for everyone who is not them. As long as we keep pussyfooting around these realities, we legitimize them. Trump is not the cause of these things, he is the result of these things. His voters got what they wanted…a mindless buffoon who breaks things. A racist who works to dismantle protections for minorities. A misogynist who thinks grabbing unwilling women is just fine, and something to brag about.

I imagine the NY Times doesn’t like to think about the implications. If this is what 40% of the voters want, what does that say about this country? About our neighbors? Our families? So they act like it is all because Trump didn’t live up to what the voters wanted, rather than admitting that the voters elected the Trump they got.

The NY Times editorial board says get Trump out of there.

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans.

But political rhetoric is always going to be “divisive” in some way, because it takes positions, and that means some people will disagree. Calling Trump’s horrendous abusive bullying way of talking “divisive” lets him off far too easily. He’s an evil sadistic down-punching thug. Don’t pretty that up with mere “divisive.”

Mr. Trump stands without any real rivals as the worst American president in modern history. In 2016, his bitter account of the nation’s ailments struck a chord with many voters. But the lesson of the last four years is that he cannot solve the nation’s pressing problems because he is the nation’s most pressing problem.

He is a racist demagogue presiding over an increasingly diverse country; an isolationist in an interconnected world; a showman forever boasting about things he has never done, and promising to do things he never will.

That’s more like it.

Dictators should not make jokes about doing dictatorial things.

President Trump on Friday said he would blame Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if he lost the potentially pivotal battleground state in the presidential election and quipped about firing him – a statement that raised eyebrows due to Trump’s history of accusing Democratic governors of working to tilt the election against him.

Yeah quip shmip – it’s not a “quip” when it’s exactly the kind of thing you do in fact do whenever you feel like it and have the ability. He doesn’t have the ability to fire Santis, of course, but if he did? He would if he decided he wanted to.

“Hey Ron, are we gonna win the state please?” Trump asked DeSantis, a Republican and close ally, at a rally in Ocala, Florida, adding that if he doesn’t win “I’m blaming the governor.”

Trump said he would “find a way” to “fire him somehow. I’m going to fire him.”

Hur hur. Look at what he’s implying – that the governor should steal the election for him. So hilarious.

Trump made several other shocking statements at his rally, including encouraging supporters to chant “12 more years” instead of “four more years,” and calling on the Justice Department to investigate Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a common foil of his.

Trump often makes similar statements of questionable legality at his rallies, including saying in September he would negotiate for a third term in office because he’s “entitled” to it. He also spoke about issuing an executive order to prevent Biden from becoming president at a rally in September, exclaiming, “You can’t have this guy as your president.”

I cannot wait for his return to private life.

Gee, you’d expect the weather professionals to know better than this.

Snerk

That’s the Spanish Civil War slogan No pasarán in French. It originated with Dolores Ibárruri.

I’ve said it before but

A god who wants people to MURDER other people for disputing or laughing at or drawing cartoons of or sharing cartoons of that god or any of that god’s children or holy spirits or prophets or hairdressers or chauffeurs or button-polishers

is an EVIL god and not anything to be worshiped.

Today in Paris:

… a man who decapitated a teacher with a large kitchen knife near a school in a Paris suburb after he showed his class caricatures of the prophet Muhammad from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

For some reason the Guardian decided to lead with the fact that the police shot the man, but fuck that, the core fact is that the man MURDERED a teacher and cut off his head. Over fucking cartoons. Of a long-dead “prophet” of a shitty patriarchal bloodthirsty religion centered on a god that doesn’t exist.

The victim was a 47-year-old history-geography professor – the subjects are taught together in France – but also gave the obligatory courses in “moral and civil education”. It was as part of these, and while talking about freedom of speech, that the professor showed pupils, aged 12 to 14, the caricatures. This sparked complaints from a number of parents and one family lodged a legal complaint.

And so the teacher was slaughtered in the street. That’s fine then. The “prophet” is avenged.

After the contested lesson, an angry parent posted a video on YouTube complaining about the teacher. On Friday night, another parent posted below the video, defending the professor, writing: “I am a parent of a student at this college. The teacher just showed caricatures from Charlie Hebdo as part of a history lesson on freedom of expression. He asked the Muslim students to leave the classroom if they wished, out of respect … He was a great teacher. He tried to encourage the critical spirit of his students, always with respect and intelligence. This evening, I am sad, for my daughter, but also for teachers in France. Can we continue to teach without being afraid of being killed?”

Can religion get in the sea?

Macron, sombre and visibly moved, spoke briefly after visiting the college where the murdered professor worked. “One of our compatriots was assassinated today because he taught. He taught his students about freedom of expression, freedom to believe or not believe. It was a cowardly attack. He was the victim of a terrorist Islamist attack,” Macron said.

…

“This evening I want to say to teachers all over France, we we are with them, the whole nation is with them today and tomorrow. We must protect them, defend them, allow them to do their job and educate the citizens of tomorrow.”

The citizens. Not the slaves of a god and its prophet, but the citizens.

Julie Bindel on Rosie Duffield:

Despite having seen the punishment inflicted on women like me who speak out about our sex-based rights, Duffield nevertheless braved the shark-infested waters this summer by daring to agree with Piers Morgan on Twitter that only women have cervixes. Had anyone told me a decade ago it would be seen as either risky or brave to point out the realities of female biology I would have laughed. Since then Duffield has continued to receive endless attacks and threats against her life.

It’s so bizarre, isn’t it. Eagles have wings; bears don’t. Flowers have petals; horses don’t. Trees have roots; butterflies don’t. Women have cervixes; men don’t. Men have testicles; women don’t. None of that is political; none of it should be a reason to attack and threaten women.

Every single MP, regardless of where they stand on the transgender debate, should speak up in support of Duffield, because to do so is to speak out against the appalling and toxic misogyny which is currently engulfing women. I strongly suspect that many of Duffield’s colleagues agree with her and are appalled at her treatment. But this is clearly not enough for them to risk being bumped from good positions on the front bench. They need to have a long, hard think about who would stand up for them if they happened to say something deemed unacceptable to the mob. They should exercise compassion rather than cowardice.

But they’ve been trained to think it’s men who say they are women who really need compassion, not mere women who just are women. Women who just are women are boring and privileged both, which is why we’ve been ordered to redirect our solidarity to men who want to force everyone to agree that they’re women.

Half of Twitter is replying that that’s all very well but Kelly is pretty terrible himself; Representative Frederica Wilson gets mentioned a lot.

True, but the point isn’t so much “these are great people with integrity” as it is “even the shittiest people are saying he’s the worst.”

Kelly doesn’t get any medals or praise or parties for saying it, but if he’s saying it, you know Trump can’t rely on the Worst People section of voters any more.

You’d think they have more important things to worry about.

What does that have to do with women? What does it have to do with women’s needs, women’s rights, women’s equality?

Nothing. Not one thing. It’s a pseudo-concern from a pseudo-rights movement that is hell bent on taking rights away from women as opposed to supporting or strengthening or expanding them.

So far I can’t get a read on how abnormal it is to deny federal disaster aid in the wake of an enormous disaster. The Post is playing it close to the vest:

Fueled by extreme heat and tinder-dry conditions, wildfires exploded across California in September, blazing through almost 1.9 million acres, destroying nearly 1,000 homes and killing at least three people. One wildfire, the Creek Fire, became the largest single blaze in California history and grew so fierce it spun up fire tornadoes with 125-mph winds.

But the Trump administration this week refused to grant an emergency declaration that would open up hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for areas devastated in those fires, California state officials confirmed to The Washington Post early Friday.

It’s unclear why the request was denied, when similar declarations were granted earlier this year for other wildfires. President Trump has previously threatened to withhold emergency fire aid to California over disputed claims that the state isn’t doing enough to prevent wildfires.

Shall we take a wild guess then? Since it’s unclear? How about, it’s because he’s a spiteful stupid piece of shit, and he did it because he can?

It’s not even ten a.m. yet and I’m already out of words.

Trump says NO to federal disaster relief for California.

Because of course he does. Too many Democrats in that state. Never mind that it’s the biggest state in the country by population, that it has more people than most countries, that it’s an agricultural giant and a tech giant and a movie industry giant and a forest products giant and a shipping giant and a tourism giant – it’s not going to vote for him and its people don’t bow down before him.

It’s true about the world population by the way. It would go between Iraq and Afghanistan, with 40 million and 38 million respectively. That would make it number 37 out of 235.

The LA Times reports:

The Trump administration has rejected California’s request for disaster relief funds aimed at cleaning up the damage from six recent fires across the state, including Los Angeles County’s Bobcat fire, San Bernardino County’s El Dorado fire, and the Creek fire, one of the largest that continues to burn in Fresno and Madera counties.

The move heighten tensions between California and the president over wildfires. California saw record fires this year, fueled by several factors including climate change. Trump has repeatedly criticized California for its handling of fire policy, sometimes with misleading claims, and had rejected the role of rising temperatures as a factor.

But more to the point, the state doesn’t vote for him.

More than 4 million acres burned in 2020, more than double the state’s previous record. The fires this year have burned an area larger than the state of Connecticut and killed 31 people.

So naturally the hateful puffed-up bladder of a man says no to federal aid.

Owen joins the kicking. As usual.