Trump admits – or rather brags – that he has the money. He just doesn’t want to spend it. He wants other people to do that, like the many gullible people who respond to his pleas for cash for his “campaign” (his campaign to make everyone else pay his expenses, that would be).

Former President Donald Trump claimed early Friday morning that he has “almost” $500 million in cash, undercutting his lawyers’ claims that he would not be able to comply with the $464 million judgment against him and his co-defendants in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

You’d think he wouldn’t want to claim that, seeing as how he is at the same time demanding $$$ from his gullible fan base.

“Through hard work, talent, and luck, I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in all caps. “The often overturned political hack judge on the rigged and corrupt A.G. case, where I have done nothing wrong, knew this, wanted to take it away from me, and that’s where and why he came up with the shocking number which, coupled with his crazy interest demand, is approximately $454,000,000.”

Therefore, kindly send me cash now. Hurry up.

Trump hasn’t contributed any of his own money to his presidential campaigns since 2016. He had floated in 2020 that he’d personally spend what it took to win re-election, but did not do so.

…

Earlier this week, Trump’s presidential campaign asked his supporters for money in a fundraising memo, which said, “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!”

Rich crook tells people to donate money to him.

[Edit: Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to include the source!]

Oh Jeeezus christ.

This is just reducing a really serious issue to –

Interviewer tells him to answer the question.

Well look, everybody knows there’s a difference between sex and gender, and I absolutely understand that, and respect that, we will not be going down the road of self-identification –

Interviewer asks “Are trans women women?”

Well look Harry –

Interviewer says “It’s a fair comment, it’s a fair question.”

Look…forrrrrrr…as you well know, the overwhelming majority of women, it’s a biological issue, it’s an issue that is absolutely central

Interviewer interjects with something about percentages.

There are some people, there’s a small number of people in this country who are born into a gender they don’t identify with.

End of clip.

Yo, sir, what if there’s a small number of people in this country who identify as Keir Starmer? You gonna let them all sleep in your bed with you?

Sir, it’s not our fault that you exaggerated the worth of your properties.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is pushing back on Donald Trump’s “extraordinary” request for a stay of his $464 million civil fraud judgment, arguing the former president’s recent request was unreliable, procedurally improper and based on a flawed premise.

“There is nothing unusual about even billion-dollar judgments being fully bonded on appeal,” Senior Assistant Solicitor General Dennis Fan said in a filing this morning. “Defendants object to a possible ‘fire sale’ if they were to sell assets to generate cash to use as collateral for a bond or as a deposit —but the alternative would be to shift the risk of executing on defendants’ illiquid assets to OAG.”

Of course defendants object to a potential fire sale, but in Trump’s case…well, nobody cares.

The AG argued that the former president has failed to demonstrate his effort to secure a bond using properties as collateral, suggesting the issue is a product of Trump’s doing because his “holdings are not nearly as valuable as defendants claim.”

What do you mean??? They’re all worth at least a trillion dollars each.

“Defendants supply no documentary evidence that demonstrates precisely what real property they offered to sureties, on what terms that property was offered, or precisely why the sureties were unwilling to accept the assets,” the filing said. “As far as the Court can infer, sureties may have refused to accept defendants’ specific holdings as collateral because using Mr. Trump’s real estate will generally need ‘a property appraisal’ … and his holdings are not nearly as valuable as defendants claim.”

Oh, I see. Trump wanted the sureties to just say “Of course, Don, what’s ours is yours, no need for any pesky appraisal, let us know if you need a kidney.”

Trump is trying to get the peons to pay his legal bills.

Donald Trump has sent out a panicked fundraising message to his supporters as he begs them to help foot his ballooning legal bills.

The desperate memo, titled “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!”, comes as the Monday deadline to pay his $464m bond in his New York fraud trial judgement ticks ever closer.

I wonder how many shlubs will think it makes sense for them to help Trump hang on to his expensive luxuries.

The frantic tone of the plea stands in stark contrast to the statement issued by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung to CNN on Wednesday in which he dismissed the network’s reporting that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was in “panic mode” over the matter as “pure bullshit and fake news”.

…

With interest ticking ever-upwards at 9 per cent or $120,000 per day, the exact total he owes at the time of writing (Thursday 21 March) stands at a staggering $467.6m, according to the helpful Trump Debt Counter website.

…

The former president has hotly objected to a “fire sale” of his property empire – selling off assets to generate cash to meet the bond.

And instead, he wants people who have far less money than he does to bail him out. That seems fair.

Assuming his legal team cannot secure a pause in the enforcement of the financial portion of the judgement in the meantime, allowing Monday’s deadline to pass would enable Ms James to begin taking charge of his assets and leave Mr Trump to gamble on him being able to recover them later via an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Welp, next week could be interesting.

Trump is telling Jews how to be Jews.

Since the start of his political career, Donald Trump has played on stereotypes about Jews and politics.

He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that “you want to control your politicians” and suggested the audience used money to exert control. In the White House, he said Jews who vote for Democrats are “very disloyal to Israel.” Two years ago, the former president hosted two outspoken antisemites for dinner at his Florida residence.

Hey, he’s a friendly guy.

And this week, Trump charged that Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their faith and to Israel. That had many American Jews taking up positions behind now-familiar political lines. Trump opponents accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes while his defenders suggested he was making a fair political point in his own way.

Sure, his own creepy hate-mongering venomous way.

Trump’s comments followed a speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. Schumer, a Democrat, last week sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s handling of the war in Gaza. Schumer called for new elections in Israel and warned the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s global standing.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump retorted Monday on a talk show. “They hate everything about Israel.”

See? His own childish hate-mongering venomous way. Opposing Netanyahu’s handling of the war is not hating everything about Israel, just as considering Trump a blight on our record is not the same as hating everything about the US.

Pittsburgh-based journalist Beth Kissileff — whose husband, a rabbi in the Conservative denomination of Judaism, in 2018 survived the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack — said it was highly offensive for Trump to be a “self-appointed arbiter” of what it means to be Jewish.

“Chuck Schumer had every right to say what he said,” Kissileff added. “Just because we’re Jews, it doesn’t mean we agree with everything the (Israeli) government is doing. We have compassion for innocent Palestinian lives.”

Trump, by the way, has compassion for no one.

The BBC continues its futile struggle to convince us that what sex a person is can be that person’s very own choice.

You might have heard the term non-binary. People use it when they don’t fit into the categories of female or male.

No, people use it when they’re vain and self-absorbed enough to think they’re Not Like You Tame Conventional Peons.

Caitlin Benedict came out as non-binary last year. But as they’ve found, it doesn’t mean they know all the answers straight away. In fact, they had so many questions, they decided to make a podcast about it.

Save yourself the trouble, Caitlin! Just catch on that we all “feel we don’t fit” into some category or other and get over yourself.

My friend and co-presenter Amrou talks about how hard it is for some people to get their heads around using “they” and “them” for us, rather than “he” or “her”. They once told me about the time someone had said to them, “Excuse me, he uses they/them pronouns.” How I laughed at the irony. Of course I wouldn’t do anything like that, I thought: I am a perfect woke non-binary person. But literally a week later, I fumbled over someone’s pronouns and said to Amrou, “Oh, does he use ‘they’?”

Being non-binary doesn’t make you suddenly immune from doing silly, offensive things. But I’ve learned from having people trip over themselves to apologise (with a 15 minute backstory that feels a lot like an excuse sometimes) for calling me “she” instead of “they”. The best thing you can do is say sorry and then just get on with it.

No, the best thing you can do is stop setting these ridiculous traps and just get on with your life.

I kept a few little bits of makeup: the eyebrow stuff that makes my eyebrows even darker and bushier than they come naturally, but also a little pot of pale brown shimmery eye shadow. I hadn’t even bought it. It was given to me by a friend. I kept it but I didn’t wear it. How could anyone take me seriously as a non-binary person with my girly face AND girly eyeshadow on top of that?

I brought this up with Jamie Windust, editor of FRUITCAKE magazine, when Amrou and I got to speak with them for the podcast. “Why would it be gendered?” they said. I was embarrassed. Of course there are conventions – makeup is for girls, rejecting all skincare until you look like you’ve lived in the Arctic all winter is for boys. But those conventions feel so restrictive, so pointless. I am learning not to think about them. Instead, I’m trying to make every decision based on how I feel and what I think.

Right. Now ditch the “non-binary” part. See how that works? Ditch the conventions, without claiming to be fascinatingly special. Ditch the conventions without talking about yourself.

Jeezus.

Scottish police have been accused of targeting JK Rowling by inventing a fictional character called “Jo” who thinks that sex is binary and bizarrely calls for transgender people to be sent to gas chambers.

“Bizarrely” is not the right word.

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s no wiggle room here for Scottish police to say oh they didn’t mean Jo Rowling. Of course they did. They’re obsessed with “trans rights” and evil people who don’t believe trans ideology. Of course they didn’t call this gas chambers fan “Jo” at random with no reference to JKR intended whatsoever at all.

At an official Police Scotland hate crime event, attendees were presented with a “scenario” in which Jo is described as a passionate gender-critical campaigner who, like Rowling, believes people cannot change sex and has a large social media following.

Women’s groups claimed the character was a thinly veiled parody of the Harry Potter author, whose Christian name is Joanne and is called Jo by her friends, and fuelled unfounded conspiracies that there was a link between gender-critical beliefs and Nazism.

It’s not a parody, it’s an incitement, and of course the Harry Potter author is the target.

The hate crime “youth engagement” event, held in February, was part of a programme of events organised by Police Scotland for LGBT history month.

Ahead of the enforcement of controversial new hate crime laws coming into force on April 1, other sessions were given to police officers in which concerns about male-bodied people having access to women’s facilities were mocked and described as “completely ludicrous”.

This is the cops, don’t forget, not a bunch of dim-witted kids talking nonsense. This is the police. (Why exactly is it ludicrous for women to fear men having access to our locker rooms and toilets? Please do explain, Ossifers.)

The hate crime event, which was supported by Police Scotland and jointly organised by the Scottish LGBTI Police Association and the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign group, invited attendees to consider the case of “Jo”.

She is described as an “online influencer” who is “very active” on social media platforms TikTok and Instagram, with a “large following”. Rowling is active on X, formerly Twitter, and has 14 million followers.

The fictional scenario states that Jo “travels around university campuses” to “debate her beliefs about the LGBTI community”. It states that Jo “often gets very passionate about her beliefs and will say things like ‘there are only two genders’” and “too many attention-seeking wannabes”. Rowling regularly expresses similar sentiments on social media. The scenario concludes by stating “Jo posted her most recent video with the caption ‘they all belong in the gas chambers’”.

The police did that. The police.

I’m honestly having a hard time believing it. The gas chambers bit is just…I don’t have the words.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

Here’s a story I came across from Canadian Press that has been carried on a number of news services:

Transgender people bear brunt of misinformation about gender identity, experts say

(They have no idea how true that is, but not in the way they’re thinking; trans identified people pay with their health and well-being for the misinformation they’re fed. I’d say that’s “bearing the brunt” alright. This story contains some of that very disinformation from these “experts.”)

Dupré Latour, a trans woman who grew up in West Africa and immigrated to Canada five years ago so she could affirm her gender identity, believes that religion, stereotypes and misconceptions help people justify their hate.

Well what about the lies, intimidation, and denial of reality? I can imagine that one could develop an antipathy towards transgenderism without needing to draw upon religion. There are plenty of “stereotypes” and “misconceptions” within genderism itself, and I wouldn’t trust this man’s definition of “hate.”

She is saddened that many believe that transgender identity is merely a trend.

I don’t care how sad he is, social contagion is a thing, and it preys upon confused youth, many of whom are suffering from other problems, none of which will be solved by transing them. Many, if not most, of these children and youth would, if not shunted into the “gender affirming” pathway, desist, and grow up to be gays and lesbians. How real can it be if it’s something you can grow out of? If it looks like a trend, and walks like a trend, and talks like a trend, it can’t very well be fundamental and innate, can it?

“But we’ve always been there,

Nope.

…it’s just that now, we are in an environment, in a favourable era, but it’s not a trend: these are people who make sacrifices, people who don’t love themselves, who look in the mirror and hate themselves and who have no choice to go through this to live their lives in the image of what society expects.”

The sacrifices are no proof that it’s not part of a trend. People will do any number of harmful, deluded things in persuit of something that is not real. And as for self hatred, and problems with self image, see above regarding comorbidities that transing won’t fix.

Advocates have for years said that misinformation clouds much of the debate over transgender rights in Canada, especially when it comes to youth.

Advocates think that puberty blockers are like a pause button; Advocates think that puberty blockers are safe when used off-label. They believe that it’s possible to go through the “wrong” puberty, whereas a human body is primed to go through just one, which will happen only once. There is no “choice” in the matter, no Door Number Two, no Plan B. Blockers prevent the natural growth and development programmed into the body. Disrupting that is not hitting “pause.” There is no alternative puberty that can be offered the person denied the one and only puberty they will ever have a chance of experiencing. To suggest otherwise is clouding misinformation.

Not allowing the use of preferred pronouns can heighten levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among non-binary and transgender youth, said Annie Pullen Sansfaçon, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s department of social work and a gender identity researcher for the past 15 years.

And how much of that is because they’ve been told that’s what they’re “supposed” to be feeling? No discussion of gender identity touching on children fails to claim this; kids doing their own “research” and self-diagnosing as trans are going to see this formula all the time. It’s become part of the script, it’s part of what kids have been told is key to getting their own way. It’s what’s expected of them. It’s a bunch of self-selected subjects and no control group.

GRIS-Montréal, a community organization, has been holding workshops and conferences in schools about sexual orientation for 30 years. Since 2017, the organization has also broached the realities of gender identity.

Great; forced teaming. Though I have to laugh at the oxymoronic idea of “the realities of gender identity.” As if.

Marie Houzeau, the organization’s general manager, said the same prejudices and myths that existed in relation to homosexuality in the past are now transposed to gender identity, ..

Bullshit.

…even though it’s established that one cannot influence the orientation or gender identity of someone else.

More bullshit. If people couldn’t be “influenced” in regards to their “genderidentity” there would be no detransitioners.

She said there is a huge disparity in the amount of reliable information circulating in schools.

“We know that young people receive a lot of information through social media, some follow influencers and that constitutes their main source of information,” Houzeau said.

“We also know the phenomenon of algorithms and echo chambers that ensure that young people only receive information that is in line with what they already think, it can lead to misinformation for some people if they follow people who themselves have opinions based on misinformation.”

Yes, and you’re not doing that at all, are you?

On the other hand, some youth have the right information and can share it with their peers to help debunk transition and treatment myths, she said.

What do you consider to be the “right” information? What myths are you passing off as truth? What’s your take on puberty blockers? Do you think that sex is “assigned” at birth? Is there more than one sex? Can humans change sex?

Pullen Sansfaçon said one common misconception is about puberty blockers — medication prescribed to adolescents who are beginning a gender transition. She stressed these drugs are not given to children before puberty hits.

The medication is not permanent and simply slows down the puberty process, buying time for a young person to weigh their decision more carefully. If a person stops taking it, puberty resumes its course within a few months, Pullen Sansfaçon said.

Hey look, there’s a myth right there, the pause button. The vast majority of children put on blockers end up being given wrong sex hormones.

According to recent studies, gender-affirming care has psychosocial and mental health benefits for youth. During adolescence, hormone blockers reduce the risk of suicidal ideation.

But other studies have caused several countries to stop the use of blockers for children, and found that gender affirming care does not result in improvement in mental health issues or suicidality. And let’s not forget the damning revelations of the WPATH papers and what they mean for the entire concept of “best practices” in “gender affirming care.”

“These are medications that can save a person’s life,” Pullen Sansfaçon said.

These are experimental procedures that can permanently fuck up a person’s life.

It’s the same thing for gender-affirming surgeries.

Indeed, these can permanently fuck up a person’s life.

The Canadian Paediatric Society says age cutoffs for funding such surgeries vary by province and territory in Canada, but genital reconstructive surgery is restricted to individuals who are 18 or older.

But the genitals aren’t being “reconstructed,” they’re removed and replaced with a non-functioning resemblance of the other sex’s organs. Just as a glass eye is not actually a functional eye that restores sight when worn, a “neo-vagina” isn’t a vagina at all; a “neo-penis” is not a penis. Sexual function is not restored, it is lost.

Top surgery to remove or augment breast tissue is generally limited to those 16 and older.

Using the euphemism “top surgery” to replace the more accurate (and unavoidably more charged) double mastectomy is dishonest and minimalizing. You’re not changing a t-shirt, you’re removing healthy breasts.

A followup with a psychologist is also required. Sam Lajeunesse, a 43-year-old trans man, can attest to its benefits.

What about more psychological consultation beforehand? If gender clinicians were really concerned for their patients’ well-being, the best case scenario would be desistance through watchful waiting. That would be their first, best choice for resolving or dealing with their patients’ issues. A pathway that avoids pharmaceutical and surgical interventions should be considered a better course than one that requires more aggressive “treatment.” But watchful waiting is now off the table, thanks to “experts” like these.

Pullen Sansfaçon said that some effects of hormone therapy can be reversed, sometimes through corrective surgery.

So sometimes the diagnoses are incorrect? Sometimes mistakes are made? And the times when “corrective” surgery can’t “reverse” the effects of hormone therapy? Ooops.

Medical and surgical help for young transgender and non-binary people isn’t new; standards of care have been set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health since 1998 and have been updated over the years.

Oh dear.

Lajeunesse and Latour describe discussions about their gender identity as a sort of eternal “coming out.”

That makes sense, in that they will never become the sex they are not, whatever the course of “treatment.”

“Often, people will say, ‘You’re a man,’ but no, I’m not a man, I’m a trans woman,” she said with pride. “And sometimes, it’s heavy to always have to explain that you can’t address me as a man.”

But you are a man, and nothing you do, nothing done to you, changes that. And I can address you as a man if I like, because that’s what you are. You might have found doctors willing to cater to your delusions, who in turn encouraged you to force others to do the same, but I will not let you dictate my reality. You are not a woman of any kind, and never will be.

And as for “misinformation,” apart from actual right wing bigots, I doubt you’ll find any amount of deception or dishonesty to match the amount and degree employed by genderists on a regular basis. “Gender affirming” clinicians sell promises of the impossible while trivializing, downplaying, and euphemizing the risks and consequences of the regime they are selling. They have joined in the effort to make talk therapy that might lead to desistance illegal, and made the procedures and treatments they are offering sound harmless and reversible, falsely suggesting they offer their patients some kind of “choice” in matters where they can have none, and the ability to make changes that cannot be made.

Hey, here’s an idea, don’t put any religious messages in secular public spaces. But also yes, calling us all “sinners” is especially obnoxious and intrusive. That’s true even when it’s GB News saying it.

Outrage has been sparked by a King’s Cross display board featuring an Islamic teaching that describes people as “sinners” who must “repent.”

On the 9th day of Ramadan, the holiest month for Muslims, the central London train station featured a “Hadith of the day.”

Well don’t. Just don’t. Don’t feature a psalm of the day and don’t feature a hadith of the day. Just leave it alone. You’re a train station, not a church or a mosque. Mosques don’t put up billboards advertising railway journeys, so why should railway stations be advertising Ramadan?

It says: “The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) [Peace Be Upon Him] said: All the sons of Adam are sinners but the best of the sinners are those who repent often.”

Shut up.

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “King’s Cross station is made up of a diverse and multi-cultural workforce and at times of religious significance, messages such as these are displayed to celebrate the station’s diversity and inclusivity.”

It’s the opposite of diversity and inclusivity to announce that we’re all sinners.

Trump has only 5 days…

Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking a New York court to put a $464m (£365m) fine in a civil fraud case on hold, as the former president finds himself in a precarious financial situation that could ultimately see his most prized properties taken. If Mr Trump wants to continue his appeal in the case without the state seizing the fine from him, he must submit the full amount in cash or secure a bond from a private company by 25 March.

But he’s tried to secure a bond and everyone has told him no.

He’s trying to get a stay, and opinions are divided on whether he’ll succeed or not.

Ultimately, if Mr Trump does not get a pause and the court offers no compromise option, he could appeal directly to New York’s Court of Appeals. But with a deadline of 25 March to pay the judgement or post a bond, he is working on a tight timeline and is seeing thousands of dollars in interest added to the penalty sum each day.

Small comfort, but something is better than nothing.

If Mr Trump cannot find a way to pay the fraud judgement or secure a bond by 25 March, Ms James can begin to collect the fee and take his assets. She has said she will do so if he fails to pay.

Experts say this is another worst case scenario for Mr Trump, as he could lose some of his most famous properties. They can take any of his buildings – not just those in New York – including the 58-floor Trump Tower and his sprawling Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.

Oh please please please take Mar-a-Lago. And evict him.

The Telegraph reports that the BBC director general has told MPs that it’s no big deal that the BBC forces its reporters to lie about the sex of Our Trans Siblings.

Tim Davie, BBC director general, accused people of “whipping up” outrage as he defended the corporation’s stance on the topic.

The BBC last month upheld a complaint against Today programme presenter Justin Webb after he described trans women as “males”. The broadcaster’s Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) found Webb had broken impartiality rules after a listener complained the comments amounted to a personal opinion.

But of course it’s not a personal opinion, in the sense of not being an impersonal fact. It is precisely an impersonal fact that men are not women. You could change the words “men” and “women” to whatever arbitrary collection of letters you liked, but the fact behind the words would remain the same.

It’s disturbing that the head honcho of a major news organization doesn’t realize it’s not an “opinion” that men are not women.

Gender-critical activists who believe that sex is biological have accused the public service broadcaster of falling short in its impartiality obligations.

No no no no no, stop. Stop doing that. We don’t “believe” sex is biological. This isn’t some silly personal whim of ours. Go ask some bears, or some swans, or some crows. We know “sex is biological” and we know the BBC knows “sex is biological” and is lying about it and trying to force us to lie about it with them. That’s not going to happen, Beeb.

The Telegraph reported that senior female members of staff have written to Mr Davie to express their concerns about the decision. One wrote: “If the BBC is to censure journalists for being factual we are slipping into very dangerous waters.”

See? Factual. It’s not a god damn “belief” so stop saying it is. The “belief” is that men can be women; the reality is they can’t.

This is how much this horrific ideology has eroded the ability to distinguish between opinion and fact even of outlets like the Telegraph that aren’t generally considered trendy-lefty.

Mr Davie said he did not believe the BBC suffered from institutional bias on trans issues, but added that it was “an area of controversy”. He said: “It’s also an area where I think we need to have confidence in our journalists to ask, talk, discuss these issues. We don’t have no-go areas in the BBC.”

Oh puhleeeeze.

The director general added: “We have to be kind and caring in this and listen to people and be nice.”

Meaning they have to be nice to trans people and their “allies.” They do not have to be nice to women. God no; what an idea.

Civil servant being sued for saying up is not down.

A lawyer and the government department she works with are being sued after she made gender-critical statements at work, including expressing the belief that only women menstruate.

That’s not a belief though. It’s just a fact, a simple humdrum quotidian fact like a billion other facts. It’s not a clever idea to sue people for stating impersonal facts of the type “only women menstruate.”

Her name is Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley and she is a chairwoman of a civil service network that represents staff with gender-critical views.

She is one of three key signatories of an explosive letter sent in October to the cabinet secretary warning the impartiality of the civil service was under threat because anyone with gender-critical views was “openly and unlawfully bullied and harassed”.

She herself is of course being bullied and harassed.

Duemmer Wrigley will appear at an employment tribunal next week accused of harassment for several comments and posts shared in the workplace. An employee of another body affiliated to Defra is suing the government department for allowing the network to exist and Duemmer Wrigley personally for her views.

These include a statement made during a seminar on female autism that “only women menstruate” and a link to My Body is Me!, a book that encourages young children to understand and accept their bodies. A post in which she celebrates “diversity of belief” and explains that being gender-critical is a protected belief has also been penalised.

In short this is yet another of those situations where people are energetically punished and hassled for refusing to lie about basic impersonal facts.

The Sex Equality and Equity Network (Seen) is an official civil service network with more than 700 members in 50 government departments who support the belief that biological sex is binary and immutable. 

But it’s not a belief. See above. Not belief; just basic fact. It shouldn’t need “support.”

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on When fraudulently inflating goes wrong.

It depends how you look at it, I suppose. Disgorgement is a funny remedy in some ways.

Usually civil damages are compensatory — the court is attempting to make the plaintiff whole for a loss it suffered. That’s not what this is, of course. As the Trump defense team insisted repeatedly, the plaintiff in this case (the state of New York) didn’t suffer any monetary loss here. The state can say it was “harmed” in the sense that it has a general interest in promoting fair and honest business practices in its jurisdiction, but that’s a rather amorphous type of harm. The banks who loaned the money all got paid back. Arguably they were “harmed” in the sense that they could have charged a higher interest rate had they known the true facts, but in any event they didn’t sue. We can hypothesize that, but for Trump’s fraud, some other buyer would have purchased these buildings and sold them for a profit, but there’s no way to say who that would have been or what profit they would have made.

A lot of media accounts are referring to the judgment as a “penalty,” and while I wouldn’t say that’s inaccurate, it’s also not the kind of “punitive damages” that people are used to, as in what E. Jean Carroll got.

Did the Trump defendants simply get put back to where they would have been without the fraud? Arguably. But arguably not. The injunctive relief — the restrictions on defendants’ ability to run their business, or any business in NY — certainly put them in a worse position. The monetary component maybe does, because it’s not necessarily true that Trump couldn’t have purchased the properties honestly and still made some or all of the same profits. Or at a minimum, they could have put their funds and collateral to use on other projects where they might have made at least some profit. That’s not unusual in disgorgement cases — essentially, the defendant often loses a lot of the “benefit of the doubt” about what would have happened in the alternative world where defendant behaved properly.

The prejudgment interest is not insignificant, either. And of course there’s the attorneys’ fees and reputational loss (though at this point, Trump’s business reputation may be as low as it can go, and/or a fraud judgment against Trump may help by rallying MAGA donors as much at it hurts). Finally, there’s the timing issue: getting whacked with a judgment of this size all at once, which the Trump defendants apparently lack the liquidity to pay or bond, is worse than simply getting less profits over a period of years.

So, I wouldn’t say that the Trump defendants can just brush this off as a “heads we win, tails we draw, oh well, it came out tails, no big deal, we’d do it all over again if we could” situation. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling this isn’t a big punishment.

Party’s off.

A foundation which stirred controversy by planning to give awards named for the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch said on Monday it had canceled the ceremony.

“While we believe each of the honorees is worthy of our respect for their leadership and their notable contributions, the foundation has decided that the planned ceremony in April 2024 will be canceled,” Julie Opperman, chair of the Dwight D Opperman Foundation, said in a statement.

You believe incorrectly. Of all the people whose notable contributions you could have chosen, you chose Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk. They’re both bad people – proudly bad people. They’re bullies, they’re mean, they’re power-mad. You had no business linking them with Ginsburg.

Opperman added: “Justice Ginsburg was known for her civility.”

No she wasn’t! What a stupid thing to say. You might as well say she was known for having arms. I’m confident she was civil but that’s absolutely not what she was “known for.” She was known for doing much more difficult things than being civil.

The move came a day after James Ginsburg, the late justice’s son, called the decision to give Musk and Murdoch RBG awards – originally known as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership awards – a “desecration” of the memory of his mother.

If you want to give Musk and Murdoch awards do that on your own time. It’s grotesque to drag Ginsburg into it.

Ginsburg helped establish the award in her name, saying it would honour “women who have strived to make the world a better place for generations that follow their own, women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility, and who care about the dignity and well being of all who dwell on planet Earth”.

Does not describe Musk and Murdoch, now does it.

H/t Lisa

It starts today.

From next month in Scotland you’ll be able to drop into a sex shop, make an anonymous accusation of hate crime against someone you dislike and potentially see your bete noir locked up. You think I’m joking – that this is an April Fool come early. I only wish it [were]. In two weeks’ time, this will be the law of the land in Scotland under the SNP’s iniquitous Hate Crime Act which makes ‘stirring up hatred’ a criminal offence punishable by 7 years in jail.  

The sex shop in question is an LGBTQ-friendly establishment in Glasgow’s Merchant City. It is a ‘third-party reporting centre’ set up by Police Scotland to make it easier to accuse someone of hate crime. There will be 411 of these snitching centres across Scotland located everywhere from mushroom farms to caravan sites. Trans activists across the land will be able to accuse JK Rowling, 24/7, of being a transphobe. 

I have questions. Isn’t all this accusing someone of hate crime itself “stirring up hatred”? Can’t we in turn just accuse our accuser of “stirring up hatred”? Won’t the whole thing just turn into a dense knot of people accusing each other until they run out of breath?

The trans campaigner India Willoughby has already tried to have the novelist prosecuted for misgendering him/her. After the complaint was dismissed by Northumberland Police, Willoughby’s supporters made clear they will be accusing her in Scotland. They might even succeed.

Oh? We have boatloads of examples of Willz stirring up hatred. He hardly ever does anything else.

The Scottish government’s definition of ‘stirring up hatred’ is so vague that ministers have given up trying to explain it. They just refer you to the Police Scotland website where a hate crime is defined as ‘any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated, wholly or partly[,] by malice or ill will towards a social group’. 

Well then it’s a crime we’re all convicted of the second the accusation is made. If all it needs is someone “understanding” what you say as being motivated, wholly or partly by malice or ill will towards a social group then there is no way you can defend yourself against the charge. You can’t prove that your accuser doesn’t understand it that way, and neither can anyone else. Bang: guilty as charged.

The Scottish Police Federation, an organisation not perhaps known for defending freedom of speech, has warned that the law would ‘paralyse freedom of expression for individuals and organisations by threatening prosecution for the mere expression of opinion’. The First Minister, Humza Yousaf, insisted that this was scaremongering and no one could be prosecuted for what they think. However, it is clear that what they say can and will be prosecuted if the ‘victims’ perceive what they think and say to be discriminatory. 

If no one will be prosecuted for what they think, why is the law worded the way it is?

Man bullying woman episode 3 billion.

Scientific American took it upon itself to change the language of that pregnancy study to exclude the word “women” from its findings. What should it change its name to? Bullshit American? Fashionable Nonsense American? Women Don’t Exist American?

Behold, the abstract, with emphasis added:

Pregnancy is a unique neuroplastic period in adult life. This longitudinal study tracked brain cortical changes during the peripartum period and explored how the type of childbirth affects these changes. We collected neuroanatomic, obstetric and neuropsychological data from 110 first-time mothers during late pregnancy and early postpartum, as well as from 34 nulliparous women evaluated at similar time points. During late pregnancy, mothers showed lower cortical volume than controls across all functional networks. These cortical differences attenuated in the early postpartum session. Default mode and frontoparietal networks showed below-expected volume increases during peripartum, suggesting that their reductions may persist longer. Results also pointed to different cortical trajectories in mothers who delivered by scheduled C-section. The main findings were replicated in an independent sample of 29 mothers and 24 nulliparous women. These data suggest a dynamic trajectory of cortical decreases during pregnancy that attenuates in the postpartum period, at a different rate depending on the brain network and childbirth type.

Developments:

Tick tick tick

NPR on the Opperman Foundation absurdity:

The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation has presented the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award to accomplished women including Barbra Streisand and Queen Elizabeth II since its inception in 2019.

But this year, the Opperman Foundation selected four men, including conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch and billionaire Elon Musk, and Martha Stewart. Ginsburg’s family blasted the selection last week, saying the decision is an “affront” to the memory of the late justice and her values.

“This year, the Opperman Foundation has strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what Justice Ginsburg stood for,” Jane Ginsburg, daughter of the Supreme Court justice, said in a statement.

“Strayed from” is putting it politely. Raced away from at 500 mph would be more like it.

“This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time,” Opperman said in a statement. “We thought RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY should be practiced. We did not consider politics.”

Yes you honor “teachings regarding EQUALITY” by giving a boost to rich people, white people, straight people, titled people, and above all male people. Giving a boost to women is an affront to EQUALITY.

Stewart, Musk, Murdoch, Michael Milken and Sylvester Stallone were the five “iconic” and “exceptional” recipients of the 2024 RBG Leadership Award, the foundation had said in its initial news release on Wednesday.

Milken, an investment banker famous for creating the junk bond market, was arrested in the late ’80s for securities fraud. After he was released from prison, he built a reputation on his philanthropy. President Trump pardoned Milken in 2020.

Stewart served time in a federal women’s prison from October 2004 through March 2005 for her part in a stock scandal.

Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, has been accused of antisemitism and, since taking over Twitter — now known as X — reportedly allowed pro-Nazi content to proliferate on the platform, prompting companies to pull ad revenue.

Actor Stallone of Rocky fame has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, all of which he denies and for which he’s never been charged.

They’re iconic! Also, EQUALITY.

The Opperman Foundation put out a statement yesterday the stupidity of which boggles the mind.

PHOENIX, March 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The purpose of the RBG Leadership Award is to remember Justice Ginsburg and to honor her. She changed America by teaching us that all are EQUAL. The opportunities available to millions of women in the last 50 years speak for itself.

Yes indeed, the opportunities speak for itself. Maybe get an adult to write your press releases in future.

Anyway, no, that’s a very childish and crude summing up of Justice Ginsburg. She focused on the way women were treated as not “EQUAL”. Her point was not “all are EQUAL so let’s keep giving all the prizes to men.” Not even close.

This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time. We thought RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY should be practiced. We did not consider politics. Instead, we focused on leaders, who, in their own way, have made significant contributions to society.

Murdoch? What “contributions to society”? Also “RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY” were not that men should continue to win all the prizes.

How do people get so confused?