This guy.

Check the gesture at 11 seconds.

(There’s also the bizarre riddle of why he says the same thing 4 times in 15 seconds, but that’s a distant second to that gesture.)… Read the rest

John Roberts has opposed voting rights for decades. It was a lost cause for the first 3 decades and more, but now he’s getting somewhere.

Among other things, Roberts dismantled much of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), and he’s joined decisions making it much harder for voting rights plaintiffs to prove they were victims of discrimination. On the basic question of who is allowed to vote and which ballots will be counted, the most important issue in any democracy, Roberts is still the same man who tried and failed to strangle the Voting Rights Act nearly four decades earlier.

…

As originally enacted, the Voting Rights Act required jurisdictions with a history of racist

The Post on TrumpBarr’s provocation:

Following a memorandum that President Trump issued earlier this month, the Justice Department published a list of cities that the White House wants to get more aggressive on civil unrest in the wake of police shootings and killings.

“We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement. “It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens.”

He’s an enforcer for the guy who has failed to protect us by failing to deal with the pandemic responsibly, to the tune of many … Read the rest

Wait a minute though.

If your criticism about a potential Supreme Court nominee is her religion, can I kindly suggest that you look in the mirror and think about when you decided that religious discrimination is okay.

— Carissa Byrne Hessick (@CBHessick) September 21, 2020

Wait.

Religion is about beliefs. It’s also about practices, rituals and so on, but beliefs are important. Beliefs influence how people think, and what people think – high court justices included.

How can we evaluate Supreme Court nominees if we’re not allowed to evaluate their beliefs?

It’s a nice little racket the religions have worked out for themselves in the US: their freedom (of religion) is inscribed in the Bill of Rights, so Catholic bishops … Read the rest

Jo Bartosch explains those arrests in Leeds yesterday:

Yesterday, when the group Standing for Women tried to assemble at Victoria Square in Leeds to discuss the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (2004) (GRA) their meeting was broken-up by the police. Three of the sixteen women were arrested, including the event organiser Kellie-Jay Keen. A lengthy risk assessment had been completed and submitted ahead of the event to ensure the group were Covid-19 compliant, and the police were kept fully appraised of the group’s plans. After the event Kelly-Jay Keen explained that she knew [she] was likely to be arrested, part of the reason she refused to give her details to the police was in order to have

Huh. Suddenly I live in an outlaw city, banished by the Feds into outer darkness.

Statement from the Department of Justice:

Department Of Justice Identifies New York City, Portland And Seattle As Jurisdictions Permitting Violence And Destruction Of Property

Identification is Response to Presidential Memorandum Reviewing Federal Funding to State and Local Governments that are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities

I guess they mean this presidential memorandum:

President Trump on Wray: "Antifa's a bad group, and they're criminals, and they're anarchists, and they're agitators, and they're looters, and rioters, and everything else. They're bad — and when a man doesn't say that, that bothers me." pic.twitter.com/qk97F8AY9K

— The Hill (@thehill) September 18, 2020

The DoJ continues:… Read the rest

Despicable.

At a rally in Minnesota, President Trump described an MSNBC anchor hit by a rubber bullet while covering protests after the death of George Floyd in May as “a beautiful sight,” comments quickly condemned by journalists including CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Absolutely heinous. @AliVelshi didn’t deserve to be shot by a rubber bullet, anyone celebrating that violence has something wrong with them, and it’s twisted for anyone least of all a president to call it “law and order.” No journalist should find this acceptable. https://t.co/1VDhdfoL1H

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 19, 2020

In a statement, an MSNBC spokesperson said “freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy. When the president mocks a journalist for the injury he

Another landmark ruling:

A U.K. employment tribunal has ruled that non-binary and gender fluid people are protected under the Equality Act.

Protected from what?

The Equality Act protects people from discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. But a landmark ruling today now confirms that protection to non-binary and gender fluid people does fall under the gender reassignment category, after years of ambiguity.

Protection from what though? Discrimination, it says, but what would discrimination against non-binary people look like? What exactly are we talking about?

The case was brought by a non-binary engineer working in Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) plant. Ms Taylor

Been wondering why Trump talked to Woodward at all? I sort of wondered, before other things replaced it.

Trump was piqued that he did not take part in Woodward’s previous book, Fear, which reached damning conclusions about his administration, so was determined to give his version of events for Rage.

Because he’s too dim and too narcissistic – both! – to realize that his version would only damn him further.

As Woodward recalls of this “surreal time” starting last December, Trump initiated seven phone calls, sometimes at 10pm, sometimes at weekends. The author had to keep a tape recorder to hand at all times.

10 pm. Who the hell calls people – non-intimates – at 10 pm?

Stupid question. Trump. … Read the rest

Catherine Bennett analogizes misogynist abuse of Rowling to the abuse of Salman Rushdie when the fatwa was issued:

Anyone who was around for the Rushdie fatwa may have been reminded of remarks by some eminent UK figures to the effect that, since he had caused actual book burnings and whatnot, he really should have known better. You often got the impression that a British-born target would have elicited more sympathy. “I would not shed a tear,” said the historian Lord Dacre, “if some British Muslims, deploring his manners, should waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them.”

He wasn’t One of Us, and neither is Rowling.

In the case of Troubled Blood, not much changed after

From what I can tell so far, a few gender critical women put on a small, socially distanced political discussion in Leeds today. Result: they got arrested.

The police, its been reported, have said that women's rights aren't political and so Covid restrictions apply #Posie #StandingForWomen

— Dr EM (@PankhurstEM) September 20, 2020

A few fixed order penalty notices issued, such as @claireOT, as the police have declared any discussion of women's rights nonpolitical and thus illegal #Leeds #standingforwomen

— Dr EM (@PankhurstEM) September 20, 2020

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker) has been arrested and threatened with a fine for arranging for women to speak about women's rights in Leeds. The police are on camera saying they do not think

Trump’s sniggering glee that a journalist reporting on a protest was injured by police is really sticking in my craw. I’m sick of having a psychopath as president, and not only as president but going out and encouraging other people to laugh and cheer at police violence against journalists.

“I remember this guy Velshi,” Trump said. “He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas and he went down. He was down. ‘My knee, my knee.’ Nobody cared, these guys didn’t care, they moved him aside.”

I wonder if that’s what Princess Ivanka means when she says she loves him for being real.

“And they just walked right through. It was the most beautiful thing,” Trump said.

A new level of disgusting.

"It was the most beautiful thing … it's called law and order" — Trump gloats about @AliVelshi getting hit by a rubber bullet in Minneapolis. Sick stuff. pic.twitter.com/bgKSmmL8O7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2020

Ali Velshi isn’t sure about the beauty.

So, @realDonaldTrump, you call my getting hit by authorities in Minneapolis on 5/30/20 (by a rubber bullet, btw, not a tear gas cannister) a “beautiful thing” called “law and order”. What law did I break while covering an entirely peaceful (yes, entirely peaceful) march?

— Ali Velshi (@AliVelshi) September 19, 2020

… Read the rest

He’s already said he’s not going to abide by it.

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/quD1K5j9pz

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) September 19, 2020

… Read the rest

Now wait just a second here.

On Friday night, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, declared: “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

There was an outcry, accusing McConnell of hypocrisy. When the conservative Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, also an election year, McConnell refused to act on Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump’s victory.

McConnell argues this case is different because in 2016 the president was Democratic and the Senate majority was Republican but now the same party controls both. His opposite number, Chuck Schumer, and the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, instantly rejected the view.

What are … Read the rest

“Well you see constable I was filming a video for Snapchat…”

A woman fell out of a moving car on the M25 while leaning out of the window to film a video for Snapchat.

She’s all right so we get to laugh at her.

The front seat passenger was hanging out the car whilst filming a SnapChat video along the #M25. She then fell out the car and into a live lane.
It is only by luck she wasn’t seriously injured or killed.#nowords
2846 pic.twitter.com/b7f1tPJTEb

— Roads Policing Unit (RPU) – Surrey Police – UK (@SurreyRoadCops) September 19, 2020

She’s another Fellini, a Truffaut, a Scorsese. I can’t wait to see the full movie.… Read the rest

You're A Coward, Harry pic.twitter.com/1B2EcGwCrt

— Tatsuya Ishida (@TatsuyaIshida9) September 19, 2020

… Read the rest

More transphobia spotted!

Trans advocate Jayce Carver said she believes Igor Dzaic should bow out of the Ward 7 byelection after his “transphobic” tweet came to light.

“Imagine thinking that to be a woman all you have to do is say you are and get a few surgeries, even though you’re a man,” read one of Dzaic’s tweets. “You must not value real women at all.”

Carver said Dzaic apologized for some of his social media posts, which she said is “kind of too little too late.”

How much do you value real women though, Jayce Carver?

“When you are a politician, you’re supposed to represent the entirety of your community,” said Carver. “Trans-identified people — although we are a

Even when pointing out that Rowling’s new novel isn’t all about a trans woman, it’s imperative to put the boot in anyway. After several paragraphs of plot summary to make clear that the minor character who puts on lady-coat and a wig isn’t trans and isn’t the main suspect, the final paragraph gets to the boot.

Perhaps some will still consider this depiction transphobic, given Rowling’s rightly widely criticised views on trans people.

How different that sentence would have been without the “rightly.” Miles less ugly and clumsy, for a start – “Rowling’s rightly widely criticised views” – that is a mess. But substantively – who says “rightly”? I say “wrongly” so now what do we do? It’s … Read the rest