Tomorrow is going to be interesting.

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered that a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain a warrant for former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence be unsealed by noon on Friday — paving the way for the disclosure of potentially revelatory details about a search with enormous legal and political implications.

It will be heavily redacted to protect people Trump is going to want to have killed.

Justice Department officials had previously suggested they will abide by [the judges’] general guidance but push hard to scrub anything that could expose witnesses in the case to intimidation or retribution by Mr. Trump’s supporters. After the search at Mar-a-Lago, the F.B.I. reported

Following up on Screechy Monkey’s tip about a target letter – Google turns up nothing current but Twitter is more helpful.

If Trump didn't get a target letter, I'm not sure how much further he can melt down if he does get one.

— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 25, 2022

https://twitter.com/PrincessBravato/status/1562843489372499968 … Read the rest

Trump is melting down on his pretend-twitter. I took a deep breath and went directly to the source to collect his exclamations.

Even though I am as innocent as a person can be, and despite MY campaign being spied on by the Radical Left, the FISA COURT being lied to and defrauded, all of the many Hoaxes and Scams that were illegally placed on me by very sick & demented people, and without even mentioning the many crimes of Joe and Hunter Biden, all revealed in great detail in the Laptop From Hell, it looks more and more like the Fake News Media is pushing hard for the Sleaze to do something that should not be done!

All very convincing.… Read the rest

People are having a lot of innocent fun with this –

We support everyone across the gender spectrum. If you're transphobic, please feel free to block. Thanks!

— Popular Science (@PopSci) August 25, 2022

Ah, that's how avocado babies are made! pic.twitter.com/MYs0YSjjEB

— Rachel Rooney (@RooneyRachel) August 25, 2022

I’m just a girl, standing before a popular science magazine, begging it to accept humans aren’t actually avocados

— Frances Weetman (@francesweetman) August 25, 2022

… Read the rest

Prepare to shed a tear.

Alix Fitzgerald takes a deep breath, conscious of articulating* her point in the clearest possible terms. “The only way I can describe this,” she begins, her voice tinged with sadness, “is that it’s like grief. “It’s like something has been ripped away.”

*[conscious of the need to articulate]

Fitzgerald, a proud trans woman, is mourning the loss of rugby. She had been an active member of East London RFC women’s team, but the Rugby Football Union’s ban on players “assigned male at birth” in female contact rugby last month prematurely spelt the end of her career.

I don’t give one single teeny tiny shit. Why should I? What about the woman who isn’t on … Read the rest

Same old smoke and mirrors:

Trans golfer sparks outrage as she attempts to qualify for ladies PGA tour

Outrage why? Because the golfer is not a “she.” Lying in the headline is not a good look for a newspaper.

A Scottish golfer who is attempting to qualify for the ladies’ PGA tour has sparked a fresh row over whether transgender athletes should compete in women’s events.

The row is over whether men should compete in women’s events.

Hailey Davidson, who became the first trans golfer to win a professional tournament last year, is trying to earn a Ladies Professional Gold Association (LPGA) tour card.

If successful, Davidson will become the first trans golfer to earn the card.

He’s not a … Read the rest

Jon makes an important point.

Observation: This is so often couched in terms of a kind/cruel or virtue/vice dichotomy. That's so obviously wrong & misdirected.
Obvious example: I'm not remotely interested in being '*kind*' to female athletes.
This is about fairness.
Deal with it.
Stop mis-translating

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) August 24, 2022

Politics, justice, freedom struggles, equal rights campaigns – none of that is about “kindness.” Keep your damn kindness and just give us what’s rightfully ours.

Kindness is a good thing in its place, but expanded out of its place it can be intrusive and patronizing and ultimately infuriating. Give us our due and then don’t bother us.… Read the rest

Helen Lewis says social justice crusades are a kind of substitute religion for The Young.

In the U.S., the nonreligious are younger and more liberal than the population as a whole. Perhaps, then, it isn’t a coincidence that they are also the group most likely to be involved in high-profile social-justice blowups, particularly the type found on college campuses. They’ve substituted one religion for another…

…Many common social-justice phrases have echoes of a catechism: announcing your pronouns or performing a land acknowledgment shows allegiance to a common belief, reassuring a group that everyone present shares the same values.

See also: those annoying yard signs (I bet you don’t have them in the UK – you luckies) that advertise the … Read the rest

Could it be that forced pregnancy will keep Republicans from taking over?

Abortion and Donald Trump will both appear on November’s ballot. On Tuesday, Pat Ryan, a Democrat and a decorated Iraq war veteran, upset Republican Marc Molinaro in a special congressional election in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. Ryan won 52-48 after pre-election polls had painted him as the clear underdog.

…

On the campaign trail Ryan made abortion a central issue. “Choice is [on] the ballot, but we won’t go back,” he posted to Facebook hours before the polls opened. “Freedom is under attack, but it’s ours to defend.”

…

There is a clear backlash against the US supreme court’s evisceration of the rights to privacy and

From last week:

A female comic and healthcare worker says she has been spat at on the street and shunned by long-time colleagues for daring to put on a performance about biological women.

Award-winning funny woman Elaine Miller’s Fringe show Viva Your Vulva: The Hole Story has been the target of abuse from those judging her as a “transphobe”. She says that at the end of the Edinburgh show she makes a reference to the importance of language in getting across healthcare messaging.

Like not saying “people” should get tested for cervical or testicular cancer? That kind of importance of language?

Her crime she says is not mentioning transwomen because they are “not relevant to the topic” of female

Trump thinks “executive privilege” is something like a guarantee of absolute monarchy – a magic holy term that empowers him to have take keep do say deny lie about whatever he wants. He thinks all he has to do is say the documents are covered by “executive privilege” and that’s the last word on the subject. In short he has a child’s idea of what being president means and what having been president means.

That’s why his exchanges with the National Archives were at cross-purposes.

The National Archives and Records Administration recovered more than 100 documents bearing classified markings, totaling more than 700 pages, from an initial batch of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, according to newly

Once again the question arises: what about copies? Why isn’t the reporting explaining to us why there is so much agitation over The Documents with no mention of copies?

Anyway. Rolling Stone reports:

IN THE WEEKS after the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, former President Donald Trump repeatedly made a simple-sounding but extraordinary ask: he wanted his lawyers to get “my documents” back from federal law enforcement.

Trump wasn’t merely referring to the alleged trove of attorney-client material that he insists was scooped up by the feds during the raid, two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. The ex-president has been demanding that his team find a way to recover “all” of the official documents that Trump has long

Oh dear. That sounds way too much like “What is this drivel, throw it away and hand in the actual assignment by tomorrow or you get an F for the course.”

NEW: Judge Aileen Cannon's first substantive step in Trump's Mar-a-Lago lawsuit is to ask for multiple clarifictions and explanations about what he's seeking — and on what legal basis he thinks she can act.

w/ @joshgersteinhttps://t.co/gqEbPopWQX

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 23, 2022

federal court judge asks: WTF?

— Jennifer "Pro-privacy" Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) August 23, 2022

… Read the rest

All the narcissism.

“It’s time to talk about my pronouns. I use ne/nem/nir” pic.twitter.com/QIEQSwEjpj

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 22, 2022

“Buckle up everybody it’s time to talk about my”

Stop right there.

Updating to add: It’s a parody.… Read the rest

“You can’t criticize or dispute ____, ____ is a mother’s child!”

The Daily Record rants:

The mum of a Scots transwoman who is competing in a women’s professional golf tournament has hit out at Judy Murray after she criticised her daughter’s place in the competition.

Why “the mum”? Why baby talk? Other people’s mothers aren’t “the mums,” they’re the mothers. We’re not all 6. Also why bother with a link for “mum”? Also stop saying “hit out at” when you mean “disagreed with” or “criticized.”

But the real point is, that’s not “her daughter,” it’s her son, which is why it’s not fair for him to be competing in a women’s tournament.

Hailey Davidson, from Stair in Ayrshire, became

This is an interesting point – by claiming executive privilege he’s confessed.

Not really, though? Trump is basing his request for a Special Master on claims of executive privilege. And docs which would implicate EP are -by definition- official documents, ergo covered by the search because they belong to NARA, not him. The filing is basically a confession https://t.co/cyUAKW7uJ7

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 23, 2022

… Read the rest

Lawyers are laughing at Trump’s filing.

It might be tempting to scrutinize the filing as if it were a serious legal document, submitted in a credible way. That would be a mistake. Orin Kerr, a conservative law professor at UC Berkeley, noted overnight that many actual lawyers “are giggling at Trump’s motion, and how poorly it was done.”

Go on, just say it. Badly. The word is “badly.” There’s no need to soften it with “poorly.” Trump isn’t poor, he’s bad.

Among the many problems is the fact that it’s oddly late. The FBI executed its search warrant on Monday, Aug. 8. At that point, federal law enforcement officials reclaimed classified materials the former president brought to his glorified

It never ceases to amaze me the way “inclusive” is for trans people but never ever for women. I still say I was never given the option to agree or disagree with the proposition “women are no longer an oppressed group in any way.”

While they are mainly used by customers of that gender, as an inclusive retailer and in line with most other retailers, we allow customers the choice of fitting room. Thanks 2/2

— M&S (@marksandspencer) August 23, 2022

See by giving customers a choice of male or female changing rooms they’re not being “an inclusive retailer,” because they’re excluding female people who don’t want to risk being spied on or assaulted while they try on a bra. … Read the rest

What an interesting claim:

Regarding Julia Mason and Leor Sapir’s op-ed “The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Dubious Transgender Science” (Aug. 18): In its recommendations for caring for transgender and gender-diverse young people, the AAP advises pediatricians to offer developmentally appropriate care that is oriented toward understanding and appreciating the youth’s gender experience. This care is nonjudgmental, includes families and allows questions and concerns to be raised in a supportive environment. This is what it means to “affirm” a child or teen; it means destigmatizing gender variance and promoting a child’s self-worth. Gender-affirming care can be lifesaving. It doesn’t push medical treatments or surgery; for the vast majority of children, it recommends the opposite.

That’s what “gender-affirming care” … Read the rest

Law-mavens are following the Maralago adventures with keen interest. [Updating to add: the bit about not having a lawyer turns out to be a mistake. H/t Screechy]

The lawful search at Mar-a-Lago came after Trump's lawyer falsely signed a statement saying all classified materials were returned. The legality is not even a question.

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 23, 2022

BREAKING: Trump is representing HIMSELF, with no lawyer at all, in his case against the United States regarding the search of Mar-a-Lago and recovery of government records.

The legal term is “pro se” – for himself.

He could not find anyone to represent him.

— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) August 22, 2022

BREAKING: Trump took over 300 classified documents to