Even The Economist can’t get it right.

For many Americans, the great tragedy of trans rights is the story of how Republican governors and state legislatures are stigmatising some of society’s most put-upon people—all too often in a cynical search for votes. This newspaper shares their dismay at these vicious tactics. In a free society it is not the government’s place to tell adults how to live and dress, which pronouns to use, or what to do with their bodies.

Or what to do with their bodies? Of course it’s the government’s place to tell adults that in many circumstances. It can tell us not to use our bodies to rape or assault or strangle. It can tell us … Read the rest

A flashback to last month when Hershey included a man in its celebration of International Women’s Day and many uppity women objected. The CBC reported that the man in question continued to act like a man.

Trans activist won’t be shut up by backlash to Hershey campaign

Of course he won’t. He’s a man taking what belongs to women; why would he shut up? He gets flattered by the CBC for doing it; why would he shut up?

An Ottawa-based transgender rights advocate says she’s not going anywhere after facing a barrage of online harassment for her role in a Hershey Canada campaign for International Women’s Day.

Fae Johnstone, a 27-year-old trans woman, was one of five women featured on limited-edition chocolate bars.

… Read the rest

Open Democracy pushing stupid:

The EHRC wants to redefine sex. Here’s what it means for trans people

Subhead: OPINION: Proposal to rewrite the Equality Act is part of the right’s ideological war on trans people’s right to exist

No. That’s a lie. It’s a much repeated lie. Open Democracy should be better than that.

Trans people in the UK could face a significant rollback of rights if proposals made this week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to redefine ‘sex’ in the landmark Equality Act are adopted by the government.

Genuine rights? Or specious “rights” invented just for trans people? Rights that are not rights should be rolled back.

The EHRC wrote to the government on Tuesday suggesting

… Read the rest

Lawyers and journalists comment on the news about the depth and breadth of Clarence Thomas’s contempt for ethics rules.

This is why public trust in the Supreme Court is cratering: Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From GOP Donor — ProPublica https://t.co/lbJCIqZ6XH

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) April 6, 2023

Beyond the small fact that Justice Thomas may have broken disclosure laws, a reminder that the nine justices of the Supreme Court are the only federal judges not bound by the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judgeshttps://t.co/u0JIzv9pz7

— Pete Strzok (@petestrzok) April 6, 2023

Do I believe Clarence Thomas votes *differently* because he's a corrupt troll who gets paid off on the side by Republican donors? No, actually. I think

… Read the rest

Steve Benen at the Maddow blog notes that Clarence Thomas has been pretty clear about his indifference to ethics.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is no stranger to questions about his ethical standards. The far-right jurist has, for example, faced awkward questions about incomplete financial disclosure forms. There have been related concerns about his appearances at wealthy conservatives’ political retreats, as well as his wife’s activism/lobbying on matters before the court.

And bless his heart he’s simply ignored all the concerns.

If you have a good memory, these revelations might ring a bell. The New York Times reported 12 years ago on the “ethically sensitive friendship” between Thomas and the GOP financier. Despite the fact that Crow’s company 

… Read the rest

Whaddya know. Clarence Thomas has been taking bribes for more than 20 years.

The bribes take the form of luxury vacations on the private plane and the Luxury Yacht of “real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.”

For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer

… Read the rest

Gang boss and his gang respond as gang bosses and their gangs do.

In the 24 hours since former President Donald Trump’s arraignment, the presiding judge and his family have received multiple threats, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Law and order!

Unless it’s our crook.

The New York police detail assigned to the DA’s office is providing extra security to all affected staff members. Court officers, meanwhile, are boosting security for the judge and the court as a whole as a precaution.

Other steps have been taken, as well. Online bios of employees at the Manhattan district attorney’s office were recently removed from the DA’s website, according to a source familiar with the matter, because of troubling

… Read the rest

This vile disgusting man. (Sorry, drecky Musk and disgusting Don one right after the other but here we are.)

In the courtroom he had to sit still and shut up (with that incredibly childish scowl on his face) but when he got back to his palace of vulgarity he was Florida Mussolini again.

But as soon as the former president returned home, to his namesake ballroom filled with his adoring fans, he was a rock star again, and he snapped back to his usual combative posture, lashing out at the prosecutor and judge in personal terms, despite the latter’s admonition Tuesday to watch his words.

…

He did not bring reporters on the plane, as he has to recent

… Read the rest

Elon Musk is dreck.

Is NPR “U.S. state-affiliated media”?

Twitter and its new owner, Elon Musk, seem to think so. Over NPR’s protests, Twitter placed that label on its account Tuesday night, implying that the Washington-based nonprofit news organization is somehow connected to, if not controlled by, the federal government.

NPR is frustratingly crappy and dumb, but it’s not an arm of the government.

The designation puts NPR, which has 8.8 million followers on the site, in the same category as propaganda outlets like the Russian-government-owned RT and the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper. Both are also “state-affiliated media,” according to Twitter.

Notably, however, Twitter has not slapped that label on several media organizations that are substantially funded

… Read the rest

A Washington Post article on Title IX from last June:

Title IX celebrates its 50th birthday on June 23. Signed into law in 1972, the policy requires educational institutions that receive government funding to treat all sexes and gender identities equally.

Does it? Or does it require educational institutions that receive government funding to treat both sexes equally, with no mention of “gender identities”? I think we can assume it’s the latter, since no one was talking about “gender identities” in 1972, let alone a multitude of sexes.

This mandate has at once been phenomenally successful and disturbingly unfulfilled. In banning sex discrimination, Title IX fundamentally changed American education by creating the legal expectation of equality. Millions of people have

… Read the rest

Planning to disrupt.

A lot of people are planning to disrupt #LetWomenSpeakBelfast.

Their intention is to drown women out. To prevent us from speaking. To intimidate us into silence.

This is not a legitimate form of protest. This is thuggery.https://t.co/IMuxlT8g31 pic.twitter.com/CKTphRhcr5

— brandubh (@brandubh4) April 5, 2023

Silencing women is not “solidarity.”… Read the rest

What Willoughby is so enraged about:

Ministers will consider advice from the human rights watchdog about amending a legal definition of sex – which would make it easier to exclude transgender people from some groups or services.

Changing the Equality Act term to “biological sex” would make single-sex services offers easier, says the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission).

Well yes but it takes all the fun out of it for men like Willoughby. If you can’t ruin everything for women what’s the point?

LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said it risks adding to a “manufactured culture war”.

Thus demonstrating complete indifference to women’s concerns about safety, privacy, dignity, comfort – about their right and ability to get away from men … Read the rest

Man who claims to be a woman thinks only of himself.

I am horrified by this.

I transitioned over 30 yrs ago & my body is not identifiably male. I’ve been sexually harassed and assaulted by men and I might be forced onto a … WHAT? A MAN’S WARD? This is madness!!!! I am disgusted. I’m speechless. https://t.co/Hbqfe2svVo

— Dr Rachel Mann (@RevRachelMann) April 5, 2023

Several women remind him of what he’s carefully ignoring.

Why is women's horror at sharing with any male not equal to yours? It's not about what you look like or for how long. OUR spaces and saftety are not a repository or sacrifice for your confused feelings about yourself. #LetWomenSpeak

— Miriam Cotton (@MimCotton)

… Read the rest

Willoughby is furious.

Fuck you @BBCNews. A complete lie. LGBT groups are NOT divided on this. The only group supporting the removal of trans rights by the EHRC in their stitch-up with Badenoch is the fake LGB Alliance. Sex Matters is a trans hate group. This is why there is zero trust @LaurenM0ss pic.twitter.com/Q6G2nnOSDn

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) April 5, 2023

Look at the fake man calling the lesbian gay bisexual alliance “fake.”

And then this latest example today; which I don’t think any fair person would argue didn’t give the impression that a meaningful number of LGBT groups are in favour of barring trans people from loos etc. Undoubtably, that’s the impression a lay person would get. pic.twitter.com/yVyufQNbly

… Read the rest

Starmer is as bad as Inside Higher Ed.

Keir Starmer is taking women for fools. He imagines he’s solved the contentious question of how to protect women’s rights while meeting the demands of gender dysphoric men and trans rights activists with his ingenious formulation: 99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis. That, he thinks, will reassure anxious floating voters and get his new target, Stevenage Woman, on side. Of course, he tells us, incredulous that anyone should suppose a sensible person like him would believe anything else, being a woman is biological. Well, mostly. Until it isn’t. There is the little matter of that 0.1 per cent.

If 0.1 percent can then any percent can. If you … Read the rest

Title IX was enacted to end sexual discrimination in higher education, i.e. discrimination against women and girls. The goal was to provide girls and women with resources and opportunities equal to those provided to boys and men.

We’re now in a world so fucked in the head that we have to pretend it was never about women and girls at all. Inside Higher Education has a long piece on Title IX in which the words “women” and “girls” never appear; not once. If you didn’t already know what Title IX was supposed to be, you would have little idea what the article is talking about. You would get that it’s to do with the Biden administration fixing some Trump messes, … Read the rest

I’m worried now. Trump says the US is going to hell.

“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” the 76-year-old told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida after he appeared in court.

Oh no, there are lots of crimes besides that.

While the charges relate to the payment to Stormy Daniels, prosecutors also released background documents which they say point to a pattern of trying to suppress potentially politically damaging stories.

They listed two other payments they say were made via the National Enquirer, a US tabloid whose publisher is a long-time ally of Mr Trump.

They allege $30,000 was paid to buy the

… Read the rest

Willoughby thinks he’s a brave activist as opposed to a bullying misogynist. Not good at self-knowledge, that one.

https://twitter.com/Phoebe2403/status/1643311203848953872

Men who claim to be trans are not comparable to “Black and Gay” [notice he didn’t mention women]; they’re comparable to the people who oppressed “Black and Gay” (and women). Willoughby isn’t on the side of the despised and rejected, he’s on the side of the bosses. He wants to boss everyone, especially women. He wants to push women aside and take over. He especially wants to force himself on us, calling our refusal “segregation.” He’s a very bad man.… Read the rest

So did Trump give a doorman hush money to cover up Sexual Relations with a housekeeper?

Maybe.

Donald Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records on Tuesday. Trump became the first former president ever to be indicted, for his role in disbursing hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. And what else was among those payments? A $30,000 payment to a former Trump Tower doorman for their silence about a potential Trump child out of wedlock.

It’s all so dignified, so impressive, so to the credit of all of us.

“In one instance, American Media Inc. (‘AMI’), paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed to have a story about a child TRUMP had out

… Read the rest

Another censor on the job.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642459473187946497

Uh oh uh oh – somebody showed Adult Human Female and that must not be allowed.

I hope they warmed up first because that was some stretch pic.twitter.com/bgvZR4CuGR

— Lynsey Bee (@lynsey_bee) April 2, 2023

By allowing hate groups to use your space you're co-signing on their message.

— Lynsey Bee (@lynsey_bee) April 2, 2023

Yes indeed, pubs have to be accountable for what people they let in and what films they show and what they talk about and whatever else occurs to us as we light the fire.

https://twitter.com/lynsey_bee/status/1642591237117968394

Oh is that all. Modesty itself.

Once more for the stupid at the back, it's not about destroying a business. It's about taking accountable

… Read the rest