Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Narrative shmarative

    The Great Reflecting Pool Saga has taken an awkward turn.

    Trump met with Jeanine Pirro at the White House on Monday, hours after saying that she had “choked” when she concluded that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was not the work of vandals, as the president has claimed.

    …

    The decision to drop the charges set Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally and loyal appointee of a president — on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who has made sure to inflict consequences on people within his orbit who contradict his claims. In her filing, Ms. Pirro openly undermined Mr. Trump’s narrative that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives.

    Trump’s narrative. To us peasants, that means he’s lying. One doesn’t tell stories about how Person X committed a crime – not when Person X is real and the stories could result in prison time. Trump doesn’t have the right to sit on his fat ass and tell lies about us peasants leaving footprints in his marble throne room.

  • Fiat justitia ruat caelum

    Trump is all bent out of shape because an underling is refusing to prosecute someone without evidence.

    The top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital carted a box full of evidence to the White House on Monday, in a bid to prove to President Trump that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by shoddy construction and not by vandals, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News on Tuesday.

    U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, a staunch ally of the president, made the case in a sometimes heated private meeting in the Oval Office Monday, hours after Mr. Trump had publicly rebuked her for dropping criminal charges against Olympic canoeist David Hearn. 

    She was later photographed leaving the White House carting a large white box and other bags, which sources said contained all of the evidence collected from the Interior Department that exculpated Hearn and several others from criminal vandalism.

    Boxes, evidence, bags, evidence – who cares??? It’s not about “evidence”; it’s about punishing The Enemy.

    Trump earlier in the day had accused Pirro of folding “like an umbrella,” after her office on Friday filed a motion dismissing the felony case against Hearn. 

    In the motion, prosecutors blamed the Interior Department for holding back critical evidence that they claimed they did not see until after they had secured the indictment from the grand jury in D.C.’s Superior Court. They said new information they had received indicated that the damage was caused by a “botched installation” by a contractor, not vandalism, as the president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed. On Saturday, Burgum said in a post on X, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”

    The U.S. attorney’s office has also since moved to dismiss criminal charges against three others accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.

    Goddam lawyers. Evidence evidence evidence blah blah blah nobody cares. Just pin it on some shmuck who didn’t vote for Trump and be done with it.

  • Even this one

    Huh. The Observer didn’t publish it, so the rest of us will have to.

    The full letter.

  • Even this one

    The Observer didn’t publish it, eh?

    Well then how about everyone else publishes it. I’ll start.

  • Where’s Quality Control?

    The Guardian hosts another snotty bashing of Sophie Cunningham.

    Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is now in the act, accepting the role as the right’s anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador, the role originally intended for Caitlin Clark.

    The writer is one Howard Bryant, who is in the US and has written several pieces for the Guardian. He seems to be simply lying about the “anti-Black” part. Google turns up nothing about Cunningham and “anti-Black”. He cites one guy writing about Fauci, and then pivots via Trump.

    Apropos of nothing, President Trump publicly surmised that LeBron James might be a racist. Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is now in the act, accepting the role as the right’s anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador, the role originally intended for Caitlin Clark.

    What act? The fact that Trump said something idiotic about LeBron James does not support the claim that Sophie Cunningham is the right’s anti-Black culture war ambassador. It doesn’t even come close to supporting it.

    Wouldn’t you think a halfway decent and/or conscious Guardian editor would have caught that? “Wait a second, Howard, you haven’t given us anything to support your claim that she’s anti-Black aka racist. Maybe it’s still in your pocket?”

    Largely anonymous politically or otherwise during her eight-year career, Cunningham – she of the viral finger-point which has been adopted as a symbol of the white animosity toward the WNBA culture – is in her moment.

    Why white?

    Her comments in a lengthy 21 July ESPN profile stating her opposition to transgender athletes has earned her hero status of the specious “Protect Our Girls” movement, even though you’d need a microscope to find any critical mass of transgender women participating in sports at any level.

    Easy for a man to say keeping men out of women’s sports is “specious”. It’s a good deal less specious when it’s your sports that are being ruined.

    There’s a lot more random abuse and pseudo-profundity; it’s not worth reading.

    Updating to add:

    Ex-actly.

  • A thpathe of incloojun

    ESPN reports:

    Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve reiterated her support for transgender athletes on Saturday, a day before Sophie Cunningham and the Indiana Fever visit Minneapolis for a showdown between two of the WNBA’s top teams.

    “I come from a space of inclusion,” Reeve told reporters. “The narrative that I think is problematic is to suggest that transgender athletes are the biggest problem in women’s sports. This is what’s bothersome. There is a faction of people in our country that are making this a massive issue.”

    Define “inclusion”.

    If “inclusion” means including men in women’s sports then there is no longer such a thing as women’s sports. If women can’t have their own sports then they can’t have any sports at all. Is that the goal? Are all women happy with that plan?

    In a July 21 story on ESPN.com, Cunningham said she supported restricting transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports. Cunningham’s statements have brought significant attention to the issue within women’s basketball.

    Of course “transgender girls and women” should not be in girls’ and women’s sports. That’s because they’re boys and men. No matter how much they fantasize themselves as girls or women, they remain boys or men.

    Reeve said she had no objections to people voicing their opinions.

    “I don’t think these demonstrators are not being peaceful,” she said. “Everyone has a right to peacefully assemble. That’s whether you agree with them or not.”

    Reeve added that she thought the topic required “nuance,” especially when looking at competitive and elite sports beyond puberty.

    “That’s where I say common-sense people get together and you find common ground,” she said. “To find a way to be inclusive. The answer isn’t ‘no.’”

    Yes it is. That’s exactly what it is. The answer is, precisely, no.

    We already have the common ground. The common ground is that men are not women and boys are not girls. Finding the common ground can’t entail endorsing silly conspicuous lies.

    The 2026 collective bargaining agreement signed in March states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” There is no further definition of a woman or any publicly available policy governing transgender or intersex athlete eligibility. The WNBA did not respond to multiple requests this week for clarification of the league’s policy.

    There’s no need for further definition. The definition is what it’s always been and always will be. Look around you. What do you see? A world full of people. How did the people get there? By connecting one woman and one man to produce a new person, times millions. See also: cows and bulls, mares and stallions, hens and roosters, ducks and drakes, does and stags.

    Twenty-seven states, including Indiana, have passed legislation barring transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s school and collegiate sports. The NCAA enacted a policy last year that bars transgender women from women’s competition. The International Olympic Committee and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee also have banned transgender women from the women’s category.

    Better late than never.

    On Thursday, the WNBA suspended Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton for five home games after she confronted two fans wearing XX-XY shirts when Seattle hosted Indiana on Tuesday. The Storm apologized for the incident Wednesday.

    Storm majority owner Ginny Gilder said the team is “committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect.” One of the fans confronted by Keaton, Ahnaleigh Wilson, told Fox News Digital she had competed and lost to transgender girls in middle school track and high school cross-country.

    Again: it’s not “inclusive” to let boys compete against girls.

    H/t J.A.

  • The infighting

    Senate Republicans are annoyed that Trump makes everything so difficult.

    Were they thinking he wouldn’t?

    “The infighting is not really productive,” said GOP Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, making clear that he supports the president’s agenda, but acknowledging the limits of a narrowly divided Senate. “There’s no point in going round and round and round.”

    And if the leaders can’t get on the same page, Justice warned: “If you don’t watch out, you’re gonna make things much, much, much worse because we’re gonna lose seats and that will make it worse for the president.”

    …

    “We need to be talking up the wins, talking about how crazy Democrats are, and instead we are knifing each other,” the senator said.

    Trump likes drama.

  • Often in the sense of never

    No.

    Transphobia is very often sexual harrassment.Think about it, it draws inappropriate attention to someone's genitals.

    — Sophie Molly (@sophiemolly.co.uk) 2026-08-02T18:30:11.566Z

    No it doesn’t. “That’s a man” does not draw inappropriate attention to anyone’s genitals.

  • Wrong wrong wrong

    Always punish the woman.

    The conduct of a detective who said “all men” were rapists and should be given a curfew to stop sex attacks has been found to be gross misconduct. Detective Constable Rachel Fletcher, of Northumbria Police, has been subjected to a misconduct hearing.

    She was accused of saying “all men” were rapists and they should be given a 9pm curfew to stop sex attacks at night. Det Cons Fletcher, who worked in safeguarding, was also accused of describing transgender women as “c**ks in frocks”.

    A panel, sitting at Houghton-le-Spring police station, has found that she made all of the comments and had breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour in relation to Discreditable Conduct, Authority, Respect and Courtesy and Equality and Diversity.

    Chair of the panel, Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Hill, told the hearing that each proved allegation amounted to gross misconduct and they collectively amount to Gross Misconduct. The panel will now need to decide what disciplinary action she will be given.

    The action they decided on was kicking her out.

    During her evidence, Det Con Fletcher said she hated male violence and that some of the things they deal with in protection are “abhorrent”. She said: “But I have not said I hate men.”

    She went on to say: “I have been labelled as a man hater because I call out misogyny and I’m a feminist. The atmosphere is, if you call out misogyny, you hate men. That’s what I have been told repeatedly at work – I hate men.”

    …

    Detective Sergeant Damon Hall said he witnessed Det Cons Fletcher make the comment about a curfew for men to another colleague while they were all working at Gateshead Police Station. He said Det Cons Fletcher said: “The only way to stop night time rapes is to put a 9pm curfew on all men.”

    Det Sgt Hall said that, although she was known for her dry sense of humour, he did find the comment offensive. He said: “It was offensive to me as a male as it presumes that everyone is capable of rape.”

    Or you could understand what she said as a matter of what to do in a situation of incomplete knowledge. Rapists don’t wear labels saying they are rapists, so the only way to be sure would be to lock up all the men. It could be a point about epistemology as opposed to a literal recommendation or an insult.

    Det Cons Barbara Callaghan told the hearing how Det Cons Fletcher made the derogatory comments about transgender people during a conversation about new search guidance. She said Det Cons Fletcher had become very upset at the suggestion that female police officers would have to search transgender women, if that is what the individual wanted.

    Oh no, how dare a woman get upset at the news that she might have to search a man’s body if he claimed to be a woman.

    Det Cons Callaghan said she challenged her fellow officer when she said that transgender women were “cocks in frocks”. In her statement she said: “Although Rachel had a right to her views sometimes she would go to far. She said she would refuse to search transgender women as they are cocks in frocks.”

    Why is that to or even too far? It is after all true that transgender women are men.

  • What a pack of liars

    Something called New Socialist tells us how awesome Bash Back is.

    An interview with the trans liberationist non-violent direct action group BASH BACK.

    If it’s non-violent why is its theme-image a snarling man in a mask aiming a hammer at us? Are we supposed to think he’s in the middle of putting together an Ikea bookshelf?

    The trans-led non-violent direct action project BASH BACK emerged almost exactly a year ago when they took action against the then Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s constituency office, in response to “huge backpedals in the healthcare rights afforded to trans people — and young people especially — in an NHS system that was never kind to us in the first place.”

    By “took action” they mean they smashed the windows and painted graffiti all over the office. That’s not non-violent. It can be called non-violent in the sense of not physically injuring people, but only in that sense. It’s not non-violent to smash other people’s windows or vandalize other people’s offices. It’s a threat, for one thing, and it’s physical material harm for another thing. It’s intimidation. They do not get to dress themselves up as Gandhis.

    There is, as BASH BACK have said, little hope that the Andy Burnham administration will choose to change direction without considerable pressure.

    And by “pressure” they mean…you know…smashing up offices and so on. Non-violent “pressure”.

    BASH BACK have been extensively demonised by the state and by a press that seeks to portray them as a violent mob, or as thugs. Yet they have a serious strategy based on a rigorous analysis of the situation which trans people face in Britain today.

    It’s not the state or the press that keeps issuing images of Bash Back snarling through a mask and brandishing a hammer. Those are their images, not ours. They are most definitely advertising their threats of violence, so they absolutely do not get to sit back and say they’re not violent at all in any way. Violent threats are not a branch of non-violence. To put it as clearly as I can, that image of the snarling man with the hammer is intended to make us imagine it smacking us in the face. Not likely to by accident or as a by-product but intended to.

  • Merely a reputational inconvenience for Amnesty

    Merched Cymru on Facebook:

    Behind the “anti-rights” headline is a rape crisis centre that has supported more than 1,200 women mostly for rape, sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse and domestic abuse since it opened. Amnesty UK branded it a threat to human rights.

    The Telegraph got inside Beira’s Place, JK Rowling’s Edinburgh centre, and found exactly what you’d expect from an organisation that takes safeguarding seriously: female-only staff, sessions kept calm and private, cabs paid for women who can’t afford them and a genuine understanding that most of these women aren’t dealing with one incident but years of layered trauma. Chief executive Lesley Johnston has worked in this field for 30 years and she says the levels of violence against women and girls she sees now are higher than when she started.

    Since the Amnesty report, no-shows have risen and referrals have dipped. That’s the real cost of being wrongly branded “anti-rights”. While the report was merely a reputational inconvenience for Amnesty, for vulnerable women who need support it has led to hesitation to take up the services they need. Board member Johann Lamont, the former Scottish Labour politician, said it plainly: an organisation with Amnesty’s history “isn’t some random off-the-street thing that thinks it’s a good idea to slag off whoever about anything… it’s significant that they said it.”

    This is what feminism actually looks like in practice: women showing up for other women at their most frightened, asking for nothing except the right to keep doing it. The fact that Amnesty UK felt able to target it shows how deep the misogyny runs with trans rights activism. Women – even those victimised in the most intimate, most traumatic of ways – have been branded as bigots merely for wanting a space to heal from male violence. Amnesty UK can’t apologise enough to them for that.

    And it doesn’t want to apologize to them at all.

  • Oh who cares what’s in the ocean?

    One bit of damage being undone. Thousands more remain.

    Scientists have begun to re-deploy ocean monitoring equipment yanked from Pacific Northwest waters by the Trump administration in September.

    Yanked why? Well, they have a process. Ask: does this cost money? If answer is yes, yank it. Money saved! Win!

    On Monday, an autonomous underwater vehicle called a glider slipped gently off the stern of the Research Vessel Elakha and into the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles offshore from Newport, Oregon.

    Resembling a 6-foot yellow torpedo with wings, the glider is quietly motoring north to waters off Washington state while measuring conditions including rising ocean temperatures and sagging oxygen levels. Three times a day, after diving as much as 3,000 feet deep, it surfaces to transmit its oceanographic data by satellite and receive new instructions from its shore-based operators.

    Well now you see there’s another problem right there. Not only does it cost money, it also tells us things we don’t want to know. The solution is simply to throw it out. If we don’t know about the rising temperatures, the rising temperatures are not happening.

    The larger, stationary observatories that the Trump administration quietly removed last September will take longer to put back.

    Well he removed them for a reason you know. He wanted to.

    The ocean-watching equipment is part of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative, which monitors surface and underwater conditions 24/7 off Alaska, North Carolina, the Pacific Northwest, and Greenland.

    The high-tech buoys keep the pulse of the oceans as their temperature and chemistry rapidly change. The buoys also provide real-time updates to Dungeness crabbers and other mariners heading out into possibly dangerous waves. The science foundation calls the observatories “the most technologically advanced observational networks in the oceans.”

    Sounds expensive. Let’s get rid of it.

    In June, the Trump administration backed down from its push to dismantle the observatory networks, with Pacific Northwest devices already removed and others to be pulled by 2027, after pushback from the public and Congress.

    It backed down?! Can we have more of that?

    In an emailed statement in June, National Science Foundation spokesperson Mike England said that the agency remained committed to ocean science despite dismantling — or “descoping” — its ocean-observation network.

    “The decision to descope aligns with NSF’s wider strategy of a nimbler approach to prioritize support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies, as well as smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio,” he said.

    Wtf kind of “nimbler” approach is he talking about?? The kind with no technology? Just going to the beach and looking west and taking notes on what they see? Is that smart lifecycle management within its research infrastructure portfolio?

    Answers on a postcard.

  • Charm offensive

    Well, sir, yes, but also no. Mostly no. Of course there are women in all colors shapes and sizes [well not all, but a variety], but funnily enough there’s more to women than color, shape, and size. Quite a lot more. Maybe you don’t understand that on account of not being a woman?

    As for what the fuck do we know, what (may I ask) the fuck do you know? You seem to think being a woman is all about the visuals. You also seem to have a lot of contempt for women, along with some strong dislike. You also, as I mentioned above, seem to think women are about what they look like and nothing else.

    No of course we don’t all have to look the same, but to be women we do have to be the same in certain respects. And no, “some of us [women]” do not have penises. It’s definitional. Rabbits are not as tall as giraffes, and women do not have penises. Here endeth the lesson, without telling you to go fuck yourself.

  • which we should not have

    Amnesty sort of apologizes, while also assuring us how wonderful it is and how not as wonderful everyone else is, especially the people it is sort of apologizing to.

    We apologise for the publication of the briefing “A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK.” This document should never have been published, and full responsibility for this error rests with Amnesty International UK.

    Well the document didn’t publish itself. What do you mean it should never have been published? Who published it? Was it you? If you published it, why are you now saying it should never have been published? Was it someone else? If so, who? It’s not much of an apology if we can’t tell who is sorry or who did what.

    The briefing was taken down within 48 hours of publication, as soon as management were notified of its existence, was not actively promoted, and will not be republished. We have an ongoing internal investigation into how this briefing came to be published.

    What do you mean “was taken down”? Who took it down? Why are there no agents in all this; actions but no person or persons taking them? You do realize we can see it, right? We can see how evasive and impersonal it all is, and we’re not impressed. You seem to be talking about a car crash with no cars.

    Whilst we do not share the views of all these organisations, we recognise the concerns raised by those labelled as “anti-rights” in the document. To be clear: this labelling does not represent our institutional position, and we apologise for its inclusion. In particular, we apologise to Beira’s Place

    Yes we know: because you were going to get your asses sued.

    and other groups, which we categorised as gender critical organisations, which we should not have collectively labelled as anti-rights. We have also taken down an earlier more discursive briefing (entitled Like A Snowball) which also referenced a wide range of organisations.

    Still hasty, perfunctory, non-specific. I am deeply unimpressed. You’re doing the bare minimum and we can tell you’re scowling and sulking while doing it. You’d much rather be calling us all “anti-rights” again.

    AIUK holds itself to the highest standards of research, evidence and editorial oversight in all its publications. We have concluded that this briefing fell significantly short of those standards.

    Wut? You are the very best; you have concluded this item was not the very best. That’s what you’ve got? You’re awesome, except this one time you weren’t quite awesome, now let’s change the subject?

    I am underwhelmed.

    H/t Piglet

  • Oh special off

    The spesh rapporteur in question is Alex Xanthaki.

  • Special indeed

    Eeeeeesh. A UN Special Rapporteur talks the most mind-bogglingly childish drivel here.

    …they have come under pressure from a specific section of women, not all women, not trans women for sure, they are women as well, because women are not defined by sex, they’re defined by gender, and not all biological women, and the reason why they have said they should not be [garbled], you know we go back to the 60s, where others were defining who we are […] all of them are women, the way we define women at the moment is emmm you know on the basis of gender…

    It’s interesting that she pauses and fumbles and says “emmm” and “you know” at that particular point – the point where she has to get specific about what she’s saying. It’s almost as if she knows it’s bullshit and loses her confidence.

    …of experiences, on society and how we view ourselves and how society views us –

    No, sport, that is not the way we “define women”. That’s the way we resist the ideologies that grow up around women and men, it’s not the definition of women and men. Obviously.

  • she hoped

    I think I missed this one at the time. The BBC reports on “Heather” Herbert’s public rejoicing at the violent murder of Ann Widdicomb without ever admitting that he’s a man. You keep waiting for the t-word to appear and it never does – it’s just straight-up she and her throughout.

    Heather Herbert had reportedly posted that Widdecombe’s death on Thursday was “good news” and that she hoped it was an “extremely painful death”.

    Her posts were reported to Police Scotland who initially said there was no criminality in relation to what she had written.

    It’s just plain lying.

  • He’s gutted

    Yet another.

    A women’s health campaigner and former local Labour women’s officer has been banned from the party’s women’s conference because she is trans.

    No, not because he is trans; because he is a man. It’s a women’s conference.

    Steph Richards is ‘gutted’ at her treatment by the party which she said once selected her as a candidate from an all-women shortlist.

    And it shouldn’t have. Men should never be on all-women shortlists.

    Metro revealed yesterday that four powerful Labour unions – Unison, Aslef, Usdaw, and the Musicians’ Union – are boycotting the event over the ban.

    So four powerful Labour unions want men to be able to take what was intended for women. Might as well let the bosses take what was meant for the workers; it makes just as much sense.

  • Following an incident

    Fuck around and find out?

    Seattle Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton has been fined by the WNBA and suspended for her team’s next five home games following an incident Tuesday night involving a pair of Sophie Cunningham fans, the WNBA confirmed to Yahoo Sports’ Cassandra Negley.

    The incident reportedly occurred when the two young women, wearing shirts for a brand advocating against the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports, held up signs reading “We love you Sophie” and “Thank you Sophie for speaking up for girls” while sitting courtside for the Fever-Storm game. Their appearance came a week after Cunningham made comments against transgender inclusion.

    No, not “transgender inclusion”; male inclusion in women’s sports.

    After the game, the pair recounted to a content producer that a woman, identified as Keaton, confronted them and told them they were “effing insane.”

    Well isn’t that nice – the adult woman who is one of the owners of a women’s team told two girls they are fucking insane, because they don’t think men should be in women’s sports.

    It sounds so different when the wording is accurate. Funny how that works.

  • Men claim victory

    This is a good look. This is a very very very good look. They are right to look so confident and happy with their triumph over women. We are all hugely impressed. Well done three men!