Author: Ophelia Benson

Now this could get interesting.

Trump’s inner circle subpoenaed by BBC in US libel lawsuit

The British Broadcasting Corporation issued a wave of subpoenas to dozens of members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle as part of its defense in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit, raising fresh questions about Trump’s speech before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The BBC in recent weeks sent 47 subpoenas to members of Trump’s family and Cabinet, as well as the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, seeking information about the president’s intent and state of mind before the speech. Recipients include Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Michael Flynn.

If they lie about it, they could get in very big trouble.

In a joint filing Wednesday in federal court in Florida, lawyers for Trump and the BBC requested a hearing on the subpoenas. Trump argues the demands are part of a “fishing expedition,” while the BBC says Trump’s lawsuit opened the door to the requests for information about his conduct.

To win the case, Trump “must prove that he did not foment or incite the January 6 Capitol riot,” the BBC said. “Plaintiff has placed that question directly at issue in bringing this libel lawsuit – he cannot now prevent defendants from seeking records that would shed light on his true knowledge, intent, and state of mind in delivering his speech.”

…

Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who isn’t involved in the case, said the BBC strategy appears to be a “smart tactic” to refocus the dispute back onto Trump’s conduct and the events of Jan. 6.

“Of course, enforcing 47 subpoenas, with all those depositions and motions to compel, is an expensive proposition, and time-consuming too,” he said.

But worth it. Very worth it.

Councillors vote to condemn women’s rights.

Edinburgh councillors have voted to condemn guidance from the EHRC as “discriminatory against trans people”. 

A motion put forward by the Scottish Greens at Thursday’s council meeting was supported by the Liberal Democrats and SNP.

Yes how dare women have rights?

Councillor Alex Staniforth remarked: “Human rights associations across the board have condemned the EHRC guidance … it didn’t have to be this way. As much as I have my issues with the Supreme Court decision of the For Women Scotland case, they made it clear that their judgment should not be considered as a case of one side winning over another. 

“We do have a voice and it is our duty to raise that voice in solidarity with all trangender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people that live in and visit our city.”

But not women. Never women. Good god no.

There will be some women among the approved trangender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people, perhaps, but the solidarity is not for their womanness but for their trangender, non-binary, and gender non-conformingness. Just plain women without any genderish bells and whistles are worthless and evil. Make a note of it.

The updated Equality Act Code of Practice was drafted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and responds to recent legal decisions related to sex and gender.

Progressive groups have criticised parts of the code they say is discriminatory against transgender people, while some women’s rights campaigners have said it protects female-only spaces.

Oh look what The Herald did there – they framed women as a category separate from progressive groups – in other words women are reactionary as opposed to progressive. All women; women as such; women who dare to defend women’s rights instead of the purported rights of people who want to eradicate women’s rights. Reactionary bitches R us.

For example, paragraph 12.66 of the code states: “The Act permits associations of any size or character, other than political parties, to restrict their membership to persons who share a protected characteristic.”

As such, under the guidance, it would be lawful to prohibit a trans woman from joining a woman-only association. 

Yes, because trans women are men, so they don’t belong to, and don’t have any right to belong to, women-only associations.

Councillor Fiona Bennett added: “I was so upset this morning to listen to what I found to be extremely emotional and powerful equations. I was even more upset to see the cold responses from the Conservative and Labour parties. How could you not be moved by what was being said?

“Is the safety and dignity of trans people less important than yours? Two things can exist at the same time, the vulnerability of one group does not erase that of another.”

Well. The vulnerability of “trans people” does not erase that of women, is what you mean. But what about the other way around? You in fact think that mentioning the vulnerability of women does erase the purported vulnerability of men who call themselves women. That’s why you keep attacking women defending our rights.

Commenting on the motion prior to the vote, campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) said the Greens were “once again” engaging in “performative stunts”. 

“The arguments here are as tired as they are cliched, and betray a lack of knowledge of law and practice. They are deluded if they believe that withdrawing the guidance will make any difference to law,” the group remarked.

 “All it will do is ensure that businesses and organisations have to take individual legal advice at great cost. This is petulant sixth-form politics and as legally illiterate as it is futile.”

I’m on team Those Women.

Official statement from official White House:

Crazed and deranged lunatics have once again exposed their hatred for America with a cowardly, deliberate attack on one of our nation’s most iconic landmarks — the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

President Donald J. Trump was right from the beginning. Fake News hacks and so-called “experts” immediately rushed to mock him, call him a liar, and blame the Trump Administration’s successful renovation instead of the vandals — but they were dead wrong.

Surveillance video captures suspects in the act. Photos and law enforcement reports document deliberate slashes cut through the liner, sides, and coating, as well as fencing and debris thrown into the pool. At least seven individuals have been arrested, seven others have been issued federal citations, and 18 police reports have been filed.

This isn’t random mischief — it’s targeted sabotage by anti-American crackpots who despise a strong, proud, and beautiful country. They cannot build; they can only destroy. They cannot celebrate our heritage; they can only deface it.

National pride will not be surrendered to a handful of deranged anti-American lunatics. Thanks to the Trump Administration’s decisive action, advanced nanobubble ozone technology has already neutralized the algae and repairs to vandalized areas are underway. The Reflecting Pool will yet again be restored to its rightful glory as America celebrates its 250th birthday.

President Trump won’t be deterred from making our Reflecting Pool beautiful.

Obviously not at all written by Trump himself, no indeed.

We’re not ready.

I’m finding the heatwave hitting Europe really scary. It’s bad enough in itself, with many records being broken, especially for the higher nighttime temperatures that make it so much harder to cope. But I just keep thinking, “If it’s like this now, what’s it going to be like in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time?”

The answer, of course, is hotter and hotter and hotter. In the UK, national weather service the Met Office has just warned that, by 2056, there could be nine days in a row with temperatures above 40°C (104°F), with some places hitting 45°C (113°F). In just 30 years!

…

Climate scientists are continually warning of the need to prepare for hotter heatwaves, worse droughts, more flooding and rising seas. During heatwaves like this one, they might even get a little media coverage. But then the weather cools, the news agenda moves on and nothing is ever done.

Tragedy of the commons. They aren’t doing anything, so it’s pointless for me to do anything. Times 8.3 billion.

They are FLEEING!

Originally a comment by maddog on The tribunal will use preferred pronouns.

Witnesses are under oath to tell the truth. The truth requires the use of truthful language, including language that correctly and truthfully signifies the actual (truthful) sex of the person being referred to.

Lawyers are officers of the court, and they are duty bound to be truthful and honest before the court/tribunal.

A court/tribunal is a forum for determining the truth. The court/tribunal must remain impartial in its fact-finding function.

How can telling the truth be “inappropriate”? What’s inappropriate is the court/tribunal putting its thumb on the scale in favor of one party over another; it’s particularly inapprpriate to put its thumb on the scale in favor of known falsehood.

Here, the tribunal is dishonest, and is influencing others to be dishonest. The whole thing stinks.

The Daily Beast seems to think it’s tiresome of a woman to object to rapists on chat shows.

Jimmy Fallon may have a hard time booking actress Christina Ricci on his show anytime soon.

Well, that’s one way of putting it. The flippant, dismissive way. Another way would be to say actress Christina Ricci objects to Jimmy Fallon’s having a rapist on his show.

The former child star turned Emmy-nominated actress, 46, blasted the late-night host with a repost on Instagram on Monday, declaring he should be “ashamed” after he had Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor, 37, on his show last week.

McGregor was found liable for sexual assault in 2024 after he was sued by former hairstylist Nikita Hand. The woman was awarded $285,000 in damages following an eight-day trial.

But the Daily Beast finds it appropriate to translate that to a joke about booking her on his show. Hur hur, women are so irritable about rape, aren’t they funny.

McGregor’s career has continued apace, with Fallon inviting him to The Tonight Show to promote his return to the UFC at UFC 329 on June 16. Ricci circulated a viral post slamming the host that reads, “Conor McGregor raped a woman so brutally that the EMT who saw her commented on the severity of her bruising. She also had to have the tampon she was using when he raped her surgically removed, as it had been shoved so far inside her. Why the ABSOLUTE F— is this piece of human garbage being given a platform on Jimmy Fallon’s show?”

She wasn’t joking. Why is The Daily Beast joking?

Sane person keeps asking “What damage was done to the reflecting pool?” Sniveling regime lackey keeps ignoring the question and answering questions that no one asked. Governance trump-style.

What’s wrong with this tweet? And a billion others like it?

I’ll tell you.

Obsession with self.

That’s it; that’s the gaping black hole in all of this: the delusion that self is the most important thing in the universe.

It’s not.

Just forget the damn self. Not necessarily even in an altruistic way, but just in the obvious and practical sense that there is so much more to think about and work with and learn about than one single self, and here all these damn fools are obsessing over their magic spiritual jennderrz. Do something else! Anything else! Look outward! Go for a walk in a forest, learn a language, campaign against global warming, grow a garden, go sailing.

It’s more interesting, it’s more fun, and you’ll stop being quite such a pain in the ass.

Let’s make it a crime for parents to tell young Billy “No you’re not a girl.”

The government has published a draft bill to ban “conversion practices”.

While there are improvements on previous drafts of this law, it remains an attempt to shift “Stonewall Law” – now slowly being driven out of workplaces and services – into homes and classrooms.

It puts parents, therapists, teachers and partners at risk of being subjected to investigation if they do not affirm that someone is “male” or “female “ (or both, or neither) based on their personal declaration rather than their biology. 

And that someone can be their own damn child.

The offence of carrying out an abusive conversion practice on an individual is defined in terms of causing “serious harm” to the individual’s physical or mental health, or “serious alarm or distress to the individual which has a substantial adverse effect on their usual day-to-day activities”. This could potentially mean a wife telling her husband to stop wearing her clothes, parents telling a child they will not pay for puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, or a school insisting on referring to all children accurately as girls or boys, in line with its safeguarding responsibilities. 

Not to mention its avoiding confusion responsibilities.

Sigh. All Xs are Zs does not mean all Zs are Xs.

It’s a good idea to be clear on that point, because if you’re not, you’ll get a lot of things wrong.

Damn fool confuses “no men are women” with “women are nothing but their reproductive systems”.

Allah hates female people.

When Fatima arrived at a district court in northern Afghanistan in late 2025 with her parents, she hoped a judge would finally allow her to leave her calamitous marriage.

She had never met her husband before their arranged wedding in the summer of 2024. Each time her family asked to see him, they were told he was shy. It was only on the wedding day, relatives say, that Fatima understood what had been hidden from her: her husband had severe intellectual and physical disabilities and could not eat, wash or dress himself without help.

In the months that followed, Fatima cooked, cleaned, cared for her husband and tended the family’s livestock. She was rarely allowed to leave the house.

Hello, that’s not marriage, it’s slavery. The parents enslaved her, and refuse to let her leave.

Finally, her parents agreed to go to court and help Fatima ask for a divorce.

“In front of everyone, the judge asked my son-in-law only one question: ‘Who is this woman?’” recalls Shirin*, Fatima’s mother. “He answered: ‘She is my wife.’ Then the judge turned to the groom’s family and said: ‘Take your bride.’”

Two Taliban soldiers pointed their weapons at Fatima’s parents as her in-laws seized her and dragged her toward their car.

“My daughter was screaming and crying that she did not want to go with them,” Shirin says. “But nobody listened.”

It’s all very spiritual, don’t you think?

In April 2026, the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, issued a new decree on the judicial separation of spouses, setting out 12 grounds on which a marriage can be dissolved. On paper, some appear to give women a path to court. In practice, each path is blocked by the authority of men: the consent of a husband, the discretion of a judge, the testimony of witnesses, or the power of male relatives. Even in cases of abuse or neglect, the decree states that judges and arbiters cannot grant a divorce without the husband’s consent.

Because women are complete garbage, only they’re worse because they can plot. No suspicion is too deep, no discipline is too harsh, no depravation is too extreme. Women are deeply necessary because penis, but women are also infinitely evil, so they must be punished every waking minute, no matter how tired the punishers get.

It uses the pronouns or it gets the hose.

We are asking you to use a contorted peculiar anti-factual way of referring to this person who claims to be special, despite the fact that you disagree with the ideology that says the person is special and despite the fact that this brand of coercive bullshit is what this very hearing is about.

It’s like being in a super-sized spider web, you escape one bit of it only to be entangled by another.

Newsweek reports:

Lawmakers have slammed Postmaster General David Steiner after he announced that a proposed new rule would mean the United States Postal Service (USPS) won’t deliver mail ballots unless states share their voter lists with the Trump administration.

Testifying before a Senate committee on Wednesday, Steiner was asked if USPS would still mail out ballots to states that refused to hand over their absentee voter lists. “No,” he responded. “We would tell the state that we need the manifest.”

This is called voter suppression. It’s bad.

The new proposal from the USPS, which has traditionally been nonpartisan and neutral, arises from President Donald Trump’s March 31 executive order.

The order, titled “Ensuring Citizen Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” marked one of the administration’s most sweeping efforts to reshape election administration and mail voting rules ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The order directed federal agencies to create lists of verified U.S. citizens eligible to vote by mail, instructed the USPS to send absentee ballots only to voters on approved lists, and called for ballot-tracking measures including unique barcodes on mail ballot envelopes.

In other words suppress as many votes as possible.

Trump has repeatedly criticized mail voting and argued that it increases the risk of election fraud, despite election officials from both parties consistently saying that widespread voter fraud is rare. The president has continued to push for tighter restrictions on mail ballots since returning to office in January 2025, making the issue a central part of his election-integrity agenda.

“Mail-in voting is totally corrupt—get that through your head, it has to be,” he said during a Michigan rally on February 17, 2024.

You know who is genuinely corrupt?

Yes, of course you do. We all do.

H/t marcel proust

Trump is tightening the screws on voting rights.

President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell this morning, canceling plans to sign a bipartisan landmark housing affordability bill until he gets action on his controversial elections overhaul legislation. He’s expected to press senators at a GOP lunch today to pass the “SAVE America Act” by any means necessary.

So Trump. To hell with making housing affordable for the non-billionaires, first ya gotta suppress the vote.

The Brennan Center:

For months, we have warned of a drive by President Trump and his administration to undermine the 2026 election. It is unprecedented, outlandish. Now Trump himself is blaring his intent — and over the past week, the public issue has exploded. The fight for a free and fair vote is taking shape, starting on the floor of the House this week as it once again considers the SAVE Act.

Make no mistake: The SAVE Act would stop millions of American citizens from voting. It would be the most restrictive voting bill ever passed by Congress. It is Trump’s power grab in legislative garb.

Today, the House Rules Committee is voting to send the measure to the full House for a vote. Effectively, the bill would require Americans to produce a passport or birth certificate to register and thus to vote. Brennan Center research shows that 21 million people lack ready access to these documents. Half of all Americans don’t have a passport, for example. and millions of married women who have changed their names might need to jump through extra hoops to vote.

Always put the burden on women. It’s only fair.

The measure likely will pass the House, as it did in an earlier form last year. Once again, it will be up to senators to block it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared it “dead on arrival.” But this time around, a mobilized outside drive is pushing lawmakers to restrict voting. “It must be done or democracy is dead,” instructed Elon Musk. The SAVE Act will not expire quietly, surrounded by loved ones. It’s on all of us to stand up and speak out, once again.

And now we see how it fits into the broader strategy.

In recent days, Trump has repeatedly demanded that Republicans “nationalize” the elections on behalf of his political party. Each time his aides try to clean up his remarks, he doubles down. “A state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” he wrongly insisted.

Constitutionally, that’s upside-down land. The Constitution is unambiguous: States run elections. Presidents have no role. 

Unless/until they are Donald Trump. That’s in the fine print.

Steve Bannon, the Trump strategist who served prison time for defying a congressional subpoena, declared on Tuesday, “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again.” When we see how politicized and aggressive immigration forces have become, that threat becomes more than a podcaster’s bombast.

Here, the law is clear: That would be a federal crime. My colleague Sean Morales-Doyle explains: “Can the president send troops or ICE agents to polling places? No — both federal and state laws explicitly prohibit the federal government from carrying out these implied threats.” It’s a federal crime to intimidate voters, too.

But can we enforce it?

The future is now.

Western Europe was in the grip of a heatwave on Wednesday that claimed ​dozens of lives, disrupted power supplies, shut schools and cultural landmarks, as forecasters warned the extreme temperatures could persist until the end of the week.

Smashing previous records, Britain logged its ‌highest temperature for June, reaching 35.8 degrees Celsius (96.26 degrees Fahrenheit) in southern England as a heat dome hovered over much of Western Europe.

The death count is rising.

Scorching temperatures killed hundreds of thousands of birds at poultry farms in Brittany and the Pays de la Loire, agricultural groups said.

Can you say “famine”?

London Climate Action Week was disrupted, with organisers cancelling an event on extreme heat because ​of the heat itself.

There’s always air conditioning…but of course that itself contributes to the warming.

Still, at the Vatican, tourists waited patiently in the blazing sun ​to visit museums on Wednesday. Some held umbrellas or fans and many gathered for refills of water from fountains or cafes for other refreshments.

“We want a beer, a beer for the heat,” said Father Israel from the Dominican Republic as he held up a ​large pint of lager in his hand.

Oh ffs. No you don’t. Alcohol is the worst thing for severe heat. You want water for the heat, you godbothering chump.

When all else fails – throw a tarp over it!

Update: The tarp is a joke. So far.

So even Pete Hegseth can figure it out, eventually.

A flu outbreak at the Air Force’s basic training hub in San Antonio is worsening, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

As of Tuesday, at least 222 recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, part of Joint Base San Antonio, had been diagnosed with the flu and four had been hospitalized, the two people familiar with the matter told ABC News. 

This marks a sharp increase from the 159 cases and two hospitalizations reported last week. The death of one recruit remains under investigation, though it is not yet clear whether it is tied to the outbreak, the sources said.

The outbreak is unfolding just two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the annual flu shot optional for troops, scrapping the military’s requirement for it, which dates to 1945, a move breaking with longstanding public health directives.

And sanity.

…the services have already been given exceptions to Hegseth’s policy according to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell in a statement provided to ABC News. As part of those exceptions to the policy, the Army, Navy and Air Force are once again requiring flu shots for basic trainees, according to officials.

In the Air Force, only about 40% of its new trainees at Joint Base San Antonio had a flu vaccination when the outbreak started in early June, according to the two sources.   

But with the new exception to policy, the Air Force has the goal of vaccinating all of the recruits in this recruit class and will vaccinate all new recruits arriving at the base according to one of the sources.

Moreover, the Army is preparing in the coming weeks to broaden that requirement to troops deploying overseas, first responders, child care workers, health care personnel, prison staff and soldiers taking part in certain large-scale training exercises, according to a service spokesperson. 

Shorter: Hegseth is a damn fool.

Brian wants us to know that he did the work.

None of this anti-trans nonsense affects my daily life in any way I can perceive. Literally never misgendered, literally no weird looks. I did the work, I got the surgery, I learned the behavior, I updated my documents.

There is literally no reason to make my life worse advocating moderate public policy.

I thought I could help, instead I’m stuck between two insane political projects screaming into the void.

He “got the surgery”. What surgery? There is no surgery that makes a man a woman. He learned the behavior. What behavior? Simpering, batting the eyelashes, giggling, squealing, making dinner and cleaning up afterward?

He’s confusing acting with being. Yes, sure, actors can imitate people of the opposite sex, and fiddling with voice and gestures and reactions can help with that, but it doesn’t make a man a woman. An actor who plays Hamlet doesn’t update his documents such that his driving license says he is Hamlet. Most actors, in fact, prefer to stay very clear about which is the part and which is the performer.

If Wu could grasp that he might be able to stop screaming into the void.

The UN has a Facebook group. It’s called United Nations Free & Equal.

UN Free & Equal is a global campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer equality led by the United Nations Human Rights Office.

I wonder what queer equality is.

I wonder a lot of things.

It has such a sweet poster. It’s on TwitX as well as Facebook.

Ah. Well yes, those are stylized images of women, but that doesn’t mean that trans women, aka men, are women. Cartoons of Snoopy don’t mean that dogs can think in English. Badly drawn maps won’t transport you to the purported sites. Corporate Memphis priddy gurlz don’t establish that men are women.

Also note what the UN was apparently too stupid to notice. The women are all very young and very pretty. Does the UN think all women are very young and very pretty? Does it think women all die before they turn 30? Does it think being pretty is the only thing women do? Does it think youth and prettiness define womanhood? Does it think women are pleased and touched and flattered by this kind of thing, so flattered that it will make us agree that huge aggressive angry self-involved men are women if they say they are?

The UN can go take a long walk off a short pier.