Rock bottom.

This man is the lowest of the low. @IndiaWilloughby, you’re quite the sick fuck, aren’t you? pic.twitter.com/yOvATb3o5v

— Somebody Out There (@SirJackKubrick) July 2, 2024

… Read the rest

The Bookseller informs us:

Three of the biggest UK publishers’ Pride networks have responded to the launch of an anonymous gender critical network, releasing a joint statement saying “publishing should be a safe and inclusive space for all, including our trans and non-binary authors and colleagues”.

Also including our spinach-eating authors and colleagues and our sedentary authors and colleagues and our poker-playing authors and colleagues and our beer-drinking authors and colleagues…one could go on this way into infinity.

Who is saying publishing should not be a safe and inclusive space for anyone?

No one, of course. Not one damn person. You can search until your pith helmet is a mere rag but you won’t find anyone saying that.

And while … Read the rest

Another big surge forward on the road to hell.

The US supreme court’s decision on Monday to confer broad immunity to former presidents is likely to eviscerate numerous parts of the criminal prosecution against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In other words yes, the presidency is in effect a dictatorship.

Most crucially for the special counsel, Jack Smith, his prosecutors will not be able to introduce as evidence any acts deemed to be official, even as contextual information for jurors to show Trump’s intent.

“There’s such divinity doth hedge a king…”

The alleged illegal conduct came in five categories: Trump pressuring US justice department officials to open sham investigations into election

… Read the rest

The insults just keep rolling in.

There’s a new campaign to get teenage girls into sport. Called #strongisbeautiful it’s been kicked off by Team GB rugby players posing in lingerie.
Feels really regressive and sexist to me.
Maybe I’m old. pic.twitter.com/4LXYdZpoTp

— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) July 2, 2024

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Artymorty on How it happened.

One of the reasons Biden won in 2020 is that the Democrats had not cultivated any good alternatives to him.

Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris. None of them looked like reasonable choices for President to me, and surely to many other Americans, too. I’m all for youthful “energetic grassroots” lefty mojo, but at the Presidential level, I want nation-leadership and world-leadership qualities, too. Big-picture compromise, shrewdness in global geopolitics, that kind of thing. Especially so, as progressivism has begun spiralling into absurd extremism at home, and the threats from abroad have gotten more severe.

The Dems have had four years to start building up-and-coming talent, and they’ve … Read the rest

The Times on how we got here:

In April 2019, Mr. Biden embarked on his third, and given his age, almost certainly his last, bid for the White House. After Mr. Obama’s two terms and Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign, many younger Democrats, the energetic grass roots of the party, were hungering for new talent.

Mr. Biden appeared to struggle on debate stages crowded with more progressive rivals, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as younger and more engaging competitors, such as Mr. Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Ind., Ms. Harris and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey among them. He finished poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But

… Read the rest

Oh ffs.

Nick Ferrari: Can a woman have a penis?@EdwardJDavey: pic.twitter.com/jp15tMB3MK

— What Is A Woman Campaign (@WhatIsAWomanUK) July 1, 2024

We need to debate this with a bit more compassion, he says.

Yes but can a woman have a penis?

Listen, he says, I’ve made it really clear, he says, the vast majority of people will have the same gender as their biological sex but a small number won’t, he says.

So a woman can have a penis? the host says. Wull, quite clearly, SIR Ed Davies says, with a touch of contempt.… Read the rest

Supreme Court says yes sure a president is above the law, no problem.

The Supreme Court’s liberal bloc issued blistering dissents in the Trump immunity ruling, arguing that the decision “reshapes the institution of the presidency” and “makes a mockery” of the constitutional principle that no man is above the law.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading her dissent from the bench, said that “relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom … the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

Generosity is a virtue.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on ideological lines that former President Donald Trump has immunity for some of his conduct as president but not unofficial acts in the federal

… Read the rest

Oh go to hell all of you – the police the BBC all of you.

Transgender woman guilty of rape after night out

Man. Man man man man man. Women don’t rape; women can’t rape. Women are the targets of rape, not the perps.

A transgender woman has been found guilty of rape following a night out. Lexi Secker, 35, of Lowbourne, near Melksham, was living as a man when she attacked a woman in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, on 23 April 2023.

Don’t be so ridiculous. The man wasn’t “living as a man”; the man was a man.

Swindon Crown Court was told Secker would be tried as a woman and she was found guilty of one count of rape on

… Read the rest

So the important thing is Biden and his career and his everything – when it should be everyone else.

President Joe Biden waged an intense weekend battle to save his reelection bid following his disastrous debate performance but has been unable to dismiss existential questions about his candidacy that are more glaring than ever.

But maybe just maybe the important thing isn’t his career but the cliff we’re racing towards.

The Democratic damage control strategy of arguing that one bad night does not detract from Biden’s past successes ignores the critical question with which many voters have wrestled for months: Is Biden simply too physically and cognitively diminished to serve another four years?

That’ll be because the arrow of time … Read the rest

I saw this guy’s (disgusting) tweet this morning, but I didn’t realize he’s a PR honcho for the police.

https://twitter.com/sharper76/status/1806721504782012421

The eight nurses who don’t want to undress in front of a man are the bad people here, for “humiliating” him. He’s not the bad guy for humiliating them, no, they’re the bad people for trying to make him stop humiliating them. And yet here we are.

https://twitter.com/coccinellanovem/status/1807446842335965669

PR honcho for the police.… Read the rest

I’m so pleased to find out at last what asexuality looks like.

https://twitter.com/theyasminbenoit/status/1807123591906942983… Read the rest

Yeah good luck with that “damage control” thing.

With countless calls and a rush of campaign events, the president’s team began a damage-control effort to pressure and plead with anxious Democratic lawmakers, surrogates, activists and donors.

But pressure and pleading aren’t going to turn back the clock. They’re not going to make Biden any younger or sharper or more robust.

Later on Friday, top White House aides worked the phones, with Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, calling the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, to check in, according to a person familiar with the call. And by the afternoon, the Biden campaign had transformed its weekly all-staff call into a virtual pep talk to dispel any

… Read the rest

Yet again, for the umpty-billionth time, a smug man reveals how entirely indifferent he is to women and their need for safety from predatory men.

https://twitter.com/sharper76/status/1806721504782012421

Gee yes how dare women object to being forced to take their clothes off in front of men? Who do they think they are, real people???… Read the rest

The Telegraph did a little stir the pot story on an academic article accusing Dolly Parton of all the phobias because of her project to send books to children who need them.

Dolly Parton has been accused of “white saviourism” for giving millions of free books to poor children.

The reading scheme, called Imagination Library, was launched by the country and western star in the US more than three decades ago. It now operates in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia, and has been lauded for helping to drive up literacy rates.

It gives disadvantaged pupils the same access to books as their middle-class peers by sending high-quality titles directly to the homes of under-fives.

That’s already a very over-simplified … Read the rest

I grabbed a bus way the hell north and east from here to a huge mostly wildish park on Lake Washington. Saw people playing cricket. Walked through big meadows full of long grass to the lake, and promptly turned back to the meadows because the area along the lake was full of people with picnics and so on. No problem, I can visit the lake in the cooler months and/or on rainy days. Crossed the road that traverses the park and went a few yards into a meadow and encountered

…a coyote.

Just the one, fortunately. It gazed at me calmly and then turned and trotted away.

I’ve encountered coyotes quite a few times lately – generally just running or … Read the rest

We are so screwed.

Biden’s poor performance sent leading Democrats into a panic on Thursday night, after the US president appeared shaky and at points struggled to finish sentences. It amplified fears about his age and fitness for office that it had been hoped the debate would allay.

It seems kind of stupid and reality-denying to hope that given the realities. What’s he going to do, rip off his shirt to reveal the Superman leotard underneath?

The former US president Barack Obama defended Biden in a social media post on Friday. “Bad debate nights happen,” he said. “But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only

… Read the rest

Does Angela Rayner answer the question?

She does not.

One reason I won’t vote Labour is that its deputy leader called the @AllianceLGB, whose founding meeting I attended, a hate group. She did it years ago and the media didn’t give a toss. I’m overjoyed that a national broadcaster is now holding @AngelaRayner to account over it 1/2 https://t.co/ENUPHN6kaA

— Simon Edge (@simonjedge) June 29, 2024

She says many words but she does not answer the question.… Read the rest

There was a Pride march in Toronto yesterday. Apparently one theme was “transphobe extermination.”

not sure what kind of bizarre meet up was taking place downtown Toronto last night, but subway started filling with 20-somethings in “transphobe extermination” shirts (note the noose), many with gigantic masks & (apparently unnecessary) canes, like they were 90 yrs old. So weird pic.twitter.com/xSpr6DNoVr

— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) June 29, 2024

… Read the rest

Capitalism must be set free:

Friday’s ruling that overturned an important 1984 ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council was a belated victory for Trump’s deregulatory agenda, with all three of his appointees to the high court joining the 6-3 conservative majority.

“The decision was the culmination of a decadelong, billionaire-funded campaign to capture and weaponize the unelected power of the Supreme Court to deliver huge windfalls for corporate interests at the expense of everyday Americans,” said Alex Aronson, a former Democratic staffer in Congress who is executive director of Court Accountability, a judicial oversight group.

…

Overturning Chevron, a ruling that business interests long disliked, has long been a goal of conservative lawyers, who saw

… Read the rest