All entries by this author

Gretchen Shmetchen

Sep 11th, 2025 5:13 pm | By

Couldn’t happen to a nastier guy.

DC has shelved its Red Hood comic book series following writer Gretchen Felker-Martin sharing posts on Bluesky that joked about the shooting of Charlie Kirk, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet Wednesday.

“Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk,” read one post. “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi bitch,” read another by Felker-Martin. The writer is trans, while Kirk was known for his anti-trans stance. Felker-Martin’s Bluesky account is now deactivated, but those posts were screenshotted and widely spread before DC canceled the series.

To refresh your memories of Felker-Martin’s novel that had JK Rowling sadistically murdered:

A horror novel by a transgender author that features the death of

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A price

Sep 11th, 2025 11:16 am | By

The San Francisco Chronicle points out:

The reaction of Second Amendment absolutists and their enablers to the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Wednesday during his rally at Utah Valley University was as predictable as it was dangerous.

In a moment that begged for calm and unity, Democrats — even those who loathed Kirk politically — offered condolences and railed against political violence. Meanwhile, Republicans, who control Congress and the White House (and, let’s face it, the Supreme Court) were much less likely to condemn political violence, and none suggested they should pursue gun safety measures…

Kirk himself was prone to inflame tensions in the wake of tragic violence. “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price,” he once

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Bangs

Sep 11th, 2025 11:04 am | By

Live by the sword…

What is the result of this having the Second Amendment?

It’s an exceptionally high level of gun deaths.

Nearly 47,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States in 2023, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While the number of gun deaths in the U.S. fell for the second consecutive year,

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Cooties

Sep 11th, 2025 6:51 am | By

Belief in magic gender is mandatory in The New Party.

Gender-critical MPs have “no place” in Jeremy Corbyn’s new hard-Left party, his co-founder has said.

Zarah Sultana, who was suspended by Labour last year and quit the party last month, said there was “no room” in the party for people who don’t have “pro-trans” values amid an escalating transgender row between party hopefuls.

What is “hard left” about believing in magic gender? It’s not hard left or soft left or any kind of left at all. It’s just dumb.

“Ms Sultana told the Pod Save the UK podcast on Tuesday: “If people don’t have pro-trans, pro-migrant, anti-racist values, there are plenty of other political spaces you can enter but … Read the rest



Guest post: If they simply wanted to live their lives

Sep 10th, 2025 4:52 pm | By

Originally a comment by maddog on A red line for the Greens.

Trans people have been massively targeted over the past few years, entirely wrongly, by a great number of people, and they just want to go and live their lives.

T have not been “massively targeted.” The entire T enterprise is a literally massive targeting of women, gay men, and lesbians, and of children that they can groom to their cause. T also ” massively target” anyone who supports women, gay men and lesbians, or who opposes the mutilation of children for a false ideology.

To the extent T have been “targeted,” it’s entirely rightly, because it’s simply false that men can be women or that women can … Read the rest



The road gets steeper

Sep 10th, 2025 4:20 pm | By

Is this the new Reichstag fire? I think we can be pretty sure it won’t go well for Team Not Crazy.

Though no motive has been disclosed, the circumstances of the shooting fueled concerns that it was part of a spike of political violence that has cut across the political spectrum.

Well of course it is; what else would it be? Violent and political but not part of the spike in political violence? How would that work? I do wish journalism could skip the meaningless banalities.

Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point

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Cat prods mouse

Sep 10th, 2025 10:51 am | By

Putin is like that kid who keeps slapping or pinching or tripping smaller kids because he wants an easy fight.

NATO chief Mark Rutte has denounced Russia’s “reckless behaviour” after drones violated Polish airspace, and said the alliance’s response [was] “very successful.”

“A full assessment is ongoing. But of course, whether it was intentional or not, it is absolutely reckless, it is absolutely dangerous,” Rutte said after talks among NATO members.

He said his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin was clear: “Stop violating allied airspace, and know that we stand ready, that we are vigilant, and that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

Putin rolls his eyes.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that Poland has no

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Hand-picked

Sep 10th, 2025 9:27 am | By

The fix is in.

The feminist group that secured the landmark Supreme Court ruling asserting that sex is binary has raised fears that a “Nicola Sturgeon crony” has been put in charge of implementing it in Scotland.

Minutes of a Scottish government working group set up to consider revisions to allegedly unlawful gender self-ID policies in place across the public sector reveal it was initially led by Louise Macdonald, director-general for communities.

Macdonald, then working in the charity sector, was hand-picked by Sturgeon to co-chair the then first minister’s independent taskforce on women and girls before joining the government in 2022 as director-general for the economy.

Fox guarding henhouse much?

Macdonald displays “she/her’ pronouns on her online CV and

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No YOU’RE flawed

Sep 10th, 2025 8:41 am | By

Trade unions vow to continue trashing women.

Trade unions have vowed to oppose the Supreme Court ruling on transgender issues and have called official guidance on single-sex spaces “flawed”.

Delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) voted unanimously in favour of a motion which said the April ruling went against the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The unions’ motion added that since the Supreme Court ruling “there has been a surge of transphobic hate promoted by the far-Right for political advantage”.

Jenny Black, a transgender woman from Unison, told delegates: “This is not the preserve of the far-Right. It’s the Left as well, and it’s the Labour Government as well. They’re using this as a political

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We always do this

Sep 10th, 2025 7:59 am | By

Sorry, it’s policy.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley had a bruising encounter with the BBC’s Emma Barnett on the Today Programme this morning over the arrest of comedian Graham Linehan. Rowley refused to say the arrest was a mistake, instead blaming “national policies” and Home Office rules. Rowley said he wouldn’t “pore over one case”.

How interesting. This “one case” is a matter of grotesque police overreaction and bullying, and the Comish sneers that he’s not going to bother paying attention to it. Bro it’s your job to pay attention to it. It’s also probably your job to say something less stupid in response to questions.

Barnett went on to ask whether the officers were “scared” not to arrest

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A red line for the Greens

Sep 10th, 2025 3:48 am | By

The Scottish Greens are deranged.

The newly elected co-leaders of the Scottish Greens have said anyone who does not accept that trans women are women has no place in their party.

Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay, who were chosen last month to succeed Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, used an interview on the BBC’s Scotcast to make clear that backing trans rights is a “red line” for the Greens. Anyone who does not accept that men are women has no place in their party.

That’s going to be a very tiny itty bitty barely visible party then.

Asked if someone who was committed to the climate cause but did not believe trans women were women would have a home

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No one was allowed to stand up

Sep 9th, 2025 11:26 am | By

The BBC simply lies in this bit of chat about Glinner.

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has told BBC News he stands by his posts on X which led to his arrest last week, over his views on challenging “a trans-identified male” in “a female-only space”.

Scare quotes scare quotes. The BBC doesn’t put scare quotes on female pronouns for men who pretend to be women but it does put them on truthful labels.

Recalling his flight, which landed in the UK on 1 September, he said he “realised something was up” when no one on the plane was allowed to stand up.

“I didn’t expect it to be what it turned out to be. And then they called my

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A little fight with the wife

Sep 9th, 2025 9:53 am | By

Trump says male violence against women is trivial.

President Donald Trump seemingly diminished domestic violence while discussing the crime rate in Washington, D.C.

There’s no “seemingly” about it; it’s what he said.

During a speech at the Museum of the Bible, the president boasted about violent crime levels decreasing in Washington, D.C. since he deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital. The only remaining crimes, he said, were incidents of domestic violence — “little fights” within the home that, in Trump’s words, are preventing his perfect crime improvement data.

“There’s no crime. They said crime’s down 87 percent,” Trump said. “They said, ‘No, no, no, it’s more than 87 percent. Virtually nothing.'”

Who are these “they”s who say … Read the rest



Yes but what do you mean?

Sep 9th, 2025 9:41 am | By

Oh dear oh dear – if only Laurie Penny had said this to Piers Morgan when he asked her what she meant by claiming to be “non-binary”.

Can you say “contradiction”? I thought you could. … Read the rest



Two very different things

Sep 9th, 2025 8:28 am | By

Lazy reporter is excited to find a way to talk smack about JK Rowling in an article about funding the Vancouver Parks department.

It’s a story bringing together two very different things that nonetheless regularly attract controversy: the Vancouver Park Board and the Harry Potter universe. 

Those are two very different things all right, but are they really being brought together? Or is the reporter just saying they are, because (yawn) funding parks doesn’t draw as much attention as the tantrums of livid they/thems do?

“J.K. Rowling’s actions against the trans community are so egregious that I think we need to look at changing our minds on this,” said Vancouver city Coun. Lucy Maloney.

On Monday, she along with fellow

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He kept it

Sep 8th, 2025 10:47 am | By

Comedy interlude:

Donald Trump has claimed that the Club World Cup trophy that has featured prominently in the Oval Office will stay there, and that Fifa made a copy of the trophy that was awarded to Chelsea after their win in the tournament’s final on Sunday.

Trump attended the final along with numerous members of his cabinet and Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino. The pair of presidents jointly presented the trophy to Chelsea captain Reece James, with Trump staying front and center despite the apparent confusion of Chelsea players and the pleading of Infantino.

The pleading of Infantino is hilarious. Trump is the new Alfred E. Newman/Zelig, popping up to ruin everyone’s special moment.

Infantino unveiled the Club World Cup

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Instant transfer request

Sep 8th, 2025 10:04 am | By
Instant transfer request

This is the real problem – the how we got here. It’s more basic even than the belief in magic gender.

It’s the obsession with self self self self, and the insistence on forcing one’s precious divine holy sanctified fascinating SELF on everyone else.

Adults used to know that other people are never as interested in Precious Me as we are, and that it’s childish and embarrassing to act as if they are.

Teachers aren’t there to tell the children all about the teachers’ darling selves. That’s not the job. That’s not the point of school. They’re not there to chat to the kids about their sex lives.

I suppose it goes all the way back to the dreaded “self-esteem” … Read the rest



Hard to believe

Sep 8th, 2025 8:49 am | By
Hard to believe

Oh come on. Seriously??? The head of MI6? Don’t jobs of that kind usually go to adults?

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Out of the ballpark and over the horizon

Sep 8th, 2025 6:11 am | By

Victoria Smith does another one of those Every Damn Sentence Is a Gem articles at The Critic.

She starts with Jon Ronson’s 2015 book about being publicly shamed.

Back then, I’d been classed as a “terf” for over a year, having written a piece very tentatively critiquing the concept of cis-ness (I would not be so tentative now). It was a strange, disorienting period…

2015 is the year I left “Freethought” blogs as “colleagues” tripped over each other in the rush to class me as a terf. A strange period indeed.

You’d have to have been within certain specific circles — in my case, the feminist blogosphere, in which we were suddenly ordered not to write about abortion

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Extrajudicial

Sep 7th, 2025 1:47 pm | By

Even Rand Paul doesn’t admire Vance’s joy in murdering people.

The Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers.

See, vice presidents are supposed to know things like “you can’t just kill people you think did a crime without any due process first.” I’m pretty sure it’s taught on the very first day.

Trump

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