NY Times sums up the Kennedy v public health hearing:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a withering barrage of questioning from a Senate committee on his vaccine policy and his record as President Trump’s health secretary, responding at times with clear disdain for the senators, public health data and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which he oversees.

That’s just great, isn’t it? He has disdain for senators, public health data, and the CDC. He has confidence and pride in…his own unaided hunches.

Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy blamed the C.D.C. for the number of American deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, and said he did not trust the data that showed vaccines saved

Somebody is feeling left out…

This one paragraph in a Telegraph piece on trans ideology and the gun-toting police abuse of Graham Linehan…

Look at the health service. In Scotland, a nurse named Sandie Peggie has taken NHS Fife to a tribunal after it suspended her for complaining about a male trans colleague using the female changing room. This week, lawyers representing NHS Fife argued that there’s “no evidence” that women, Ms Peggie aside, “have a problem” sharing female-only spaces with male trans people.

Really? Has it not occurred to NHS Fife that, if women don’t complain, it might just be because they’re scared? Not least because complaining might get them punished by their employer?

That.

Trans “activism” is uniquely privileged among social justice … Read the rest

The NY Times cautiously tests the heat.

Britain’s most senior police officer has called for the government to change or clarify the law regarding free speech amid intense public debate over the arrest of an Irish comedian on suspicion of inciting violence against transgender people on social media.

Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, which serves the London area, said his officers had been put in an “impossible position” in which laws were drawing them into “toxic culture-wars debates.”

Some toxic culture-wars debates.

When, I wonder, is the last time 5 UK cops arrested a man for social media threats against women.

Have any UK cops ever done that?

They don’t arrest rapists, so it seems unlikely that … Read the rest

Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Greens.

"These are totally unacceptable tweets… I think it was proportionate to arrest him"

Zack Polanski, Green Party Leader, on the arrest of comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow airport on Monday.#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/wzN2lkqxLx

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 2, 2025

Well I think Polanski’s remarks are totally unacceptable, therefore he should be arrested by five men with guns and held in a cell for twelve hours. … Read the rest

And then there’s the second part.

In a statement, Rowley said: “On Monday, officers arrested a man in his 50s at Heathrow in relation to allegations of inciting violence, linked to posts on X. The officers involved in the arrest had reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed under the Public Order Act.

“While the decision to investigate and ultimately arrest the man was made within existing legislation – which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence – I understand the concern caused by such incidents given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world.”

See it?

“a threat to … Read the rest

Met police chief calls for review of law after Graham Linehan arrest

The Metropolitan police have declined to drop their investigation into the comedy writer Graham Linehan for tweets about trans issues, and said that the law used by officers to detain him needs reviewing.

The Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said on Wednesday officers should not be “policing toxic culture wars debates”, and while any review took place, officers would investigate only more serious cases concerning online messages.

I gather the Met isn’t thrilled about all the headlines.

In a statement, Rowley said: “On Monday, officers arrested a man in his 50s at Heathrow in relation to allegations of inciting violence, linked to posts on X. The officers involved

Originally a comment by What a Maroon at Miscellany Room.

It’s fairly common when you’re in a group of three or more to refer to one of the group in the third person. As an example, imagine a classroom discussion, where Johnson (a man who insists that others use female pronouns when referring to him in the third person) has just expressed an opinion. The teacher, in an attempt to stimulate some conversation, may then turn to Smith and say, “Do you agree with what [3rd person sg. pronoun] says?” Of course the teacher could just say “Johnson”, but it gets awkward if the question becomes more complex: “Do you agree with Johnson when Johnson says X?”

From a … Read the rest

Steven Pinker writes:

Evidence that woke isn’t dead, peer review is problematic, and science needs to address deep problems in its culture: A grad student at Harvard conducted the first systematic, data-based study to document & explain the rise in gender dysphoria. His paper was rejected from a leading journal because, among other things, “Throughout the manuscript, the authors use language that is considered prejudicial and outdated (e.g., “natal sex” as opposed to “sex assigned at birth”). It is critical to follow best practice and guidelines surrounding gender inclusive language, particularly for research specifically on the topic of gender incongruence, expression, and identity.”

Lordy lordy lordy. What sane person considers “natal sex” outdated compared to “sex assigned at birth”? … Read the rest

Oh how interesting. I wonder if I will ever see any former colleagues say the same.

As for the mad props, how about some mad props for those of us who rejected the bullshit from the outset?… Read the rest

boswelltoday on Peggie V NHS Fife & Dr Upton:

Jane Russell’s Closing: A Masterclass in Wishful Thinking

Jane Russell KC’s closing argument for NHS Fife and Dr. Upton was a performance in the art of inversion – turning reality inside out and expecting the tribunal to applaud. She spoke with elegance, but what she asked the panel to believe was preposterous: that a nurse of thirty years’ service was a bully, that a man in a women’s changing room was harmless, and that the law demands women silence their instincts to preserve a colleague’s feelings. She began with her little parable about hoofbeats – “think horses, not zebras.” According to Russell, Peggie had conjured up a fantasy of danger.

Helen Webberley threatening death for people who know sex can’t be swapped.

Coffin emoji. Haw haw haw.… Read the rest

Judge tells Trump No you can’t.

A federal judge on Tuesday barred President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard and other military troops in California to execute law-enforcement actions there, including making arrests, searching locations, and crowd control.

The ruling came in connection with a lawsuit filed in early June by the state of California challenging Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployment of the Guard to deal with protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

Judge Charles Breyer said that Trump’s deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and 700 Marines to L.A. violated the federal Posse Comitatus Act, which bars U.S. Military forces from enforcing the law domestically.

Breyer’s ruling in U.S. District

Meanwhile Trump

The arrest of a US army veteran who protested against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has raised alarms among legal experts and fellow veterans familiar with his service in Afghanistan.

Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations mission in Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington.

We are allowed to demonstrate. Presidents are not allowed to punish us for demonstrating. We are not the criminals here.

Legal experts say the case marks an escalation in the administration’s attacks on first amendment rights. Afghanistan war veterans who

Well there is an easy solution…

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif appeals World Boxing ban over mandatory sex testing

Algeria‘s Olympic gold medallist Imane Khelif has appealed to sport‘s highest court against a World Boxing decision barring her from upcoming events unless she undergoes genetic sex testing, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said on Monday.

Why? Why is he doing that? Why doesn’t he just take the test?

The appeal seeks to overturn the ruling and allow Algeria’s Khelif to compete at the 2025 World Boxing Championships without having the test, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said in a statement, adding that it had dismissed her request to suspend the decision while the case is heard.

But … Read the rest

Well this is horrific. Glinner writes:

The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets.

He shares the tweets. One concludes with “if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” Another captions a demo with “A photo you can smell.” The last one says “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. Fuck em.”

At Heathrow police station, my belt, bag, and devices were confiscated. Then I was shown into a small green-tiled cell with a bunk, a silver toilet in the corner and a message from Crimestoppers on the ceiling next to

Trump administration offers military funeral honors to Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt

The U.S. government is offering military funeral honors for Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was killed at 35 by an officer in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Babbitt was a U.S. Air Force veteran from California who was shot dead wearing a Trump campaign flag wrapped around her shoulders while attempting to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol.

Offering military honors to one of the Capitol rioters is part of President Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite that chapter after the 2020 election as a patriotic stand, given he still denies he lost that election. Babbitt

Originally a comment by Enzyme on Crucial.

I wouldn’t want to speculate on what the GMC’s rationale its decision about HRT prescriptions might have been; but let’s allow for the sake of the argument that it was buffoonery. Still: there might be an upside to that – or, at least, there might have been a bullet dodged.

Had the GMC said that it was a specialist area, requiring special training, then who would have undertaken such training? Since doctors are not assigned to specialisms by lottery, the answer to that would have to be that the training would only or overwhelmingly be sought by True Believers in the gender cause. And, in turn, that would have given heft to … Read the rest

But do not call him Ted.

Dr Beth Upton’s birth name will be redacted in official Sandie Peggie documents, the tribunal judge has ruled. The case has restarted for a third time with final submissions being put forward by each legal team before a decision will be made towards the end of the year.

…

Born Theodore Upton, the name was used on the General Medical Council register before he was re-registered under his new name, Dr Beth Upton. His legal team claimed that publishing his birth name would be against his human rights and would out him as a trans woman.

Judge Sandy Kemp ruled in his favour, confirming that the submissions can be published but Theodore Upton

The NY Times on grinding the proletariat:

Trump is the most ruthlessly antilabor president since before the Great Depression.

If the labor movement does not fight harder than it has since Mr. Trump regained the presidency, its future will be dire.

Mr. Trump and his administration have unilaterally stripped collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers. At the Department of Veterans Affairs alone, 400,000 workers, or 2.8 percent of America’s unionized workers, have lost their collective bargaining rights because of an executive order that will eventually affect more than one million federal workers. Mr. Trump ushered in Labor Day weekend on Thursday by continuing his assault of federal unions, adding the Patent Office, NASA and the