Even Boris Johnson’s people are pushing the Stonewall line.

A group of Boris Johnson’s most senior advisers are allowing government policy on trans rights to be dictated by Stonewall, a former aide to the prime minister has warned.

It seems that Stonewall are viewed as The Experts when in fact they’re The Quacks.

Nikki da Costa, who stood down as Johnson’s director of legislative affairs in August, claimed the prime minister was being presented with “skewed” advice by a powerful lobby in No 10 that was undermining women’s rights.

Maybe that’s the appeal.

She alleged this extended to deciding what Johnson saw in his red boxes and refusing to arrange meetings with people who would present opposing views. She

Law and order! Respect for authority! Duty!

No not that kind.

Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows did not appear for a deposition on Friday in front of the House select committee investigating January 6, sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN, setting up a potential showdown that could lead to the panel beginning a criminal referral process against him.

Committee staffers had been prepared to go forward with the interview and waited in a room on Capitol Hill with a stenographer, but started to file out of the room nine minutes after the deadline passed.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, said in a statement

A federal appeals court rescues our precious freedom to spread lethal diseases.

A federal appeals court has kept its block in place against a federal mandate that all large employers require their workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to weekly testing starting in January, declaring that the rule “grossly exceeds” the authority of the occupational safety agency that issued it.

Because it’s not occupational safety to be able to go to work without risking death by Covid? Sounds like occupational safety to me. Working with assholes can be very unsafe indeed.

“From economic uncertainty to workplace strife, the mere specter of the mandate has contributed to untold economic upheaval in recent months,” Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt

This response to Tatchell prompted me to read Dr Em on forced teaming.

@PankhurstEM piece on forced teaming=https://t.co/YATd9MhPPn

— Marjorie Hutchins (@leakylike) November 13, 2021

Why are ideologies antithetical to each other being presented as natural allies? Feminism argues that gender is a mechanism of a system of oppression, that gender consists of socially constructed sexist stereotypes which are then used to exploit women. [For instance] [t]he notion that because one is female one naturally wants to care and clean, one by nature of one’s female sex is submissive, polite. LGB rights rest on the idea that same-sex attraction is real and normal and should be afforded the same rights and respect as heterosexuality.

Transgenderism/transsexualism, in contrast, claims

That’s a lot of wrong and dishonest in one tweet.

I oppose #KathleenStock's trans critical views but urge an end abuse & intimidation by SOME people on BOTH sides. I echo the stance of pro-trans feminists. Like MANY women, I stand with trans people & ALSO support protection for women. Unity & solidarity! pic.twitter.com/nedpDXLY7S

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) November 13, 2021

Kathleen Stock’s views are not “trans critical.” They can be called gender critical, though I don’t know if she calls them that or not, but “trans critical” is wrong, and wrong in a harmful and probably malicious way. (I doubt that Tatchell is unaware of the label “gender critical”.) In this context the word “trans” names people, while … Read the rest

WHAT THE FUCK??????????

Not like the yellow star! The end point of the yellow star was the Auschwitz gas chambers! Not being refused entry to Safeway but Zyklon B dropped into a sealed room full of people. Not comparable!… Read the rest

Bannon indicted.

Stephen K. Bannon, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s top aides early in his presidency, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress, the Justice Department said.

Mr. Bannon, 67, had refused last month to comply with subpoenas for information issued by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The House voted last month to hold Mr. Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress after he refused to testify or provide documents sought by the committee, a position taken by a number of former aides to Mr. Trump.

They refuse because they consider themselves a rival government in temporary exile.

Mr. Trump had directed his former

It’s been pouring rain here so the flood warnings are out. They’re a kind of poetry, thanks to the beautiful names in this bit of the world.

Here's a snapshot of river flood warnings in effect as 2 PM this afternoon. #wawx pic.twitter.com/7CmF5XHMa3

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) November 12, 2021

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on The rough sex defence.

So, I haven’t delved into this very far, but my impression from the article and twiliter’s comments is that there are two separate legal issues here: the victim’s consent, and the killer’s intent.

Consent is an affirmative defense to some crimes. To give a trivial example: you can’t convict a boxer for assault and battery because he punched his opponent during a match. There have always been some acts to which the law deems that consent is not applicable. It would appear that the Domestic Abuse Act clarifies that “a person cannot consent to the infliction of serious harm or, by extension, to their own death, for the … Read the rest

Billy Bragg admits it’s all about being trendy.

Billy Bragg has changed the lyrics of his hit song “Sexuality” in support of transgender rights.

In the original version of the song, Bragg sings: “And just because you’re gay I won’t turn you away/If you stick around I’m sure that we can find some common-ground” in support of gay rights. But, in recent live performances of the song, he has changed “gay” to “they” in support of transgender people.

Ooh, bold step. “Just because you’re they” – that’s a fine use of language right there.

Explaining why he chose to change the lyrics, Bragg wrote on Twitter: “Times changed. Anyone born since the song was released would wonder why it’s

Women’s bodies are public property chapter eleventy billion:

When a 21-year-old Native American woman from Oklahoma was convicted of manslaughter after having a miscarriage, people were outraged. But she was not alone.

You remember this story from a few weeks ago.

Brittney Poolaw was just about four months pregnant when she lost her baby in the hospital in January 2020.

This October, she was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for the first-degree manslaughter of her unborn son.

As if the four month old fetus inside her were an independent person she killed.

Yet Poolaw’s story is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Dana Sussman, deputy executive director of the National Advocates of Pregnant Women (NAPW),

JoMo says fear not, brands will save you.

But the only people trying to understand the medium and long term – and who invest huge amounts in ensuring they understand it correctly – are consumer brands. And they all face, unequivocally, in the same direction. They know what the future holds.

Be optimistic. 2/2

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) November 12, 2021

Consumer brands know what the future holds. That’s some top-class epistemology right there.… Read the rest

Ben Hunte is angry at the BBC. (He used to be “BBC LGBT Correspondent” according to his profile, and now works at Vice.)

"I can't keep working for the bad guys"

Exclusive: I received a leaked recording of a heated “listening session” for LGBTQ BBC staff, which reveals that several LGBTQ employees have quit – or are about to quit… https://t.co/rEdRtYubgQ

— Ben Hunte (@BenInLDN) November 11, 2021

But what does he mean LGBTQ employees? Does he mean several have quit as in a coupla lesbians a coupla gay men a couple bi people a coupla trans a coupla queer? Or does he mean several trans people? It would be useful to know, but the LGBTQ formula prevents us from … Read the rest

It was consensual manslaughter.

A man jailed for choking a woman to death during sex will not have his prison sentence increased, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Sam Pybus, 32, was jailed for four years and eight months after admitting the manslaughter of Sophie Moss, 33, at her home in Darlington on 7 February. Attorney General Suella Braverman said the sentence was unduly lenient and referred it to the Court of Appeal.

But three judges said nah, it’s all good. He was drunk, you see.

Pybus, who was married, had told police he and Ms Moss had been in a casual relationship for three years and that she encouraged him to strangle her during consensual sex.

Ah those … Read the rest

It’s all about impartiality.

The BBC retreated from Stonewall’s divisive Diversity Champions scheme because it needs to be “squeaky clean” on impartiality, an executive said.

He and Emma Barnett had a long conversation about it: he kept pressing a distinction between Stonewall’s advice on employer policy and making everyone feel included, and editorial decisions about content.

Fair enough, but as he said it over and over I kept wondering how much the BBC worried about making women feel included. I wondered, and still wonder, what it did about the imbalance between hand-wringing concern over about 400 trans employees and, I’m guessing, a rather larger number of women employees. I wondered and still wonder why he got such an anxious … Read the rest

Also this happened today – a ruling that Mermaids can’t share documents with the Good Law Project (aka Jolyon Maugham), because of the obvious risk that he’ll blab everything on Twitter. Mermaids and Maugham are trying to get the LGB Alliance’s charitable status taken away.

The lack of reading comprehension of many is no longer a source of amusement but is actually quite frightening. Mermaids have NOT been prevented from speaking to their lawyers. The Good Law Project are NOT their lawyers. pic.twitter.com/74PEceEcj2

— Sarah Phillimore (@SVPhillimore) November 11, 2021

… Read the rest

Let’s look at the Pregnant People bit.

Emma Barnett: There are guests who come on this show who talk about “pregnant people.” What should I do, live in the moment – should I get them to clarify themselves because only biological women can be pregnant?

Long, telling pause

Rhodri Talfan Davies: Well, “pregnant people” isn’t inaccurate, it’s clearly one way of framing the statement

Me, interrupting: Now wait just a damn minute. Accuracy isn’t the only relevant quality here, and anyway it could be called inaccurate in some senses. It’s not the usual, familiar, standard, unsurprising way of saying it. Don’t go pretending not to know that. And because it’s not the standard way of saying it, and because … Read the rest

The stations of the cross.

If anyone is wondering why I'm leaving the charity sector after only six months in my role, please see this actual genuine thing that has just been sent to me. "Omnisexual Awareness Day"??? GET A GRIP. pic.twitter.com/nxOBKpF3qL

— Ffion B Goode (@FfiFfi_LaRue) November 11, 2021

I wonder how Asexual Visibility Day is celebrated.… Read the rest

Whoaaaa the ground is shifting.

Extremely effective interviewing here from @Emmabarnett – she did a great job of cutting through the waffle and attempts to sidestep by Rhodri Talfan. I particularly liked "There are also facts, and facts don't have to be balanced." https://t.co/HxGhIZGbbR

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) November 11, 2021

… Read the rest

Doc Stock on the “But but but you wrote a piece for The Spectator!!” expostulation:

I am on the left — or at least, a version of the left that doesn’t involve trying to get employees sacked by bosses, which may or may not be the left as we now know it. One frequent preoccupation of fellow left-wingers is the potential for guilt by association with those on the right. When feminists like Julie Bindel and I share a platform with a Tory, or write something for The Spectator, isn’t that just grist to the mill of our enemies? And, over time, won’t this heinous practice increase the likelihood of our own politics becoming less feminist? My usual