In today’s round of disgusting pardons –

President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening announced 26 new pardons, including ones for longtime ally Roger Stone, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s father, Charles.

The pardons extend Trump’s streak of wielding his clemency powers for criminals who are loyalists, well-connected or adjacent to his family. While all presidents issue controversial pardons at the end of their terms, Trump appears to be moving at a faster pace than his predecessors, demonstrating little inhibition at rewarding his friends and allies using one of the most unrestricted powers of his office.

Appears to be? He either is or isn’t. It’s a matter of fact, not speculation. He’s already … Read the rest

Business advice: don’t insure the Catholic church. Really, don’t do that.

The Catholic Church’s private insurer spent more than $58 million paying out the victims of sexual abuse last year and the company is being forced to raise fresh capital and liquidate investments to cover a future compensation bill worth at least another $238 million.

Not profitable.

Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) has posted nearly a $250 million loss as it struggles to meet a wave of new claims in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

More business advice: don’t invest in their stock.

CCI, which insures Catholic parishes, religious institutions, welfare groups, aged care facilities and schools across Australia for incidents of

… Read the rest

Trump has been casually ruining the lives of people who administer elections. One guy is suing.

An election systems worker driven into hiding by death threats has filed a defamation lawsuit against “President” Donald Trump’s campaign, two of its lawyers and some conservative media figures and outlets.

Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged.

His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway

… Read the rest

The Ego-Pardons:

Every president’s pardon list contains some self-serving or controversial picks—think of Clinton’s pardon for Marc Rich, or Barack Obama’s commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence to time served.

But every other president in American history has chosen some worthy recipients of executive clemency as well, some reformed souls whose cases sang out for pardons. That’s because every other American president has been a more or less normal human being. And normal human beings have some concept of justice.

I don’t think that’s true about the more or less normal human being, actually. Nixon wasn’t normal. Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t all that normal. Lincoln wasn’t. Coolidge wasn’t. Andrew Johnson wasn’t. Kennedy wasn’t. Most are, probably, but there are definitely some … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Law and order.

Even if you got rid of the pardon power, there are still a host of ways that a sitting president can effectively immunize his supporters and lackeys from federal criminal consequences. He can simply order his Attorney General to order the U.S. Attorneys not to bring any such charges or to dismiss ones that have been brought. This is essentially what Trump first attempted with Flynn — of course, being Trump he arguably botched it by waiting until Flynn had already pled guilty, so Judge Sullivan was at least entertaining the possibility that the dismissal might not be legally effective. In fact, the “unitary executive” theorists would say that … Read the rest

Trump’s pardon of the Blackwater murderers is not universally popular.

The UN Human Rights Office warned that the pardons would serve to embolden others to commit similar crimes.

The father of a nine-year boy who died said Mr Trump “broke my life again”.

It was an example of following that awful slogan “Do it to them before they do it to you.”

The story told to me by eyewitnesses followed a familiar pattern: in the heavy traffic a frightened and inexperienced driver ignored warnings to stop, and carried on towards a convoy of American officials protected by Blackwater agents.

Several witnesses insisted that the contractors had panicked and opened fire indiscriminately. Among those who died was a nine-year-old boy

… Read the rest

It’s dear “Sophie-Grace” again, philosopher and trans laydee. Remember the bright blue strappy shoes?

https://twitter.com/SophieGraceCha1/status/1341147451248533507

What “special gifts” do trans people have?

While you’re researching that, I’ll point out that Sophie-Grace formerly Timothy is marginalizing and demonizing JK Rowling, who is actually a woman as opposed to notionally one, so more vulnerable to violence than Sophie-Grace is. I get increasingly tired of men claiming to be marginalized and demonized and tragically vulnerable while in the very act of Doing It To Her.… Read the rest

James Kirkup at the Spectator dissects that reckless BBC article, starting by quoting the Samaritans’ advice on how to report on suicide:

Steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity. This can contribute to unhelpful and risky normalising of suicide as an appropriate response to distress.’

And:

‘Speculation about the ‘trigger’ or cause of a suicide can oversimplify the issue and should be avoided. Suicide is extremely complex and most of the time there is no single event or factor that leads someone to take their own life.’

Yet the BBC quoted people doing exactly those things.

Then he points out that the Tavistock itself says suicidality in its clients is the same … Read the rest

Times journalist Janice Turner points out obfuscation by the BBC:

https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1341743930128347138

Oh really. How sly.

Let’s compare a passage from the first version to the new one.

Amended version:

The NHS gender identity service is seeking leave to appeal against a High Court ruling that restricts children under 16 from accessing “puberty-blocking” drugs.

The NHS service says the move harms young people with gender dysphoria.

Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could put already vulnerable trans teens at risk.

Original version:

The NHS gender identity service is appealing against a High Court ruling that restricts children under 16 from accessing “puberty-blocking” drugs.

The NHS service says the move harms young people with gender dysphoria.

Doctors and

… Read the rest

David Smith at the Guardian on Trump’s latest dive into squalor:

Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heards worked as security guards for Blackwater, owned by Erik Prince, a prominent supporter of Trump and brother of his education secretary, Betsy DeVos. All were serving long prison terms for a 2007 massacre of 14 unarmed civilians in Baghdad.

After their trial in 2014, Ronald Machen Jr, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said: “These Blackwater contractors unleashed powerful sniper fire, machine guns, and grenade launchers on innocent men, women, and children. Today they were held accountable for that outrageous attack and its devastating consequences for so many Iraqi families.”

The pardoning of the four led political

… Read the rest

Of course he did.

President Donald Trump pardoned four former Blackwater mercenaries on Tuesday who had been convicted for their role in the Nisour Square massacre that left 14 people dead in Baghdad in 2007.

The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies, like Blackwater, providing armed fighters for US wars and conflicts.

Nicholas Slatten, Paul Alvin Slough, Evan Shawn Liberty, and Dustin Laurent Heard were convicted in the deadly shooting.

During the trial for Slough, Liberty, and Heard, federal prosecutors argued in 2015 that the men should have received harsh sentences for their roles, stating that they had “shown no remorse for their actions.”

… Read the rest

The BBC has a shockingly bad and reckless article by LGBT correspondent Ben Hunte on the Tavistock ruling.

The NHS gender identity service is appealing against a High Court ruling that restricts children under 16 from accessing “puberty-blocking” drugs.

The NHS service says the move harms young people with gender dysphoria.

Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could cause distressed trans teens to self-harm or even take their own lives.

And trans young people have been giving their reaction, with one calling the ruling “honestly terrifying”.

That’s the reckless bit. It’s widely agreed that it’s a very bad idea to report “X will cause Ys to commit suicide” this way, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We … Read the rest

Pence said things at a conservative student event called Turning Point USA today, COVID be damned.

One of the things he said is that Democrats want to make poor people more comfortable.

Vice President Mike Pence: "[Democrats] want to make rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable." pic.twitter.com/LXB8pvKSR8

— The Hill (@thehill) December 22, 2020

He says it beginning at 1:29.

It’s pretty staggering that he feels happy saying that the enemy party wants to make poor people more comfortable. What does Pence want? What does his party want? Poor people homeless, eating out of garbage cans, sick, dying young?

I consulted Google, and it appears that he’s said variations on it before, including saying that Dems want to … Read the rest

Female athletes stab female athletes in the back.

Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe & other female athletes have joined a Lambda brief in 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to defeat Idaho law banning transwomen/transgirls from women’s and girls’ sports. Here is the brief. https://t.co/OqdVJuPBSu

— W. Burlette Carter (@wddaughter) December 22, 2020

Advocacy groups use this leverage. They also do it to force racial minorities and their organizations to comply. I think there is a legal problem with this approach but that is another topic.

— W. Burlette Carter (@wddaughter) December 22, 2020

So in the future there won’t be any Billy Jean Kings and Megan Rapinoes. All the stars of women’s sports will be men who say they are … Read the rest

It’s all in the angle of the head. Glinner on that Magic Moment:

It’s one of the most magical moments in a young transwoman’s life, when she tilts her head to the side and instantly becomes a woman. Who would have thought that rotating your head ever so slightly gave instant access to women’s changing rooms, sports and women-of-the-year lists.

The same people who knew that duck-face can work the same magic.

https://twitter.com/PeggySueZen/status/1340532694162104321 https://twitter.com/chlxeelizabethh/status/1341087865858641921

Lower right needs more head tilt though.… Read the rest

Reports are that Trump gets crazier every day. That’s 28 more days of upping the crazy while he still has access to the nukes.

[A]mid reports of a president unhinged – one report said: “We cannot stress enough how unnerved Trump officials are” – and while Trump continued to stoke a Republican civil war by attacking Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, a group of GOP representatives visited the White House to plan one final push to reverse the will of the American people.

There were about 12 of them.

Trump continues to make baseless accusations of mass electoral fraud and reportedly to rage against aides he deems insufficiently zealous in his defence. According to the news site Axios

… Read the rest

Oh the bravery, oh the courage, oh the heroism.

Headline: Eddie Izzard to use the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’

Wot? Everyone uses those pronouns. Dialogue: “Alice forgot her coat, can you take it to her? She’s down the hall.”

Subhead: Stonewall praises comedian for her bravery after announcement on Sky Arts show

“Bravery” for using words we all use?

Eddie Izzard has adopted the pronouns “she” and “her”, saying she wants “to be based in girl mode from now on”.

You can’t “adopt” pronouns. They never had parents, so you can’t adopt them.

Journalists and “activists” have to use this stupid baby-talk for this subject because of the fundamental absurdity of it. What they mean is that Izzard is now … Read the rest

How about a sense of proportion? Hmm?

Dear @BBC:
Following your kudos to #JKRowling, I have made a list of some other nominees for #BBC awards before the year is out.
1. Hitler
2. Mussolini
3. Stalin
4. Napoleon
5. Putin
6. Donald J. Trump
7. Kim Jong-Un
8. Lee Harvey Oswald
9. John Wilkes Booth
10. Mitch McConnell

— Dawn Ennis (She/Her/Hers) (@lifeafterdawn) December 21, 2020

Let’s see. 1-7 dictators and semi-elected heads of state who caused the deaths of millions. 8 & 9 assassins, 10 a cynical and ruthless senator who helped 6 get away with his many crimes.

Dawn Ennis is suggesting these ten are all comparable to a popular author who wrote an essay … Read the rest

Guy rapes one woman, rapes and murders another. Judge finds a woman to blame.

“Your mother rejected you; that may go some way towards explaining your attitude towards women,” said Justice Geoffrey Venning in a New Zealand high court court in November this year as he sentenced Kempson to three-and-a-half years in jail for the rape.

Yes, because hatred of women is so rare and unusual that it must have a particular cause, to be specific, a woman.

On learning he had been found guilty of the 2018 rape, Kempson screamed at the judge: “You have no reason to convict me. You’re full of shit mate.” At his sentencing last month, Justice Venning said it was clear Kempson did

… Read the rest

Speaking of the fatuous claim that Good Writing is Simple Writing, I was tempted to quote a bit of Sir Thomas Browne on that post but didn’t, but now that Tim Harris has cited him as a counter-example I have to.

I give you: Hydrotaphia, or Urn Burial, published in 1658:

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian’s horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of

… Read the rest