Another big No for Donny Tinydesk.

President Donald Trump’s legal team suffered yet another defeat in court Friday as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected the campaign’s latest effort to challenge the state’s election results.

Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judges’ assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.”

I think that assessment means the Supremes are likely to decline to take the case.

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” 3rd Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote for the three-judge panel.

Giuliani’s sweat … Read the rest

Joan Smith reminds us that footballers and movie stars can also be men who punch women in the face.

Imagine a man hitting his partner. The picture that comes to mind probably involves a scruffy individual, his hand raised and his face contorted with fury. We can all condemn that, can’t we? But what if the angry face is familiar, seen thousands of times in a very different context? If it belongs, say, to the world’s most famous and admired footballer, Diego Maradona?

He was very good at getting the ball into the net, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a violent bully. That’s a very complicated thought, I know, but it’s true.

Domestic abuse is routinely overlooked or

… Read the rest

Another sarcastic photo and caption:

Photograph: Erin Scott/Reuters

Caption:

Donald Trump speaks with members of the military via videoconference on Thursday.

Heeheeheeheeheehee… Read the rest

Pathetically, it’s news that Trump was pushed into admitting that at some point he will have to get out.

Donald Trump has said that he will leave the White House in January if the electoral college votes for Democratic president-elect Joe Biden, in the closest the outgoing president has come to conceding defeat.

Which is not very close, because he said it in reply to a very narrow question, and he instantly qualified it and undercut it with more shouting about fake votes blah blah blah.

Speaking to reporters on the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump said if Biden – who is due to be sworn in on 20 January – was certified the election winner by the electoral college, he would

… Read the rest

Trump won’t like it that news outlets are reporting on his tiny desk and tiny hands and big diapers.

For a US president obsessed by size – his hands, his wealth, his crowds – Donald Trump made something of a bold U-turn on Thursday night by addressing the country from a desk seemingly designed for a leprechaun.

Or a very naughty boy.

The hashtag #DiaperDon swiftly trended on Twitter, with people mocking the president as an infant banished to the children’s table for Thanksgiving.

I still can’t quite believe this happened today.
Whoever suggested that desk … thank you.#tinydesk #TinyDeskDonald https://t.co/9sQ6Ko1bMA pic.twitter.com/xKuU0DVjUD

— Noah Maher (@noahsparc) November 27, 2020

… Read the rest

The headline for today is Trump Tantrum.

So, the next few months are gonna be SUPER fun. #TrumpTantrum pic.twitter.com/BN6KlhI9a2

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) November 27, 2020

Nah, Spanky, we’re gonna talk to you as the angry greedy self-centered goon you are. You reap what you sow, blowfish-lips.

Also he looked funny.

When your child is eventually allowed off the naughty step for Christmas lunch, but isn’t well behaved enough to join the rest of the family at the dinner table.#DiaperDon #TrumpTantrum pic.twitter.com/B4MWTTyUnL

— Glaswegian Versus Dog (@DavidofPartick) November 27, 2020

I wonder if this will be the number one Christmas gift this year? #playskool #trumptantrum #DiaperDon pic.twitter.com/gV5kwzX6jS

— Caergalin (@caergalin) November 27, 2020

Watch this you won’t regret it

… Read the rest

Narcissist meets masochist, hilarity ensues. … Read the rest

I posted the other day about an open letter that purports to be “from the Irish LGBTQ+ community” and against “transphobia.” There’s more to say about it.

Let us say unequivocally that the statements of newly launched organisations that seek to defend biology or fight gender identity and expression do not represent the wider LGBTI+ community nor feminists in Ireland. More importantly, they are not organisations at all, they have no governance, no accountability, and are simply Twitter accounts. Further, they are not supported by the wider Irish community.

On the one hand there are newly launched organizations that say things, on the other hand the newly launched organizations are not organizations at all, but just Twitter accounts. But you … Read the rest

Downright embarrassing.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1332049760832925699

Whoops, what happened?

https://twitter.com/BoyzMagazine/status/1332052779871965186 https://twitter.com/BoyzMagazine/status/1332052786679255040

Remember when feminists had that kind of power? No, neither do I; we never have. We’ve never had the clout to extract sobbing apologies and bunches of tulips from men who…promoted a webinar.… Read the rest

We blew it.

Perhaps no hospital in the United States was better prepared for a pandemic than the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

After the SARS outbreak of 2003, its staff began specifically preparing for emerging infections. The center has the nation’s only federal quarantine facility and its largest biocontainment unit, which cared for airlifted Ebola patients in 2014. The people on staff had detailed pandemic plans. They ran drills. Ron Klain, who was President Barack Obama’s “Ebola czar” and will be Joe Biden’s chief of staff in the White House, once told me that UNMC is “arguably the best in the country” at handling dangerous and unusual diseases. There’s a reason many of the Americans who

… Read the rest

Jane Clare Jones is also infuriated by the interruption.

'On this, the day for the elimination of patriarchal violence against women, we, the good maidens, affirm our commitment to the first rule of patriarchy: female people must never be allowed to centre their own needs, experience, or interests because other people matter more.' pic.twitter.com/rHg1O9O0ca

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) November 26, 2020

Maybe centring trans women and deliberately trolling women and trying to put them in their place on IDEVAW wasn't the best way of demonstrating how there is no conflict of interests here eh?

You patriarchy-pandering fools.

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) November 26, 2020

… Read the rest

Shut up about women, we have to talk about trans women whenever anyone tries to talk about women. It’s imperative.

Olivia Colman, Jameela Jamil and Paloma Faith have signed an open letter condemning “hostility and violence” against trans women, joining a chorus of voices to do so on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls.

Right, because we can’t talk about women and girls any more, it’s not allowed, if we try we will be interrupted and told to talk about trans women instead. Shut up about women and instead talk about men who say they feel like women in their heads.

The letter, which pledges solidarity with trans women, who experience significantly higher

… Read the rest

Theocracy tightens its grip and gives a giant boost to COVID-19.

In a 5-4 ruling, the US Supreme Court sided with religious organizations in a dispute over Covid-19 restrictions put in place by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo limiting the number of people attending religious services.

The case is the latest pitting religious groups against city and state officials seeking to stop the spread of Covid-19, and it highlights the impact of Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court. The decision comes as coronavirus cases surge across the country.

This could be a very wise move if we lived in a world where viruses do what a god tells them to do. We don’t live in that world, … Read the rest

Speaking of Ash Sarkar…PBS here is running a BBC series called The Rise of the Nazis, which I watched a bit of last week. It includes historians explaining things, including Richard Evans, so I settled in expecting good things…and then suddenly there was Ash Sarkar, giving her thoughts on the rise of the Nazis. Ash Sarkar??? I thought. Alongside real historians?? Wtf??? What she said was of course vapid and of no interest. I turned the tv off.

Later I consulted Google to see if anyone else had noticed, and anyone else had. There seems to have been a slight uproar. One article is titled Ash Sarkar is not an expert on Nazism. And the BBC should not treat her … Read the rest

This one spells it out – no you cannot have a single day to yourselves to talk about violence against women, yes you do have to include men who say they are women in your protests of violence against women.

I’m a very proud signatory of this letter – along with Olivia Colman, @Palomafaith, and @jameelajamil – affirming our support for our trans sisters on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls.

Share widely!https://t.co/rpQx9q7ssr

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) November 25, 2020

Ash Sarkar shouldn’t be proud of that letter, she should be ashamed of it.… Read the rest

That Suzanne Moore essay:

It is March 2020. For several months now I have been trying to write something — anything — about the so-called “trans debate” in my Guardian column. But if I ever slip a line in about female experience belonging to people with female bodies, and the significance of this, it is always subbed out. It is disappeared. Somehow, this very idea is being blocked, not explicitly, but it certainly isn’t being published. My editors say things like: “It didn’t really add to the argument”, or it is a “distraction” from the argument.

I wouldn’t like to have editors like that. I like having editors who let me decide what my argument is, since I’m the … Read the rest

Trump pardoned Flynn.

It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2020

House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler issued a statement:

“This pardon is undeserved, unprincipled, and one more stain on President Trump’s rapidly diminishing legacy.

“Michael Flynn was fired from the White house for lying to senior officials.  He pleaded guilty—twice—to lying to federal investigators about his communications with a foreign adversary. Flynn’s agreement to cooperate with the government in exchange for those guilty pleas seemed light to some, given reports that Flynn and his

… Read the rest

Another woman-hating creep who works for Pink News.

I’VE BEEN SILENCED!!!! suzanne moore cries, from the front page of a national newspaper pic.twitter.com/JDPgNrjmf3

— ryan john butcher (@ryanjohnbutcher) November 25, 2020

suzanne moore: *quits lucrative national newspaper column after relentless targeting of a vulnerable minority* i'm being bullied and silenced and cancelled!!!!

also suzanne moore: i never went into the office and my boss kept wanting to take me out for lunch pic.twitter.com/bro70BoQsn

— ryan john butcher (@ryanjohnbutcher) November 25, 2020

But what is this “relentless targeting”? The opening of Moore’s article:

It is March 2020. For several months now I have been trying to write something — anything — about the so-called “trans debate” in my Guardian column.

… Read the rest

“This election has to be turned around.”

That’s what @realDonaldTrump just said, when he phoned into a GOP election hearing in Pennsylvania.

This is a dangerous statement.

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) November 25, 2020

CBS has details:

One day after Pennsylvania certified its election results, formalizing President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Trump in the state’s presidential race, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is attending a public hearing in Gettysburg on election “issues” and alleged “irregularities.” President Trump, unable to attend in person, phoned in his false claims that he won swing states like Pennsylvania and the entire election. 

Mr. Trump stated his goal in no uncertain terms: “We have to turn the election over,” the president said

… Read the rest

But seriously. The virus doesn’t agree to step back for five days, and I find the bargaining language people use about this decidedly odd. They seem to think that if they promise it’s just five days and they promise not to infect each other on purpose then the virus will do its part and all will be well. Like:

One of my daughters lives with her boyfriend in London, and the other lives in a flat share. The three-household rule means I can see them both. It’s a rubber-stamp, and it means that in your conscience you can know you’re doing the right thing, and abiding by what the government deems acceptable.

But none of that makes any difference … Read the rest