First you have to know that Jo Grady is the General Secretary of the University and College Union aka UCU.

So this is the General Secretary of the UCU cheering on Lola Olufemi’s success at getting Oxford feminist historian Selina Todd barred from giving her scheduled talk at a feminist history event.

It’s enough to make you lose your lunch.… Read the rest

As seen in #Liverpool…. pic.twitter.com/ECbgS0aEzy

— @LiverpoolReSisters (@LiverpoolReSis1) March 1, 2020

GENITAL

PREFERENCES

ARE

TRANSPHOBIC

As is everything else. Food preferences, weather preferences, dog preferences, book preferences, politics preferences – any kind of preference is transphobic, because.

You have been told.

Now see that you obey.… Read the rest

As usual, truth is the first victim. Jonathan Freedland at the Guardian:

The coronavirus crisis is a war against a disease, but it’s also the most serious battle yet in the war on truth. That much was clear from the start, as China moved to hush up the first outbreak and gag the doctor who had spotted it. It was a classic case of what we might call Chernobyl syndrome: the tendency of authoritarian systems to react to disaster by rushing to downplay or cover up the problem, focusing more on shifting blame than tackling the threat head on.

But this time it’s not just the openly, explicitly authoritarian states that are lying and hiding.

… this time, the

I’ll skip that one, thanks.

In local news…

One person in King County has died due to a novel coronavirus infection, Public Health – Seattle & King County officials announced Saturday morning. It is the first death attributed to the virus in the United States.

Two people connected to a Kirkland long-term care facility have tested positive, officials said Saturday afternoon. A resident in her 70s is in serious condition, and a health employee in her 40s is stable. The long-term facility in Kirkland has 108 residents and 180 employees, according to the CDC.

At the Kirkland facility, 27 residents and 25 employees have symptoms.

So that’s not good.

Kirkland is 11 miles from where I’m sitting.

All local cases announced Saturday were acquired

About those “people who were pulling out” – this is one:

So, it's become clear that at least one the factors in the no-platforming of @selina_todd by @womenslib_50 was because @lolaolufemi_ decided to pull out.

Here is Lola's statement just read out at the conference.@Womans_Place_UK #IStandWithSelina pic.twitter.com/8eCG3eed4l

— Dr. Jane Clare Jones (@janeclarejones) February 29, 2020

Lola Olufemi believes that feminism is “a political methodology that we can use to make demands for our freedom and the freedom of others” – why others? Why can’t women advocate for our own freedom? And feminism isn’t a “political methodology,” whatever that would mean, and it isn’t about “making demands” and it’s far broader than demands for “freedom.” In short her feminism … Read the rest

Well, that’s one I haven’t seen before.… Read the rest

Filia has the short talk that Selina Todd would have given this morning if she hadn’t been abruptly pushed out at the last minute.

I am delighted to be here today. I owe my life to Ruskin College and my career to feminism. My parents met at Ruskin in 1967. My mum was one of 6 children who grew up in a working-class family in Leeds. She was the only girl. Here’s something she wrote recently about her childhood: ‘As a five- or six-year-old I had refused to touch my parents’ birthday present of a doll with a pram, sensing the restriction such a role-defined toy would place on me. My brothers would never have been offered such a present.

I’m now 14 minutes into the video.

The two women doing the explaining are getting increasingly frustrated that the audience won’t just say ok and settle down and keep their issues about Selina Todd’s exclusion for lunch and breaks, so that the event can proceed.

But the audience in turn is frustrated that the two women doing the explaining don’t seem to grasp the outrageousness of the last minute disinvitation of Selina Todd.

The “explanation” in part is that Todd wasn’t on a panel or giving a talk, she was simply doing a two-minute thank you for the history department. That’s all! Two minutes! A thank you! It doesn’t count! One of them actually says it’s not a no-platforming … Read the rest

So.

I will be at the conference tomorrow and I will be publicly denouncing their decision to bully Selina out of the event

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) February 28, 2020

And she was and she did.

https://t.co/AT0PxUK3E5

— WorldGoneMad (@GenderfreeCamp) February 29, 2020

I’ve watched 7 minutes so far. It’s maddening to watch – maddening to see the women academics explaining to other women academics that they simply had to push Selina Todd aside because “people were pulling out.” Julie and others keep asking “But why were they pulling out, what explanation did they give?”

Julie is…magnificent, as always.… Read the rest

Yes, he really did say it. Here he is saying it.

Trump earlier today on coronavirus:

“It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear. And from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better, could maybe go away, we’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.” pic.twitter.com/icBPCr71jP

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) February 28, 2020

CNN has more:

President Donald Trump is hoping for a “miracle” that will make the coronavirus disappear but tanking stock markets and signs the disease is stalking America are delivering their verdict on his scattershot management of the crisis.

…

“It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear,” Trump said at the

None of this inspires confidence.

The briefing, led by CDC Director Robert Redfield and NIH infectious disease specialist Tony Fauci, was called to update members [of Congress] on the state of the coronavirus’ spread.

Redfield stressed that the risk to Americans remained low. But Fauci was more blunt, according to one person in the room, telling lawmakers that they need to accept there will be many more cases in the United States.

Fauci said the coronavirus is “unlikely to disappear” any time in the near future, according to the person. The remarks contradicted Trump’s declaration Thursday night that the disease was “going to disappear” one day “like a miracle.”

Siiiiigh.

Fauci also emphatically denied reports that the White House

We cannot fight for #womensliberation and the end of #maleviolenceagainstwomen alone. We are extremely grateful for all the support we've received today and in the past few days – having you all join us, speaking in support, and writing into the #VancouverCityCouncil. #UntilWeWin

— VancouverRapeRelief (@VanRapeRelief) February 27, 2020

Sister Outrider is not submitting.

Solidarity with @VanRapeRelief. If you want to remove the need for single-sex shelters, work to challenge and end male violence against women and girls – don’t target the services that support women through the aftermath of that violence.

— Claire (@ClaireShrugged) February 27, 2020

Across Britain women’s refuges are systematically decimated by funding cuts from a right-wing government. Women are being turned away. And

Late last night –

So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of “Trump”.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2020

Why is he talking about himself in the third person? Why did he put his own name in quotation marks? Who knows. The important thing is, everything is all about him.

The WHO has other priorities.

The coronavirus outbreak has reached a “decisive point” and has “pandemic potential”, World Health Organization head Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus says.

…

For a second