The Wagga Feminist asks a question:

So can someone explain (in a way that is logical and makes sense) why men wearing woman face in drag (exaggerated stereotypes cos I have never seen a woman look like a drag queen) is ok but white people in black face (exaggerated stereotypes of black people) is not ok. And just to be clear, focus on the first part, I know why black face is not ok, I just don’t see how drag is any different yet it is acceptable. Is it because the target of ridicule are women?

I’ve wondered the same thing.

I suppose one answer is that misogyny is even more pervasive than racism, but really that’s just the … Read the rest

Jim Wright on the Texas Congressman who wants to mandate death for women who have abortions, all of them:

Texas state Congressman Tony Tinderholt — a Republican, but of course — has reintroduced a bill before the state legislature that would outlaw abortion WITHOUT EXCEPTION and mandate the death penalty for any woman who has the procedure — even if they traveled out of state to get it.

This isn’t the first time.

Tinderholt previously introduced this bill in 2017. He had to be put under state police protection, because Texas women threatened to kill him, and they meant it.

But see, Tinderhold feels this draconian measure is necessary because WOMEN don’t take personal responsibility for sex.

Yes, you

A psychologist at Feminist Current on how she bought into trans dogma until she didn’t any more:

Until mid-January, I was a stalwart advocate of what is commonly referred to as “transgender rights.” I didn’t waver in my belief that transwomen are women and transmen are men, that transgender individuals should be granted access to single-sex spaces based on their chosen “gender” (including female change rooms, homeless shelters, prisons, sexual assault centres, transition houses, etc.), and that those who question such beliefs were misguided at best, and transphobic bigots at worst.

Certain aspects of trans activism would occasionally unsettle me, such as self-identification being the primary requirement needed for transwomen to compete against female athletes and on women’s

Wicky Who? What Leeks?

He doesn’t know. Never heard of him. Not his deal. No opinion. Not on his radar. Nothing to do with him. K?

… Read the rest

Maybe the House Oversight Committee will be able to get some clarity on why all those denials of security clearances got thrown out.

A former White House official accused of overturning recommended denials for security clearances during the Trump administration will appear before the House Oversight Committee on April 23, his lawyer told the panel in a letter Wednesday, despite his counsel’s pleas to postpone his testimony.

Carl Kline, who served as the White House personnel security director during the first two years of the Trump administration, will appear for the deposition as part of the panel’s long-standing investigation into security clearances under President Trump. The committee subpoenaed Kline in early April after a whistleblower in his office, Tricia

Assange is busted at last.

Police have forcibly removed the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrested him, after the Ecuadorian government withdrew asylum.

Appearing before Westminster magistrates, Assange was found guilty of breaching bail and was told he would face a jail sentence of up to 12 months when he is sentenced at crown court.

The 47-year-old had been taken into police custody for failing to surrender to bail and on a US extradition warrant, after Metropolitan police officers were invited into the Knightsbridge embassy. He had taken refuge there for almost seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where authorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation.

… Read the rest

Worse all the time, worse every day, worse worse worse.

President Sociopath laments that US troops at the border can't get "a little rough," because "everybody would go crazy … can’t act like they would normally act — or like, let’s say, another military from another country would act." Via NBC. pic.twitter.com/byUdS5wMPR

— HawaiiDelilah™ (@HawaiiDelilah) April 10, 2019

… Read the rest

How very squalid. Trump’s sister the judge retired so as to escape the consequences of a judicial complaint about the Trump siblings’ gigantic tax fraud. She keeps her pension, she keeps all the millions, nothing happens to her.

President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.

The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry

Following up on a question of Screechy Monkey’s, I learn more about belligerent trans activist Stephanie Hayden, who likes suing people.

https://twitter.com/ThrupennyBit/status/1115985104999014401

Do trans women have more to fear from loss of anonymity on social media than gender critical feminists do?

Hayden is Stephanie Hayden, the one who sued to get the personal details of a woman on Mumsnet.

Jamie Hamilton did some digging last November and found a not very dainty past:

The transgender lawyer who has accused Father Ted scribe Graham Linehan of transphobia and is suing him for harassment was once convicted of affray for threatening a man with a golf club, as well as for a number of other offences.

Stephanie Hayden, who is

Barr is doing what Trump hired him to do.

At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Barr confirmed that he is looking into what he called “spying” on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

“I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016,” Barr said. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

When pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on whether he indeed viewed it as “spying” on Trump’s campaign, Barr said, “I think spying did occur.”

“The question is whether it was adequately predicated,” he said. “I’m not suggesting it was not adequately predicated, but I

A woman reported her stalker to the police five times in six months.

And then he murdered her.

Officers are facing disciplinary action after Shana Grice was fined for wasting police time before she was murdered by her stalker.

Two police officers, one of whom has retired, will face gross misconduct proceedings in front of an independent chairman at public hearings on 7 and 10 May, Sussex Police confirmed. Another police officer will face internal misconduct proceedings, which are carried out in private.

Several others will get retraining, while others still get no further action.

The 14 were investigated by the police watchdog after 19-year-old Miss Grice was murdered in Portslade, near Brighton, East Sussex, in 2016. Michael Lane

Speaking of Republicans and pharmaceutical corporations and filthy practices…

The real winners of Trump's tax cuts:
Pfizer: $2.8B
Johnson & Johnson: $2.5B
Merck: $1.2B
Abbott Labs: $473M

Meanwhile, Pfizer, J&J, and Merck all *raised* prescription drug prices last year. So much for trickle-down benefits…https://t.co/7I0rUBxq8H

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) April 9, 2019

Opens Axios article:

Four pharmaceutical companies — Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck and Abbott Laboratories — collectively kept $7 billion in tax savings in 2018 due to Republicans’ 2017 corporate tax overhaul, according to a new Oxfam report.

The bottom line: Oxfam’s results mirror our reporting, which shows pharmaceutical companies in particular have benefited from bringing back billions of dollars in overseas profits that have

Profits first! Profits first, Republicans second, people last. Take prescription drugs for instance…

In an unusual move, House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent letters to a dozen CEOs of major drug companies warning that information they provide to the committee could be leaked to the public by Democratic chair Elijah Cummings in an effort to tank their stock prices.

Or perhaps in an effort to inform the public on a subject they badly need to be informed about: why prescription drugs are so eye-wateringly expensive.

Cummings requested information from 12 drug companies such as Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis AG in January

Saudi Arabia responds to international criticism of its bullying of women by bullying more women’s rights advocates.

Saudi Arabia jailed another group of women’s rights advocates on Thursday.

The advocates and writers weren’t politically active, but they had opposed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s regime and expressed public support for reforming gendered laws, according to the Associated Press. The 12 people arrested — 11 men and one woman — reportedly have loose connections with a group of activists who were arrested in 2018 for campaigning to end the country’s ban on women driving and its male guardianship system.

Most of the activists were arrested in the country’s capital city, Riyadh, on Thursday, though one was taken by authorities

CNN is live updating on Barr’s conversation with Congress.

Attorney General William Barr just echoed one of President Trump’s recent talking points, highlighting what the two men view as Democratic hypocrisy when it comes to releasing the Mueller report.

That’s because some of the Democrats who want Mueller’s full report released actually spoke out against the full release of the Starr report in the late 1990s. Ken Starr’s investigation led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings.

“Many of the people right now who are calling for the release of this report were basically castigating Ken Starr and others for releasing the Starr report,” Barr said.

Ken Starr’s investigation was about non-marital sex and lying to conceal the non-marital sex. … Read the rest

Like Dario Angulo, for example.

At his home on the misty slope of Costa Rica’s tallest mountain, Dario Angulo keeps a set of photographs from the years he tended the rolling fairways and clipped greens of a faraway American golf resort.

Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. Angulo earned $8 an hour, a fraction of what a state-licensed heavy equipment operator would make, with no benefits or overtime pay. But he stayed seven years on the grounds crew, saving enough for a small piece of land and some cattle back home.

See this is … Read the rest