Here they are, being all solidarity and shit.

Oakland, CA – 3 antisemitic employees at Farley’s East coffee house (33 Grand Ave.) are filmed denying a Jewish woman’s access to a bathroom after she complained that it was filled with antisemitic graffiti.

After FINALLY allowing her inside the restroom, the employees start on fanatic rants, including “it’s not 1948” and “you can’t steal private property like in Israel.”

Farley’s East has issued an apology on their Instagram page (turning off comments), stating they have taken “corrective action” – we hope that action includes terminating the three employees.

Their employment, that is. Not them. They might grow up to be less horrible.

The Times of Israel reports:

Employees at a cafe in Oakland, California, were filmed in recent days denying a customer said to be Jewish from using the bathroom at their shop.

The female patron of Farley’s East was said to have complained to the staff about anti-Israel messages graffitied inside the bathroom and then wanted to go inside again to film the messages but was blocked from doing so by a staff member with blue hair.

“We’ve given you all of your food… I know Israel loves taking private property and saying it’s their own, but we got ahead,” a second employee is heard telling the female patron filming the interaction on her phone. “We have a right to refuse service.”

“Currently, this is a private property,” says a third staff member. “You’re also misgendering them, so I need you to leave.”

Also your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.

The customer insists on using the bathroom with graffiti inside. “I should not be excluded when other people are allowed,” she says.

“All you’re going to get is a video of us saying that ‘Zionism is antisemitism’ because it is,” says the third employee.

“If you agree with [the graffiti], why are you afraid that I take a picture of it?” the customer responds.

The staff then acquiesce and allows the patron into the bathroom.

She films herself walking inside where the phrase “Zionism = fascism” is daubed on the mirror and “neutrality… is enabling genocide. Free Palestine” is graffitied on the baby changing station.

“History didn’t start in 1948, lady,” says the second employee, apparently referring to the year in which Israel was established.

“Free Palestine. Now please go,” the third staffer chimes in.

What lovely people.

The first commandment is: always punish the woman first.

The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a pregnant woman from obtaining an emergency abortion in a ruling issued late Friday.

The court froze a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed Kate Cox, who sued the state seeking a court-ordered abortion, to obtain the procedure. “Without regard to the merits, the Court administratively stays the district court’s December 7, 2023 order,” the order states.

The court noted the case would remain pending before them but did not include any timeline on when a full ruling might be issued. Cox is 20 weeks pregnant. Her unborn baby was diagnosed with a fatal genetic condition and she says complications in her pregnancy are putting her health at risk.

It’s sheer vindictive sadism to prevent a woman from aborting a doomed fetus. What is the point? The fetus is not going to grow up to donate to Republicans, so what is the point? Just abusing women, because they can. Her health doesn’t matter; only revenge against women matters.

The ruling came just hours after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned the high court to intervene in the case.

Paxton’s petition stemmed from a ruling on Thursday by a Texas judge who granted a 14-day temporary restraining order against the state’s abortion ban, so Cox could legally terminate her pregnancy.

…

In a letter to three hospitals in Houston where, according to the Texas Medical Board, Cox’s physician has privileges, Paxton wrote Cox has failed to demonstrate she has a “life-threatening” medical condition related to her pregnancy or that her symptoms place her “at risk of death” or major bodily harm.

The state attorney general also warned the hospitals Thursday’s ruling “will not insulate you, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability,” including first-degree felony prosecutions and civil penalties of at least $100,000 for each violation.

All for the sake of making women helpless victims of their own bodies.

Yes this is fine.

ICONS Evie Edwards, a participant in another race caught up with Small & a non-binary identifying activist at the race to get their reactions.

@usacycling has been committed to prioritizing the preferences of male cyclists over the accomplishments and well-being of its female riders. It’s time to take a stand.

The mocking pose is nice too.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Stunning transgender model.

However, Morgan knew in her heart that her true identity was female and at the age of 21 she made the life-changing decision to become a woman.

He might have “made the decision,” but it’s never going to happen. How can they print such twaddle with a straight face? It’s a fantasy that’s as likely to happen as him having made “life-changing decision” to become a tapir, a carburetor, or a bowl of oatmeal.

The problem is that these decisions are including everyone else. We’re supposed to play along with this impossible, universe changing decision, and trans activists have been working to make this enabling collusion of “validation” compulsory through the force of law. Amazingly enough they have succeeded to a startling degree within such an astoundingly short span of time.

In order to do this, they have had to bypass or subvert the normal, democratic process of informed debate, consent and consultation which would precede such drastic redefinitions of public and private spaces and facilities. Part of that process is exactly what we see above, in media reporting the impossible as normal and unremarkable.

If it is admitted that humans can’t change sex (which is a fact), and that men remain men for life (another fact), the rest of the above story becomes nonsense, and it becomes impossible to report this man’s alleged crimes as having been committed by a woman. Truth takes a back seat to compliance to “kindness” or…something.* Thanks captured media!

*Is there in fact any legal reason that media are required to use inaccurate, dishonest pronouns in reporting on trans identified individuals? Or is this entirely voluntary “politeness”?

By way of a change from abusing and insulting women, the BBC slobbers lovingly over a man who pretends to be a woman.

After her breakout role in Heartstopper, Yasmin Finney is back on our screens playing trans character Rose Noble in Doctor Who, as the show celebrates its 60th anniversary.

The 20-year-old trans actress tells BBC Newsbeat being part of the cast has given her “a kooky, amazing family”, an experience she feels she missed out on.

Trans character, trans actress – so he identifies as a woman acting a character who identifies as a woman, yes? It’s easy to lose track of the meta in these situations.

Using TikTok, where she has almost two million followers, Yasmin has been open about her experience of being a transgender black woman as well as making it as an actress.

Look at all the points he gets! He’s black and a woman and trans! Yes you do too so get to count both being trans and being a woman at the same time – you do you do you DO.

But that added pressure of being aligned with such a beloved character, as well as her trans identity, meant that for Yasmin there has been a downside to being cast in a dream role: online trolls.

What is her trans idenniny though? Is that the same rule? He has a woman idenniny and a trans idenniny? I guess so; see above.

“I want people to laugh, I want people to smile, I want people to cry. And also I just want to be good representation for people that haven’t had it.”

Men who pretend to be women haven’t had good representation until now. It’s heartbreaking.

And in conclusion, just look at the venom with which the BBC pretends a male sexual abuser of a child is not a man at all but a whore bitch cunt woman.

A “predatory” woman who incited a man to sexually abuse a “vulnerable and innocent” young child has been jailed.

An investigation found Naomi O’Brien, of Tameside, had directed a man from Wales to abuse the four-year-old in March 2023.

Quotation marks on “predatory” and “vulnerable and innocent” but not on “woman”. But O’Brien is not a woman.

O’Brien, of Ashton-under-Lyne, knew Walker had “an interest in sexually abusing a young boy on the direction of her,” Det Insp Zoe Marsden, of GMP’s Online Child Abuse Investigation Team said.

She was convicted of three counts of intentionally encouraging and assisting another to commit a sexual assault against a child, and two counts of intentionally encouraging and assisting another to engage in sexual activity in the presence of a child and engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child.

O’Brien was also given a sexual harm prevention order for four years and four months, and placed on the sex offenders register for life when she was sentenced.

Det Insp Marsden said it was a “significant result” for this case and also “other children in the community who could have been subject to similar offending by a predatory female who was inciting others to commit acts of sexual harm”.

But there is no “predatory female” in this story, you fucking misogynist liars.

How do we know “Naomi” O’Brien, sexual abuser of a child, is a man? This is how:

The Daily Mail in 2015:

With her blonde hair and enviable figure, Morgan Naomi Clarke is hoping to win a beauty pageant – even though she spent the first 22 years of her life as a man.

Morgan, 23, from Manchester, who says she was ‘born in the wrong body’ is hoping to take home the crown at Miss Transgender UK.

Born Nathan O’Brien, Morgan said she has spent her life feeling pressured to ‘butch up’ by her two older sporty brothers.

As a teenage boy, she was branded ‘gay’ by her family and friends who refused to believe she was born in the wrong body.

Probably because there’s no such thing as being born in the wrong body.

However, Morgan knew in her heart that her true identity was female and at the age of 21 she made the life-changing decision to become a woman.

And now she has landed regular work as a model and has now set her sights on becoming a beauty queen. 

And now he has been convicted of child sexual abuse, and the mainstream news media are pretending he’s a woman.

Greater Manchester Police lie to the public about a man who sexually abused a child.

Not a man and a woman; two men. “Naomi” there is a man. Greater Manchester Police knowingly lied about it; we know they know, because they turned off replies when they posted the lie.

Such childish door-slamming where journalism should be:

The court of session ruling upholding the UK government’s veto on Scotland’s gender recognition reforms contributed to a “sense of exhaustion” in the trans community, said Jennie Kermode, a writer, film-maker and adviser for Trans Media Watch, based near Glasgow.

After that we get five paragraphs of Kermode blathering as if trans people were the only people who have any stake in this issue. Hello? Guardian? Libby Brooks? Are you aware that women exist? That in fact there are a lot of us? That we have rights too?

Dylan Hamilton, a climate activist, said the ruling was “as much an issue about Scotland’s democracy as it is about the human rights of trans people”.

Gender recognition reform amounted to “a small administrative change that makes our lives slightly easier to lead”, he added. “I think the fact that this cannot even be passed is a dark symbol of how strong the opposition to our right to exist is.”

And yet no one is denying trans people’s right to exist.

Genevieve Gluck at Reduxx tells us:

A Hobart City Council member is under investigation by the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner for “inciting hatred” after declaring “trans women are men.” Louise Elliot is now facing a costly formal inquiry by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a case which has the potential to restrict freedom of speech. If the tribunal rules against Elliot, she may be ordered to publicly apologize and pay a fine of up to $4,000.

For saying that men are men.

What else will we be ordered to pay large fines for saying? Fire burns? Oceans are wet? Pigeons are not tigers?

In March, Elliot attended a Let Women Speak demonstration organized by Standing for Women and led by British women’s rights campaigner Kellie Jay-Keen. The event was intended to provide women with a platform to express their concerns or criticisms of gender ideology.

As part of a prepared speech she gave during the event, Elliot stated that it was impossible to change sex, that “trans women are trans women and remain biological men.”

It is impossible to change sex. Trans women are men. How can tribunals fine people for saying that men are not women?

Meanwhile billions of people believe in a magic sky daddy, but it’s people who know that men are not women who are being punished and impoverished.

Peas on what now?

Peas on toast???

Come on, you’re joking, right? Aren’t beans on toast horror enough? Who tf puts peas on toast? You might as well put toast on toast. You don’t pile starch on starch on starch; that’s not how any of this works.

I’ll spell it out for the confused. No mashed potatoes on toast, no pasta on toast, no baked potatoes on toast, no lima beans on toast, no hashbrowns on toast, no toast on toast. If you’re going to put something on toast make it something that’s not bland heavy carbs.

The tension between free speech and discouraging genocide continues.

Harvard University’s president apologized as pressure mounted for the University of Pennsylvania’s president to resign over their testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that critics from the White House on down say failed to show that they would stand up to antisemitism on campus.

“Their” testimony meaning Harvard’s and U Penn’s. I thought at first that was some weird random gender neutral wording but then managed to figure it out.

In an interview Thursday with The Crimson student newspaper, Harvard President Claudine Gay said she got caught up in a heated exchange at the House committee hearing and failed to properly denounce threats of violence against Jewish students.

Gay told The Crimson she was sorry, saying she “got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures.”

“What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” Gay said.

…

Universities across the U.S. have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid reports of growing antisemitism following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The three presidents were called before the committee to answer those accusations, but their lawyerly answers drew renewed blowback from opponents.

…

The episode has marred Gay’s early tenure at Harvard — she became president in July — and sowed discord at the Ivy League campus. On Thursday, Rabbi David Wolpe resigned from a new committee on antisemitism created by Gay.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Wolpe said “events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped.” A statement from Gay thanked Wolpe for his work, saying he helped deepen her understanding “of the unacceptable presence of antisemitism here at Harvard.”

See: Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week.”

Judges have ruled:

Judges have ruled that the UK government acted lawfully in blocking Scotland’s gender self-ID reforms. Legislation making it easier for people to change their legally-recognised sex was passed by the Scottish Parliament last year. The UK government blocked it from becoming law over fears it would [have an] impact on equality laws across Great Britain.

The Court of Session in Edinburgh has now rejected a Scottish government legal challenge to the veto.

The Scottish government can appeal.

Campaigners against the reforms warned the legislation could risk the safety of women and girls in same-sex spaces such as hospital wards and refuges. Supporters argued it would make the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate (GRC) easier and less traumatic for trans people.

And, shockingly, the Scottish Parliament were happy to sacrifice the safety of women and girls – half the population – for the convenience of trans people, who are a tiny fraction of the population. One has to wonder why letting a tiny set of confused people “change their sex” (which is impossible anyway) is worth putting the female half of the population at risk.

Popehat says people who paid attention to Elise Stefanik’s “yes or no” are credulous and stupid. He’s probably right.

America faces many problems. The easy ones we solve or ignore. We struggle with the hard ones. Hard problems raise complex questions that lack glib, one-word answers. The stubborn thirst for simple answers to hard questions is bad for America. It’s anti-intellectual, pro-ignorance, pro-stupidity, pro-bigotry, pro-reactionary, pro-totalitarianism, pro-tyranny, pro-mob.

Other than that…

He’s right though.

Take this week’s Congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.” A generous interpretation — a credulous one — would be that the hearing was designed to inquire why colleges aren’t protecting Jewish students from antisemitic harassment. A more realistic interpretation is that the hearing was a crass show trial primarily intended to convey that a wide variety of dissenting speech about Israel is inherently antisemitic, that American colleges are shitholes of evil liberalism, and that Democrats suck. Since Democrats do suck, they mostly cooperated.

The core Two-Minute Hate of this carnival was Rep. Elise Stefanik’s demand for yes-or-no answers to questions about whether policies at Harvard, Penn, and MIT would prohibit calling for the genocide of Jews. You might think Elise Stefanik is an unlikely standard-bearer for a crusade against antisemitism, given that she’s a repeat promoter of Great Replacement Theory, the antisemitic trope that Jews are bringing foreigners into America to undermine it. But if you bought Stefanik’s bullshit, you probably didn’t think that far.

Hey now, it’s not that I didn’t think that far, it’s that I didn’t know she’s a repeat promoter of Great Replacement Theory, and I didn’t pause to refresh my memory about her views and actions. Which is kind of the same as not thinking that far, but more ignorant.

He goes on to clarify in detail why her question was bullshit, and concludes with

I don’t blame Jews who feel under siege in America or on campus, even if I sometimes disagree with their interpretation of criticisms of Israel. Feelings are not right or wrong, and in the face of so much overt Jew-hatred, I understand a tendency to interpret ambiguous statements in the worst way possible. I think we should feel compassion and empathy for people who feel that way.

None of that is solved by pretending hard questions are easy. None of that is solved by letting demagogues and hucksters take advantage of the moment to push their agenda. None of that is solved by contributing to what America is becoming — stupider and meaner.

H/t ROB

Kristallnacht much?

A York University professor who wrote an award-winning book on the use of direct action in protest movements is among 11 people facing criminal charges in the defacing of a bookstore with red paint and accusations its Jewish founder supports genocide. Toronto Police have described the bookstore defacing as motivated by hate.

Lesley J. Wood, an associate professor, who chaired the university’s sociology department from 2017 to 2021, was charged this week with mischief over $5,000 and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence by Toronto Police. The allegations relate to red paint thrown on doors and windows at the Bay-Bloor outlet of Indigo, Canada’s largest bookstore chain, and posters depicting its founder and chief executive officer, Heather Reisman, on a fake book cover entitled Funding Genocide.

…

The incident at Indigo sent shock waves through the Jewish community, said Bernie Farber, founding chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

…

But pro-Palestinian activists said it was aimed at highlighting Ms. Reisman’s support of Israel, including her co-founding a scholarship fund for foreign soldiers who enlist in Israel’s army. Rachel Small, a member of the Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition, knows some of the accused and said groups of police officers broke open the doors of homes before dawn and arrested some individuals in front of their children. She called it an attempt to intimidate the protesters.

But they aren’t just protesters. They also (allegedly) vandalized the bookstore. Throwing paint over shop windows is not just protest.

Originally a comment by Freeminder on Referral.

The Enhanced DBS can go much, much further. Arrested but not charged, cautions, even interviews under caution (even not being a suspect) are recorded. Driving offences (speeding etc.) can appear.

It can also go deeper: contact former employers, check present and past addresses, so yes, gossip and personnel records can be examined.

Several government bodies (i.e. health, education, emergency services) regard not using pronouns as requested by an individual as a serious safeguarding issue, which can result in disciplinary procedures or dismissal. It is no surprise the DBS was consulted: it can be used to destroy someone’s career but then also make them virtually unemployable (too many jobs need DBS, from taxi driving to social work). Not being able to produce a clean DBS is sufficient for many companies or public bodies to withdraw job offers. This is a very heavy-handed way of bringing employees into line. Only an employer can refer to DBS, not an individual, so scaring others into compliance. I have seen first hand the damage a referral can do to a colleague: disciplinary, job loss and career gone. There is no appeal, no way back. And the DBS itself appears to have no one monitoring it, it can do what it wants and take as long as it wants.

Worse, many companies make a job applicant pay for the DBS check, in advance, but then add an ‘admin fee’ with a massive mark up. (I have seen 300%.) However the DBS in many cases cannot be transferred to another employer, and that means sometimes having to spend a lot of money or have a large deduction from the first wage slip.

In the UK, vetting is for police, prison and armed forces and goes into even greater depth (financial records, family history, relatives).

Now there is a catch 22.

Today, they’ve told me they can’t come to a decision. Even van driving jobs need DBS clearance.

What is DBS? You can see it under the “caseworker”‘s signature: “Disclosure and Barring Service.”

So there’s a “service” that runs around “disclosing” i.e. gossiping tattling ratting accusing whining pointing to prospective employers, and is in charge of “barring” the people it gossips about?

Seriously???

And in case that’s not bad enough they can also say “Soz we haven’t done you yet, maybe next month, kthanxbye.”

Really???

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Insult & injury=.

I think that what needs to be taught regarding First Nations and their history is that the “Noble Savage” concept is insulting and patronizing. What I have experienced as recently as 4 years ago in my 300 level course in diversity is not indoctrination about the poor natives or brown people but the necessity of broadening our experiences to better understand other cultures and how they have integrated into our own. Those students who have this fantasy about an idyllic pre-Columbian world are likely to have gotten it from anywhere but a UofT anthropology course, like perhaps social media. I think the same thing whenever I see someone claim that indigenous peoples worldwide didn’t have two separate sexes until Captain Cook (or whoever) forced them to.

Like Iknklast, I do not think that campuses are completely captured by postmodern fact-free thinking about gender and sex and world history; the bias of the news that we concentrate on receiving influences the perspective of what we read and see. There are student groups dominated by LGBTQ but I don’t think that you are forced to take an LGBTQIA+++ loyalty pledge to be a professor, student, or admin on campus. It may be necessary to be a closeted TERF in some situations, but Campuses are not the “woke hellholes” that some people paint them to be.

The events that are allowing trans ideology to dominate memorials of real women killed by violence from men are disgusting, and need to be turned back, but I do not know how we will get to that point with those who think that trans ideation of their oppression trumps all. We need to be able to convince those “allies” who claim it doesn’t harm anyone to let people believe that they are the other sex that this is a clear example of harm; and it’s enabled by using chosen pronouns, allowing males to enter wherever woman want to have their own spaces or groups.

And this definitely erases women’s experience of violence. Wasn’t there already a full month of remembrance of trans everything including violence?

Liz Cheney has a book out.

Republican Liz Cheney has made no secret of her criticism of former President Donald Trump. It’s what made her an outcast in her own party and cost her her job in Congress last year.

The former Wyoming representative was one of just 10 Republicans to back his second impeachment in 2021. She became one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, for which she explicitly blamed Trump.

Cheney’s vocal and sustained criticism of the former president led to her losing her leadership role as the No. 3 House Republican and, eventually, her primary campaign for reelection.

You know…the surprising thing is not that Cheney does this but that more Republicans don’t. At first blush it seems obvious why they don’t, but if you pause to think about it…why aren’t more of them disgusted and horrified at what he’s done and is doing to their party? Being conservative doesn’t have to mean being rude and trashy and disgusting, but with Trump at the wheel, it certainly looks as if it does. You know? It’s like Freethought Blogs. By the time I left that place I was ecstatic to get away from it. It wasn’t “oh damn I’ll miss all those thoughtful careful eloquent people,” it was “ew ew ew ew get me out of here.” Why isn’t it like that for more Republicans?

This week Cheney releases Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, a no-holds-barred accounting from inside the Republican party of the days before and after Jan. 6, Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election and her often-lonely role in trying to thwart them.

Cheney name-checks members of GOP leadership too, including former and current House speakers Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.

Cheney tells Morning Edition‘s Leila Fadel that the dangers she describes in the book are ongoing, from Trump’s defiance of the institutions meant to check him, to the Republican politicians who she says put their own career ambitions ahead of their duty to the Constitution.

I guess that’s one answer to my question. It’s not the party, it’s their careers.

“People really, I think, need to understand and recognize the specifics, the details of what he tried to do in terms of overturning the election and seizing power and the details and the specifics of the elected officials who helped him,” she said. “I do think it’s very important for people to understand how close we came to a far greater constitutional crisis — and how quickly and easily — in a way that is, frankly, terrifying.”

Cheney does credit a handful of brave Republicans in state and federal offices from stopping “the worst of what could have happened.” But she says many of those people won’t be there the next time around. The stakes for the country, she adds, “couldn’t be higher.”

…

Cheney isn’t afraid to name names in her book.

Among them: She describes McCarthy, the former speaker, as a coward and hypocrite who knew Trump’s election claims to be false but defended them publicly anyway. She calls Johnson, the current speaker, an election denier who was easily swayed by Trump’s flattery well before he ascended to House leadership.

Many others were simply scared.

Cheney writes that some members of Congress told her at the time that they believed Trump should be impeached but couldn’t vote that way because they were afraid for their security and that of their family. She urged listeners not to gloss over that fact.

“People really need to stop and think about: What does it mean in America that members of Congress are not voting the way that they believe they should because they fear violence instigated by, then, the sitting president of the United States?” she adds, calling that “a place we haven’t been before.”

And she says once her colleagues took that position they were able to rationalize it, which helps explain where the party stands now.

“Once you’ve accepted something that is so indefensible, then it’s hard ever to sort of go back and say, ‘Well no actually, I should have stood against that.'”

So they didn’t, and we’re doomed.