Huh. It turns out that insulting people isn’t part of a president’s duties.

Ex-President Donald Trump can be held liable for disparaging comments he made about a woman who accused him of rape, the US Department of Justice has said. Its lawyers previously argued Mr Trump was legally immune as he was president when he made the remarks in 2019. But on Tuesday government attorneys said they no longer had “sufficient basis” to conclude Mr Trump had acted within the scope of his duties.

…

The legal action cites his remarks as president about her in 2019 while responding to reporters’ questions. The lawsuit has been updated to reflect further comments he made about her during a CNN town hall the day after the court’s verdict two months ago.

The justice department had previously taken the position that Mr Trump could be defended by government attorneys because he was serving in his capacity as president when he made the remarks. But on Tuesday its lawyers said “there is no longer a sufficient basis to conclude that the former president was motivated by ‘more than an insignificant’ desire to serve the United States Government”.

That sums up Trump’s whole presidency and in fact his whole life. His desire to serve anyone or anything other than himself is insignificant.

This is so crappy. So corrupt. So grotesque. So Berlusconi.

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a federal judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided.

And what federal judge is that? One that Trump made a federal judge, of course! One that Trump made a federal judge in defiance of her woeful lack of experience or smarts or any other qualification other than trumpism. He commits a whole slew of federal crimes but no problem because he had carefully put a pro-him hack in the jurisdiction he just happened to commit the federal crimes in. Lucky break yeah?!

The written filing — submitted 30 minutes before its deadline of midnight on Tuesday — presents a significant early test for Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who is overseeing the case. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election.

What a spectacle that’s going to be.

There could be complications of a sort never before presented to a court if Mr. Trump is a candidate in the last legs of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely.

Some of the former president’s advisers have been blunt in private conversations that he is looking to winning the election as a solution to his legal problems. 

Gee, ya think? I thought he was doing it out of pure disinterested concern for the good of the nation.

The former president’s lawyers also suggested that they might raise “constitutional and statutory challenges” to Mr. Smith’s authority as special counsel. Moreover, they laid the groundwork for questioning whether an impartial jury could be seated at the trial while Mr. Trump was running for office.

Ugh god it’s almost funny. “But he’s running for office! So that he can steal more secret documents and break more things! How can a jury be impartial when he’s running for office?!”

“There is simply no question any trial of this action during the pendency of a presidential election will impact both the outcome of that election,” they wrote, “and, importantly, the ability of the defendants to obtain a fair trial.”

Therefore you must let him win that election and do the same thing all over again but more! Plus of course firing all the relevant prosecutors and agency heads until there is nothing but Trump loyalists as far as the eye can see. Fun times ahead!

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Any supposed costs.

I see trans women as real women.

Good for you. Now go ahead, date one. Are they still “real women” for you in this context? You’re happy to do girl dick? You’re expecting women and girls who know that TiMs are men to accept and submit to the presence of “girl dick” in their locker rooms: you should be willing to share in that acceptance too.

What you’re saying automatically in the argument…is you don’t believe these people are women.

Yes, and? Here’s your daily reminder that they’re not women; never have been, never will be. You might be willing to lie, but don’t expect others to follow suit. Endless repetition will not make it so.

Would Rapinoe embrace a transgender woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team, even if that woman took the place of someone assigned female at birth? “Absolutely,” she says.

How about some other hypotheticals? Ones that don’t involve engagement of her crippled empathy module. Let’s make it a little more personal.

What if that trans identified male took her place on the team? What if TiMs had kept her from playing at all? Would she be so sanguine about that, or is it only other women and girls she’s willing to sacrifice, not herself? Okay, how about if she had to play against a team that fielded a TiM? How about an entire team of TiMs? Would that be fair? Would she “see” and “feel” the fairness of the logical conclusion of her stance? Would she still be on board with that, or is she ready to think twice (or at all) about her position?

If I recall correctly, the US Olympic Women’s Soccer team was beaten by a boy’s high school team at an exhibition match. What if American Olympic officials had decided to drop Rapinoe’s team in favour of the high school boys who had beaten them? What if the officials had told the boys they could all “identify” as girls and become the US Olympic Women’s Soccer Team? For the duration of the Olympics. Afterwards they could go back to being boys again, because gender fluidity is a thing, right? How would Rapinoe have taken that? Would she have shouted “Brava!” and stood on the sidelines along with the rest of her team in exactly the same way she’s condemning other girls and women to stand aside, bow out, and bow down to males claiming to be female?

Who knew that being a role model for girls and women was so much less fulfilling than being a Quisling?

Focus, Thames Water. FOCUS.

So…this is not good.

It took me a minute to figure out the scale of it, thinking this could be just a small patch and we can’t tell…but then I spotted Florida. Tiny tiny Florida. The scale is enormous.

TIME has a long profile of Rapinoe. It gets to That Subject toward the end.

Rapinoe has shifted her focus to trans-rights advocacy. She’s particularly contemptuous of policies designed to keep transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams. “We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,” she says. Proponents of such laws often claim they’re protecting women’s sports. “It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized,” she says. “Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports? That’s total bullsh-t. And show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening.”

Excuse me? We can show you Lia Thomas, Austin Killips, Rhys McKinnon, the guy who spiked the ball into Payton McNabb’s face giving her a concussion (and has apparently remained anonymous all this time, which is nice for him), just to start. It is happening.

To Rapinoe, the benefits of allowing trans kids to play outweigh any supposed costs. “The most amazing thing about sports is that you play and you’re playing with other people, and you’re having fun and you’re being physically active,” she says. “We’re putting this all through the lens of competition and winning. But we’re talking about people’s lives. That’s where we have to start.”

Nobody is not allowing trans kids to play. That’s not the issue. Trans kids who are male should play with other male kids, that’s all. (Except of course when the teams aren’t divided by sex in the first place.)

Would Rapinoe embrace a transgender woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team, even if that woman took the place of someone assigned female at birth? “Absolutely,” she says. “‘You’re taking a “real” woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic. I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument—you’re sort of telling on yourself already—is you don’t believe these people are women. Therefore, they’re taking the other spot. I don’t feel that way.”

We’re not “telling on ourselves.” We’re telling the truth. Trans women are by definition men, aka people with male bodies.

Megan Rapinoe is confused.

“Absolutely ‘You’re taking a ‘real’ woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic. I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument—you’re sort of telling on yourself already—is you don’t believe these people are women. Therefore, they’re taking the other spot. I don’t feel that way,” Rapinoe told TIME when asked if she’d be okay with a biological man playing with her on the national team.

It doesn’t matter what you “see” people as, and it doesn’t matter what way you “feel.” You can see horses as airports and cars as flowers if you like, but that doesn’t change the reality. You can “feel” that peaches are snakes and hammers are root vegetables, but you’ll be wrong. It’s not “phobic” to know that men are not women.

“I don’t want to mince words about it. Dave Chappelle making jokes about trans people directly leads to violence, whether it’s verbal or otherwise, against trans people. When Martina or Sage or whoever are talking about this, people aren’t hearing it just in the context of elite sports. They’re saying, ‘The rest of my life, this is how I’m going to treat trans people,’” Rapinoe told TIME when talking about Dave Chappelle, Sage Steele and tennis legend Martina Navratilova.

Rapinoe should take a hard look at the things people say about tennis legend Martina Navratilova, and JK Rowling and Julie Bindel and the rest of the long list. She should ask herself if some of those things might lead directly to violence.

The Daily Mail:

The Met today reopened its investigation into a transgender activist and convicted attempted murderer who told activists at a London march to ‘punch TERFs’ in the [fucking] face. 

Sarah Jane Baker, who spent 30 years in jail for kidnap and then the attempted murder of a fellow prisoner, provoked outrage over her inflammatory comments on Saturday against feminists who are critical of trans ideology. 

…

Astonishingly, Baker was defended by the organisers of Trans+ Pride, who said Baker ‘holds a lot of anger’ which she had the ‘right to express… through their words’. 

Astonishingly but not all that astonishingly if you’ve been paying attention to trans ideology and “activism.”

She was reported to the police for inciting violence, but a Met officer told a complainant that it was not in the public interest to pursue the case. They said the call for violence was ‘hypothetical’ and allowed under free speech laws.

No it wasn’t. You can claim it was hyperbole if you want, but not hypothetical. That would be “What if we all punched a terf in the fucking face?” That’s not what he said; he told people to do it. He can always claim he didn’t mean it, but he’s in the video saying it.

However, the Met has since confirmed to MailOnline that the crime report has now been reopened and ‘enquiries remain ongoing’.  

It’s almost as if claiming to be trans is a cloak of invisibility for threats of violence. Normally a man telling a crowd to punch women in the fucking face would be considered sexist and abusive, but when it’s a “trans woman” doing it then it’s righteous.

Twitter has limited visibility of a reply I made to a tweet of Peter Tatchell’s.

This one:

It’s an idiotic thing to say. Of course it wasn’t one person! It was also the crowd who cheered!

So I replied:

I appealed the ruling, but who knows if Twit will pay any attention. It doesn’t matter particularly, it’s just that they missed the point so completely. The whole issue is this guy who joyously screamed about punching women in the fucking face, and Twitter chooses to think I’m the one being naughty.

Update: Oh, I’ll be damned – they did pay attention and restore visibility. At the speed of light, too.

So here is Ian Kennedy’s wisdom on why women don’t want men in women’s sports:

Transgender women in hockey. 

It’s a topic being used by politicians to pass harmful legislation removing rights from transgender people. Meanwhile the presence of transgender women in women’s sport is being defended by human rights advocates, allies, sports governing bodies, and the LGBTQ+ community. 

Why? Why are human rights advocates defending men intruding in women’s sport? Women’s sport is for women, so obviously men should stay out of it. Adults don’t play on Little League teams and men don’t play in women’s sports…unless they’re selfish narcissistic pigs.

At the roots however, research and scholarly analysis has shown that the exclusion of transgender women from women’s sport is based on the same discriminatory premise that historically has excluded cisgender women from sport, and founded gender categorization in the first place. The current push to exclude trans women from women’s sport is founded in the policing of women’s bodies, and the devaluation of women and women’s sport as lesser than men’s.

Wrong. The premise that excluded women from sport was not at all the same premise as the one that created separate sports for women. The motivation is different, the reasons are different. Also, it’s not “policing bodies” to know that men are not women.

The attempt to subjugate women, and now trans women, are rooted in the same sexist and misogynistic ideas of the inferiority of women compared to men, and that women who deviate from societal norms need to be controlled and paternalistically protected. 

Nope. Seeing women as inferior is not the same thing as seeing men as not women. Men really are not women. Women really are not inferior. Those are two independent statements.

In hockey, this presents as cisgender women fighting to exclude transgender women, which ultimately places all women at a lower value in sport and society.

No it doesn’t. Saying men are not women doesn’t place women at a lower value. Women are not men, and saying so doesn’t place men at a lower value. See how that works?

Jon Pike on the Foucauldian trope about “policing women’s bodies”:

Here’s a supposed gotcha, that bugs me, and deserves a thread on ‘policing women’s bodies’ as a criticism of arguments for fair sport for women. The objection is presumably Foucauldian in inspiration, derived from Discipline and Punish and the [concern] with bio-politics.

My reading of Foucault is heavily indebted to Nancy Fraser’s critique: ‘Empirical insights and normative confusions’ sums it up nicely. Those who talk today about ‘policing women’s bodies’ in the context of sport are normatively confused. That’s to say, any practice that secures sex-based spaces necessarily involves regulating bodies, on the basis of sex. So, if sex based spaces are sometimes a good thing then regulating bodies on the basis of sex is a good thing.

But of course calling that “policing” implies that it’s a bad thing, a bad sneaky domineering powery bad thing.

Sometimes, like in the case of female sport, sex-based spaces are a good thing, so it follows that having eligibility rules (aka ‘policing women’s bodies’) is good in these circumstances. In the same way, of course, governing bodies police aged bodies when they have age eligibility rules. So I’m with (Fraser’s) Foucault who says – ‘notice what is happening here, you are regulating bodies.’ and with Fraser who says ‘ – Yes, and?’

We “regulate bodies” in that way all the time, without even thinking about it. When adults play catch with children they don’t throw the ball with all their strength. Now apply that to countless other activities involving adults and children.

Of course, we can comment on and discuss the ways in which eligibility conditions for female sport are established and enforced, and we can discuss the content of them: That’s what this debate is about. So those who, dismissively, talk about ‘policing women’s bodies’ seem to want #nodebate (again) or want the end of women’s sport altogether. They won’t say this, because, as Nancy points out, they are normatively confused (and Michel is at fault here).

Three final points. (i) The key political move about ‘policing women’s bodies’ is directed at reproductive rights, and it’s pretty unpleasant to shift the slogan around to an attack on women’s autonomy and their right to fair sport.

Yes it god damn well is. Pretty unpleasant aka fucking enraging.

ii) Yes, this is a sub tweet about that silliness from the Canadian hockey journalist.

(iii) Foucault on Modern Power: Empirical Insights and Normative Confusions, Nancy Fraser, which is in Unruly Practices, 2008 University of Minnesota Press (from p.17)

I think the Canadian hockey journalist must be this guy:

What brazen nonsense. Keeping men out of women’s sports is not at all similar or parallel to keeping women out of sports in general.

Joan Smith on the both-sidesing of trans “activists” who threaten women with violence:

On Saturday, a convicted criminal got up in front of a cheering crowd in central London and publicly incited violence against women. “If you see a terf, punch them in the fucking face,” he declared to whoops of approval from his audience at Hyde Park Corner.

…

After Baker called for assaults on women at Saturday’s London Trans Pride event, the organisers defended him. They insisted they did not condone violence, but added that “Sarah and many others in our community hold a lot of rage and anger and they have the right to express that anger through their words.” 

In other words many trans people are rageoholics. We know. That’s one reason we think trans ideology is so poisonous.

This goes to the heart of the matter. Time and time again, we are told that transgender people are the most oppressed and marginalised in society, and that their rage is justified. Politicians, including the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who published a grovelling message of support before the march, claim that trans people don’t have full human rights — but are unable to specify which rights they are being denied. (I asked Khan three years ago; I never got a reply.) 

The claim is untrue. Trans people have the same legal rights as the rest of us. What militant activists are demanding is a wholesale takeover of women-only spaces by men who claim to be women.

Women-only spaces, scholarships, prizes, sports – women-only everything of value. They don’t so much want to take over scrubbing toilets and being vulnerable to male violence.

The response, when we politely and reasonably refuse, is a form of aggression instantly recognisable to any woman who has witnessed male violence.

Male violence and male rage. Males don’t always have to resort to physical violence to terrorize women, because their rage does such a good job of signaling what comes next.

The dishonesty doesn’t stop there, however. The notion that “the debate is toxic on both sides” only aids trans activism. There is not a grain of truth in it, but the movement has so successfully indoctrinated supporters that it’s repeated even by Parliamentarians who should know better.

Thus the Labour MP Clive Lewis condemned Baker’s advocacy of violence,  but went on to claim that “violent language and actions are not unique to one side on this issue”. Really? When did feminists bang on windows and let off smoke bombs to disrupt peaceful meetings? When did we threaten to rape people with whom we disagree?

When did we stand up at protests and shout at each other to punch men in the fucking face?

Sir sir can we have some rights please? Sir just a few sir? Not being punching bags please sir?

Not just a convicted violent felon but a wit, too.

Hur hur thank you to the police for not caring that a violent felon incited violence against women hur hur.

Finally some news coverage. The Daily Mail has it and so does the Telegraph. Gee, thanks, Guardian and BBC and Independent; nice to know you’re studiously avoiding news about male felons who incite violence against women.

London Trans Pride has defended a convicted kidnapper who called for protesters to “punch” gender critical people “in the f—— face.”

Sarah Jane Baker, a trans activist who campaigns on behalf of trans prisoners, addressed attendees at the march on Saturday.

She was released from prison three years ago after serving 30 years for the kidnapping and attempted murder of her stepmother’s brother, and for attempting to kill another prisoner while incarcerated.

At the march on Saturday, Baker told a cheering crowd: “I was going to come here and be really fluffy, be really nice and be really lovely and queer and gay and laugh.

“But if you see a Terf, punch them in the f—— face.”

Break their eye sockets, break their noses, smash their teeth, break their jaws, give them TBIs. All in good fluffy fun of course.

London mayor

When asked if Mr Khan supported Baker’s comments, a spokesman said: “The mayor is a proud LGBTQI+ ally and has been clear in his support for the trans community. He is also clear that violence is never acceptable.”

So he supports the trans community but not the women community? Why’s that? Why do trans people – or rather, let’s face it, trans women, who are men – matter while women don’t matter? Why doesn’t the Mayor of London support the women’s community? Does he hate women, look down on women, think women don’t matter?

The London Trans Pride speakers demonstrated at Wellington Arch in London’s Hyde Park Corner on Jul 8. There were 10 scheduled speakers of which Baker was not one, organisers said. She instead took to the stage during the “open-mic” portion of the event.

However, organisers said that while it does not condone violence, many speakers at the event “hold a lot of rage” which they “have the right to express” through words.

So it claims it doesn’t condone violence, while condoning incitement to violence.

A London Trans Pride spokesman said: “Sarah and many others in our community hold a lot of rage and anger and they have the right to express that anger through their words.

“We do not condone violence, we do not back a call to arms for violence of any kind. We do condone righteous anger and the right to the free speech that was expressed yesterday. We have and will continue to march in peace.”

So the spokesman is just a liar. Condoning the right to say “punch women in the face” is in fact condoning a call for violence. You can’t punch a woman in the face non-violently.

It’s not a Both Sides issue.

It’s really really not.

Where does that feeling of male entitlement to make and act on threats of violence against women and girls come from? From human sexual dimorphism, of course. Men are stronger than women, so they know they can punch us with impunity while we know the opposite. That’s their entitlement: they know they can, so they do. We know we can’t, so we don’t, and we also know they can, so we are subject to fear.

I don’t think we should let this Clive Lewis thing fade away. I think he should be pressured to explain why he lied about us and shrugged off the threat against us.

Inciting violence against women is perfectly fine, says someone who claims to speak for the police.

That doesn’t sound like the police to me. It sounds like a teenager who is maybe there to sweep the floors and empty the bins. It sounds ignorant and wrong. The issue isn’t “a hate crime” so much as it is incitement to violence, in particular from a violent ex-con out on lifetime parole. “The female” is not a female, he’s a male, calling for violence against women. The issue isn’t the hate, it’s the violence. Freedom of expression has exceptions, and incitement to murder or violence is high on the list of exceptions. If whatever fool wrote that bilge is really a cop, London is in even more trouble than I thought.

Sarah Jane Baker, the “punch a terf in the face” guy, is running for office.

JOIN SARAH JANE BAKER FOR MP

AND MAKE BRITAIN A NICER, SAFER, AND FRIENDLIER PLACE

FOR US ALL TO LIVE IN

How to make Britain a nicer, safer, and friendlier place to live in: address a rally to tell people to punch feminist women in the face.

Our mission is to inspire and promote impactful solutions to some of the most critical issues we face through the power of civic engagement. Join our community of activists and allies as we work towards a better and more just world.

And by “impactful” he means punching women in the face.

And a male Labour MP says feminist women do it too, without troubling himself to offer a shred of evidence.

But of course they’re absolutely not something everyone would condemn regardless of sex/gender views. We’ve already seen that Labour MP Clive Lewis brushes them off with the ridiculous lie that radical feminists also call for punching trans people in the face.

Of course they won’t. Stonewall thinks we deserve to be punched in the face.

It is indeed so depressing.