Category: Notes and Comment Blog

  • Fall in behind

    Define “moderate.”

    Republican moderate refuses to disown Trump over constitution threat

    It doesn’t seem very “moderate” to me to give tacit support to a reckless self-serving criminal bully who says we should tear up the constitution and make him dictator.

    “Whoever the Republicans end up picking, I’ll fall in behind” them, Dave Joyce of Ohio told ABC’s This Week, adding that he thought Americans did not want to look back to the 2020 election, the subject of Trump’s lies about electoral fraud and demand for extra-constitutional action.

    We don’t want to “look back” at things that happened a few hours ago?

    Joyce said: “I will support whoever the Republican nominee is. And I just don’t think that at this point [Trump] will be able to get there because I think there’s a lot of other good quality candidates out there.”

    To the host, that was “a remarkable statement. You’d support a candidate who’s come out for suspending the constitution?”

    Joyce said: “Well, you know, [Trump] says a lot of things. You have to take him in context. And right now I have to worry about making sure the Republican Governance Group and the Republican majority make things work for the American people. And I can’t be really chasing every one of these crazy statements that come out … from any of these candidates.”

    Yes, Trump does say a lot of things, many of which are rock-solid reasons for never voting for him and for doing everything possible to consign him to oblivion. The fact that he does that is not a reason to shrug indifferently and continue to support him.

  • Sheffield Central

    So that’s good news anyway.

    Not Eddie Izzard.

  • Definition isn’t reduction

    No that’s not it.

    Image

    It’s not “reducing” people to anything to know what definitions are. Nobody says female body parts are the sum total of women, are what women are about, are all there is to know about women. They’re just the basic equipment, that’s all.

    Feminism has challenged the assumption among advertisers and sexist men that tits and ass are all there is to women, but that doesn’t entail saying women don’t have tits.

  • Will has a theory

    There’s that misogyny.

    Uh huh, a flutter of the eyelashes, that’s us – we’re all Scarlett O’Hara. Just look at all those women fluttering their eyelashes and pleading for protection. The nerve of them.

  • Jobs for the nice girls network

    Jo Bartosch on the elite feminism that can’t define women:

    Even seasoned Westminster watchers could be forgiven for not having heard of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP). Co-founded by luvvie-extraordinaire Sandi Toksvig, the group works towards the laudable, if somewhat woolly, aim of making “equality a reality”. But their brand of insipid dinner party feminism is sinking into irrelevance; washed away by a wave of grassroots women’s rights activists who are tired of playing nice.

    I love the combination of luvvie-extraordinaire and insipid dinner party feminism. I mean the verbal combination; the actual combination I don’t love at all.

    To date, the most notable achievement of WEP’s leader Mandu Reid has been to stand next to a woman who was offended by the late queen’s lady-in-waiting. 

    She hastened to write a Guardian piece about it.

    Perhaps this is fair enough; wringing political points and publicity out of the news is part of her job. But it is worth noting that neither Reid, nor indeed any of the class of professional feminist, have found a media slot to defend the ordinary women who have been vilified for saying that biological sex matters.

    Well, you see, it’s like this. Race is absolute and unmistakable, while sex is malleable and subtle and subjective.

    If you say so, but then how does feminism work? What even is feminism?

    Oh look, a squirrel.

    This is because WEP reject the definition of “woman” as simply an “adult human female” in favour of the idea that any biological male who says he’s a woman should be treated as such. This was confirmed at last month’s conference, where delegates voted to support a system of gender self-identification; transforming the slogan “transwomen are women” into policy. This is about as logical as the Communist Party failing to define ‘worker’ lest it upset industrialists who identify as proletarians.

    Or BLM cheerfully agreeing that if Donald Trump says he’s Black then he is.

    Just a few days before Reid bore witness to “institutional racism” at the palace, a group of women of all backgrounds met at Hyde Park for a Standing for Women rally, a grassroots membership group. Uniting under the dictionary definition of “woman” as “adult human female”, they sought to raise awareness of the dangers of allowing men to identify as women. They were met by a baying mob of masked counter protesters, some of whom held a large banner reading “Arm Trans People”.

    One threw liquid in the face of organiser Kellie-Jay Keen, and another was arrested after physically attacking a woman. There was no statement from WEP, Fawcett or Right to Equality to condemn this, and no round of media interviews

    A palace greeter makes a clumsy mistake and there’s an uproar; men threaten and attack women and there’s a pointed gaze in the opposite direction.

    It is now abundantly clear that organisations like WEP, Right to Equality and Fawcett do little more than provide jobs for the nice girls network. While they complain about funding and etiquette at the palace, they have been outstripped by a revitalised movement of righteously raging females; the ordinary women that professional feminists are too scared to even define.

    Or they just call us Karens.

  • Guest post: At a visceral level

    Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Seven lousy days.

    My dad thought unions were just greedy arms of the mobs until he watched Reagan fire and basically destroy Patelco, the air traffic controllers union. Dad was a Republican government employee of the Customs and all of a sudden he understood at a visceral level what it means to not have the ability to use a strike as bargaining power. It’s amazing that this was all it took to turn a Republican into a Democrat who in his later years took any opportunity he could to lampoon whichever Bush happened to be in the White House.

    But, the problem is that there were not enough union members who saw this, and instead were happy to buy into Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” narrative, and the Republicans were able to make inroads into a traditional Democratic base, as the unions were weakened by Reagan’s labor policies.

    Me? I think that Congress and the President should have played this a bit differently to force some brinkmanship with the railroads and see if they were willing to blink closer to the Dec 9th deadline. The fear of the strike has been taken away from the rail unions.

    I’ve got a combination of paid time off and sick days up to 36 days per year to allocate as I need to. I don’t have as physically demanding a job as railroad workers do.

    7 lousy days.

  • Seven lousy days

    It’s Joe Manchin’s fault. Again. Charles Pierce explains:

    Seven paid sick days. That’s what the U.S. Senate couldn’t cough up for the people who work for the country’s railroads, at considerably more risk and for considerably less money than anyone in the U.S. Senate takes or earns. The Senate—especially Joe “Friend Of The Working Man” Manchin, who couldn’t cough up seven lousy sick days—hung the president out to dry on this one, not to mention all the actual rail workers. Marco Rubio voted for the seven sick days. So did Ted Cruz, for pity’s sake. But Joe Manchin couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy planning another TV interview about how the Democrats have lost touch with their blue-collar base, over whom he keeps a watchful eye by night from the aft deck of his yacht. (Please, Georgia, re-elect the reverend so this clown doesn’t have quite as much juice as he does.)

    Isn’t it funny how “blue-collar base” means racism and sexism and xenophobia, as opposed to unions and paid sick days and similar luxurious benefits.

    This situation is a result of the diminished power of organized labor, a reality that confronts the most labor-oriented president we’ve had in decades. It’s a long trail back to where that power once was, if it’s even possible to get there at all. The money-power has so locked itself in at this point that generations have grown up to believe that organized labor is somehow a detriment to the modern worker and not a benefit. The people doing the real work of organized labor these days are the people doing the hardest work for society in general: service workers, healthcare workers, and, yes, railroad workers.

    And factory workers, and workers in meat-processing plants, which are some of the worst places to work in the country.

  • Bare minimum

    Now there’s a headline.

    Trump’s call for ‘end’ of constitution condemned by Democrats

    Only Democrats? Democrats only? So Republicans are fine with it? Let’s tear up the constitution because Trump says so?

    White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Mr Trump’s comments were “anathema to the soul of our nation”.

    “You cannot only love America when you win,” Mr Bates said in a statement. He added that Mr Trump’s comments should be “universally condemned” – seemingly a pointed jab at senior Republicans who have so far avoided criticising the former president’s outburst.

    What I’m saying. Trump is publicly saying he should be forcibly installed as dictator and Republicans are just nodding along.

  • Precedence

    Hadley Freeman in the Times:

    What is now known as LGBT rights have firmly taken precedence over women’s rights. In 2021, Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood, an organisation originally established to provide women with contraception, wrote an apology in the New York Times, saying Planned Parenthood had focused “too narrowly on ‘women’s health’, we have excluded trans and non-binary people”. 

    It makes me want to smash things. “Too narrowly.” Imagine BLM saying “We’ve focused too narrowly on Black people” – saying it and apologizing for it. Imagine trans people saying they’ve focused too narrowly on trans people…and apologizing for it. It’s only women who are expected to go hungry while the real people eat.

    (“What we don’t want to be, as an organisation, is a Karen,” Johnson added, for good measure.) 

    It makes me want to smash all the things and then set fire to them.

  • Whatever it takes no not that

    Planned Parenthood still at it.

    Planned Parenthood will do whatever it takes except of course mentioning women.

  • A modest proposal

    Trump urges throwing out the Constitution.

    Trump on Saturday morning raged on his anti-Twitter app Truth Social about non-existent “fraud and deception” in the November 8th midterm elections – and he proposed scrapping the United States Constitution as a means to reinstall himself into the presidency.

    Did he ask nicely?

    “So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump “truthed.”

    Well he is an expert in constitutional law so…

  • Escalated

    Investigation ratchets up:

    The Charity Commission has escalated its investigations into Mermaids, the regulatory body announced on Friday, responding to “newly identified issues” about the governance and management of the transgender children’s charity.

    Which being interpreted means: “This is worse than we thought.”

    The commission will investigate whether there is “serious systemic failing” in Mermaids’ governance and management. The trustees have cooperated fully, but the regulator said their response had “not provided the necessary reassurance or satisfied the commission at this stage”.

    But their response identifies as the necessary reassurance.

    Investigators will assess whether the charity’s governance is appropriate in relation to the activities it carries out, which involve vulnerable children and young people.

    Which involve vulnerable children and young people set on a lifelong path of medical dependency at a minimum.

    Mermaids said in a statement that it had separately commissioned an independent external report earlier this year “to carry out a frank and honest appraisal of our internal culture and how we measure up in terms of equity, diversity and inclusion”. 

    But those aren’t the issue. There’s too much inclusion. Children are better off being excluded by Mermaids.

    “We know we must do better and we are absolutely committed to doing so, and will be implementing the report’s recommendations as a priority. The charity has an unwavering commitment to safeguarding, which is, and always will be, our top priority.”

    No it isn’t.

  • Devastating to see

    It’s all so maddeningly circular.

    How can you be an activist to end violence against women and girls and at the same time insist that men who call themselves women are not men? How can you be an activist to end violence against women and girls if you don’t know which people are women and girls? How can you be an activist to end violence against women and girls if you think some men are women? How do you even know where to begin? Or who needs your activism?

    Also I think that bullshit about women’s organizations fearing they’ll be sued by feminists is just that: bullshit.

  • Total capture

    Sigh. The rot is everywhere.

    Citizens Advice is facing a backlash from staff for an “ideological instruction” to wear gender pronoun badges.

    …

    Dame Clare Moriarty, its £170,000-a-year chief executive, told all staff last month that pronouns are “an important way of affirming their gender identity” and “we shouldn’t assume someone’s gender based on their appearance”.

    No they’re not and of course we should.

    Her internal memo on Citizens Advice’s intranet, seen by The Telegraph, added: “You can help to normalise sharing pronouns by sharing yours. We’ve created some button badges with different pronouns that can be fastened to a lanyard or your clothing.”

    But we don’t want to “normalise sharing pronouns.” Sharing pronouns is utterly moronic and also bad.

    The charity has introduced the badges in national offices and via suppliers for regional teams, while its IT team has drawn up instructions on adding pronouns to email signatures.

    …

    The four-page guide says that “the pronouns used to refer to you are an extension of your name” and getting someone’s pronouns wrong is “misgendering”, meaning staff must “thank them for correcting you and let them know it won’t happen again”.

    How do adult people allow themselves to get this stupid????

    Staff are told to consult Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence if they want more coaching.

    A Citizens Advice benefits adviser, who received the memo, told The Telegraph: “I know many who are deeply unhappy with this kind of ideological instruction, especially at a time of economic crisis for our clients, which is what ought to be the priority for Citizens Advice.”

    “Never mind about your heating bill, I want to talk to you about our Lord and Savior my pronouns.”

    In another memo this year, the charity explained to staff on why it is a “trans-inclusive service”, saying it is “particularly important to be explicit” about this because of prejudice and harm faced by trans and non-binary communities.

    What harm. Tell us about the harm. Be specific and concrete. What harm???

    It said that being trans-inclusive means that “as an organisation, we recognise that trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary people are non-binary; we demonstrate this in the way we interact with colleagues and with clients”.

    They can’t “recognise” that because it’s not true. You can’t “recognize” that giraffes are salmon, because it isn’t true. You can’t “recognize” that men are women, because it isn’t true.

    Ms Moriarty said in response to the criticism: “Speaking up for people who face intense disadvantage is part of our charitable purpose. We want to create a service where everyone is comfortable coming to us for help, and a workplace where everyone belongs.”

    But they don’t. They want to create a service where many people will feel acutely uncomfortable going to them for help, and a workplace where people who know the difference between women and men don’t belong.

    She said personal opinions are recognised, adding: “We encourage respectful dialogue and ask all staff to be mindful about discussions that affect some people more directly, and more personally, than others.”

    Except women. They just have to deal with it.

  • Basic rights

    Teamster honcho Sean O’Brien:

  • Scab

    When in doubt, do it to the workers.

    President Joe Biden signed legislation Friday to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy.

    That is, Biden broke a strike for paid sick leave. Railroad workers have to go on working despite not having paid sick leave, while Musk and Bezos count their billions.

    The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15 on Thursday to impose a tentative contract deal reached in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers, who could have gone on strike on Dec. 9. But the Senate failed to approve a measure that would have provided paid sick days to railroad workers.

    Listen, if you want paid sick leave, you should be born to rich people and go to Harvard. If you fail to do that, well, fuck you. Now get back to work.

    Railroads have slashed labor and other costs to bolster profits in recent years, and have been fiercely opposed to adding paid sick time that would require them to hire more staff.

    Gotta make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It’s the American way.

    Teamsters President Sean O’Brien harshly criticized the Senate vote on sick leave. “Rail carriers make record profits. Rail workers get zero paid sick days. Is this OK? Paid sick leave is a basic human right. This system is failing,” O’Brien wrote on Twitter.

    He’s not wrong.

  • The health and safety of women and girls

    I saw this tweet and tracked down the particulars.

    First, the news release:

    Image

    Please send us your recommendations on how to deal with the mistreatment of women and girls in sport in Canada.

    Second, the reply to Coach Blade:

    Image

    Now, I haven’t read Coach Blade’s brief but I’ve been following her with great interest for a long time so I think I have a pretty educated guess about what she said. And the Standing Committee on the Status of Women said thanks but we threw it out, bye.

  • Limits

    So even Elon Musk has a limit.

    Elon Musk, Twitter’s chief executive, said late Thursday that Kanye West would be suspended from Twitter after the rapper and fashion designer tweeted an image of a swastika inside the Star of David. Mr. Musk said the post violated the social media outlet’s rule against the incitement of violence.

    …

    The indefinite Twitter suspension happened on the same day that [West] had appeared on a podcast hosted by the Infowars conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, during which he told Mr. Jones, “I like Hitler.”

    Speaking of Alex Jones, he’s just declared bankruptcy. I’m wondering if he’ll be able to go right on “hosting” Infowars while not paying the victims of his sadism what the court ruled he owes them.

    Before his suspension, [West] had also tweeted an unflattering photograph of Mr. Musk being hosed down on a yacht.

    “This is fine,” Mr. Musk tweeted in response to the image. “This is not,” he wrote in regard to the swastika post, confirming [West’s] suspension.

    Speaking of names, I knew one of West’s children was named North, haw haw haw, but I didn’t know there were four and all four have joke names. The other three are Psalm, Chicago, and Saint. What a horrible thing to do to your own kids.

  • Partial coverage

    Pink News on the investigation into Mermaids:

    The Charity Commission has confirmed it has opened a statutory inquiry into trans children’s charity Mermaids after safeguarding allegations were raised.

    A regulatory compliance case was opened in September of this year, which has now been formalised.

    This began after several articles were published in right-wing publications, which portrayed Mermaids as posing danger to children.

    Geddit????? There are no safeguarding concerns really, it’s all just right-wing publicationing.

    The inquiry will focus on three areas of Mermaids, its work and how the charity is run. This includes investigating potential misconduct or mismanagement, whether the trustees have fulfilled their duties under charity law and into the administration, governance and management of the charity.

    Blah blah blah but really it’s the fault of the LGB Alliance.

    Mermaids came under increased scrutiny after its challenge to the charitable status of anti-trans lobby group LGB Alliance went to court.

    And it lost the case.

    Mermaids has argued in its case that LGB Alliance does not comply with two key criteria for charitable status under the Charities Act 2011 – that an organisation’s objectives “give rise to tangible, legally recognised benefits that outweigh any associated harms”, and that they “benefit the public or a sufficient section of the public”.

    Many LGBTQ+ people were horrified when, in the hours following the November shooting in Colorado Springs Club Q – where a trans woman was among the victims – LGB Alliance responded to the tragedy saying it stood in solidarity “with LGB people”.

    That’s the last paragraph of their coverage of the investigation into Mermaids. Impressive stuff.

  • On another legal front

    Trump is running out of road.

    In another big victory for the Justice Department Thursday, days after it won convictions of far-right Oath Keepers insurrectionists, an appeals court halted a third-party review of material taken by the FBI from Trump’s Florida resort…

    In another blow to the ex-president on Thursday, a federal judge ordered former Trump White House lawyers to give additional grand jury testimony after dismissing Trump’s claims rooted in attorney client or executive privilege…

    On another legal front threatening Trump, his former short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn became the latest acolyte of his to be ordered to testify before an Atlanta grand jury. This investigation is specifically looking into Trump’s 2020 effort to reverse his loss in the swing state.

    Wallop wallop wallop. The servants are standing by with mops.

    The Justice Department’s run of major victories is finally calling into question one of Trump’s lifelong strategies to avoid accountability – the use of the courts to delay or jam up cases against him in endless litigation.

    It probably would have gone on working for him if he hadn’t decided to expand his operations to the White House.

    And the rulings by judges, in some cases Republican appointees, are also sending a message that Trump’s massive and often risible claims of executive and attorney client privilege are an unreliable shield against investigation. Trump’s penchant for appealing all the way to the Supreme Court – and the conservative majority that he built – does not seem to be working so far either, after the high court declined to intervene on his behalf in several key cases in recent weeks.

    Risible and penchant – they’re bringing out the words Trump doesn’t know.