Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Indefinitely postponing the national women’s conference

    This may be Labour's cunning plan to get by the Equality Act. Just cancel women's meetings altogether, so they won't get the chance to exclude trans women and so cause trouble.

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    From Labour List:

    Labour is set to indefinitely postpone its national women’s conference and limit women’s officer roles and all-women shortlists to biological women while it reviews its policies in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement, sparking attacks from trans and gender-critical activists alike.

    LabourList has seen a paper circulated to members of the party’s national executive committee, which warns of a “significant risk of a legal challenge” – as well as “protests, direct action and heightened security risks” if the women’s conference goes ahead as initially planned in Liverpool this September on the basis of attendee self-identification.

    The gender-critical campaign group Labour Women’s Declaration, which welcomed the Supreme Court ruling, said shelving the conference would be “wrongheaded”, shortsighted”, “exceptionally disappointing” and a “knee-jerk reaction”.

    Meanwhile LGBT+ Labour’s trans officer Georgia Meadows and two Labour trans rights campaign groups said they “unreservedly condemn” the wider party changes, warning limiting trans people’s participation will exacerbate trans people’s under-representation in politics more widely.

    Brilliant. Pleasing no one, while showing themselves up as cowards.

    A Labour Women’s Declaration spokesperson said: “We are of course pleased that the party is finally aware that it must comply with the Equality Act. However, cancelling our conference for fear of protests against a women’s event, is not the answer.”

    “We feel it would be a knee jerk reaction to cancel.  We call on the NEC to consider very carefully such an incendiary action as cancelling the single major policy-making conference of the party which focuses on issues affecting women.

    “We are shocked that hundreds of women in the Labour Party might be prevented from meeting at conference because the NEC would prefer to disadvantage all women rather than to exclude the very small number of trans-identified men who may wish to attend the women’s conference.

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  • Another Hamas leader

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    Full text:

    He claimed that for every person who died, there would be ten more, and that homes can simply be rebuilt.

    This isn’t the first time a psychopathic Hamas leader has spoken about the people of Gaza with such cold indifference.

    To them, Palestinians in Gaza are just numbers. Maimed and killed children are seen as collateral damage—mere tactical losses, as Khaled Mishal himself once shamelessly stated.

    It’s beyond disgusting—and deeply destructive. These men still hold 2.3 million Gazans hostage, sacrificing their lives, futures, and dignity to maintain their own grip on power.

    If Palestinians are to have any hope for a better future, Hamas must be held accountable and removed from the scene.

    It conforms what we already knew but is never really acknowledged in media coverage: that at bottom this is all about Islam.

    Added: featured at greater length on MEMRI TV.

    "The implications of this war far exceed the extent of Gaza and the regions. The implications of this war exceed the boundaries of space and time.

    "Who could have imagined that students in America – at universities from which the politicians graduate – would protest against their leaders and against the Zionist occupation, and sat that Palestine must be liberated "from the river to the sea" – not just the 1967 borders like most of our Arab leaders say?

    "Today the number of Muslims is multiplying because of what is happening in Gaza. Today Gaza is giving a new interpretation to the holy Quran."

  • Rushdie “scared away”

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    Details here.

    The cancellation came as student and local Muslim advocacy groups called the author’s presence “disrespectful” after he said pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses were akin to supporting “a fascist terrorist group,” The Guardian reported last year.

    “I’m surprised, relieved and happy,” Claremont Colleges Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said about Rushdie’s decision.

  • In the Dutch women’s prison

    A triple Dutch whammy. First off, from December 2023:

    A trans-identified male in the Netherlands charged with committing a brutal murder has been placed in a women’s prison ahead of his final hearings. Known only as “Daniela D.,” the 32-year-old Chilean national is accused of having stabbed a man 214 times, targeting his eyes, ears, and genitals….

    The Public Prosecution Service is seeking a sentence of fourteen years in prison. The court in Dordrecht will announce its final verdict on December 5.

    Despite being fully intact, Daniela is being detained in Ter Peel women’s prison, and it is anticipated that should he be convicted, he will serve his sentence in a women’s institution.

    From Reduxx a couple of week ago, again at Ter Peel women’s prison:

    A trans-identified male incarcerated in a women’s prison in the Netherlands set fire to his cell before brutally beating a female prison guard. The victim has been described as having sustained “serious” injuries and has been hospitalized. The incident, which took place at Ter Peel prison for women, was first reported by De Telegraaf, and the outlet confirmed the assault with the Dutch Prison and Probation Service (DJI)…

    The prison guard was reportedly taken away from the scene via ambulance, and prison officials confirmed that her “teeth were knocked out of her mouth.”

    The Dutch Prison and Probation Service refused to provide additional information about the trans-identified male inmate, and told the press: “We do not make any statements about individual prisoners. In the prison system, placement is in principle based on the gender stated in the passport. If there is reason to do so, this can be deviated from. This is always done on a customized basis, and is adjusted when necessary.”

    "Placement is in principle based on the gender stated in the passport". Seems to be working well. What's one hospitalised female prison guard against the fabulousness of trans inclusivity?

    Now, from Ter Peel once again:

    Reduxx has learned that the head of the inmate’s committee at a controversy-plagued Dutch women’s prison is a trans-identified male convicted of double homicide….

    [A] transgender inmate named Sharona Samantha Maria de Jonge, formerly known as Peter, has been serving as the chair of the inmate’s committee at the facility, also known as the Gedeco, representing and making decisions on polices that impact vulnerable female inmates.

    De Jonge is a prostitute and convicted double murderer serving a sentence of just under 23 years. Social media profiles belonging to de Jonge reveal that he has a number of disturbing fetishes, which he openly boasted about along with the man who was his accomplice in the murders.

    According to Panorama, the pair killed Willem van der Willigen, a 70-year-old retired accountant from Lieshout, and Benito van Ommeren, a 65-year-old Surinamese man, in December of 2023. Both victims were brutally beaten and bludgeoned with weapons – Van der Willigen with a hammer and Van Ommeren with a vase – before being strangled. 

    A court in Dordrecht sentenced de Jonge to 22 years and 11 months, and his accompliace to 30 years. The prosecutor described the murders as “purely business,” according to Omroep Brabant, but they were marked by a “calculated cruelty.” Following the murder of Van der Willigen, the pair lived in his home for weeks, with de Jonge inviting his prostitution clients to the residence while the owner’s dead body was stashed in another room. De Jonge and his accomplice, who Reduxx can idenitify as Bill Couwenberg, used the victims’ money to fund a lavish lifestyle and drugs until their arrest.

    Social media activity uncovered by Reduxx paints a chilling picture of de Jonge’s proclivities. On X (formerly Twitter), he described himself as a “submissive” who was “owned” by Couwenberg, and the two shared explicit pornographic content showcasing themselves engaging in their shared BDSM fetish….

    Since being incarcerated with women, de Jonge has been vocal about his support of trans-identified males in women’s prisons.

    I'll bet he has.

    There seems to be some kind of pattern here. 

  • Repeated acts of intimidation

    This preening idiot. Sees there's a women-only meeting on women's health in the Brighton library, so he goes in and sets off the fire alarm and everyone has to leave. Just can't tolerate the idea of women meeting without men being allowed. Full of the well-worn jargon of trans persecution. The police, of course, let him go.

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  • BBC poll

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    Added:

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  • Israel simple; men in women’s sport complicated

    Hadley Freeman, in today's Sunday Times, has some views on Gary Lineker:

    “It’s beyond depraved, what they’re going through,” he said last week about the Palestinians in Gaza, which is absolutely true. But a mere few days later he had to apologise after retweeting a video about the evils of “Zionists”, accompanied by an image of a rat, which he later deleted. Some have suggested the criticism of Lineker was overblown — how was he meant to know it was antisemitic, they said, as if a rat alongside an anti-Israel video was some kind of impenetrable ancient code, a rigged trap set to trip up a good man. “I think if you are silent on these issues, you are complicit,” he said, meaning the starvation of Gaza. This is a great justification for wasting time on Twitter, although it does then lead to accusations that you are complicit in anything you don’t tweet about — like, say, October 7, which prompted this incisive tweet from Lineker on the day: “Super Spurs are top of the league.” As Lineker put it himself in last week’s interview: “You either have empathy or you don’t.”…

    “People say it’s a complex issue, but I don’t think it is,” Lineker said about football-I-mean-Gaza. Not since Jared Kushner was dispatched to “fix” the Middle East (how’d that turn out, anyway?) have I heard such naivety expressed with such confidence. But what is complicated, according to Lineker, is the question of males (aka trans women) in women’s sport. When asked why he — a former sportsman, I believe — has stayed uncharacteristically silent on that matter, he replied: “You can’t cover a subject like that in a post. It’s too nuanced.” Israel is simple; men in women’s sport is complicated: it could be the centrist dad mantra.

    Lineker, though, lives in the BBC bubble – where his views, I would guess, are absolutely mainstream. Trans people are the most persecuted people on earth – this as an excuse for not going into the trans women in women's sport debate – and no one in the world is suffering as much as Gaza children, bombed for no good reason by the horrible Zionists. Unfortunately he has this urge to show what a nice guy he is – plus he's not interested in exploring stuff in any depth – so he keeps putting his foot in it. 

    Hard to summon up any sympathy.

  • Indianapolis 1907

    Indianapolis, Indiana, ca. 1907. "Meridian Street — Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument."

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

    All those people, in costumes! Looks like a stage set.

  • Openly defying the law

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    "This is a serious situation. Without the rule of law, society descends into chaos."

    Article here:

    Britain’s biggest trade union has allowed a trans woman to run for a senior female role despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling on gender.

    Ellie Waple is running for the female disabled member’s seat on the Unison national executive committee.

    That is despite Supreme Court judges unanimously ruling earlier this month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred to biological sex instead of acquired gender.

    Interim guidance that was issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said: “A trans woman is a biological man. A trans man is a biological woman.”..

    A Unison spokesman said: “This is an internal electoral issue. It is consistent with the union’s long-standing rules.”

    And it's against the law.

  • Stealing humanitarian aid

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