Sunday, July 17, 2022
"A key backer of Penny Mordaunt’s bid to become Prime Minister is a militant transgender rights activist who once appeared to compare a feminist author to the Nazis."
This day in Herstory: Phyllis Ada Diller (née Driver), born July 17, 1917 (died August 20, 2012), was an American stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician, and visual artist, best known for her eccentric stage persona, self-deprecating humor, wild hair and clothes, and exaggerated, cackling laugh. (more)
US - Transgender Mosque Bomber Sentenced to Additional 14 Years in Prison on Domestic Terrorism-Related Charges
From REDUXX (USA)
By Lavy Shwan
July 17, 2022
A trans-identified male who led a far-right militia to commit a number of sexist and racist crimes has been sentenced to 14 years on assorted domestic terrorism charges. The sentence comes in addition to the 53 years he was already serving for his role in a Mosque bombing.
Hari, a former Sheriff’s deputy, was responsible for establishing right-wing militia group known as the Patriot Freedom Fighters, later re-named to the White Rabbits.
Hari, along with the small group, began engaging in criminal activity in 2017 with the intention of carrying out acts of domestic terrorism. ... read full article
US - Riley Gaines, former Kentucky swimming star, slams nomination of Lia Thomas for NCAA Woman of the Year
Riley Gaines had a stellar career at Kentucky and was also nominated for the award
From Fox News (USA)
By Ryan Gaydos
July 17, 2022
Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines slammed the University of Pennsylvania’s decision to nominate Lia Thomas for the NCAA’s Woman of the Year award Friday.
Thomas, who is transgender, became the first trans woman to win titles at the Ivy League and NCAA championships.
But her prowess in the pool ignited a hotly contested debate over whether transgender woman should be permitted to compete in sports against biological women.
Gaines tweeted her opinion, saying the NCAA is making the highest award in collegiate athletics "worthless." ... read full article
US - Inside ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ at Elite Private Schools
Prestigious private schools affiliated with the National Association of Independent Schools host events with “Drag Story Hour NYC” and “Sez Me”, using drag culture as a vector for gender ideology.
From Legal Insurrection (USA)
By Paul Rossi
July 17, 2022
Ignoring parent concerns that schools are inappropriately introducing their children to drag culture, private schools in the National Association of Independent (NAIS) network have also hired men dressed in “drag” as women to hold events for students.
In 2021, Grace Church School (where I used to work) virtually hosted a collaboration with Drag Queen Story Hour NYC and Sez Me, a curriculum developer that promotes gender ideology in their video series and “DragTivity Book” for kids.
At the event, a performer named Cholula Lemon reads the book Neither by Airlie Anderson, a story about a hybrid creature who leaves the constricting world of “This” and “That” to find acceptance only in “The Land of All”. … read full article
US - OPINION: You’re a scientist? Tell someone who cares
From The Lewiston Tribune (USA)
By Dennis Prager
July 17, 2022
A caller to my radio show yesterday, a physician, took strong issue with me regarding COVID-19 therapeutics. He accused me of not believing in science. His last words before we had to go to a commercial break were, “I’m a scientist.”
Given that I am not a scientist, he assumed that comment would persuade me — or at least persuade many listeners — that I was not qualified to disagree with him.
If that was his assumption, he was wrong. ... read full article
US - The War on the West
A conversation with Douglas Murray
From Common Sense (USA)
By Bari Weiss
July 17, 2022
We typically reserve Sundays for our favorite reading material. But today we encourage you to pop in your headphones, put on your sneakers, and go soak up the sun while listening to this conversation with the brilliant Douglas Murray.
Douglas is a writer. You can find his byline in The New York Post, where he has a regular column; The Spectator, where he is an associate editor; and also in The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Sun and more. He is also the author of seven books, including his latest, the New York Times bestseller The War on the West. (His friends wonder when he sleeps.) ... read full article
US - The God Gap Helps Explain a 'Seismic Shift' in American Politics
The most important religious divide isn't between right and left, but between left and left
From The Dispatch (USA)
By David French
July 17, 2022
There’s talk of realignment in the air. If you think all the way back to 2012, you might remember a certain phrase—the coalition of the ascendant. This was the Obama coalition, the collection of all of America’s growing demographics, from nonwhite voters to single women. The Romney voters, by contrast, were fading. White, Christian, and married, they were the demographic losers in a population that was becoming both more diverse and more secular. Democratic dominance was inevitable.
That analysis should have caused us to feel a certain looming dread. Nations that use race or ethnicity as the organizing principle of politics are often quite unstable, and quite violent. This is true across the world, and it’s true in our own land. Systematic racial division and oppression fractured the country once. It’s foolish to think it couldn’t fracture again—especially when the political class intentionally mobilizes voters to vote as a racial bloc. ... read full article
US - George Orwell, Progressives and the Cultural Divide
From The Independent (USA)
By Howard Sierer
July 17, 2022
Progressive Democrats don’t seem to understand why they are losing the working class. Is it their messaging or their candidates? Author George Orwell’s observations from the 1930s ring true today. His book “The Road to Wigan Pier” documented the terrible conditions of the people who lived and worked in northern England during the Great Depression.
Orwell, a socialist himself, also addressed a broader question in his book: If socialism is the way toward providing a fairer, more decent life for those with the least, why has it not succeeded politically? His answer: there was a deep cultural divide between socialism’s advocates and those they were seeking to persuade. ... read full article
UK - Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues?
The shadow chancellor’s comments may well split the party
From The Spectator (UK)
By James Kirkup
July 17, 2022
Amid the noise of the Tory leadership fight, some significant comments in the papers could be missed today. Here’s the quote, from a Sunday Times interview with an intelligent, ambitious female politician in her forties:
“Biology is important. A woman is somebody with a biology that is different from a man’s biology. We’re seeing in sport sensible decisions being made about who cannot compete in certain cases.”
She says she would ‘have a problem’ with someone with male genitals identifying as a woman and using a female changing space, and isn’t entirely sold on the use of gender pronouns. ... read full article
UK - Militant transgender rights activist backing Penny Mordaunt 'compared feminist writer to the Nazis'
Ms Mordaunt has been accused of backtracking over her views on trans rights
Sue Pascoe has attacked those raising concerns about impact of trans activism
Last month she accused Helen Joyce of advocating for a Holocaust -like solution
From Daily Mail (UK)
By ABUL TAHER and MARK HOOKHAM and BRENDAN CARLIN
July 16, 2022
A key backer of Penny Mordaunt’s bid to become Prime Minister is a militant transgender rights activist who once appeared to compare a feminist author to the Nazis.
Ms Mordaunt, who has been accused of backtracking over her views on trans rights, posed for a photograph with activist Sue Pascoe at a £50,000 garden party in Westminster last week. ... read full article
UK - Dame Maureen Lipman wades into trans debate saying stop 'kicking a**' at JK Rowling
The Harry Potter author faced a furious online backlash by objecting to the phrase “people who menstruate” being used instead of “women”
From Mirror (UK)
By Tom Bryant
July 17, 2022
Dame Maureen Lipman has waded into the trans debate by urging detractors to stop “kicking a**” at writer JK Rowling.
The Harry Potter author faced a furious online backlash by objecting to the phrase “people who menstruate” being used instead of “women”.
She said the phrase, intended to make clear trans women were included in the word “women”, erased “the lived reality of women globally”. ... read full article
UK - Drag queen story time for primary school children prompts backlash from parents
The sessions, for three to 11-year-olds, sparked concern about the 'sexualised' appearance of men dressed as women
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Ewan Somerville
July 16, 2022
Drag queen story time classes for primary school children in council libraries have sparked fury from parents over the “sexualised” appearance of men dressed as women.
Almost 70 events in 20 areas of Britain will be visited by Drag Queen Story Hour UK, a group running sessions for three to 11-year-olds, in a summer tour starting later this month. ... read full article
UK - Fired... because she dared to advocate marriage between a man and a woman: When Maureen Martin stood for election as a London borough mayor she thought voters should know her views on family values. The result was chilling – and depressingly familiar
Maureen Martin was accused of gross misconduct and sacked by L&Q Housing
Bosses took step after she was targeted by Twitter mob accusing hate speech
She had worked for the housing association for 13 years with exemplary record
From Daily Mail (UK)
By Mark Hookham
July 16, 2022
A woman campaigning to become a mayor in London was fired from her job because she told voters in an election leaflet that she believed in marriage between men and women.
Maureen Martin was accused of gross misconduct and sacked after the housing association where she worked claimed her campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was 'discriminatory' and would offend gay and trans people. ... read full article
UK - Leaked documents call Penny Mordaunt’s gender self-ID claims into question
From The Times (UK)
By Harry Yorke and Caroline Wheeler
July 16, 2022
Penny Mordaunt’s claims that she has never supported gender self-identification have come under fresh scrutiny after leaked government documents suggested she backed watering down the legal process for transitioning.
Papers drawn up by civil servants appear to show she was in favour of removing at least one medical requirement needed by transgender people when she was equalities minister. ... read full article
UK - Revealed: Penny Mordaunt’s hidden equalities agenda
From The Spectator (UK)
By Steerpike
July 17, 2022
The bookies' favourite to win the Tory leadership race, Penny Mordaunt, has had a difficult few days. She’s facing questions not just about her views on trans rights, but about how honest she is about them. Suella Braverman has come pretty close to saying that, like Boris Johnson, Mordaunt has a habit of rewriting history to a version that suits her better and she does not offer the candour straight-talking needed after the Chris Pincher debacle. ‘Smears’, says Penny. She is the candidate of candour and straight-talking.
But Mr S has obtained a recording of a speech Mordaunt gave to LGBT+ Tory activists in June 2018, in which she did seem to suggest that it was her strategy not to be straight about what she was doing. ... read full article
UK - Woke dance school drops ballet from auditions as it is ‘white’ and ‘elitist’
Northern School of Contemporary Dance reviews ballet art form as part of a diversity drive
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Craig Simpson
July 16, 2022
Ballet has been dropped from auditions at a leading dance school as staff say it is rooted in “white European ideas”.
The Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD), which aims to be a “progressive institution”, has reviewed the “elitist” art form as part of a diversity drive that has seen the introduction of new policies relating to gender and race. ... read full article
UK - Kemi Badenoch: Labour’s still living in the past on race
The Tory leadership insurgent is not afraid to speak her mind on uncomfortable truths holding Britain back
From The Times (UK)
By Harry Yorke
July 17, 2022
Kemi Badenoch does not suffer fools — nor anyone else who dares to cross her at the dispatch box — gladly.
Until recently a relatively unknown minister for local government, Badenoch has within a week emerged as the insurgent candidate to become Britain’s next prime minister. ... read full article