Links - 3rd January 2026 (2 - Donald Trump [including Venezuela, Tylenol])

Drew Holden on X - "Very convenient for the narrative that these and other legacy press outlets don’t mention in their headlines that the seized Venezuelan oil tanker was sanctioned…in 2022, by President Biden, for smuggling oil to Hezbollah. @CNN @NBCNews @TIME @guardian"

Guyana says oil tanker seized by US was illegally flying its flag : r/nottheonion - "Hijacking (lol) top comment to add this:  Flying the wrong flag (false flagging) in maritime law means a ship misrepresents its nationality, violating international law (UNCLOS), making it essentially stateless and can be stopped, boarded, searched, seized, or even disabled/fired upon by any nation with no war crime implications.  Also, Venezuela has been talking about going to war with Guyana for their oil.  It's not even the first time this year Venezuela has done this."

Meme - ""There is no fentanyl made in Venezuela. Not just a little bit, none. In order for these boats to get to Miami, they would have to refuel 20 times." -Senator Rand Paul"
Jay Hubbard: "The claim is that the DRUGS were heading for the U.S., not necessarily that any one specific boat is literally going to the U.S. that minute. If I order something from Amazon and it starts in Idaho, goes to New Jersey, and is ultimately slated to end up at my Rhode Island home, does capturing the delivery while in transit from Idaho to New Jersey somehow "disprove" that the package was headed to Rhode Island? Think about how product delivery works."

Meme - "The media wants you to believe that these boats with FOUR 500-HP outboard motors going mach-3, filled with barrels, are fishing vessels. The fish around Venezuela are just that fast"

Meme - Richard W. Painter @RWPUSA: "This is murder, and a violation of international law."
"Trinidadian Family Says U.S. Military Killed Relative in Boat Attack"
Kevin Walker @Mauser2280: "Unlike the fishing boats pictured in the article, the drug smugglers usually have three outboard motors (1,000 HP+) that cost close to $100,000 USD, not counting the boat itself. No one catches fish off coastal waters in Venezuela and runs at high speed up to Trinidad to sell their catch. We know who these guys are and listen to all their conversations and monitor the movement of drugs, so we are not hitting random fisherman. Liberals were silent when Obama was drone bombing people, including American citizens and their children in foreign countries. #cartels #NarcoTerrorist #Trump #CORRUPTION"

Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 on X - "Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), who looks scared, says she doesn’t understand the strategic value of stopping drug traffickers. She adds she wants to stop cartels fueling overdose de*ths but doesn’t see how stopping their drugs helps. Can’t make this up."

Wilfred Reilly on X - "First, most normal people don't give a shit if legally designated narco-terrorists get blown up.   But, that aside, there's a weird sort of complex bad faith to leftist arguments. I would virtually guarantee that......if tough SEALs or Coasties started boarding boats at scale, throwing these foreigners in US prisons, and hauling them before Southern/federal hanging judges, we would hear nothing for a year but wailing about "the sanctity of our international waters - the NORMS of our shipping lanes."   The logical conclusion, by the time we get to Michael Brown #80 (Abrego Garcia, Hamas, guy pissing on the Vatican altar) is that they really just do see the modern West as the Designated Bad Guy, so whoever we oppose as the Face."

Meme - Reuters: "Too much Tylenol in pregnancy could affect development" - November 22, 2013
Reuters: "Trump links autism to Tylenol and vaccines, claims not backed by science" - September 23, 2025

Wall Street Apes on X - "🚨 Pregnant liberal took so much Tylenol after hearing Donald Trump say it causes autism she’s now in the ICU and is going to die  Executive Director of American Frontline Nurses got a “very frantic call at 4am from a husband whose wife is now dying of liver failure on a ventilator in an ICU, because she was trying to prove that Tylenol doesn't cause autism because of what Trump said”  She’s going to die  “Whether or not you believe the Harvard study or not is not, not the issue here. The issue is that she's somewhere between 23 to 25 weeks and she overdosed on Tylenol, and she's going to die”  This video is INSANE"

Wall Street Apes on X - "American ER Nurse CONFIRMS there is a major spike in women being admitted to the ER “because they took too much Tylenol” Liberals are poisoning themselves to protest autism findings “This is actually f*cking happening” “An ER nurse, and lately, there's been a spike of women coming in, especially women, coming in with poisoning because they took too much Tylenol or acetaminophen. So this is actually f*cking happening”  “These are adult women and they are now sending themselves to the emergency room... because they are taking too much Tylenol out of spite for Trump.”"

TYLENOL® on X - "We actually don't recommend using any of our products while pregnant. Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns today."

Kangmin Lee | 이강민 on X - "Instead of looking into the possibility of Tylenol causing autism, liberal women instantly look for public approval to own the orange man and get attention. They'd rather virtue-signal their hatred for Trump to strangers on the internet than take care of their child."

CityNews Toronto on X - "#BREAKING: President Donald Trump suggests that the use of Tylenol during pregnancy may contribute to rising autism rates in the U.S., a potential link experts have studied and say is unproven."
Andy on X - "If you were an honest news outlet, your headline would read that Harvard-Mount Sinai led study, not to mention numerous other high quality studies, show Tylenol used during pregnancy may be linked to autism and ADHD."

Khan is the last person who should be calling Trump ‘divisive’ - "No stranger to making unhelpful political interventions, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has launched a fresh attack on US President Donald Trump on the first day of his unprecedented second state visit to the UK.  In a piece for The Guardian, Khan claimed that “Trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-Right politics around the world in recent years”, and that the US President “had deliberately used xenophobia, racism, and “otherness” as an electoral tactic”.  This will be news to those who recognise that Trump’s broad-based coalition in last year’s presidential election victory was richly diverse – not just in terms of class background, but also in terms of ethnicity. While Trump comfortably beat Democratic presidential candidate and former vice-president Kamala Harris among white voters by 15 percentage points, he also won nearly half of Latino voters and two in five voters of Asian heritage. Quite remarkably, one of the strongest predictors of voting for Trump was being Native American, with the Republican making a pre-election pledge to provide the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina – a battleground state he won – with federal recognition. Trump also received some high-profile Muslim endorsements in the traditional “swing state” of Michigan, which he also carried. The truth is that Trump has been able to build the kind of class-based, patriotic and multi-racial coalition that the Labour Party could only dream of.  And the current Mayor of London, who was questionably awarded a knighthood for “political and public service”, should look in the mirror if he wants to see a politically divisive figure who appears uninterested in social cohesion. In the same article, Khan caricatured last Saturday’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally in central London as “the far-Right’s march on our streets”.  While the rally was organised by EDL founder Tommy Robinson, and had a string of domestic and foreign provocateurs among its speakers, it is hugely unfair to make such a grand-sweeping generalisation of all those who attended – including decent-hearted patriots, with some belonging to Britain’s ethnic minorities and sharing mainstream concerns over the impact of immigration.  Khan would do well to drop his obsession with Trump and focus on the myriad of economic, social, and cultural problems which have taken hold in London, with some parts of the capital descending into vicious lawlessness. And perhaps he can learn from the American President’s appreciation of working-class voters, from whatever racial or religious background, who have a strong sense of national pride."

Trump's clarity was a welcome change - "Sir Keir, called to answer difficult questions, reverted to the lawyerly obfuscation and hesitation that typifies his responses under pressure. By contrast, Mr Trump was clear and direct. Moreover, at least on the issues under discussion, he was right more frequently than wrong."

voting is not a right. it's a privilege. a privilege that the american people have lost. : r/TrueUnpopularOpinion - "i have professed many times on this sub about how democracy is the worst political system on the face of the earth. yes, even worse then fascism. and the 2024 election has just made me even more sure of that fact. not only did trump win but he was the first republican since george W bush to win the popular vote. this is despite the fact that he is easily the most corrupt president america has ever had. this has allowed trump to do even worse things now that he's back.  it's often said that voting is a right. but in my opinion, it's not a right. it's a privilege. and there's an old saying about privileges. abuse em and ya lose em.  by reelecting trump, the american people have disqualified from ever choosing the president ever again. as such, i think that the 2028 presidential election should be cancelled and a democrat should be named president. not only that but the democrats shall rule over america until the sun burns out. we tried democracy but the american people have proven that they cannot be trusted to choose who runs this country.  the democrat should sternly tell the american people that, despite what they have done, they forgive them. they were conned by a smooth talking con artist who lured them in with promises of lower food prices and a thriving economy. the democrats should say that they are still loyal to the country and the american people. but their trust is something that the american people are going to have to earn back. the democrats will rule over america until further notice."

Canada Overreacted to Trump Threats, Biden's Ambassador Says : r/Ontario_Sub - "Canadian boomer TDS is on a whole other level. They seethe even in their sleep (while in their 1.5 million dollar homes), while their children are rent slaves competing for wages against the entire globe."

MAZE on X - "2018. James Comey and Stephen Colbert smear Trump by discussing the "unverified" details of the Steele dossier. This was all planned and scripted. Comey knew the dossier was fiction and that it was paid for by the Clinton campaign. He is there to slander Trump. Evil stuff."

Meme - "The last time voters elected a Republican mayor:
Seattle - 1964
Minneapolis - 1957
Portland - 1952
Chicago - 1927
Washington, D.C. - NEVER
But Democrats want to blame President Trump for crime in these cities?"

Alex Thompson on X - "WaPo: Some rank-and-file DC officers and detectives have complained for months — in some cases, years — that managers were recording serious crimes as more minor ones to make their police districts appear safer or avoid the ire of top department brass."

Eric Daugherty on X - "🚨 BREAKING: A JAW-DROPPING report from the House just confirmed the left-wing D.C. police chief FALSIFIED crime statistics, "cooking the books" to make the city seem MUCH safer than it was.
- Chief Smith PUNISHED and RETLIATED if they tried to report rising crime data, BERATING them
- Chief Pam Smith PRESSURED commanders to lower crime stats "by any means necessary"
- Chief Smith pushed for lesser-pursued charges EVEN for serious crimes - Required certain crimes to be reviewed by her office
WOW."
Weird. The "fact checkers" assured us that crime was going down and anyone who disagreed was ignorant

Afterlife Slave Collector on X - "It is genuinely astonishing how these people manage to be wrong 100% of the time “Safer without trumps soldiers” ??? Last year the month of October has 61 murders. This year in had 24"
ゲロカニ on X - "you see, its safer in DC when blacks kill each other without any form of imposing authority to stop it"
Afterlife Slave Collector on X - "Hey watch it with the racial prejudice, the murder rate in DC isn’t JUST due to black people. It’s only 97% due to black people"

Democrats’ embrace of Marjorie Taylor Greene exposes how lost they are - "In the opening months of Trump’s second presidency, Greene has broken with Donald Trump and Republicans on everything from Israel and Ukraine, to Obamacare subsidies, the Epstein files, and the president’s various entanglements with the cryptocurrency industry. Naturally, those who once sought to chase her out of public life are suddenly enthralled with the self-professed “Christian nationalist”.  House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) remarked upon Greene’s “surprisingly enlightened few weeks”. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) identified her as being part of a cohort of “decent, honest Republicans” who have said, “‘you know what, I was elected by my constituents, that’s who I am beholden to, not the president or the United States’”. CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer gushed over the “courageous politician” and “loving mother” after a friendly interview. And far-Left commentator Mehdi Hasan marvelled that he had, in the space of a day, retweeted posts from Greene, Candace Owens, and Matt Gaetz. “What’s happening to the world?” Hasan wondered aloud.  It’s not especially difficult to answer Hasan’s question, or to join the dots between those for whom Hasan and his fellow progressives have developed a strange new respect. Greene, Owens and Gaetz have been at the forefront of a newly-empowered faction of the Right that, if not explicitly anti-Semitic, certainly appears to be singularly obsessed with Israel or Jews... Greene is still the same hateful nutter she’s always been. But Democrats have already made their peace with the virulently anti-Israel wing of their own party. Why not Israel-obsessive Republicans, too?  The Democrats are more than happy to ally with one of Congress’s most execrable figures if it means putting a few unexpected points against Trump on the board. The temptation to capitalise on the break between the president and one of his hitherto most loyal lieutenants is just too great, so the “courageous,” and “loving” loon’s ramblings are suddenly seen as “enlightened,” and “honest”.  Washington: where friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and almost every profession of principle is shown, in the fullness of time, to be insincere."

Meme - "THEY WANT THIS: *Handmaid's Tale*
INSTEAD THEY'RE GOING TO GET THIS: *Fat black woman with 'I Can't Breathe' T-shirt* *Woman screams as Donald Trump is sworn in as President* *Triggered feminist* *Trigglypuff*"

Meme - "pRaWjEkT 2025!!! *Mocking Spongebob Squarepants*"

Could Trump serve a third term? Three ways he could run in 2028 - "Prof Peabody co-authored the original 1999 law review suggesting there was a loophole in the 22nd Amendment that would allow a president to run for a third term.  “There might be some concerns about whether the running mate would be so enthusiastic about that, but that’s a political question, not a legal one,” he added.  The plan is not without historical precedent. President Dwight Eisenhower, who was term-limited in 1960, openly mused whether he could run for vice-president after his two terms in office...  the Constitution’s 12th Amendment, stands in the way. It states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President”.  In simple terms, anyone who cannot be president because of their age, citizenship or lapsed term length, therefore, cannot be vice-president. If Mr Trump’s two terms make him “constitutionally ineligible” to be president again, then he cannot legally run for or serve as the second-in-command.  But his allies and some legal experts are undeterred. They argue that the amendment does not specifically bar someone serving a third term if they ascended to office through succession.  They contest that the amendment bars a third election not a third term... One route back to the Oval Office runs through Capitol Hill.  Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker of the House is third in the line of succession to the US presidency, after the vice-president."

Governor Tina Kotek on X - "Contrary to President Trumps social media posts, Portland is not war ravaged. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security."
Bad Hombre on X - "Tina lives in a 10,000 square foot historic mansion on 9 acres in Salem secured with walls and gates. Her and her family are protected 24/7 by an Oregon State Police security detail."

Wall Street Apes on X - "UK travel influencers decided to make a series traveling around the United States The first stop on their trip was to Portland Oregon Immediately upon arriving they realized their mistake and almost called the whole trip off because of safety This is priceless  “We couldn’t have made a bigger mistake if we tried. This city is far from safe. Crime and homelessness dominate this area.”"

Brit tourist cuts short Portland trip after saying city felt “dangerous” - "Will Bailey, 25, and his girlfriend Hannah Taylor, 27, also an influencer, chose the city as the first stop on a two‑month road trip across the United States. Bailey said the trip took an unexpected turn – after they heard gunshots, saw “lifeless bodies on every corner,” extreme poverty, homelessness, and an “overwhelming amount” of crime. They left early, after just two days in the downtown area, fearing for their safety. In 2025 alone, President Trump has deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., Memphis, Chicago, and Los Angeles, along with Portland. “Our experience in Portland can be summed up as dangerous and sad,” said Bailey. “Dangerous because at no point did we feel safe in the city, with seeing and hearing gunshots outside our hotel.” Bailey described an “extreme amount of poverty [and] homelessness,” noting the city also contained an “overwhelming amount” of crime. Bailey said: “[There were] smashed car windows on almost every street and boarded up shops due to break ins. It was all quite intense.” On social media, Bailey drew parallels between what he encountered and a dystopian setting. “On the other hand it was a sad experience, sad because this once vibrant city has turned into what felt like a post-apocalyptic city,” he said. “Lifeless bodies on every corner, rows of tents, human faces on the sidewalks.” He added: “There was nothing pleasant about walking around the city, and the fact that small independent coffee shops required armed security says it all. “That’s when I decided to make my video, and post it to my social media.”... Their two-month trip to “the real America behind the headlines” will also take them to Las Vegas, Yellowstone, Texas, Nashville and New York City, and they are currently in Death Valley. A viral TikTok Bailey posted comparing the city to a “post-apocalyptic” landscape gained over 3 million views in 48 hours and drew national media attention. The viral clip was later picked up by commentators online, including major social media accounts that spotlight urban decline across American cities... “One positive note out of this whole experience, is that it’s highlighted to me how welcoming the majority of US citizens are,” Bailey said, noting multiple people offered free accommodations to try to “change” their USA experience."
How ignorant. Why do they believe Trump's lies?

George on X - "WHOAH! This Democrat State Rep in Tennessee just admitted on live TV that Trump's Memphis Task Force is transforming the city.
"You can see behavioral differences in our communities. People are rushing out to get their [vehicle] tags now... You can switch lanes without a 'Fen Fen', almost knocking you off the freeway, zipping past you at 1000 mph. There are behavioral differences that are happening, and it's evident." - Rep. Antonio Parkinson
It's good to see him admitting it."

Senator Bill Hagerty on X - "Jack Smith tracked my private communications and those of my colleagues during his witch hunt to investigate @POTUS. This is exactly the type of political weaponization of the federal government under Presidents Obama and Biden that Republicans and President Trump have been calling out for years.   We will get to the bottom of this, but every American should be shocked to see what happened here."
Hans Mahncke on X - "Watergate toppled a president and dominated headlines and public consciousness for decades, yet compared to this it was like a minor prank gone wrong. This, on the other hand, is the ruling party wielding the full power of government tools to secretly spy on an entire opposition  party, and yet there will be no Watergate moment, no early morning raids, no one will go to jail, and soon most people will not even remember it happened."
Damn Trump weaponising the state to attack political enemies!

Chief Nerd on X - "OBAMA: “I've become increasingly concerned about the rising wave of authoritarianism … We're seeing politicians target civil society, undermine freedom of the press, weaponize the justice system, and no one is being spared.”"
Jimmy Dore on X - "Obama prosecuted more journalists using the Espionage Act than all presidents before him combined.   He arrested, jailed & tortured Chelsea Manning for revealing war crimes committed in our name.   He repealed the Smith-Mundt act which now allows the CIA/FBI to directly propagandize American citizens & infiltrate unions/ NGO’s/school boards/ & organizations of all kinds.   He deported 3 million Hispanics & built the cages Democrats protested against under Trump.  Obama took us from 2 wars to 7 wars while ramping up the drone bombings killing innocent people left & right.   He effectively repealed Habeas Corpus & gave the government the authority to jail people indefinitely without a trial.   Obama is a Myth pushed by the establishment & their bought media to make you think there was someone fighting for you while he was serving Banks, Big Pharma, the MIC & his corporate masters."

Men Are Human on X - "This is literally the first time I've ever seen a world leader even acknowledge #MaleSuicide. Duly noted. Lets hold them to it."
There're so many reasons why the left hate him so much

Iranians are crying for freedom – where are the mass rallies by progressives?

Iranians are crying for freedom – where are the mass rallies by progressives? (aka "Iran’s lonely cry for freedom exposes progressive left’s selective outrage")
The activists who chanted for Palestine are silent as Iran’s brave people risk their lives fighting a brutal theocracy.

Right now, ordinary Iranians are revolting. Protesters chant Azadi – freedom in Farsi – into clouds of tear gas. Shopkeepers shut stalls. Security forces are cracking down.

Not since the 2022 uprising sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – arrested and killed for the crime of an “improper” headscarf – have Iranians protested in such numbers. In the years since, the Islamic Republic has offered its young population nothing but darkness: collapsing wages, sky-high inflation, mass unemployment, water shortages and electricity blackouts. The same regime that kills women for their hair now asks to be taken seriously as a good-faith partner in “dialogue” via a late-night social media post. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s rule has been exposed further as brutal, corrupt and incompetent.

In Australia, much of the self-styled progressive left is silent or selectively outraged. In the two years following October 7, venom was directed at one target only: Israel. University campuses, the Greens, some unions and weekly inner-city marches echoed with specious slogans about “Zios”, “genocide”, “apartheid” and “colonialism”. But as Iranians risk their lives chanting “Death to the dictator”, progressive righteousness evaporates.

Where is Bob Carr, the grand moraliser of Australian foreign policy, so eager to lecture Western democracies and former friends and allies but curiously quiet when a theocratic dictatorship is shooting its own people?

Where are the self-appointed spokespeople for “justice” and “human rights” who dominate the news cycle and social media whenever Israel is in the news? Where are the anti-Zionist “Azza Jews” insisting they speak for authentic Judaism and universal ethics? If ever there were a moment to demonstrate those ethics – real, not performative – this is precisely it.

This silence is striking because Iran is not some distant abstraction in Australian life, nor has Canberra treated it as one. We know about the regime’s surveillance, intimidation and attempted attacks on diaspora dissidents. The Albanese government has imposed Magnitsky-style sanctions on officials and entities responsible for human-rights abuses. Labor also proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and expelled Iran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, after the IRGC’s role emerged in the torching of the Adass Israel Synagogue, bombing of Jewish-owned businesses and an apparent assassination attempt on a Jewish communal leader.

Yet this campaign of terror – enabled by an anti-Semitic regime that treats Jews everywhere as legitimate targets – passed without mass progressive rallies or sustained outrage. Instead, we saw silence, equivocation and in some quarters the grotesque claim that the violence itself was a Zionist “false flag”.

The Iranian regime is not a misunderstood victim of Western or Israeli power. It is one of the most repressive governments on earth. It jails women for removing headscarfs. It executes dissidents at a rate unseen since the early years of the revolution. It bankrolls Hezbollah and Hamas while its own people queue for bread and fuel. It has spent decades perfecting the art of oppression and terror – and exporting it. For the older, less performative version of the Western left, Iran would be front and centre. Today, Iran doesn’t fit the preferred script.

The postmodern progressive left sees the world through a single moral prism: West bad, anti-West good. Power is flattened into binaries: coloniser v colonised, empire v resistance. Once you accept this logic, Iran’s ayatollahs become inconvenient. They claim to be “anti-imperialist”, so their crimes must be minimised, contextualised or ignored. The unspoken logic is brutal: no Jews, no news – a Shia regime slaughtering its own Shia population and secular opponents simply does not generate progressive urgency. So much for solidarity.

The inconvenient truth is that the brave Iranian protesters chanting Azadi are not denouncing the American “Great Satan” or “Zionism”. They are fighting a theocratic police state that has terrorised women, crushed unions, murdered students, persecuted minorities and has stolen the future from entire generations. They are fighting for precisely the freedoms – of speech and association, gender equality, secular law – that the left claims to cherish.

Where are the pro-Iranian rebellion rallies? The chants of “From the Gulf to the sea, Iran’s people will be free”? Open letters? Campus encampments? Conference motions? Where are the Queers for Iran? The Ayatollah’s regime criminalises same-sex relationships between men and women, with the maximum punishment being death. Why was it within the remit of this oddball radical Islamist-progressive alliance to rally for Palestinians caught up in a ghastly war initiated by Hamas but not muster the same solidarity for Ukrainians under siege from Vladimir Putin’s Russian gangster state, for North Koreans crushed under the Kim dynasty or for Uighurs and Taiwanese facing repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party? This selective morality didn’t emerge overnight. It is the product of decades of drift – from class-based politics and a genuine internationalism to toxic identity politics and faux anti-imperialism.

When it is named and shamed, as it is here, the postmodern left whines about “whatabboutism”. Once oppression is defined not by what regimes do but by who they are aligned against, victims become expendable. Iranian women tearing off headscarfs are inconvenient. Iranian workers protesting against inflation don’t fit on placards. Iranian Jews, Kurds, Baha’is and dissidents don’t neatly slot into a Western campus hierarchy of grievance.

So they disappear, literally in some cases. There is something morally discombobulating about Western progressive activists treating the ancient, magnificent Persian people as chess pieces in a grand struggle against the US and Israel. It denies them agency and allies. This moral collapse matters in Australia. When politics becomes a theatre of selective outrage, trust erodes. Voters notice. Working people notice. Migrant communities notice. Iranian and Jewish Aussies notice. They see which lives matter and which are quietly ignored. They saw it again at Bondi Beach, not only in the activist left’s uneasy response but new “false flag” claims, where mass murder is explained away rather than confronted head-on.

History is unforgiving to movements that excuse tyranny in the name of ideology. The Iranian regime will eventually fall. When it does, the question will not be whether Australians spoke up but who did. Because Azadi means freedom for everyone. Or it means nothing at all.

Links - 3rd January 2026 (1 - Trans Mania [including Puberty Blockers])

Mario Zelaya on X - "For anyone questioning Danielle Smith, invoking the notwithstanding clause, that protects minors, needs to be reminded that a Doctor withheld a study showing that "puberty blockers did not improve the mental health" of children. Weirdos only seem to listen to science and facts when it's most convenient for them."

Chris Berthelot 🇨🇦 on X - "Puberty blockers do not sterilize anyone. Trans kids & their parents can make informed decisions about their medical treatments. Smith, Anderson & the UCP need to lie because they have nothing else. This will be overturned. The UCP will lose. #ableg #abpoli #cdnpoli"
Rob Anderson on X - "So let me get this straight…your position is that if a 12 year old male goes on a puberty blocker for, let’s say, 3 years — and then stops taking those blockers at 15, you are of the actual view that their natural teenage puberty and growth (including to their reproductive organs) would **checks notes** not be affected?  Is that some kind of newly discovered biology you’ve uncovered?   *Hint* you’re the one that’s been lied to and you ought to go and figure out what other woke pseudo science you’ve been lied to about."

Danielle Smith on X - "New Zealand has now stopped the use of puberty blockers on minors, acknowledging the lack of credible evidence and the growing concerns over long-term harm.  They’ve joined Alberta, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the United States in taking  these kinds of important steps to protect children.   This is the right direction and Alberta applauds their decision."

Trans: New Zealand halts new puberty blockers for young people - "Health Minister Simeon Brown said doctors would no longer be able to prescribe gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs for gender dysphoria or incongruence to those seeking treatment for the conditions and not already on the drugs.  The decision resulted from a health ministry finding of a lack of “high-quality evidence that demonstrates the benefits or risks,” Brown added in a statement... The drugs will still be available in New Zealand for those with early onset puberty, endometriosis or prostate cancer, as well as for current users."
TRAs claim that it's discrimination to allow puberty blockers for early onset puberty but not for "trans" kids when they are two different conditions. They really have terrible comprehension skills as usual

Stats For Gender on X - "A cohort study of people who received puberty blockers then cross sex hormones found that bone mineral density fell during puberty blockade and did not fully recover after cross-sex hormones, especially for the lumbar spine of males receiving estrogen."
Linda Blade on X - "THIS is critical!! ⚠️ Bone mineral density (BMD) is like a bank account. It builds up and, then, during middle age starts to decline towards (eventual) osteoporosis. The bigger the bank account the longer it takes into old age for the bones to break down. KEY POINT: 👉🏼25% of that “bank account” is deposited during the teen years. Puberty blockers & hormones shut down the ATM 🏧 to valuable, time-critical deposits 💸. These kids will NEVER get that BMD “money” back!!  These “gender affirming” medical folks have robbed kids for this foundational investment in their bones 🦴!  This is also why #Alberta legislation is so important.⚠️"

Children cannot consent to puberty blocker trial, Streeting admits - "Wes Streeting has admitted that children cannot give consent to take part in the puberty blocker trial.  The Health Secretary told MPs that participants in the trial instead need to give “informed assent” to receive puberty blockers.  Mr Streeting also revealed that the decision to approve the trial was one he “wrestles with every day” and reiterated he was “not comfortable” with it... “no child under the age of 13 can consent to sexual activity because they don’t have capacity”, and asked: “How can children under 13 consent to body altering drugs, drugs that will change or even block their sexual development, potentially?  “How can they possibly have capacity to understand what that means? Will you consider a lower age limit by which no child can receive those drugs because they cannot consent?”... Research commissioned by Transgender Trend, a campaign group, and undertaken by Whitestone Insight, found that 63 per cent of more than 2,000 adults surveyed thought the trial should be stopped."

No more experiments on children - spiked - "Last year, the Cass Review's scathing findings led to the closure of the discredited Tavistock gender clinic and to a ban on puberty blockers. Yet despite all this, the NHS is now throwing &10million at a study that will dole out puberty blockers to gender-distressed kids - again.  Yes, even after all we've learned, the medical establishment is still flirting with the idea that we can chemically freeze children in time and expect no consequences. Effectively, UK health secretary Wes Streeting has banned puberty blockers with one hand and reintroduced them with the other - dressing up the same failed experiment as 'research'. Distinguished clinicians such as David Bell, Marcus and Susan Evans, Az Hakeem, Stephen Levine and others have also added their names to the accompanying 'Statement of concern' opposing the proposed NHS puberty-blocker trial. But where is the public outrage?  Let's be clear: puberty is not just about pubic hair and hormones. It's a profound metamorphosis - physically, cognitively, emotionally. It's what makes adults out of children. Strip that away, and you're left with something chilling: children suspended in a twilight state, medically sterilised and emotionally stalled, with no path back to normality. And yet, we're told this is 'progress'. We're told it's 'affirming' to block puberty in a 12-year-old girl because she doesn't like her body. We're told it's compassionate to drug children into stasis while their peers grow, mature and explore first love, heartbreak and rebellion - the messy business of becoming an adult.  This isn't medicine. It's experimentation. It's social engineering with scalpels and syringes. There's no long- term outcome data. No rigorous follow-ups. Just ideology in a lab coat.  Through Genspect's Beyond Trans programme, I run weekly online support groups for detransitioners and others dealing with the fallout of medical transition. What I hear is often devastating: fear, regret and a haunting sense that a point of no return has been crossed. Many have undergone major surgeries - ovary or testicle removal - and now live with the irreversible consequences of decisions made when they were too young to understand them. Though they've psychologically detransitioned, they're left in medical limbo. Some are terrified to restart hormones that match their biological sex. Why? Because there's no roadmap. No one knows what happens next - least of all the clinicians who set them on this path.  Should a woman who never went through natural puberty, but now regrets her transition, start pumping synthetic oestrogen into a body that's been shaped entirely by testosterone? What happens to a female body that never developed breasts, never menstruated, had a hysterectomy, and was medically masculinised from adolescence? What does it do not just to the body, but also to the mind and metabolism, when the most fundamental stages of human development have been bypassed in the name of 'affirmation'? These experimentally constructed adults have reached adulthood having bypassed puberty.  This is not a healthcare model. It's dystopian. It tramples over ethics, evidence and common sense, echoing the darkest chapters of medical history, when vulnerable people were used as guinea pigs in experiments dressed up as 'care'. The silence from the medical profession on this upcoming trial is deafening. Too many clinicians still hedge, clinging to the idea that puberty blockers 'might help some kids'. But the evidence doesn't back it up, and if you can't say no to harmful interventions out of fear of online backlash, you shouldn't be in healthcare.  I was once one of those gender-nonconforming kids - a tomboy and a misfit. Thankfully, no one tried to 'affırm' me with drugs. I was allowed to go through puberty, develop sexually, and to slowly grow into myself. Why can't today's kids be given the same freedom?... Puberty is not an error to be corrected. It's the bridge between who we were and who we're becoming. Blocking it doesn't hit pause. It derails the individual onto a pathway of lifelong medicalisation."

Levi Pay on X - "I can’t believe the shift from “gender dysphoria” to “gender incongruence” for this clinical trial.  The definition of “gender dysphoria” was ludicrous enough. But, with “gender incongruence”, there doesn’t seem to be any requirement for distress, or even unhappiness.  Instead, the focus is on whether the child has a “desire” to change gender (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and a “dislike” of their body.  Without any requirement for distress, this means that the @KingsCollegeLon  clinical trial will be free to administer live-changing drugs to children who have no physical health problems *and* no mental health problems whatsoever. Just a desire and a dislike.  Children who are healthy, physically and mentally, will be placed on a medical pathway towards sterility and almost certain cross-sex hormones.  What on earth are these people thinking?   If I hadn’t already left my job as a service director at King’s College London, I’d be walking out the door over this. I would want no association whatsoever with such a disgusting experiment on healthy children who, disproportionately, if left alone to go through their normal process of development, would grow up to be lesbian or gay.   Shame."

Progressive Misogyny on X - "“We’re testing a treatment with no established basis, for a condition with no defined mechanism, by comparing two groups of children who both receive the treatment, using an outcome measure unrelated to the condition, over a timeframe too short to observe the effects that actually matter, and one group is primed to feel better simply because they get what they wanted and the other is primed to feel worse because they’re forced to wait.”"

Dr P: Puberty is not an illness on X - "These are the IQ scores of a child on PBs. IQ is a stable construct. It should not change significantly over the lifespan. (Your IQ at four should be pretty much the same as your IQ at, say 90). But the scores here are all over the place because PBs cause brain damage. That's how they work.    They hit the brain to switch off puberty.  The designers of the PB trial know this, which is why they are including measures of IQ and neurocognitive functioning as part of their clinical outcomes.  Again:
1. They already know PBs cause a drop in IQ.
2. They are going ahead anyway."

Wes Streeting should reject NHS puberty blocker trial - "Shortly after the trial was announced, campaigner James Esses and detransitioner Keira Bell threatened legal action, demanding that the Health Research Authority (HRA) shut it down. Parents’ groups and clinicians quickly pointed out glaring flaws in the study’s design. Campaign group Transgender Trend nailed the core issue: in most drug trials, the potential benefits of a treatment must outweigh the risks. But in this case, “the treatment IS the harm.”  The very purpose of puberty blockers is to interfere with natural development, turning healthy children into lifelong patients. “Arrested growth is the desired outcome,” Transgender Trend pointed out, “so gender ideologues view this as a ‘success’.”   This is the problem politicians like Streeting face: transgender ideology doesn’t allow for a cozy middle ground. Either you accept biological reality — that sex is binary, and that no amount of medication or strongly held beliefs can change that — or you deny it entirely.  Streeting likely views approving the trial as a convenient way to shift responsibility onto Cass, sidestepping the tough decisions that come with his role as Health Secretary. On the surface, more research sounds sensible. Who could argue against gathering more data? But when it comes to gender identity treatments which are based on ideology rather than evidence, another trial means more children subjected to harmful and unnecessary medical intervention."

Transition Justice on X - "When Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy's study on puberty blockers didn't deliver the desired results, she intentionally suppressed it - while thousands of children continued to be prescribed these powerful medications off-label. Erin Friday (@ErinFriday75490) exposes the crimes of JOK, urging the @FTC to investigate her. @BrandonMShow"

Viva Frei on X - "Meanwhile in Canada… Vancouver Park Board “apologizes” for hosting Harry Potter event. “Members of the city’s transgender, gender diverse and Two Spirit communities had expressed concerns about the decision to partner with the event this holiday season due to its association  with J.K. Rowling, author of the seven Harry Potter novels.”  Canada has gone full retard."

Amy Eileen Hamm on X - "These people are insane. The park board of Vancouver crying together, issuing a public denouncement of @jk_rowling, and promising to “rebuild” public trust. Because of a Harry Potter forest walk for kids. None of these people are okay. 😂"

Andy Lee on X - "Oh, you should be proud. You have druggies overdosing on taxpayer-funded safe supply everywhere, but Vancouver is obsessed with owning JK Rowling by trying to ban a Harry Potter exhibit for kids that planted more trees for free than our federal government ever did"

Amy Eileen Hamm on X - "Vancouver: where it’s “hate speech” to say “I ❤️ JK Rowling” but it’s just a regular day when a city councillor says that all police officers must die, or endorses the rape and murder of women."

Mary 🦎 on X - "This is what my gender confusion took away from me. My ability to have penetrative sex, my breasts, my nipple sensation. I lost hair on my head. It took away my lovely speaking voice. It left me a shell of a woman. The gender cult will take everything f

rom you and spew hate when you leave."

Rep. Josh Williams on X - "🚨 WATCH: We just passed a bill in the Ohio House that requires 5th grade

rs to view a video in their sex education classes of a baby forming in the womb. One of my Democrat colleagues, with no self awareness, said that 5th grade is an "inappropriate age" to see this video.  These are the same people who think 5th graders are mature enough to choose their gender."

Timothy Caulfield on X - "Hard not to be both depressed & infuriated about these regressive, science-free, & cruel actions. AB to invoke notwithstanding clause to shield 3 transgender bills from court challenges https://t.co/W1uGaiozRB Very obviously, NO evidence these MAGA are laws needed."
Jonathan Kay on X - "“Science-free,” you say? Gee, if only an acclaimed paediatric expert with a mandate from a G7 govt spent years doing a massive review of all the literature in the field, & then published her analysis… Oh wait. That happened It’s called the Cass Review Have u read it, Tim ?"

David Aaronovitch on X - "Why? What does it cost you to have Jan Morris called a woman?"
Levi Pay on X - "This is like asking “What does it cost you to have this other individual over here say that they believe 1+1=3?”    On one level, very little.  But the problem lies not in that one person’s mind or their mistaken belief. The problem comes when our institutions believe, affirm, entrench and enforce that incorrect belief.  This question about Morris is what happens when we don’t nip the inversion of language in the bud.  “What does it cost you to have Jan Morris called a woman?”  In one sense, very little - and certainly a lot less than it cost Morris’ wife and children.   But, in another sense, that single belief, in the mind of one person, costs society the entire concept of girlhood and the concept of womanhood, together with all of the rights, protections, safeguards and freedoms that flow from those two concepts. It costs society its sanity. It costs society the truth.  “What does it cost you to have Jan Morris called a woman?”  I used to wonder things like this myself.   I know that asking this question is a stopover on the way to answering the question fully. And so, I try to be patient with the question.  But, blimey, it is frustrating to hear the question being asked."

We're scientists who study sex and gender. Here's what Trump gets wrong about trans people
Christina Buttons on X - "This is why people are losing trust in scientists and institutions.  These two trans-identified authors who tout their authority as “scientists who have studied sex and gender for many years,” claim that “transgender people are a natural part of the human species” who have existed “across cultures and through time.”  This is revisionist history. What has always existed are feminine boys and masculine girls, ordinary variation within each sex.  This doesn’t require a magical belief in an “innate gender identity” or medical interventions to alter a perfectly healthy body into a crude imitation of the opposite sex.  Despite what the authors would like readers to believe, “transgender” is not a distinct biological type supported by scientific evidence.  It is an ideological framework overlaid on top of normal sex variation, on the paraphilia called autogynephilia in heterosexual men, and, more recently, on psychological distress in teenagers."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X - "This Transgender Awareness Week, we celebrate the resilience, courage, and beauty of the trans community. Your lives matter, your stories matter, and your right to thrive and exist authentically is non-negotiable. We stand with you today and every day🏳️‍⚧️"
Zachary Elliott on X - "The irony here is that trans-identified people do not live authentically. The entire belief system is based on denying the biology of one’s body. This lie leads to the harm of the body through the use of cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgeries."

Wesley Yang on X - "The Department of Health and Human Services has published the final, peer-reviewed edition of its systematic review of the evidence on pediatric gender medicine. The Washington Post Editorial Board notes that the review "has withstood scrutiny."   "Their core finding — that the evidence for these interventions is highly uncertain — echoes the results of systematic reviews in other countries. None of the peer reviews of the HHS report ultimately rebut that conclusion."  None of this has been in serious dispute by informed observers since 2021, when Sweden reversed course on giving puberty blockers to children because the risks outweighed the benefits.   US based medical trade associations continue to persist in the false claim that chemically castrating children and dosing them with hormones has been proved to be medically necessary and lifesaving.  It is an ongoing scandal that the HHS report is the latest in a long series of authoritative documents to demonstrate."

Jamie Reed Whistleblower on X - "This is fraud, simple, dirty, corporate fraud. “The billing codes and data show that between 2017 and 2024, CHOP providers diagnosed 250 minors with central precocious puberty at age 10 or older, “including numerous teenagers aged 14 to 18.”"
Meg Brock on X - "The federal government is aware of “evidence of fraudulent billing practices to secure insurance coverage/payment” for child sex change medical interventions “because they know that certain insurance plans may not cover the off-label prescription of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for gender-related treatment,” Lisa Hsiao, acting director of the DOJ’s Enforcement & Affirmative Litigation Branch, stated in an affidavit filed Tuesday."
Wesley Yang on X - "The gender clinics did not even attempt to hide routine billing fraud because they did not contemplate anyone in power would ever hold them to account. Such was their arrogant complacency, grounded in the fact that the Democratic Party was happy to be accomplice to any abuse done in the name of transgenderism."

Eithan Haim MD on X - "Over the last few years we learned that entire gender industry relied on fraudulent medicine. Now we are discovering it gets even worse.   They relied on fraudulent billing practices!   They submitted insurance claims for the treatment of diseases that did not exist in order to ensure reimbursement for gender interventions that would not have otherwise been covered. This is what they used to maintain the financial solvency of their clinics and conceal their activity from legislative prohibitions in Red States.   This topic is painfully confusing but really quite simple once you take the time to understand it. I'm very thankful that @sometherapist  for having me on to go through the issue."

Meme - Reddit Lies: "Statistically trans women don't commit sexual assault."
>Gets proven wrong
"So?"
Reddit Moment"
""Ethical problem allowing a male body in the women's locker increases risk of sexual assault on women. Planet Fitness should reconsider their policy."
"Statistically trans women don't. it's primarily and statistically creepy straight men. tired of all these straight people cosplaying as queer in this community. just lke you. you're not part of the community if you don't support the T in LGBT."
"Trans women commit sexual crimes against women at the same rate as cis men. *source*"
"So?"

Rachel Reeves’s moan about ‘mansplaining’ is proof that she’s out of her depth - "Glamour magazine – whose strapline is “Beauty, Fashion, Trends & Empowerment” – named no fewer than nine biological males among its “Women of the Year”. So readers will hardly have been surprised, this week, to see it run an article about how awful it is that the FA has “banned transgender women from playing women’s football”.  Some of us may feel it’s actually quite reasonable to ban males from playing on female teams, for the sake of both fairness and women’s physical safety. Even if we disagree with the article’s content, though, we should be grateful for one of the photos used to illustrate it.  Because it depicts a female footballer, on her knees, enthusiastically kissing the muddy boot of a male trans teammate.  I for one am delighted that Glamour published this photo, because, quite unwittingly, it has provided us with the perfect visual metaphor for trans activism... Incidentally: imagine if a publication ran a photo of a female player kissing the muddy boot of a male player who isn’t trans. What do we think the reaction would be?  I’m only guessing, but I suspect there would be an ear-splitting eruption of fury about how misogynistic and degrading it was. Not least from magazines that boast of their belief in “empowerment”."

Meme - Sam Morgan @CrunchAlias: "When you allow a porn-addled man to falsify his birth certificate, it means no birth certificate can be trusted any more.  They cease to be records of historical fact, and become nothing more than validation tools for fantasists."
ultrakawaHD 🏳️‍⚧️ @ultrakawaHD: "I am officially born as a woman"
Weird. We're told that sex and gender are different and only ignorant people don't know that

Meme - Irene BritUSA @irenebritusa: "Black women aren't men! Get outta here with that racist rhetoric! I don't have to accept male genit*lia in my locker room because I’m black. I don't have to support women being terrorized and having opportunities stolen from them because I’m a black woman.  Sod off!"
Comrade @RantingComrade: "Black women were historically denied recognition as 'real women.' Saying trans women aren't real women is the same kind of non-sense with different reasons for "why they're not""

Links - 2nd January 2026 (2)

Why didn’t Jeremy Corbyn win when his plan was to raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals and companies to fund better public services for everyone else? : r/AskBrits - "I mean I saw him.talk at an LSE event and he was praising Venezuela and at the time I was working with a guy from there and he told me how awful things were there. So I think questions of his economic competence are valid."
"It's amazing isn't it...  Corbyn was a guy who went on holiday to East Germany...a country that imprisoned it's own population and machine gunned it's youth when they tried to escape...  And people say they were surprised by how thick he was on geopolitics...  You really have to wonder how observant and bright these people are ..." Why didn’t Jeremy Corbyn win when his plan was to raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals and companies to fund better public services for everyone else? : r/AskBrits - "Well, in Scotland, some of us don't like people who support IRA terrorists who killed innocent people in the UK."
"How do you think we felt in NI?"

Why didn’t Jeremy Corbyn win when his plan was to raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals and companies to fund better public services for everyone else? : r/AskBrits - "It's hard to overstate how aggressive and forced the anti-Corbyn rhetoric was. I don't know which is more depressing, how shameless the media were about it or how gullible the British public proved to be in swallowing it. Probably <10% of the anti-Corbynites I met had an actual material reason to oppose him - by which I dont even mean a good/bad reason, I just mean a reason grounded in any real thing the man had actually done or said. Instead you got just streams of absolute batshit theories that he was an IRA plant or wanted to ban the poppy or whatever other random piece of piss the papers had made up that morning."
"The reason the media was so oppressive with its attacks on Corbyn should have told the entire country that he was good for them."
Left wingers think that people are so easily brainwashed by the evil right wing media. Like when they always claim poor people vote against their interests

Chief Nerd on X - "WHOOPI: “RFK Jr is not a doctor”
CHERYL: “90% of Secretaries of HHS have not been doctors. One of Obama's Secretaries of HHS was an economist.”
WHOOPI: “We have to take a break…”"

Husband did a large dose of shrooms. Became convinced he was Italian chef in a past life. Proceeded to make spaghetti.. : r/shrooms - "Quick background: we live with my mom. My side is very heavily Italian. My mom grew up in Italy. My husband is best described as a southerner(family all in Alabama for 200+ years). He is not a good cook at all. He once burnt ramen.  He's been going through a tough time. His dad died 2 months ago. He wanted to do a large dose. His wording was he wanted to take a large dose and follow the advice alot of people give for a heroic dose(dark room, alone, everything turned off, etc). He took 12g of shrooms.. proceeded to go extremely catatonic, spaced out, etc.  When he came out of it the next day, He seemed very at peace and declared that he realized he was an Italian chef in a past life.. me and my mom were both very amused because he has never been a good cook.  He proceeded to say that he was gonna make spaghetti for dinner and he'd make the sauce from scratch. Me and my mom didn't say anything but a "ah... ok..". He cooked it that night. We were expecting a disaster. Especially because we watched him just wing it. He didn't look up any instructions or measure anything. He said that he couldn't remember specifics but making it felt like "muscle memory".  This motherfucker made the best sauce I've ever tasted. My mom was rattled and said it was the best she's ever tasted and it was far superior to hers(and that's not something she'd ever easily admit). She even called it "perfect". Every single person who tasted it was amazed by it.  The main question going through my mind right now is "what the fuck?"."

My husband and son getting competitive while playing games. : r/Jokes - "Husband said" I fucked your mom"
to which the son replied" I have been deeper inside her than you'll ever be""

US singer demands divorce after she ‘unknowingly’ married Malaysian sultan - "U.S. singer-songwriter Brittany Porter is demanding a “proper divorce” after she says she unwittingly married a Malaysian sultan in a ceremony she assumed was simply a celebration of their engagement.  Porter, 30, who releases music under the name Brook Lynn, spoke to the South China Post about the debacle, claiming that she first met Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan, the former King of Malaysia, in January 2024 through mutual friends.  “We had this instant chemistry and good banter,” she said, sharing she was particularly drawn to his “cute” British accent. “We were just friends at first, but we started talking every day and the next thing you know,” she explained.  The two embarked on a whirlwind romance, marked by extravagant travels across Asia and lavish gifts. “He flew me and my friends all around the world. He was so generous, the nicest hotels, giving my friends the best treatment, experiences and gifts,” Porter claimed. “He loves hotels, he probably spent millions on them for our trips.”  However, it was before their first overseas trip to the Middle East last April that Porter says the Sultan, 56, proposed to her. “He asked if I wanted to go on holiday in Oman with him... it felt like I was in a real Disney princess movie,” she recalled to the Daily Mail. “He proposed right after that, and he got me a blue diamond, because I said I wanted it to match my eyes.”  Porter claimed that while they were in Oman, Muhammad V flew her friends in for a religious ceremony.  “In my culture, the big ceremony is a wedding, which we planned for January 2025. So I was confused,” she added to the South China Post. “They brought an imam out and I did the whole conversion, but he didn’t teach me all that much about Islam… I only recently learned that a nikah constitutes a marriage under Islamic law.”  Porter further clarified on her social media: “In Western culture, the ceremony itself is considered the official wedding, so I didn’t realize how different the terminology and process would be under Islamic law. “But the truth is - I was, and still am, his wife in the eyes of Allah,” she continued.  The recording artist further claimed that once they returned to Malaysia, she was expected to produce a male “heir” as soon as possible. She said that she eventually became pregnant before suffering a miscarriage.  “It was horrible,” she confessed to the Mail. “But after that, we just started fighting a lot.”  Despite the unraveling of their relationship, the California native said she pressed forward with wedding planning, traveling back to her home state to meet with a wedding planner.  “He was being distant with me and I was freaking out so I flew back to Malaysia — but he wasn’t there,” she said, alleging, “He blocked me on everything. He just texted my best friend saying it wasn’t going to work out.”  She said she hasn’t heard from him since, and is now looking for a “proper divorce.”... He was previously married to his first wife, Tengku Zubaidah binti Tengku Norudin, from 2004 to 2008. In 2010, he married his second wife, Sultanah Nur Diana Petra, before adding another wife, Russian beauty queen Oxana Andreevna Voevodina (referred to as Rihana Petra during their marriage) in 2018. He and Voevodina divorced a year later — the same year they welcomed a son together. While the events were traumatic, Porter now looks back on them with a sense of optimism. Her “bizarre” experience has inspired her debut single, “Oh My Gosh,” which is out now. “It’s been amazing, it’s been a healing journey for me, and really freeing,” she told the Mail. “I am grateful for everything that happened at the end because the songs are about him.”"

Open Source Intel on X - "Iranian official: “We poured millions into spreading Islam in Japan. After six years, only one person converted, and he wasn’t even Japanese.”"
Of course, nothing to see here since it's not a Western country promoting Christianity

Right Angle News Network on X - "BREAKING - CNN is now admitting that “errors” in the 2020 census were almost always to the benefit of blue states, such as Rhode Island being overcounted, and to the detriment of red states, such as Alabama being undercounted. Funny how “errors” only ever help one side."

Story of judge forgiving 15-year-old boy for stealing in viral video is fake - "Claim: According to a video shared online, a Western judge decided to forgive a 15-year-old boy who was apprehended for stealing bread for his ailing mother. The video ends with a statement about how Pakistan’s judges are failing, while judges in the Western World are carrying out justice.
Fact: The claim made in the video is  false. The boy seen in the video is Christian Fernandez, who was brought before a Jacksonville, Florida court in 2011 after being accused of beating his two-year-old brother to death. The judge seen in the video is American judge Frank Caprio, known for his kind and considered rulings in Providence, Rhode Island. Fernandez, who was 12 years old at the time of his arrest, has never come before Judge Frank Caprio. The images in the video appear to have been stitched together to convey a false narrative."

Freyy on X - "i finally did it: someone was talking on the phone with loud speaker sitting close to me while we were inside the bus. so I joined the conversation with full confidence. when she gave me that “are you mad?” look, I said, “sorry,I thought it was a group call since you put it on loudspeaker for all of us.” she quietly told the person, “I’ll call you back,” and ended the call immediately."

Covie on X - "Umm, why is a sitting Supreme Court justice doing an interview with Fox News???"
Bad Hombre on X - "Sotomayor did interviews with NBC on Sept 15th, CBS on Sept 9th and 19th, and Stephen Colbert on Sept 10. Ketanji did an interview with CNN’s Abby Philip and Colbert last year. Not a peep from you."

Meme - "Eva Braun, 18,
2KM-NS, far-right
extremism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, traditionalism, homophobia
I'm looking for a person with similar views"

Meme - Susan Gerbie @SusanGerbic: "Sadly, this is the world we live in now."
"These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us. Who thinks I should fly the plane?"
Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo: "This cartoon is very telling, though not the way that people who post it think. The professional class thinks of itself as expert pilots. Much of the rest of America thinks of us as expert pilots who have hijacked their plane."
Earl Scott @rightnGA: "My take on this cartoon is simple....if airline pilots were wrong as often as the "expert class' is then the passengers would probably be just as well off with some random guy flying......fortunately they are not."
Besides the point about "experts" imposing their preferences on everyone, which is distinct from offering what is the best way to attain a goal, left wingers think "qualifications" are more important than achievements and results after all. Jared Kushner's two Middle East peace deals are great cases in point

A hotel is offering ‘self-love pods’ for solo play. Here’s why that’s a thing - "Across America, and around the world, more and more people are going it alone.  Nearly a third of US households are single-occupancy, a record high. In Europe, the trend is even stronger, with around 46% of Danish households inhabited by men and women flying solo.  People are marrying later and less often. Just 37% of Americans ages 25-49 are married with children, down from 67% in 1970.  Google searches for solo travel have had a post-Covid surge and Millennials and Gen Z are driving a boom in solo dining, with more people eating alone at restaurants than ever before.  Now a leisure activity traditionally seen as the preserve of couples has been given a lone-wolf twist: the romantic getaway, or its more carnal variant, the dirty weekend.  To mark Sexual Health Awareness Month this September, New York’s Walker Hotel Tribeca has introduced a “Self-Love Pod” offer, aimed at the recently single...   The perks include a Recess adaptogen drink with claims towards de-stressing and reenergizing; adaptogens are a big player in 2024’s alcohol-free beverage trend.  There’s perfume oil and fancy soap from skincare brand Fablerune and a journal from personal growth brand Grow Into. A curated selection of self-love focused meditations from Cacti Wellness awaits guests, plus a free pass to the Othership sauna in the Flatiron district.   Finally there’s an egg-shaped personal massager from sexual wellness brand Maude, for external use, suggesting that this is a package aimed at female consumers.   Women are, after all, driving the boom in the global wellness industry, of which the $1.8 trillion US market is the biggest in the world.  In heterosexual relationships, an estimated 70% of divorces in the US are initiated by women.  Due to factors including longer life expectancy for women and men being more likely to remarry after being divorced or widowed, the majority of single-person households are women living alone – in the US and also in developed countries around the world...   While DINKs (dual income, no kids) are often on easy street as the demographic with the highest net worth, single Americans bear the weight of what’s colloquially known as the “single tax”: paying premium on rent, mortgages and household bills.  Not only do single travelers have to gather their pennies together to afford a hotel room alone, often they face a “single supplement” price hike when booking flights and cruises...   For women in midlife, sexual activity becomes increasingly “use it or lose it.” As well as helping maintain good sexual health, a 2020 study by University College London found that women who engaged in sexual activity weekly or monthly — solo or otherwise — were less likely to enter early menopause."

Travel news: Hotels reveal their wildest room service orders - "There’s the Evian-filled bathtub requested for a child’s routine scrub-up, and the customized allergen-free menu for a pet.  There’s the separate requests that were fielded for burnt toast, fresh goat milk and 2 kilos of bananas.  And finally there’s the demand for a high-five from a team member to ensure their room service request was read."

Atlanta’s subway cars now home to endangered sea turtles, coral reefs - "Railcars once filled with hustling commuters in the city of Atlanta are now 65 feet below the Atlantic Ocean filled with inquisitive fish, sea turtles and coral.  At the end of last year, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) dumped two railcars off Georgia’s coast as part of a program to develop reef habitats and marine wildlife with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Reef Project...   Subway cars aren’t the only unusual objects scuba divers and anglers can find in what’s known as Artificial Reef L about 23 nautical miles east of Ossabaw Island.  There are also U.S. Army M-60 battle tanks, barges, tugboats and even New York City subway cars... the practice of dumping manmade materials into the ocean to create artificial reefs dates back centuries.  In the 1700s Japanese fisherman were known to sink old vessels and rocks into local waters to improve fishing, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources."

🇬🇧 IM 🇬🇧 on X - "If you want to know whether you're on the "right side" of an issue from an external angle, assess the intellectual capacity, mental stability and moral quality of the people agreeing with you. If lots of hysterical people agree, you should probably re-evaluate your position.
This isn’t a foolproof rule, by the way. The fact that a number of unstable or misguided people agree with something reasonable or true does not make it wrong by association. This is simply a heuristic - a signpost for more rigorous self-examination, not a substitute for it."

THE ÁĹĹÀŃ ĆÓÚÑŤÝ 🇺🇬 on X - "If You Ever feel Useless, Just Remember....King Kong Died For A Chick He Can't Even F*ck."

A "gold standard" study finds deleting Facebook is great for your mental health

James McAvoy Mistakenly Shaved His Head For X-Men - "James McAvoy has revealed that he made a gargantuan mistake ahead of his debut as Professor X in ‘X-Men: First Class’.  The Scottish actor shaved all of his hair off ahead of the film, even though he was supposed to have a 60s hairstyle in it. McAvoy has confirmed that he made the huge error after simply assuming that his Charles Xavier would have the same dome as he did in the comics and when Patrick Stewart portrayed the character... He turned to a “dear friend and follicle felicitator” who then proceeded to spend “about 24 hours putting hair extensions into [his] hair.”"

Matthews: Democrats must address working-class voters - "Longtime cable news host Chris Matthews said Democrats’ “snobbery” had compelled working-class voters to support President Trump and Republican-leaning candidates...   “How does the Democratic Party, which is trying to talk to working-class people again, but are all, you know, highly educated, and they live in urban places. How do they bridge that divide, like he did?” host Katy Tur asked Matthews, referring to Kennedy... Democrats, which increasingly has become a party of highly educated people living near urban centers.  “The people that didn’t go to college are voting for Trump. Why? Because the snobbery and attitude,” Matthews said"

Peter Lloyd on X - "Today marks 10yrs since the Bataclan massacre. Muslims slaughtered 130 and maimed 683. Victims were castrated, raped, disembowelled and tortured before execution. French authorities suppressed this fact for 'social cohesion'. This image was taken moments before the attack.🇫🇷"

Prometheus on X - "I was at a French school when the Bataclan attack happened. The day before, we were told there would be a minute of silence to honor the victims.   During that moment, many of the Arab and Muslim students (because their parents had told them to) started making noise and shouting. When the French kids reacted and fights broke out, those same parents complained about the French children not being punished."

Nicolas Battini on X - "Il y a 10 ans, j’étais un jeune militant nationaliste corse incarcéré dans une prison dont la moitié de la population applaudissait et saluait les massacres du Bataclan. Dix ans plus tard, nombre de patriotes corses ont compris l’impérieuse nécessité de faire front commun avec tous ceux qui veulent s’opposer à la conquête islamiste. Dès lors que ceux qui veulent défendre la France acceptent d’intégrer la nécessaire défense de l’identité du peuple corse, ils sont nos alliés naturels et privilégiés. Car il n’y aura que deux camps dans les années à venir. Les défenseurs du monde dont nous héritons et que nous aimons d’un côté. Et en face ceux qui le haïssent au point de massacrer les nôtres. Nous ne nous tromperons pas."
fleur inverse on X - "Ten years ago, a 22yo Corsican nationalist, then in prison in Paris for violent activism, was wondering if there was a football match because half of the prison was cheering, banging on doors and applauding. It was not a match they were cheering on, but the islamic terror attack."

Meme - "Am I the only one who peels the croissant before eating it?"
"Getting called into HR for repeatedly sending this to my French colleagues"

Meme - "the Fantastic 4 *Dollytheditz and Mother exposing breasts*"

Meme - "You gotta help me, bro! did it with this girl who lied about being 18! FBI is on my tail!!!"
"Okay dude. Relax. She lied about her age just so that she can have a good time under sheets. If she is 17 or 16 then it's natural for some girls to lie to get some. How old was she anyway?"
"8"
"Nigga you are going to jail"

Meme - Lilith Lovett - Famous Minor...: "Name an instance where this actually happened."
">Devs follow the fans' advice to Improve their game
>Game does stupendously well"
notch @notch: "Minecraft. I didn't originally even consider keeping creative mode in until I found out the players actually were good at designing buildings and enjoyed it. I'm the type of minecraft player who builds.. uh.. let's call them functional housing."

Meme - "Ratatouille is hilarious because the villain wasn't even evil he just didn't want food cooked by rats"

Emil Kirkegaard on X - "Replication failures in political psychology. Since the median researcher is I guess somewhere between Kamala Harris and Bernie, it is not surprising that essentially all research concerns ways to explain the outgroup (American conservatives), and most of this is unflattering, but also doesn't replicate."
Ideology: Psychological Similarities and Differences Across the Ideological Spectrum Reexamined
This won't stop left wingers from claiming "science" "proves" that conservatives are evil and defective

Kitler on X - "“We need to talk about the violent crime epidemic in red states.” ……..lists the 10 blackest cities in America"
Time to bash red states based on the ecological fallacy again

Tsujigiri - Wikipedia - "Tsujigiri (辻斬り or 辻斬, literally "crossroads killing") is a Japanese term for a practice when a samurai, after receiving a new katana or developing a new fighting style or weapon, tests its effectiveness by attacking a human opponent, usually a random defenseless passer-by, in many cases during night time. The practitioners themselves are also referred to as tsujigiri."

Americans are ‘flag jacking’ to pretend they’re Canadian overseas - here’s why it doesn’t work - "Reports of "flag jacking" date back to at least the 1960s, when the U.S. was facing scrutiny over the Vietnam War. It happened again in the 2000s as some Americans reportedly sought to distance themselves from U.S. foreign policy. More recently, Canadians angry with the Trump administration’s policies and rhetoric towards their country have called out the act, with many online even comparing it to cultural appropriation, according to CNN. On top of that, American tourists in disguise are not really fooling anyone. Apart from the obvious differences - such a systems of measurements, accents, customs and geographical knowledge - many subtleties distinguish Americans from their neighbors to the north. European tour guides who spoke to CNN said that one way they can tell Americans apart is how loud they are. “Stereotypes exist for a reason,” Denisa Podhrazska, the founder of the Let Me Show You London tour group, told the broadcaster. “We use them because many of them are true. And it’s not just Americans, it’s for everybody. Every nation has its own little quirks, that’s how we recognize each other.” Americans are typically "really nice, and loud," she added. As Podhrazska said, stereotypes exist on both sides of the aisle. The old joke of: ‘How do you tell is someone is from Canada? They tell you,’ also rings true, according to guides. “Canadians will identify themselves as Canadian right away,” Parisian Bertrand d’Aleman, founder of My Private Paris tours, told CNN. Other tour guides interviewed by the outlet added that Canadians do often try and distinguish themselves from Americans. The approaches tourists take to foreign cultures can also help differentiate which country they come from, guides say. Many Canadians have a broader knowledge of European history and affairs given their cultural heritage. Charley Harrison, founder of the London-based Totally Tailored Tours, meanwhile, told CNN that Americans can fall into the trap of assuming their culture is the norm, even trying to pay in U.S. dollars while abroad and their insistence that it is British people who have an accent. Canadian cultural commentator Stewart Reynolds said that his countrymen aren’t perfect either, however. “Canada’s got jerks. We’ve got loads of jerks,” he told CNN. Robert Schertzer, a professor at the University of Toronto, explained that some Canadians get upset by acts such as “flag jacking” as the country’s nationalism “at its core has an element of anti-Americanism.”"

I Suffer Therefore I Am by Pascal Bruckner: 5-star review

I Suffer Therefore I Am by Pascal Bruckner: 5-star review
Philosopher Pascal Bruckner’s masterful book, I Suffer Therefore I Am, calls for the rejection of self-pity and imagined guilt  

Pascal Bruckner is one of France’s, and the West’s, foremost philosophers; his work is less well-known in Britain than it should be. He has made a formidable reputation for attacking contemporary mindsets, notably the self-hating, anti-Westernism of the Left, the masochism of Western guilt, and the obsession with noxious and illogical identity politics. All those themes converge in his masterful book I Suffer Therefore I Am, which dissects victimhood, perhaps the most toxic feature of current discourse – a confidence trick played by people, even whole nations, on useful idiots who long to punish themselves for their own imagined guilt.

So much of this is about posturing. Bruckner suggests that, for many, “the ultimate dream would be to become a martyr without ever having suffered anything other than the misfortune of having been born… Today’s citizens can wake up one morning and exclaim, as if struck with a revelation, ‘I too am a victim.’” Their “executioners”, he says, include “capitalism, my family, the bourgeoisie, patriarchy, the system” – a list that is likely to “change and accumulate”. Seeking bogus victimhood has become an equal-opportunity delusion, with many examples on the Right – Donald Trump is cited – but many more on the Left. After all, the Left’s great invention, welfarism, thrives not least because of unchallenged victimhood.

Bruckner sets out how the advance of “woke” began with Leftists seeking to radicalise discourse through reducing minorities to the status of victims. He mentions the discipline, coined by a fellow philosopher, of “offensology” – “today, we are all oversensitive, lashing out at the slightest shock, the slightest remark” – and the idiotic concept of “microaggressions”. For example, he cites a former French minister, a black woman, calling it a “microaggression” whenever she walked past a statue of Colbert, who under the ancien régime drew up the code of how masters should treat their slaves. Some are so resolute in their search for victimhood that they claim it even in success: Bruckner quotes a French singer who, on winning a major televised award, nonetheless informed the audience watching that “they don’t want to let us overweight black people rise to the top” – whoever “they” are.

Bruckner is right to question the position that the descendants of slaves and other oppressed or exterminated people should receive special treatment, beyond the right we all enjoy, equally, to be spared any further oppression. He denounces the notion of “indulgence credit for eternity”, and the idea that such people are “born with a portfolio of grievances to build on”. This is ahistorical: “Each of us could go back into our family tree and find a slave, a serf or a hanged man to explain our present misery.”

He exposes the absurdity of white people publicly “taking the knee” after the killing of George Floyd, when practically none of those kneelers had ever done a disservice to a person of colour in his or her life. There are millions who feel better for professing guilt by recognising the victimhood of others; that this victimhood is largely confected does not appear to occur to them, nor that they are often being exploited by political extremists who manipulate victimhood for their own ends.

A loose definition of oppression will inevitably expand the ranks of the oppressed. “Even studying is sometimes equated with oppression,” Bruckner writes. “Any teaching of a new subject… is violence inflicted on a child who is being torn from the soft cocoon of ignorance.” The resultant dilution of school curricula does not just spare students the arduousness of learning, for example, foreign languages or (especially) the classics. It also relieves them of reading texts that make them experience “the retrograde representation of women or minorities, so as not to wound their fragile souls. As a result, standards are falling, illiteracy is on the rise and private schools that still focus on excellence and competition are flourishing.” (That, of course, is not least why the Labour Government seeks to destroy them by putting VAT on their fees.)

Bruckner argues that victimhood is not merely a problem with individuals who don’t grasp how self-destructive and pathetic their self-pity is; when states follow suit, it becomes a problem on a vast scale. Putin’s Russia is his key example, and an example too of what he terms the reductio ad Hitlerum, by which alleged victims enlist Nazism as their opponents’ creed – as Vladimir Putin does, absurdly, with Ukraine, even though Volodymyr Zelensky himself is Jewish. Even Hamas can be victims, though Bruckner, in illustrating the imagined hierarchies of suffering, wonders why nobody seems to know much or care about Arab-on-Arab violence any more than they highlight the long global history of non-white people engaging in slavery. But then victim reversal is a familiar human trait, used to conceal the wickedness of those portraying themselves falsely as victims, such as when senior Nazis consoled those who murdered Jews for the distress this taking of innocent lives might have caused them.

Similarly, Bruckner asks why the suffering in the Gulag, under the Stalinist regime, or in China under Mao, is rarely placed in the same category as that inflicted by Hitler. Some victims, even if they have suffered identical fates, seem to be more important than others, especially those whose misery was inflicted by fascists and not communists. The idea that men are uniquely violent is countered by depressing lists of names of the bestial women who did the Third Reich’s dirty work in the camps – and did it with pleasure – not to mention the thousands of teenage girls who, Bruckner says, went to Syria to engage in jihad and assist in the enslavement and maltreatment of other women.

Bruckner is unequivocal in his belief that some seek victim status in order to attract attention: “There are people whose only identity is to be ill… these little bundles of misfortune recite their litanies to anyone who will listen.” In the West, millions have embraced a culture of whining. “How,” he asks, “did we pass from the heroic figure of Rosa Parks fighting discrimination in America to that of Greta Thunberg weeping over the fate of the planet? That’s the story of the past half-century.”

Although he concedes that there are still real heroes, performing acts of genuine heroism in saving the lives of others at the cost of their own, too many people prefer to be cast as victims, exploiting the status either out of narcissism or for wider political ends. And heaven help any political leader who does not emote excessively at anyone else’s misfortune: George W Bush never recovered from showing insufficient empathy after Hurricane Katrina.

Bruckner asks whether we might, at last, shed “the robes of martyrdom to enter the orders of the free”. One woman he praises for doing just that is Samantha Geimer, who was sexually assaulted by Roman Polanski when she was 13, but has had enough of being a victim. Others lack Geimer’s courage, and lack of ulterior motive. Leaving aside the personal and political gains to be made by those who present themselves as victims, there is also a whole grief-maintenance industry that earns a handsome living from encouraging this toxic mentality.

Bruckner’s thesis is underlined by this thought: stuff happens, it’s a pretty horrible world out there, and we had better get used to it. “Cruelty kills but does not break us,” he writes. “Composure is one of the faces of heroism.” If we did face up to our fate, perhaps we would be better prepared, when manipulative politicians such as Putin, Trump and Erdogan try to present themselves as victims, to treat them with the contempt they merit. Too many people have been terrorised by fashion into a permanent state of guilt that forces them into a permanent state of compassion for individuals and institutions who don’t need it or deserve it, but milk it for all it’s worth. Enough is enough.