And I Bet You Don't Feel As If You Played Any Part In Breaking It?

To call this Saturday the nation’s 250th birthday is to indulge a comfortable fiction. 1776 was a declaration, not a birth certificate – and the founders wrote its claims of human equality while this nation enslaved human beings

Says who? well, 'Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist' So you know what you’re in for.

So I’m not in the mood to celebrate “America 250”, and I’m not alone.

The affection is thin this summer: the Pew Research Center found that 69% of Americans were dissatisfied with the country’s direction early this year. That is not ingratitude. Sometimes a sour mood is simply clear vision.

Without the context, this statement is worthless. There's no definition of 'the country's direction' to say exactlt what they were dissatified with - it might as well have been the march of progressive ideas as the return of conservative ones.

Nearly 250 years later, the US is not a finished monument, but a structure still under repair, still contested – and in places being quietly stripped for parts.

Wait for it, wait for it… 

The president tried, by executive order, to read the children of undocumented and temporary residents out of the 14th amendment. The court blocked him, six to three – though only five justices joined the chief justice’s full constitutional reasoning. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, concurring, called the Reconstruction amendments “an anticaste, antisubordination reset”, not “a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery”. The citizenship clause was not a gift the founders left us; it was a repair, built after Dred Scott, slavery and war to overrule a court that had made blood the measure of belonging.

Birthright citizenship is proof that the founding promise did not preserve itself; it had to be rebuilt into the constitution after the country’s own highest court exposed the lie beneath the celebration.

Does this man realise that the Founding Fathers were facing a much different world when they wrote that into the Constitution? 

The victory did not last the afternoon. Within hours, the president called the ruling “too bad for our Country” and told Congress to “start TODAY” on ending birthright citizenship, insisting no amendment was needed. That is not how the constitution works – ordinary legislation cannot rewrite a constitutional guarantee. But he is reaching for a door a sixth justice left ajar: Brett Kavanaugh wrote that Congress could carve out exceptions by statute. A repair can be upheld in the morning and marked for demolition by nightfall.

Repair also means seeing people as people. The court upheld state laws barring transgender girls from girls’ sports, and in the West Virginia case it let the category decide without asking whether excluding one child – who socially transitioned in grade school and took puberty blockers before she ever competed – actually served the state’s stated interests. That isn’t equal protection. It’s permission to discriminate.

The court upheld state laws banning BOYS from girls sport as the voters in that State evidently wanted...but discrimination is a 'bad' word, even when it's the right thing to do to protect the integrity and safety of female sport. 

Celebration will not house people, protect voters or repair what power is trying to break. A country can be taken apart slowly, lawfully, one ruling at a time – and the people taking it apart are not vandals but officials: a president who cancels a housing signing by lunchtime, a court that clears the way for the largest checks, all of it done in the name of patriotism. The answer is not fireworks, and it is not despair. It is to name plainly what is being damaged, and by whom – then to get busy fixing it.

Trump has named it - it's people like you, with an extreme progressive agenda - and he's getting busy fixing it.

White Woman 'Savior Syndrome ' Goes Wrong

A woman was left needing surgery after being mauled by her dog - which she had adopted on Facebook three weeks earlier. Charlotte Potts, 32, adopted the one-year-old Cane Corso cross American Bulldog from a breeder on Facebook.

Adopting a powerful breed from Facebook, what could possibly go wrong?  

Initially, the dog - called Blue - settled in well and Charlotte says he didn't "show any aggression" towards her and her family. But on her routine walk on Saturday morning, July 4, Blue turned on Charlotte and attacked her, sinking his jaws into her legs after ripping through her trousers.She called for her younger brother, eight, to run and leave the enclosed dog park and call for help whilst Blue continued to attack her. The dog then went for Charlotte's right arm which she allowed him to do whilst she used her left arm to tie his lead to a fence.

The kid is lucky it didn’t turn on him. She would never have fought it off. 

The whole ordeal lasted around eight minutes, and Charlotte was taken to hospital by ambulance whilst the dog was euthanised by the police.

With extreme prejudice, I hope!

"It felt like a really long time - I didn't think I was going to get out of there. There's six levels of dog bites, and six is fatal - this one was level five. I love dogs, but I want to raise awareness around making sure dogs are fully assessed before being rehomed."

Thanks a lot, sweetie but most of us are sensible enough not to acquire a misbegotten mutt of unknown background from social media in the first place! Certainly not one of a bloodsport heritage that probably outweighs us.

"I'd still be in hospital if it wasn't for my partner Rachel, and without my kick boxing background I don't think I'd have been strong enough to fight him off."

*bites tongue* 

In the weeks before the attack, police visited Charlotte after receiving an anonymous tip off that she owned an XL Bully. They determined that Blue was an American Bulldog by Vegetable taking a photo of his head and as a result, did not take him away.

Isn't it about time there were restrictions on dog ownership no matter the breed? Didn’t any of the cops take a look at the hulking brute and suggest to her she wouldn’t be able to control it if it went berserk?

Niche Interests

“We left Warrington at 5.15am this morning to get here,” Emma tells me, standing in a queue that stretches down Walton Street. It is just after 9am on a Saturday in Oxford, the students are still in bed and the tourists have yet to descend on the city, but this corner of Jericho is already buzzing.

It’s a queue for a new bookshop. That’s a good thing right? 

Oxford is rarely short of literary pilgrims. Every year, visitors flock to the colleges and libraries that shaped writers including JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Iris Murdoch. But this crowd is here for something a little different. Instead of queueing for the Bodleian, they’re swapping recommendations for dragon riders and faerie kingdoms.  

Oh dear. 

The bright pink doors they’re waiting outside belong to Bad Girl Books, the UK’s first romantasy bookshop. The subgenre, blending fantasy and romance, has gone from niche online obsession to one of publishing’s biggest commercial success stories.

Yes my Kindle offers are usually stuffed with these, poorly written barely illiterate smut, but dragons are popular now so slapping a dragon on everything ensures it sells. 

Readers are immersing themselves in sprawling fantasy worlds of “enemies-to-lovers” storylines, where “fated mates” discover they were destined for each other all along, and brooding “shadow daddies” – dark, morally ambiguous male protagonists with supernatural powers – inspire devoted online fandoms.

Well, I have a taste for Laurel K Hamilton myself, but that tends to be rather better written than most of these. But at least it’s getting people reading.

“Last year I read about 100 romantasy books, and I’ve already read 60 this year,” says 22-year-old Izzy, who has been waiting in the queue with her friend since 7.30am. “I used to hate reading when I was in school, but then I discovered romantasy, and realised that there is a whole world of books out there that I really enjoy. It’s an escape from reality.”

And that's got to be a good thing, right? 

Inside, shelves are divided into categories including “Monster Smut”, “Unhinged” and “LGBTQ+”. T-shirts and caps proclaim “I Heart Fictional Men” and “Dibs on the Villain”; tote bags read: “I Like My Books Like I Like My Margaritas – Spicy”, and “My Favourite Colour Is Morally Grey.”

Oh, well, maybe not! 

More Undue Leniency

Charles Wood, Head of the Bench, said the CCTV footage placed the offence in the most serious category under sentencing guidelines. 

He said: 'The CCTV footage is very clear, and having seen it we determine this is a category A1 offence, the most serious offence. 

'The traffic light you went through was red for a significant period of time, as much as eight seconds. 

'Nine times out of ten this wouldn't happen, but it's precisely because of the possible consequences that we have such things in place. 

'The fact is: it did happen.'

And despite that, and the fact the crash she caused involved a police car on an emergency call, the courts merely patted her on the head and said 'there, there..' 

As well as the suspended eight-month jail term, Wright was banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay £272 in costs.

So much for keeping death off the roads, we'll just have to hope she'll never be able to get insurance in the future. 

No compensation was ordered for Merseyside Police or Constable Thompson as those are covered by insurance and would constitute a civil matter.

🤬 

What The State Did To These Women Was Far Worse Than Anything The Father Did..

Mark walked away with no criminal record or any form of monitoring. He was not placed on the sex offender register and there is nothing he has to disclose to an employer or a partner.

Because he hadn't broken any law, he's written some fiction. That this fiction involved the sexual abuse of his daughter is neither here nor there.

All images of children being abused are grounds for arrest, even when the men are not physically abusing anyone. Yet Emily’s case turned out to be not so clearcut in the eyes of the police. Were written fantasies about child abuse, shared on a legal site, against the law?

In short, no. Not even when an undercover police officer is watching.

This question would lead Emily all the way to parliament to try to toughen the law on sex chat sites.

Of course it did. 

The sexual assault charges against Mark were dropped and changed to the sending by public electronic communication messages of an indecent, obscene or menacing character under the Communications Act 2003. A court date was set and Emily and Fiona expected Mark to plead guilty as he had never denied the horrendous way he had described abusing Emily online.

But that was before he sort legal advice clearly. 

Within days of the arrest, Fiona took radical steps to completely reshape the life that Mark had blown to pieces. “I had a job interview a couple of days later and I just went to it in a daze. I barely remember it but I got the job, and at that moment I decided I would move house and start the new job as soon as I could.”

While Fiona was preparing to move, Emily was going down a rabbit hole into the darkest recesses of the internet. She began to read all she could about sex chat sites and was horrified to learn how easy it is to step straight into sexual chats about children.She wanted the police to know Mark hadn’t touched her, but she wanted him to be prosecuted for sharing his child abuse fantasies online. And she wanted to be recognised as a victim, something the police didn’t seem to understand.

Of course, victim status, what every teenager desires most these days. 

But one day in the run-up to the court hearing, Fiona got a text from Mark saying he was not going to plead guilty. “He said, ‘I’ve found a loophole.’ With help from his lawyer, he had found a way to plead not guilty.”

Just days before the court hearing, the police got in touch. They were dropping the case. “They told us that, after discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service, they didn’t think there was a realistic chance of conviction. The officer I spoke to told me that in the eyes of the law, Emily was not a victim and therefore no crime had been committed. He actually said that in this situation the ‘victim’ was the undercover officer as they were the ones who read the messages.”

Once again the CPS dropped the ball, but shouldn’t they have realised that there was no law broken here before it got this far? 

Fiona has seen Mark only once since the case was dropped: when she met him to get his signature on divorce papers. She saw then how happy he was to have escaped prosecution. “He made it clear that he considered it a prudish response, the public disapproval of a private fetish. We were prudes, the police were as well. It might have been embarrassing to have the messages revealed, but it wasn’t anything that should involve the law.”

Nor should it be. We don't criminalise people for writing fiction. Even if it's distasteful fiction.

For both Fiona and Emily, there is a feeling that people looking in at their situation might be judging them, questioning why they didn’t spot the signs.

They might well ask... 

She and Mark had had their ups and downs. “He was controlling of me. I had discovered in the past he had been chatting to women online. We went to therapy to work on our relationship and I thought we were both putting in effort. Just before this happened I had been feeling he had a swagger to him. Now I know it is because he was still getting fulfilled by a secret online life.”

And like vengeful women everywhere, she cannot tolerate the thought. And is being used by people who do not have her or her daughter's wellbeing ay heart to push their own agenda.. 

McGlynn wants to see “a specific criminal offence to advocate, counsel or glorify child sexual abuse in text”, which would cover discussions in chatrooms and beneath videos on porn sites.

The State should not be encouaging women or men to believe that something they find distateful falls within its purview for the dead hand of the State to resolve. 

Tough! Live With It....

 

...especially if you are going to tell us a nobody from Rotherham drove 300 miles to kill her, but you have 'no information' that it was a politically motivated killing. Well, you have it now, don't you, and counter-terror has the investigation as a result.

CCTV shared with police from the day of Widdecombe’s death showed a man leaving a Rotherham address linked to the suspect at 7am and driving off in a Vauxhall Corsa, the Times reported.

Who shared it with them, and why?

Sir Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said there had been a “very noticeable trend” for politicians, including government ministers, to comment on police incidents and murder investigations while they were still unfolding.

They no longer trust you either! And they are right to...giving you access to the media is like giving alcopops and matches to a ADHD toddler and expecting the house not to burn down.

'But Since That's The Plot Of Every James Bond Film, They Didn't Think It Mattered'

A secret inquiry by MI5's watchdog concluded the security service knew an abusive agent it defended in court was a misogynist who was "obsessed" with violence, the BBC can reveal.

Hard to see why they’d feel they had to care about that… 

The inquiry took place after BBC News originally exposed how MI5 had covered up for the man - a neo-Nazi informant known publicly as agent X. The government took the BBC to court in 2022 in a failed attempt to block our investigation, but it won agent X legal anonymity.

Useful in a spy, but didn’t he already have it? 

Following the BBC story, the office of the investigatory powers commissioner (IPCO) Sir Brian Leveson launched an inquiry, which - like much of IPCO's work - was secret. Details of the inquiry can now be reported for the first time.

• IPCO - which oversees the use of covert investigatory powers, including the UK's intelligence agencies - concluded: "Strong indications" of agent X's interest in violence, including video footage of him threatening his girlfriend with a machete, did not lead to an MI5 review of his suitability of as an agent.

•  IPCO said it "should have done" (sic) agent X was "openly misogynistic" with his MI5 handlers, who knew he was involved with a "pick up artistry" movement that seeks to exploit women for sex, but "none of this attracted much attention" from the handlers MI5 knew agent X was "obsessed" with violence, because he told them, and there were indications he might be a threat to others "arising from his general interest in extreme violence". 
• But IPCO said there was a "lack of sufficient professional curiosity" about him by MI5.

Frankly, if he was a good agent, should it have mattered at all?

I Must Have Missed The News That Hungary Was A War-Torn Nation

A Hungarian teenager broke into the bungalow of an elderly couple in a terrifying raid that left their beloved dog dead.The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted charges of robbery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Is he a refugee? There's no war in Hungary, is there? Why is he here?

The boy was not charged with any animal cruelty offence and police treated the dog's death as unexplained.

More lazy policing. 

The teenager fled with Mrs Thompson's mobile phone and purse but was soon arrested in a park.

In a statement issued at the time, South Yorkshire Police said: 'Violence and abhorrent acts of this kind have no place in our communities and will not be tolerated. 'An elderly couple has been physically and mentally affected by this incident, and we will do all we can to ensure justice is served.'

Well, you didn't in this case, dis you? And the rest of the so-called 'justice system' didn't do any better. 

The boy was handed a two-year detention and training order at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on July 1.

Pathetic, but surely to be followed up by a deportation order? 

Oh, and that police promise? A lie, like every statement they make these days:

Police refused to disclose his nationality, claiming doing so was not in the public interest.

What would they know of the public interest, since it's clear they no longer serve it? 

Cruel, Maybe...

 

...but apposite! Matt always has his finger on the pulse

Sunday Funnies...

 "House of the Dragon" costumiers had to get inspiration from somewhere...