Don't Look Now

Update 509. Executive Orders Special. #BeMorePorcupine

As we move into 2025 I will be featuring, to start with, and in alphabetical order, those Readers’ Choices for best film ever that did not make the top seven ( see Update 500 for the top seven).

My wife was the only person who nominated Don’t Look Now (1973). I think it is fair to say that rarely will you see a film change direction so suddenly and unexpectedly. But I don’t want to say too much if you haven’t seen it. Directed by Nicholas Roeg from a short story by Daphne du Maurier.

Some time after the drowning of their young daughter Christine in an accident at their English country home, John Baxter ( Donald Sutherland) and his grief-stricken wife Laura ( Julie Christie) travel to Venice where John has accepted a commission from a bishop to restore an ancient church. Laura encounters two elderly sisters, Heather and Wendy, at a restaurant where she and John are dining; Heather claims to be psychic and—despite being blind—informs Laura she is able to "see" the Baxters' deceased daughter.

Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.

Free Speech

Here is another excellent Executive Order from the new US President.

RESTORING FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ENDING FEDERAL CENSORSHIP

EXECUTIVE ORDER

January 20, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to: (a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;

(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;

(c) ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and

(d) identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.

Sec. 3. Ending Censorship of Protected Speech. (a) No Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary to section 2 of this order.

(b) The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, shall investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report.

Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

January 20, 2025.

Meanwhile, luckily we are not in the European Union ( but Ireland is)!

Jason Osborne in Gript News ( Tech giants sign on to EU code of conduct for tackling ‘illegal hate speech’ 20 January) reports:

Social media giants operating in Europe have signed on to a Code of Conduct on countering “illegal hate speech online,” the European Commission has today said.

The Commission welcomed the integration of the revised ‘Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online +’ into the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The code encourages participatory bodies to establish their own codes of conduct for tackling “illegal hate speech”.

Both Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram have signed on to the code, along with other widely-used platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube.

“The Code of conduct+ will strengthen the way online platforms deal with content that EU and national laws define as illegal hate speech,” a press release from the Commission said.

“The integrated Code of conduct will facilitate compliance with and the effective enforcement of the DSA when it comes to risks of dissemination of illegal content on their services.”

Signatories of the Code commit to allowing a network of ‘Monitoring Reporters’, described as “not-for-profit or public entities with expertise on illegal hate speech”, to monitor how the organisations are reviewing hate speech notices.

Monitoring reporters may include entities designated as ‘Trusted Flaggers’ under the DSA.

The full article is here:

https://gript.ie/tech-giants-sign-on-to-eu-code-of-conduct-for-tackling-illegal-hate-speech/?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_17_2022_13_19_COPY_01)

Meanwhile we wait to see what the new Irish Government will do with the stalled Hate Speech Bill.

MAGA In The UK

On his substack, Matt Goodwin imagines what it might look like if what just happened in the States happened here. Here are his references to gender ideology, free speech and DEI.

MAGA: the UK Version.

What would Making the UK Great Again look like?

Jan 22, 2025

Radical woke ideology, including gender identity, is being shut down in all public sector institutions, including the National Health Service (NHS), the military, schools, universities, police, and government departments. It is unscientific, divisive and violates the neutrality of our public, taxpayer funded institutions.

Identity-based recruitment processes and the use of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) policies are being completely replaced with new hiring process based on meritocracy and individual achievement, not fixed group identities.

The government has also announced the restoration of full free speech and the ending of censorship, reminding the country this is the home of Magna Carta and individual liberty. This will include the immediate removal of ‘non-crime hate incidents’, hate laws, the use of gender pronouns and other speech codes in public office, as well as the full enactment of the Higher Education (Free Speech) Act and radical reform of the Equalities Act, if not repealing it altogether.

Dusty - I see the Equality Act as an essential piece of legislation. What we need is the repeal of ‘gender reassignment’ as a protected characteristic and making it clear that ‘sex’ means ‘biological sex’ ( we await the judgment of the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case). We also need the Gender Recognition Act repealed.

Any civil servants who engaged in attempts to curb free speech are having their security clearances revoked, while any non-government organizations (NGOs) which erode free speech and/or advance anti-UK and anti-Western positions are having their taxpayer-funding reviewed, if not removed, such as Labour-aligned research centres that plotted to “kill” Elon Musk’s X platform

All public sector institutions, government departments, and agencies are being instructed to reshape work around a clear definition of biological sex and end the use of radical gender identity theory in public institutions, including the teaching of our children and young people. The UK will now only recognise two sexes. Taxpayer-funded institutions will no longer advocate transgender ideology and multiple genders.

All Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion policies are being closed across government, the public sector and NHS, while jobs based on DEI are being shut down with the funding redirected to improve the delivery of public services. The government is also removing the public sector equalities duty from all public bodies.

Dusty - I don’t agree with the removal of the public sector equalities duty which can remain if the Equality Act is amended as I suggest above.

Rainbow lanyards and other symbols of politicisation are no longer permitted in the NHS, police, military, and any other public institutions. Public officials are there to deliver public services, not spread radical political dogma.

Dusty - all that would do me fine subject to my two caveats above. With regard to the Equality Act I would be anxious not to throw the baby out with the bathwater!

All thoughts gratefully received.

https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/maga-the-uk-version?publication_id=858965&post_id=154257098&isFreemail=false&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The Grooming Gangs Scandal

Unreported Story Society, directors Phelim McAteer and Ann McElhinney, have released a film of the judgment of Judge Peter Rook (played brilliantly by Dominic Frisby) in the Oxford Grooming Gangs case. This is a very difficult watch:

A List of the Accused

I last reported on the US Supreme Court Skrmetti case here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/an-angel-gets-his-wings?utm_source=publication-search

Kitty Finesse on her substack, Down the Rabbit Hole looks at those organisations, States and individuals who intervened in the case on the trans rights activist side of the argument, examines their histories and names the individuals including all counsel involved - this is very, very long…and is only Part 1!!! Some of the main players here really need to be in the dock I think ( and Kitty does too).

Outcry of Demons - Part I

Exposing the opponents of Tennessee's SB1

Jan 20, 2025

“What you’re hearing is the outcry from the demons and those that worship evil that are abusing our children, brainwashing our children to believe the lie that comes directly from Satan,” intoned Congressmen Marjorie Taylor Green at a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, referring to the hordes of protestors who had gathered in support of so-called gender affirming care. Regardless of how you feel about the notorious MTG, I think she’s on to something.

In December, the court heard oral arguments to determine whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. The bill prohibits all medical treatments intended to help “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity”.

A recent guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast made an observation which I feel applies here: while many people today don’t believe in demons, there are human actions so evil that it feels spiritually true to call them demonic. The Holocaust, child trafficking, mass shootings of school-aged children — and now this.

On its face, the situation is so patently, obviously evil, that it’s shocking there’s even debate around it. Children as young as 11 are given drugs to stop their puberty in its tracks. Once this natural and extremely necessary biological process is artificially held at bay, they’re given cross-sex hormones in a maniacal attempt to trick their bodies into evolving into the opposite sex. Finally, surgeries that would frankly make Josef Mengele blush are performed on minors or very young adults. These include breast amputation, castration, the shaving down of bones, inverting the penis inside itself, slicing off chunks of flesh and rolling them up into faux phalluses — all in a vain attempt to form some vague simulacrum of the opposite sex. Consequences of these “treatments” include incontinence, impaired sex drive, sterility, inability to breastfeed, bone marrow density loss, osteoporosis, cognitive impairment, mood disorders, increased suicidality, and increased risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, blood clots, and cancer. All before the child can legally cast his or her vote. If that isn’t demonic, I don’t know what is.

Child transitions came about because men make very ugly, unconvincing women. In their brief amicus curiae in support of neither party, Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM) argues that “gender transition of children was initiated because of the disappointing outcomes in transitioned adults.” Pretending a 6 '0 tall, big-handed and hipless wonder in a dress and cheap lipstick is actually a dainty woman is not psychologically sustainable. If these men are to be taken seriously in society, they need to be able to pass as women. The only way to achieve this is to begin the transition process before the onset of male puberty. This doesn’t actually make them women of course, but it makes deception much easier. Once again, children have become the unconsenting subjects of adult social experiments, while autogynephilic men get their way and even get to play victim in the process.

A woman trapped inside a man’s body is an absurd thing no doubt, but if they can make you believe that, then they can get you to commit atrocities like child sexual mutilation. As the SEGM’s brief also points out, the youth gender pipeline marks a stunning departure from normal medical orthodoxy, in which the efficacy of experimental treatments are well established in adult patients before being tested on children. In this case, adult gender treatments proved at best inconclusive and at worst actively detrimental to patients’ health — yet this experiment was conducted on children anway.

It’s also worth noting that if you tell children they can change their sex, they tend to believe you. They will pursue every available medical pathway that seems to offer an end to the very real distress they’re experiencing. In this way, doctors, parents, and activists have set these children up for failure, knowingly setting them out on a wild goose chase for opposite sexed bodies that will never come to fruition. In reality, by the time these kids grow up and figure out the truth, it will be too late to reverse most of the medicalization they’ve undergone.

So, who are the demons jeering outside the capital? And more importantly, who are the demons inside the fortress walls? These are creatures of a higher caliber of evil, not merely going along with the crowd or passively supporting something for fear of being labeled a bigot, but those who have made every effort to enshrine evil into law. While the groups and individuals arguing in support of the gender-affirming care ban are no doubt admirable and deserving of all the praise in the world, they won’t be my focus today. Instead, I want to spotlight their opposition. Even though chances of the Supreme Court upholding the ban are good, I still think it’s vitally important that we call out and remember who asked for this. I believe that they will be on the “wrong side of history,” as they like to call it, sooner rather than later.

This article aims to break down the amicus briefs filed on the opposing side of the case and expose their authors. Many of them hide behind compassion and empathy, others behind reputable organizations and credentials. All of them are frauds. Because as we’ll see, there’s a devil hidden behind every smile.

Disclaimer: Since the amicus briefs filed in this case are so numerous, I’ve split them into two parts.

The full piece is here:

https://kittyfinesse.substack.com/p/outcry-of-demons-part-i?publication_id=2407739&r=1v403b

New Zealand

As many readers know, Party of Women candidate at the last UK General Election, Kelly Dougall now runs an excellent podcast. I put Kelly in touch with our friend, Katrina Biggs. Di Landy from Mana Wāhine Kōrero was invited to join and this has resulted in a great discussion between the three covering a vast range of topics including the events at Albert Park in Auckland when the Let Women Speak event was ambushed and the New Zealand Police were notable by their absence. I get an honourable mention at the beginning 😇

Cults

Arty Morty often compares the cult of Scientology to the cult of Gender Ideology. In yet another brilliant piece of investigative journalism on his substack, The Secret Gender Files Malcolm Clark hones in on a very specific example of that.

Gaiman: Inspired by a Gospel of Abuse?

Neil Gaiman's combination of abusive behaviour and fake social activism bears all the hallmarks of the sinister cult of Scientology within which the writer was raised and remains deeply immersed.

Jan 21, 2025

Let me be clear from the start. The victims in this story do not include Neil Gaiman who has made millions from his best-selling fantasy novels and who now stands accused of rape and sexual predation on women.

No one gets to blame what happened to them when they were seven for rapes they inflict (or are alleged to have inflicted in Gaiman’s case) when they are fifty seven. That’s why shrinks were invented. And morals.

If you do feel like empathising with Gaiman who has (boo hoo) had to step back from the Third Season of ‘Good Omens’ the TV series based on his books, feel free. I won’t be joining you.

Malcolm explains how Gaiman certainly was brought up in and was part of the Church of Scientology into his adult years and how his parents were senior figures in the Church. Gaiman also gave unquestioning support to the ‘trans lobby’ including Mermaids. Malcolm continues:

Why did Gaiman feel the need to bat so hard for the trans lobby? Other writers like Philip Pullman and Margaret Atwood made the occasional foray into confused virtue-signalling. Gaiman by contrast delighted in celebrating trans ideology and has done so since the 1980s.

One of the sources of Gaiman’s ‘queer’ obsession is, he has often said, the influence of his long-term LGBTQ+ friends.

None has been more important in that respect than the dreadful, trans identified sci fi and fantasy writer Roz Kaveney whom Gaiman has described as a mentor.

Rather you than me mate.

As we’ve seen Gaiman befriended Kaveney in 1986.

What he and Kavaney have been less keen to draw attention to is that this blossoming relationship coincided with Gaiman working at two of the best selling porn magazines in the UK, Penthouse and Knave. Trans identification and pornography. What are the chances?

There is though another reason why Gaiman may have been drawn inexorably to the trans ideology Kaveney championed. Transgender cult thinking resembles that of Scientology in unexpected ways.

In the mid 80s trans ideology and Scientology were both regressive when it came to sex stereotypes. And both were deeply homophobic.

The Church’s official stance on homosexuality in the 1980s was summed up by its official publication, ‘How to Choose Your People’ by Ruth Minshull who disparaged the allegedly “brief, sordid and impersonal relationships” of those nasty creatures: les homos.

The full piece is here:

https://malcolmrichardclark.substack.com/p/gaiman-inspired-by-a-gospel-of-abuse?publication_id=231438&post_id=154886767&isFreemail=false&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Celebrating The Gender Ideology Smashing Executive Order

A mention of a second Landy sister in one update!

Rex Landy on her substack, Reality Bites celebrates Donald Trump’s gender ideology smashing executive order ( Great title!! Wish I’d thought of that!).

Wig-Makers of the Serengeti

(Why Isn't Attenborough Making Docos About How Natural Troonacy Is?)

Rex Landy

Jan 21, 2025

45 became 47 in the good ol’ USA and all I can say is ‘Thank fuck!’ Back when I believed the Lamestream, I didn’t like DJT. I wasn’t quite at the Derangement stage, but I didn’t much care for him. When I did some research about him, his policies, how he ran things I saw I was wrong. Only president to NOT start or be implicated or involved in a war. Only president who asked what the fuck all the best people US had were stationed overseas, twiddling their thumbs/encroaching aggressively instead of serving at home. I don’t think DJT and Melania will be inviting me around to chew the fat any time soon, we’re very different people. However, what I look for in a world leader versus a friend? Worlds apart. I don’t have to LIKE him. I look at his record and actions. Private life a mess? So fucking what. Get your nose the fuck out of there and see if he can steer the country. Day One:

He’d have my vote, for real.

Biology dictates reality. This tranny bullshit came about because transvestites with a fetish were allowed to reframe their fetishes and perversions as a human right. No, tranny demands are just that. Not one thing a tranny wants is a human right. And transvestites NEED ‘trans children’ (no such thing) to validate their miserable hi-jacking of reality. If it’s so natural, again, why do you need drugs and hormones and surgery? The clap-back has begun: it’s going to take time to turn this ship around so #HoldtheLine

The full piece is here:

https://rexlandy.substack.com/p/wig-makers-of-the-serengeti

And for a comparison of the Executive Order with what happened under President Biden, see Kitty Finesse on her substack:

https://kittyfinesse.substack.com/p/my-favorite-executive-order-ever?publication_id=2407739&r=1v403b

Endpiece by Liz

Some heavy duty stuff today, so let’s have Tubby the Dwarf Horse

Endpiece by Dusty

All the confusion is caused by you, Mary O’Brien ( aka Dusty Springfield). BTW you were great!

#BeMorePorcupine

#AdultHumanFemale

#LetWomenSpeak

#LandOfThe Free

#GrassrootsArmy

#FightForFreeSpeech

#KeepOnTerfing

#GenderEnders

#NeverSurrender

The next piece will probably be on either Saturday or Sunday, Terven.

If you like this update, please send to a friend. Until next time, Terven. This isn’t over yet! Please subscribe for free or paid or buy me a coffee, like and comment.