Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 7/16

[SVPete]

Wait, That’s How Many Messages the Secret Service Missed Regarding Trump's Would-be Assassin at Butler?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/07/14/wait-thats-how-many-radio-transmissions-the-secret-service-missed-about-trumps-would-be-assassin-n2679324

Crooks climbed onto a rooftop with a clear view of the rally stage. He was less than 500 feet from Trump. How he managed to get onto the roof and fire multiple rounds became an immediate controversy, exposing a glaring security flaw around the president. We’ve covered the Secret Service being a dumpster fire in this situation. Why weren’t there snipers on the roof that Crooks occupied? Then-director Kimberley Cheatle said it was due to safety issues because of the sloped roofs, an answer that earned her universal condemnation following the assassination attempt. She got cooked before Congress and later resigned.
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Now, we’ve learned that there were some 100 radio transmissions the Secret Service missed about the would-be assassin on the day of the attack (via WBAL):

According to a release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General on June 30, 2026, the Secret Service failed to carry out and arrange several security measures during Trump's then-campaign rally for president on July 13, 2024, at the Butler Fairgrounds, which is located around 44 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sister station WTAE in Pittsburgh reports that the 64-page report outlined the Secret Service's shortcomings, saying members failed to receive 102 radio transmissions from local authorities concerning an "increasingly intense search for a suspicious person."

At what point does "incompetence" start to look like intentional carelessness or blindness? I think that point has been crossed.

[SVPete]

J.K. Rowling's Center for Women Threatens to Sue Amnesty International

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/07/15/jk-rowlings-center-for-women-threatens-to-sue-amnesty-international-n3816986

J.K. Rowling is threatening to sue Amnesty International UK after the group put out a report labeling the women's recovery center she founded as "anti-rights."

The backstory here is pretty simple. Rowling lives in Edinburgh, Scotland and back in 2022 she founded an organization called Beira's Place which was intended to be a women only center for women escaping sexual violence and domestic abuse. Because women only in this case meant actual women, not trans women, it was attacked by leftists who would prefer women escape abusive men have to share space with men pretending to be women.

Beira's Place is a trauma-informed support center in Edinburgh and the Lothians for women who have experienced sexual violence or abuse.

The center, founded by Rowling in 2022, describes itself as a "women-only" service that operates in accordance with the UK's Equality Act 2010.
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Beira's Place does not provide services to men or transgender women, a policy that has placed it at the center of wider arguments over whether services for women who have experienced sexual violence should be based on biological sex or gender identity.

Amnesty International UK published a "report" which listed Beira's Place and many other organizations as "anti-rights."

[SVPete]

J.K. Rowling Is Absolutely Destroying Amnesty International, and We're Enjoying It

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2026/07/16/jk-rowling-is-absolutely-destroying-amnesty-international-and-were-enjoying-it-n2679566

Amnesty International picked a fight it's going to lose. The other day, the human rights organization made the very bad choice to list Beria's Place, a women's rape crisis shelter, as well as For Women Scotland and the Gay Men's Network, as hate groups.

Why? Because they believe in the gender binary, Beria's Place only allows biological women to use its services. Gone are the days when Amnesty lobbied to protect political prisoners. Instead, they're now pushing to abuse women and punish gays and lesbians who don't bend the knee to the radical trans agenda.

The problem is this: Beria's Place was started by J.K. Rowling, probably the only person on the planet outside of Elon Musk with the money and the clout to obliterate Amnesty International for their sexism, homophobia, and bigotry.

(From a letter to AI)

We act for Beria's Place, a sexual violence support service for women across Edinburgh and the Lothians. Our client has supported hundreds of women who have experienced sexual violence in the course of their life.

As a human rights organisation, Amnesty International UK ("Amnesty/You") will be well aware that there is an epidemic of violence against women and girls. You will also be aware that the vast majority of violence against women and girls is perpetrated by men and that for women, recovery from sexual trauma is achieved in a women only setting.

The Equality Act 2010 recognises that it is a basic right for women to have access to single sex paces to recover from sexual violence. Beria's Place supports all women, regardless of their gender identity. For the avoidance of doubt, and as clarified by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of For Women Scotland v. Scottish Ministers, whether someone is a woman is determined by their biological sex.
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On 8 July Amnesty published a report entitled "A growing threat; the anti-rights movement in the UK" ("the Report").

Page 20 of the Report erroneously and maliciously categorises our client as an "anti-rights organisation" said to be targeting the rights of women and LGBT+ people in the UK. The Report accuses our client of having the aim of restricting "human rights by undermining human rights protections in law and practice." Furthermore the Report claims at page 4 that organisations including our client "seek to weaken existing human rights protections and prevent further progress."

AI and Doctors Without Borders used to do useful work. Both have been politicized.

Rowling is wealthy enough to defend herself against Prog verbal thuggery.

[SVPete]

Amnesty Apologizes to J.K. Rowling's Crisis Center for Women

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/08/01/amnesty-apologizes-to-jk-rowlings-crisis-center-for-women-n3817559

Two weeks ago I wrote about the brewing legal battle taking place between Amnesty International and dozens of groups it had labeled as "anti-rights" in a report it published. One of those organizations targeted by Amnesty was a rape-crisis center for women funded by author J.K Rowling.

Rowling created Beira's Place after learning that the only crisis center for women in her hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland accepted "trans women" as well. Rowling decided this would not do since it meant traumatized women would be forced to share space with men in drag.

Beira's Place was only one of many groups labeled "anti-rights" by Amnesty and quite a few of them sent Amnesty legal letters demanding a quick apology and/or a promise to retain documents in expectation of discovery for a forthcoming lawsuit. Beira's Place joined in with its own letter threatening to sue and Rowling took things up a notch by pointing out that her own JK Rowling Women's Fund would be happy to fund any lawsuits against Amnesty.
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Amnesty pulled down their "report" within 48 hours and initially made some noises about it not meeting their internal standards.
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But it wasn't clear from that statement if the report might reappear at some point, perhaps after being revised in some way. There was an expression of regret, but no apology.

Yesterday, Amnesty buckled at the knees and made a full apology for publishing the report in the first place and promised it will never be republished.
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Does anyone really believe that Amnesty is at a loss for how this was published? I don't believe that at all. I think they were all in on a report which amounted to a UK version of the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hate Watch Map." Only in this case the threat of multiple lawsuits scared them off.
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If you read between the lines it sounds like Beira's Place is saying the apology Amnesty offered is a good start but insufficient. Will there be another, more fulsome, apology? We'll have to wait and see.

Erin Reed, who writes a blog exclusively about trans issues, labeled the apology a dark day for trans rights.

AI got coopted by leftists years or decades ago. This now-retracted "report" was was no accident, didn't bypass any "standards". Either the trans-activists didn't research who all they were slandering or they ASSumed that Rowling would be good little Proggie and lay back and take it. Well, she didn't. Similarly, there is not way AI would have retracted the "report" - keep in mind, the "thinkers" who produced it are still in place - or shampologized if Rowling hadn't had such a very public voice and offered to fund slander lawsuits from all slandered shelters, not just her own.

I hope her shelter, Beira, has good security and is in a city whose police who will do their jobs without political or social considerations. Prog-activists don't lose gracefully.