Dingus of the Week: Nancy Mace

Also, the Pawing Patrol

This week, the party of the working class, the party of the common man, the party that vowed to change the world as we know it, began their bold agenda.

But it wasn’t raising the minimum wage or asking grocery store CEOs to stop artificially raising the price of food and necessities.

It was by banning one specific woman from bathrooms on Capitol Hill.

Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride was just elected to the United States House of Representatives. She will be the first trans woman in Congress. In response to this historic achievement, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution that would forbid trans women from using the restroom that aligns with their gender identity in the U.S. Capitol Building. 

Mace has openly acknowledged that the measure is intended to target McBride specifically.

But wait, there’s more. Mace followed this move by introducing a second measure that would bar trans women from using the women’s restrooms at all federal facilities: think post offices, military bases and government buildings.

Mace argues as though she, a brave warrior, is standing up for the sanctity of women’s spaces.  As if she, alone, is the one person working to save women from the very real threat of having to sit in a stall next to someone they don’t really know, then quietly exit that stall, wash their hands, and leave the bathroom. The indignity — nay, the horror! Thank you, Nancy.

In March 2021, Nancy Mace told the Washington Examiner, a shit-posting website that vaguely masquerades as a newspaper, that she supports “LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against.”

I am beginning to think that Mace thinks the T in LGBTQ stands for “tinkle.” Maybe she thinks it stands for toilet paper? What it actually stands for is “trans,” as in the people she is deliberately targeting with these bills.

Listen, I don’t know if Nancy Mace has ever peed before. Judging by the look on her face, she definitely hasn’t pooped in a while. But let me explain how women’s bathrooms work. We all walk into the bathroom at the same time, strip completely naked, do some naked yoga, then wash our hands, don our clothes, and leave. Real women don’t defecate or urinate, so there is none of that happening there. Jesus doesn’t like it. But naked hot yoga? Oh, for sure.

Just kidding. The reality is there are just stalls with walls. No one sees anyone unless you lie down on the floor. And if you are lying down on the floor of a public restroom, you have problems beyond what any law of Congress or God can fix.

In the meantime, Donald Trump is assembling a potential cabinet filled with people who have multiple sexual assault and rape allegations between them.

• Pete Hegseth: Accused of sexually assaulting a woman in California in 2017.

• Linda McMahon: Sued for allegedly enabling the sexual abuse of children.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr:  Accused of sexually assaulting his children’s babysitter.

• Elon Musk: Accused of workplace sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.

• And Matt Gaetz: Investigated for allegedly paying women for sexual favors and allegedly having sex with a minor.

It’s a real A-Team of ALLEGED ALLEGED ALLEGED sex pests. But only if the A stands for A minor. (Respect to Kendrick Lamar.)

It’s a real Pawing Patrol.

A group of middle-aged mutant nepo douchebags.

Power Rapers. Power up.

The Dog Squad.

Peen Titans.

The XXX Men.

Scooby Douche and the Gang.

Do you know what they call a gang of sex pests? The government. *Laughs until she weeps blood.*

On Thursday, Matt Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for attorney general after he learned he didn’t have the votes. And also after CNN reached out to him for comment on a story about his allegedly having had sex with a minor at a sex party. 

In the words of comedian and author Josh Gondelman, “Attorney General Matt Gaetz has brought down his first and last sex criminal, Attorney General Matt Gaetz.”

If Nancy Mace really cared about women’s safety she’d propose a bill outlawing Matt Gaetz from bars, restaurants, schools, and medical spas. God knows he’s had enough Botox for one lifetime.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out against Mace’s proposed bans, pointing out that policing bathrooms is harmful to all women. And she’s absolutely right. But that’s not even my main objection to the bills. My main objection is that they directly target a trans person and make the world less safe for trans people.

Mace is a three-time dingus award winner. Claiming to be the victim while victimizing others? Now, that is a woman in a male-dominated field.

And perhaps Mace is a perennial dingus because she so perfectly uses her ability to claim that she is oppressed while in fact oppressing others. She wields her own feigned victimhood to make the world worse for more vulnerable people. The protection she demands begins and ends with herself. She’s insisting on her own humanity while denying it to others.

And anyway, my eggs are still expensive. So, if anyone wants to fix that…No? Okay.

Dingus of the week: The scarlet dingus

Dingus of the Week: Nancy Mace

And now for something good

Shoes were being stolen at a school in Japan. The police bravely tracked down the culprit and it was a weasel. 

There is a Betty White stamp forthcoming if the hand of God doesn’t wipe us out first.

University of Iowa researchers found that intravenous vitamin C has the potential to double the survival rates of patients with pancreatic cancer.

Taking the shame out of the cone of shame.

As the vote tallies calculate, it’s clear that Donald Trump did not win a majority of the vote. I don’t think this news is “good,” exactly. It’s being twisted to justify conspiracy theories about fraud, and there is no evidence for that. Still.

Harris lost support for women overall, except for women over 65. So be nice to your mom this holiday season.

And normally I would put this in the Sunday links post, but I think what Kelsey McKinney wrote in Defector on Thursday is very good and I don’t want to wait. She wrote about how we can’t do this all over again. We need to stop this urge to do another boring rerun of a stupid four years. She writes in a very good blog:

I am tired of hearing that the other side is worse. They are; I already know this; that is not enough. I am tired of watching the people who are supposed to represent us roll over in front of Republicans every time they have the majority and then hesitate or capitulate when the Republicans refuse to do the same. I want the fucking moon to fall. I want something to change. I want the future to be different than the past, and I want that to start now. 

I wrote this week about election conspiracies and I was so frustrated to see how we are back here again — #Resistance tweeting (now skeeting on BlueSky — same problems, new venue), lost in an echo chamber of our righteousness. I don’t want to do this again. We can’t do this again.

So, in the words of Kelsey:

Instead of licking our wounds, I want an outcry. I want us to believe not only that a better future exists, but that we deserve it and should fight for it, and then I want to do that. I want us to take this massive heaping misery of a country and transform it into something better for everyone.

What I am enjoying this week: Friends, food and fast Saabs

Hi, this is Lyz’s editor. She asked me to step in and write about something I enjoyed this week, which was the book launch of You Gotta Eat, by the amazing Margaret Eby! Consider reading her interview this week in the Smitten Kitchen Digest to learn more about this book, which is about feeding yourself when you cannot face the thought of cooking.

For the launch party I traveled to Philadelphia, which is a beautiful city filled with crumbling Victorians and extremely hip author types like Margaret. All these hip folks rolled up to a very cute restaurant where we ate delicious foods and snacks from recipes in the book, which — and I cannot stress this enough — you should buy. We drank a number of negronis (according to the restaurant it was the most negronis they had ever sold? you are welcome, Bloomsday Philly!). There was also a cake made by Dream World Bakes, which defied all earthly description. Someone I don’t know called my dress “chic.”

During this visit I got to hang out with Margaret’s cats and also most of the people from the whole internet, but just the good ones. The next morning I did not have a hangover for some reason and we went out to brunch at a restaurant called Middle Child, which served possibly the most transcendent sandwiches I have ever had and also pancakes with a face made out of butter. An irl butterface. At one point someone told a story so funny that I could not stop laughing, like tears streaming down my face absolutely losing it, and the fact that I was laughing so hard made everyone else start laughing all over again.

When this wonderful visit came to a close, Margaret’s friend Blake drove us to the train station in his Saab, an experience I don’t believe I’d had before, and when it seemed my friend and I might miss our train, he drove the Saab very fast, an experience I definitely had not had before. 

It is strange and sometimes very hard to have a nice time when the world feels bleak. Pretty sure that’s why Lyz asked me to write this part — because you can’t always put on a happy face, even when the format of your popular Substack demands it. 

—Lyz’s editor