Why we can’t have nice things.

Imagine being an ICU nurse in an area of Covid deniers.

Conspiracy theories about the pandemic and lies recited on social media — or at White House news conferences — had penetrated deep into their community. When refrigerated trailers were brought in to relieve local hospitals’ overflowing morgues, people said they were stage props. Agitated and unmasked relatives stood outside the ICU insisting that their intubated relatives only had the flu. Many believed the doctors and nurses hailed elsewhere for their sacrifices were conspiring to make money by falsifying covid-19 diagnoses.

[Emily] Boucher and her colleagues were pained by those attacks — and infuriated by them. Unlike their exhaustion, that anger rarely showed on their faces, but it was

Is it news that Trump is a reckless imbecile? Hardly.

This week, the Guardian reported that what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents describe Donald Trump as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual”. Vladimir Putin, the documents say, therefore decided to assist Trump’s rise to power in 2016 as a way to weaken America. Five years on, as America digests a string of bombshell revelations about the last days of Trump’s presidency pulled from a string of new books, Russia’s judgment seems born out.

Well of course it does, but it wasn’t in doubt anyway. We’ve always known that Trump is impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced, along with greedy, cruel, stupid, lazy, corrupt, empty, and trashy.

In Landslide

Ivermectin study withdrawn:

The efficacy of a drug being promoted by rightwing figures worldwide for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.

As in, ethical concerns over possible fakery.

[T]he drug’s promise as a treatment for the virus is in serious doubt after the Elgazzar study was pulled from the Research Square website on Thursday “due to ethical concerns”. Research Square did not outline what those concerns were.

…

“The main error is that at least 79 of the patient records are obvious clones of other records,” Brown told the Guardian. “It’s certainly the hardest to explain away as innocent error, especially

The ABA has a Diversity and Inclusion section. There it has a Diversity Statement.

ABA exists to help member bookstores grow and succeed, and we work to do that in a way that is committed to anti white supremacy, antiracism, representation, and equity. We believe that listening to many different perspectives and empowering underrepresented voices deepens our understanding and enriches everyone’s experience. We are committed to equity, dignity, and diversity for all Peoples. 

It promises to

– Implement best practices to ensure more diverse hiring and more opportunities for promotion into senior and decision-making positions at all levels of the organization for diverse employees

– Make sure ABA policies and procedures are antiracist, create opportunities for everyone, and demonstrate

There was a follow-up tweet from the ABA that I missed because they locked their account; it contains yet more frantic self-flagellating histrionics.

The American Booksellers Association has issued a second apology for showcasing research into the growth of children who ID as transgender. The first said it had been a 'violent incident' but this wasn't enough so its CEO has said she'd 'endangered members of the trans community' pic.twitter.com/bsClGQY7dc

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) July 17, 2021

A serious, violent incident; inexcusable; terrible incident; pain we caused; apologies are not enough; harm we caused.

It’s as if they have a literal gun to their literal heads.

Meanwhile, in the Advocacy section of the ABA website, we can see:

The American

Some of the people Fox News is killing:

The hospital is now busier than at any previous point during the pandemic. In just five weeks, it took in as many COVID-19 patients as it did over five months last year. Ten minutes away, another big hospital, Cox Medical Center South, has been inundated just as quickly. “We only get beds available when someone dies, which happens several times a day,” Terrence Coulter, the critical-care medical director at CoxHealth, told me.

Last week, Katie Towns, the acting director of the Springfield–Greene County Health Department, was concerned that the county’s daily cases were topping 250. On Wednesday, the daily count hit 405. This dramatic surge is the work of the super-contagious

Now it’s the Vagina Museum doing it. Yes really – the Vagina Museum.

I think there are three important things to consider when trying to be more inclusive:

1) Make sure you're not encouraging shame
2) Remember it's not just cisgender women who menstruate
3) Being inclusive means considering other people's circumstanceshttps://t.co/8QmBdWhmWB

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) July 15, 2021

But women talking about things that concern women (and women only) don’t need to be “more inclusive.” It is just women who menstruate – men don’t menstruate.

Throughout this entire thread I have used inclusive and shame-free language.

I also wrote an entire book free of gendered language. It's really that easy! https://t.co/fwvr7c6uEi

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) July 15,

One of the comments allowed to remain on the American Booksellers Association’s Facebook post yesterday captures the eccentric nature of the ideology:

The book is a ploy for people to see gender dysphoria as a trend rather than a legitimate feeling. It’s ideology is one where being transgender is a “fad”. Someone’s gender identity is not a debate. It’s not something to question or say isn’t true based or crap science or psychology. The simple answer to the author’s “mysterious” question as to why gender dysphoria is more widely acknowledged is because society is finally opening up to discuss and talk about it. Not because it didn’t ever exist before. Society has purposefully been heteronormative and forced people with gender

It’s a fierce competition for who can shout the loudest.

The American Booksellers Association is facing withering criticism from booksellers after walking back its promotion of an anti-trans title to member bookstores. Among the promotional items included in the ABA July “white box” mailing sent to 750 bookstores, the organization included a copy of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, as well as a sell sheet.

So Publishers Weekly poisons the well in the first sentence (and the title) by calling the book “anti-trans.” What does “anti-trans” mean? It implies, and I think is generally taken to mean, hostile to trans people, but usually the subject is the truth claims about what “trans” means … Read the rest

David Aaronovitch reviews Helen Joyce’s Trans:

I didn’t look too closely when in 2015 a Conservative administration proposed changing the law on gender recognition. A few trans people want more easily to get official confirmation for the new gender they have become? Well, I thought, that’s probably OK. No skin off any part of me.

Then the issue appeared to morph into a different kind of conflict. It had clearly somewhere along the line become impermissible for those who thought that there was something ineluctable about biological sex to say so. It wasn’t whether they were correct or mistaken on the subject that was in question, but their right even to express their view.

That had definitely happened by … Read the rest

Trump and “like a dog” – Philip Rucker in the Post in 2018:

In President Trump’s singular lexicon, there is no more vicious put-down than likening an adversary to a dog.

“Choked like a dog.”

“Fired like a dog.”

“Sweat like a dog.”

Then there is what Trump said Tuesday of Omarosa Manigault Newman, his former reality television protege and White House staffer who is now scorned and telling all in her new book, “Unhinged,” and accompanying media tour.

“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out,” Trump tweeted. “Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”

The Wall Street Journal:

The American Booksellers Association apologized Wednesday for a “terrible” and “serious, violent incident.” What dastardly offense did it commit? The profound trauma occurred this month when the trade group dedicated to selling books sent out a paperback copy of a book some of its members don’t like.

So its members have all liked every single book the ABA has ever sent out? This shocking violence of sending one that some didn’t like is a brand new event in the world?

No, it’s not that, it’s that Abigail Shrier’s book is different. It’s violent enough to say that some girls who say they are trans are just caught up in a fad.

Ms. Shrier’s book

And they’ve also deleted dissenting comments from the Facebook post, and blocked some people from commenting – like me, for instance.

What a shower of class traitors and scabs and informers. What a complete shit-show.… Read the rest

Pathetic and shameful.… Read the rest

Well it’s another Streisand effect – the ABA’s idiotic groveling apology has resulted in Shrier’s book trending on Twitter.

It would be a real shame if people bought the book the American Booksellers Association is calling "anti-trans" and "violent." Do not click this link and buy this book unless you are a bigot.https://t.co/0HTmYpGkzK https://t.co/SUOMwWuv5V

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) July 15, 2021

.@AbigailShrier wrote a great book. Why don't you buy a copy? https://t.co/r8gfASLlNo

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) July 15, 2021

Here's the book the American Booksellers' Association thinks is a form of violence. Buy it. https://t.co/UwDQkLzVPS

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) July 15, 2021

… Read the rest

First, CNN reported:

The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, was so shaken that then-President Donald Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures after the November election that Milley and other top officials informally planned for different ways to stop Trump, according to excerpts [from] an upcoming book obtained by CNN.

The book, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, describes how Milley and the other Joint Chiefs discussed a plan to resign, one by one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.

…

Milley viewed Trump as “the classic authoritarian leader

I hate to cite the Daily Wire but they took the trouble to ask the Toronto police about that “woman” whose photograph makes it so obvious that he’s a man.

In a follow-up email, The Daily Wire asked the department to confirm Ruby’s biological sex and to “please indicate if the suspect was booked in a male or female facility.”

Toronto Police Service’s Meaghan Gray replied (emphasis added):

Your question, and the answer, are irrelevant to our investigation. Our focus is on the sexual assault of a child and identifying any additional victims. The best way to do that is to share information with the public that would assist them with recognizing the person involved, such as a name and

The American Booksellers Association also has that stupid crawling lying apology on its Facebook page, but this one is signed.

Again, from the section of the ABA website that celebrates and promotes Banned Books Week:

Banned Books Week was founded in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, students, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

Unless they’re Abigail Shrier’s ideas. That’s entirely different. Then the ideas become “violent.”… Read the rest

The American Booksellers Association has a website.

On that website it has a section for…Banned Books Week.

I’m not making it up.

The most recent item is April 13:

Lovely.

But, so…why are they now screaming that sending Abigail Shrier’s book out to booksellers is “violent” and in need of prompt and searching atonement?

On April 13, the Banned Books Week Coalition announced that Jason Reynolds has been named the inaugural Honorary Chair for Banned Books Week 2021. The New York Times bestselling author will headline the annual celebration of the right to read, which takes place September 26–October 2, 2021, and features the theme: Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us.

A couple of months away. … Read the rest