There’s standing in solidarity with and then there’s the other thing.

We’re deeply disappointed in World Rugby’s decision to move ahead with proposals to stop most trans women playing in competitions they govern.

We stand in solidarity with those who will feel shut out from the sport they love.https://t.co/Mm2hT5UCxO

— Stonewall (@stonewalluk) October 9, 2020

StonewallUK means they stand in solidarity with men who identify as women who will feel shut out of women’s rugby. They do not mean they stand in solidarity with women who feel shut out of women’s rugby because playing against men will be too dangerous. They also ignore the fact that men who identify as women will not be shut out of men’s rugby. … Read the rest

Trump’s spiraling mania is causing “concern” among people who don’t want a feverish lunatic in control of the codes.

President Donald Trump‘s increasing political desperation is raising concerns about his judgment following his aggressive Covid-19 treatment and as suspicion mounts that the White House is not telling the truth about his health.

It’s not just “suspicion” though – we know for a fact that the White House is refusing to answer some key questions, like when Trump’s last negative test was. We know the White House is not telling the complete truth about Trump’s illness, even if we don’t know for sure that they’ve told lies.

He is pressing his aides to clear him to return to the campaign

Juana Summers at NPR:

President Trump referred to California Sen. Kamala Harris as “this monster” in an interview on Thursday, a continuation of his pattern of attacking Black women with demeaning insults. The president has previously reserved the term “monster” for terrorists, murders and major natural disasters.

…In a telephone interview on Thursday morning on the Fox Business Channel, Trump referred to Harris as “this monster that was onstage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night, by the way.”

“I thought that wasn’t even a contest last night. She was terrible. I don’t think you could get worse,” he added. “And totally unlikeable. And she is.”

Uh huh. And what is “unlikeable” code for? Ball-busting bitch, aka woman … Read the rest

Really?

‘trans women aren’t women’

okay well explain this then pic.twitter.com/b3w0QuMuVe

— Cambell ♡ (@Cambellxo) October 6, 2020

Too easy! Give us something more difficult!

Explanation: that’s a male porny idea of “woman.” It’s not ours. … Read the rest

Last night’s news, but I just need to pin it down.

This is late evening on a day when it was all over the news that a group of wacko-right vigilantes were planning to kidnap Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer. She’s a Democrat and a woman and she takes the necessary precautions during a lethal pandemic, so naturally the bully boys plan violence against her, and Trump cheers them on.

Governor Whitmer of Michigan has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities. The Federal Government provided tremendous help to the Great People of Michigan. My Justice Department and Federal Law Enforcement announced…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2020

…I do

Ominous signs.

A top Republican senator has said that “democracy isn’t the objective” of America’s political system, sparking widespread outrage at a time when his party has been accused by Democrats of plotting voter suppression and questioning a peaceful transition of power in November’s election.

He did say that.

Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

Of course, how liberty, peace, and prospefity are defined will be up to the undemocratically selected Rulers, so the 90% of us on the bottom might not fare all that well.

His democracy tweet immediately prompted alarm, including from a number of

Some concerns:

Just days after being prescribed a powerful cocktail of drugs to treat his coronavirus infection, President Trump returned to the Oval Office on Wednesdayas he delivered a barrage of incendiary tweets that referred to a “treasonous plot” and “coup” against him.

Trump’s behavior, which included tweets about ending negotiations with Democrats over an economic stimulus package and then more tweets about resuming those negotiations, appeared erratic even by his standards and raised questions among some medical professionals about the effect of the treatment on his mental state and whether it impacted his ability to govern.

And not just among medical professionals! Among complete amateurs too! Trump’s behavior raises very pressing questions among me for instance.

Similar drugs,

NPR explains about the dexamethasone:

Dexamethasone is an anti-inflammatory drug used for a range of ailments, including arthritis, kidney, blood and thyroid disorders and severe allergies. The drug is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and is also used to treat certain types of cancer.

Earlier this year, a large clinical trial in the U.K. found that giving dexamethasone to patients hospitalized with COVID-19 reduced their risk of dying. Patients were given 6 milligrams of the drug for 10 days.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in July, found the drug cut mortality by a third among severely ill COVID-19 patients who were on ventilators, and by a fifth for patients

Also

Debates Motel pic.twitter.com/40lpMsDU6l

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 8, 2020

… Read the rest

Official statement by official manager of official Trump campaign:

President Trump won the first debate despite a terrible and biased moderator in Chris Wallace, and everybody knows it. For the swamp creatures at the Presidential Debate Commission to now rush to Joe Biden’s defense by unilaterally canceling an in-person debate is pathetic. That’s not what debates are about or how they’re done. Here are the facts: President Trump will have posted multiple negative tests prior to the debate, so there is no need for this unilateral declaration. The safety of all involved can easily be achieved without canceling a chance for voters to see both candidates go head to head. We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out

He’s still taking the steroid so that’s why he’s still so hopped up.

The president confirmed he is still taking the strong steroid dexamethasone. It’s widely available in hospitals and doctors have highlighted it can make the patient feel better than they actually are, which could help explain some of the president’s unusually upbeat descriptions of how he is feeling over the past several days.

It almost certainly does explain it. That’s not the normal Trump we’re seeing. Normal Trump doesn’t keep telling us he loves us.

Trump downplayed the drug’s strength while sort of describing what medications he is still taking. “They have a steroid, it’s not a heavy steroid, they have that go a little longer. I’m

Oh goody another hopped-up manic video. That accordion is going to fall to bits at this rate.

TO MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! pic.twitter.com/38DbQtUxEu

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2020

He loves us! He really loves us!

It’s yesterday’s bullshit all over again. He likes to repeat himself, likes to repeat himself. He likes to repeat himself. Himself? He likes to repeat.

He took this stuff, it was incredible, incredible, ya gonna get it, ya gonna get it free, he got it approved, it woulda taken months, he got it approved, he’s done more in 47 months than Biden has in 47 years, he loves ya.… Read the rest

Trump wants to be seen as Mister Strong (that’s President Strong to you peasants).

Trump has sought to project the strongman image, flying to the White House by helicopter at sunset, standing on the balcony and taking off his face mask while still contagious, bragging that he feels better than he did 20 years ago and urging the public to neither fear the virus nor let it dominate their lives.

But if he wants to project the strongman image, why…

He’s not in that photo because he chose to ride in a golf cart instead. It was only a short walk…

His campaign has sent out fundraising emails preaching a similar if-I-can-beat-it-so-can-you-message, hoping to turn personal and political disaster to

Trump says it’s the parents of dead soldiers who gave him the virus.

In an interview on Fox Business, Trump told host Maria Bartiromo that he “figured there would be a chance” he would become infected with the coronavirus, citing his meetings with the families of America’s war dead.

…

He said the family members would approach him to “tell me a story about, ‘My son, sir, was in Iraq.’ Or, ‘He was in Afghanistan.’ And, ‘Sir, he did this, and he did that, and then he charged in order to save his friends.’ And, ‘Yes, sir, he was killed, but he saved his friends. He’s so brave, sir.’”

That’s four “sir”s in that one short passage.

Apart from

Timothy McVeigh lives on.

The FBI says it thwarted what it described as a plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and federal prosecutors are expected to discuss the alleged conspiracy later Thursday.

…

The court filing also alleges the conspirators twice conducted surveillance at Whitmer’s vacation home and discussed kidnapping her to a remote location in Wisconsin to stand “trial” for treason prior to the Nov. 3 election.

“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”

…

The FBI was already

No.

‘I want difference to be seen as a strength. I want it to be acknowledged, respected and embraced.’ @MunroeBergdorf speaking on the type of world she wants to live in. #FTWomen #Gamechangers pic.twitter.com/7FJEPqPQhR

— Financial Times Live (@ftlive) October 8, 2020

But Munroe Bergdorf is not a woman.

A woman was displaced from that summit so that a man who role plays “woman” could be on it.

Also that photograph? That’s a very male idea of what women are supposed to look like and pose like and be seductive like and appear on a list of women as gamchangers like.… Read the rest

Even Don Junior thinks Trump is acting dangerously manic.

Donald Trump’s erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. “Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,” one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed. 

According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, 

Originally a comment by Holms on Who advocate for their rights or interests.

Sastra

I just had a TRA tell me that thinking that a child going through puberty naturally […] is the Naturalistic Fallacy.

There seems to be surge in people calling things fallacies without realising a statement needs to meet a certain extremely basic formulation “A because B” in order to be an argument at all; before it can be declared a fallacious argument, it must first be an argument. And so it is extremely common lately for people to declare that any insult in a comment renders the entire comment an ad hominem argument, irrespective of whether the insult was relied upon in making an argument, … Read the rest

Voter suppression in Houston.

The Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday forbade the state’s most populous county from [to] mailing unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots to millions of registered voters ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

…

In a 14-page opinion, the state Supreme Court reversed lower-court rulings and held that the Democratic clerk of Harris County, which includes Houston, lacked the statutory authority to distribute unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to some two million voters.

Harris County clerk Chris Hollins said the planned mailers—which would include information about who is and isn’t eligible to vote by mail—fell under his duty to conduct early voting and would serve as a helpful guide. The state sued to block the mailings,