Richard Wolffe

The Inuit are supposed to have dozens of words to describe snow. The Brits have endless ways to talk about rain. Now it’s time for Americans to delineate all the many ways that Donald Trump is dumb.

I’ve been working on that project since July 2016.

(I know there’s a retort that he’s having a lot of success for someone who is dumb. Yes but the dumb is why he’s having the success. Sadly, pathetically, maddeningly, tragically, there are enough Murkans who love to see somebody stupid in the White House to put him there and keep him there despite impeachment.)

If Bob Woodward’s new blockbuster teaches us anything new about the character of the 45th president, it’s

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He leads with “I don’t say this out of ego but”

Hahahaha no obviously not.

He also implies that he’s getting it in the same sense Obama did, but Obama got the actual prize, awarded by the committee, not a nomination, awarded by one far-right jackass.

But never mind, Trump isn’t bragging about his farcical nomination out of ego.… Read the rest

My writing for @FiLiA_charity on Holbeck, the legal red light zone in Leeds. A feminist action is currently underway by @LeedsReSisters there. https://t.co/ET1dGNE5Tf

— Dr EM (@PankhurstEM) September 10, 2020

I’m reading it. It’s tough going – I’ll be reading it in segments and taking breaks. Here’s one item:

Male violence and rape, and police inaction over these crimes, is also a problem for women and children not in prostitution who live near or enter the Holbeck zone. In 2015, ‘Sally – a young woman with learning disabilities, then aged 17 – was approached at a bus stop in Beeston on a weekday afternoon, bundled into a car, and raped in a nearby home. With DNA evidence, the attacker was

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Interesting.

https://twitter.com/Sationhund/status/1304367543017144321

The “I heart Rowling” poster didn’t get complaints, but Network Rail took it down anyway, because…………….??????

So then Network Rail got 128 158 complaints about the taking down, and ignored them.… Read the rest

More than 1,000 people died from COVID yesterday.@realDonaldTrump watched eight hours of TV.

If I’m president, you might not always agree with me. But I promise you I will always show up and fight for you. pic.twitter.com/HvVJLS83TZ

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 11, 2020

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Jessica Krug doing her academic woman of color thing.

https://twitter.com/lporiginalg/status/1304099664233259009

H/t Lady Mondegreen… Read the rest

From Pliny:… Read the rest

New level of disgust. We knew he’d done it, but now we learn he bragged about it to Woodward.

President Donald Trump bragged that he protected Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from congressional scrutiny after the brutal assassination of the American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Why does the pestiferous sack of shit think that’s something to brag of?

Woodward wrote that Trump called him on January 22 shortly after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During the conversation, Woodward pressed the president about Khashoggi’s gruesome murder.

…

“The people at the Post are upset about the Khashoggi killing,” Woodward told Trump on January 22, his book says. “That is one of the most gruesome things.

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Via TheDudeDiogenes, Identity Theft by Zaid Jilani:

He starts with an analogy Apple’s CEO made between Emmett Till and Jacob Blake and points out what a terrible analogy it is.

I don’t write this to justify the shooting. If it turns out [Blake] didn’t pose any imminent threat to the officers or to the kids at the time of the shooting, it wasn’t justified. But there is no universe where it is legitimate to compare what is at worst an incompetent arrest and unjustified nonlethal shooting of someone wanted for an alleged violent crime to a brutal racist killing of an innocent child.

And yet such comparisons are now commonplace. Our contemporary political debates induce us to identify ourselves

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He’s not called Don Junior for nothing.

While speaking about 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, charged with homicide in the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of a third during unrest in Kenosha, Donald Trump Jr. said, “We all do stupid things at 17.”

The president’s son made the comment during an interview with “Extra” host Rachel Lindsay, a former contestant on “The Bachelor.”

Well, lots of us do, yes – things like getting drunk, getting pregnant, scratching the car, failing calculus, not cleaning up the kitchen when asked. We don’t all shoot two people to death.

“If I put myself in Kyle Rittenhouse(‘s shoes), maybe I shouldn’t have been there. He’s a young kid. I don’t want

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Trump’s caught in his zipper.

REPORTER: Why did you lie to the American people and why should we trust what you have to say —

TRUMP: That's a terrible question and the phraseology. I didn't lie. What I said, we have to be calm. pic.twitter.com/TZrvRa5fpU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 10, 2020

“How dare you accuse me of lying! I never lie!!!” “Sir, that’s a lie right there, sir.”

"We're rounding the final turn" — Trump on the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/HAClFPSGfr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 10, 2020

Uh…what?… Read the rest

Less than a week but still too long.

Less than a week after George Washington University announced Jessica Krug would not resume teaching this semester after the professor revealed she had been lying for years about being Black, the school announced she has resigned.

“Dr. Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately. Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” the university said in a statement obtained by CNN on Wednesday.

We need a word for this move – this form of fraud in which a person with more social privilege pretends to be a person with less social privilege. Maybe we already have … Read the rest

The Guardian has some more details on Trump’s compassionate and patriotic desire to shield the American people from the truth about COVID-19.

Specifically asked whether he downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump told reporters, “In order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so.”

As one does. If the house is on fire, you tell the people in it that it’s not serious, because you don’t want them to panic.

The president insisted his strategy was focused on encouraging Americans to remain calm, as the virus spread across the country.

“You have to show leadership, and leadership is confidence in our country,” Trump said.

Well, see, here’s the thing – the danger is a contagious disease that is lethal to … Read the rest

A bizarre item this morning.

@esteem_acetUK have now deleted their tweet. This doesn’t answer any of our questions or explain why it was posted in the first place. #RSE #safeguarding #edutwitter #teacher5oclockclub #SLTchat #WomenEd #pastoralchat #BacktoSchool pic.twitter.com/GvB1RhzbAO

— Safe Schools Alliance (@SafeSchools_UK) September 10, 2020

Penis masks! How creative! But…back to school gifts?

No no, that’s not what they meant, they said.

It is NOT about offence caused. It is about appropriate boundaries & an understanding of #safeguarding, particularly online.

Incidents such as this call professional judgement into question & result in campaignIng against ALL #RSE. Good quality #RSE helps to safeguard children https://t.co/6Opvyb9S65 pic.twitter.com/wsIUusSBXM

— Safe Schools Alliance (@SafeSchools_UK) September 10, 2020

Whatever. I became curious about … Read the rest

There was so much stuff yesterday that I never got to the DHS whistleblower. About that:

A senior Department of Homeland Security official alleges that he was told to stop providing intelligence reports on the threat of Russian interference in the 2020 election, in part because it “made the President look bad,” an instruction he believed would jeopardize national security.

Gee, what a wacky belief.

The official, Brian Murphy, who until recently was in charge of intelligence and analysis at DHS, said in a whistleblower complaint that on two occasions he was told to stand down on reporting about the Russian threat and alleged that senior officials told him to modify other intelligence reports, including about white supremacists, to

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Golly, there was a big ol’ to-do about a religious fanatic who wanted to throw a religious super-spreader event in a Seattle park on Labor Day (this past Monday) but the Parks Department said no you can’t and closed the park.

A prayer rally was planned for Seattle’s Gas Works Park on Labor Day, prior to the city announcing the park’s temporary closure.

On Friday, Sept. 4, Seattle Parks and Recreation issued a notice that Gas Works Park would be closed Sept. 7 “due to anticipated crowding that could impact affect the public health of residents.”

On Saturday, Sept. 5, worship leader Sean Feucht released a statement on his Facebook page, saying the city announced the temporary

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About these awesome book deals that do nothing to save anyone: Dahlia Lithwick last November:

These books are not necessarily about saving the country. Take, for example, Bolton, Trump’s hawkish former national security adviser, who reportedly just reached a $2 million deal with Simon & Schuster for a book to come out next year. Now, Bolton could certainly serve his nation right now by confirming what Fiona Hill has testified to regarding the effort to extort Ukrainian assistance in cooking up oppo research for Trump in advance of the 2020 election. Hill has said that when the plot unwound around Bolton, he told her, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” and

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Siva has a point.

https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1303780980638052352

I don’t know why I overlooked that this morning. Why the hell (obvious selfish reasons aside) did Woodward not report the story at the time instead of saving it for his book launch?

I suppose a likely answer is that Trump agreed to the interviews for a book, not a Washington Post story. But maybe in a life or death situation you ought to break a deal of that kind? Just maybe?

https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1303748714301919235 https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1303748345702363141… Read the rest

Interesting.

When Northwestern University psychologist Dan P. McAdams first wrote about Donald Trump’s psyche for “The Atlantic” in 2016, he knew his subject was not your average politician. He just couldn’t nail down why. 

His new book, “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning” (Oxford University Press, March 2020), provides some surprising answers. Trump, McAdams asserts, may be the rare person who lacks any inner story, something most people develop to give their lives unity, meaning and purpose.

McAdams is something called a “narrative psychologist.”

Trump, McAdams argues, can’t form a meaningful life story because he is the “episodic man” who sees life as a series of battles to be won. There is no connection between

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The American Humanist Association is apparently captive. Rachel Deitch, their Director of Policy and Social Justice, ardently defends the “right” of men who identify as women to compete against women in sport. Women have to take a back seat to men who identify as women.

A few weeks ago this story was shared on the Facebook page of the American Humanist Association (AHA) to celebrate a preliminary injunction by a federal judge against Idaho’s backwards Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. The comments thread quickly devolved into a malicious and transphobic free-for-all. Faced with an onslaught of posts that violated our social media guidelines, our social media coordinator brought the social justice department in to assist. It took nearly three

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