Alarm bells:

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S newest executive order, signed without fanfare this week, could prove one of his most insidious.

The directive from the White House, issued late Wednesday, sounds technical: creating a new “Schedule F” within the “excepted service” of the federal government for employees in policymaking roles, and directing agencies to determine who qualifies. Its implications, however, are profound and alarming. It gives those in power the authority to fire more or less at will as many as tens of thousands of workers currently in the competitive civil service, from managers to lawyers to economists to, yes, scientists.

Wo. That’s a terrible plan. It dynamites the whole point of having a civil service (the hilarities … Read the rest

We’re still doing it wrong.

The United States on Friday was approaching a record for the number of new daily coronavirus cases, as a new study warned that the pandemic is set to cause half a million American deaths by February.

…

This means that with cases surging in many states, particularly the upper midwest, what appears to be a third major peak of coronavirus infections in the US could lead to nearly 300,000 people dying in just the next four months.

Compared to over 200,000 in the last eight months – so that’s a huge leap.

The news came as Anthony Fauci, the top public health official on the White House coronavirus taskforce, said Donald Trump has not

… Read the rest

Speaking of the princess…she’s sharing Trump’s idiotic “cleanliness” interpretation of environmentalism.

https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1319759284947865601

“Pristine” ffs. It’s the comprehension of a resort-owner. There must be NO DIRT anywhere. We need CRYSTAL CLEAR WATER and PRISTINE OCEANS AND BEACHES.

The hell we do. Sterile environments are by definition hostile to life. Biology needs a lot of muck, and it generates a lot of muck. Princess Ivanka makes it sound as if we should bleach everything. (Ask the coral reefs how that’s working out.)

I cannot wait to see the back of these people.… Read the rest

Hahahahaha Princess Ivanka and Prince Jared are SUING, they are SUING I tell you.

Nuts! pic.twitter.com/XxxkG43z3W

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 24, 2020

I’m sure they’ll win that suit because how could anyone possibly back up the claim that Princess Barbie is indifferent to the sufferings of people harmed by her criminal murderous daddy?

Jared and Ivanka have always been entitled, out-of-touch bullies who have never given the slightest indication they have any regard for the American people.

We plan on showing them the same level of respect.

Our full statement: pic.twitter.com/M3K5nOE5qd

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 24, 2020

For the first time ever I feel a twinge of gratitude toward Princess and Prince, for giving us this … Read the rest

Why do they keep doing this?

https://twitter.com/RebeccaTinnelly/status/1319717341165457409

This makes NO sense. Women are the ones subject to sexual violence and harassment and creeping (you know, cameras, peering over the partition, that stuff), not men. Women; not men. It shouldn’t be men who are given the toilets to themselves while women have to share them with men; that is backwards.

Plus the whole…”well we don’t want to push men around because they might punch us, so we’ll just dump it all on you, because if you punch us we can smash all your teeth in.” It’s called bullying; it’s called unfair; it’s called taking advantage.… Read the rest

I wish I’d heard that (or could currently find a recording of it):

https://twitter.com/marstrina/status/1319694268102021121

Marina sent the perfect question:

https://twitter.com/marstrina/status/1319695360365834240

Seriously. How can Kate Manne talk about something named “male entitlement” or “male privilege” if she doesn’t know who male people are? How does she know they’re not all trans women but just haven’t worked up the courage to say so yet?

Festival of Ideas blurbs the conversation:

Philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. She ranges widely across the culture — from the Kavanaugh hearings and ‘Cat Person’ to Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Warren — to show how the idea that a privileged man is tacitly deemed to be owed something is a pervasive

… Read the rest

Aw, Bibi won’t play.

Speaking to “Bibi” on the phone in the Oval Office earlier today, Trump tried to goad Netanyahu into attacking Joe Biden.

“Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?” Trump asked Netanyahu, referring to Biden by an insulting nickname. “You think he would have made this deal? Somehow, I don’t think so.”

Very appropriate. Just what heads of state are supposed to do – try to draw other heads of state into insulting a rival for the office. “Bibi” will have to work with Biden if we succeed in putting a stake through Trump’s gut, but Donnie Two Scoops can’t be bothered with details like that when they’re about other people.

But

… Read the rest

Peter Tatchell’s determined indifference to the concerns of women – which he names accurately and claims to “sympathize and empathize with” – is breathtaking to see.… Read the rest

More voter suppression from the right-wing Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court has sided with Alabama state officials who banned curbside voting intended to accommodate individuals with disabilities and those at risk from the COVID-19 virus.

The high court issued its order Wednesday night, without explanation, over the dissent of the court’s three liberal justices.

At issue was the decision by the Alabama secretary of state to ban counties from allowing curbside voting, even for those voters with disabilities and those for whom COVID-19 is disproportionately likely to be fatal.

People like that won’t be voting for Trump so…… Read the rest

Tatchell reminds us he doesn’t give a shit about women.

Peter Tatchell: "actually the studies show that transwomen are at a disadvantage in women's sports."

How people can lie so brazenly in the media and still expect people to take anything they say seriously is beyond me. https://t.co/M0ZtcLngv5

— Roary (@GrRoary) October 23, 2020

Trans women are at a disadvantage in women’s sport? Really?… Read the rest

This goon. He says it AGAIN – I knew he was going to and flinched in advance and pow, there it was: the crystal clean water again.

US President Donald Trump says, “Look at India … it’s filthy. The air is filthy.” But who ran away from the Paris accord? pic.twitter.com/gCYyie3usF

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) October 23, 2020

But also…starting at 40 seconds, notice the energy with which he calls China filthy, India filthy. We can all see he’s not just thinking about “the air.”… Read the rest

Remember those skeletons in the septic tank at the Catholic-run mother and baby prison [formally “home”] in Tuam? Let’s hush all that kind of thing up until everyone’s dead, ok?

In September, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes said bespoke legislation would be required to safeguard and transfer a database of the mothers and children who were resident in the main mother-and-baby homes.

The bill provided for the database to be sent to Tusla, which raised concerns among former residents of the homes and their families over their ability to access the information held by the Child and Family Agency.

Under a 2004 act, the remaining archives will be sealed for 30 years. Last Friday, the bill

… Read the rest

Joining the women-haters club:

The US has today signed an anti-abortion declaration with a group of about 30 largely illiberal or authoritarian governments, after the failure of an effort to expand the conservative coalition.

The “Geneva Consensus Declaration” calls on states to promote women’s rights and health – but without access to abortion – and is part of a campaign by Trump administration, led by secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to reorient US foreign policy in a more socially conservative direction, even at the expense of alienating traditional western allies.

You can’t promote women’s rights while imposing mandatory pregnancy on them. If women can’t say no to having their bodies taken over for nine months then they have… Read the rest

Again with this baffler.

We are campaigning to protect the Human Rights of female prisoners and female guards in female prisons where transwomen are being housed.
The transwomen in Limerick Women’s prison for instance, are both fully-intact males. One might imagine a Human Rights organisation.. 2/

— The Countess (@TheCountessIE) October 22, 2020

This letter outlines their policy in stark terms: pic.twitter.com/LvQ3NXBQ0t

— The Countess (@TheCountessIE) October 22, 2020

That last one is the baffler. WHY is it their general human rights position that people have a right to have their gender identity recognized? WHY??

What they mean by “gender identity” is “fictional gender that is the opposite of the real one.” We dull-normal people don’t have “gender identities” because … Read the rest

The 60 Minutes interview wasn’t Trump’s to post. CBS allowed the White House to tape it for archival purposes. Trump doesn’t honor agreements. Never do business with Trump.

CBS News on Thursday called out the White House for violating an agreement it had with the network and posting President Trump’s full “60 Minutes” interview online ahead of its Sunday air date.

“The White House’s unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter ’60 Minutes’ from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,” CBS News said in a statement.

…

CBS News has said the White House recorded the interview alongside the network, but agreed

… Read the rest

The BBC has been letting the children loose on their website again. The result is An Article About Bespoke Pronouns.

How to be an ally to friends who’ve changed their pronouns

Walk away. Don’t linger, don’t express regrets, don’t wave, just walk away.

There is no such thing as “their pronouns.” Pronouns aren’t a thing you can possess. Personal names, yes; pronouns, no. That’s pretty much the point of them. Personal names are, as the title suggests, personal to the people whose names they are. Pronouns are the short items that substitute for the personal names because it gets weird saying the name over and over. They are necessarily generic.

We all like to be referred to in a

… Read the rest

Trump wants to punish cities that don’t vote for Trump by starving them of funds.

The White House is considering slashing millions of dollars for coronavirus relief, HIV treatment, screenings for newborns and other programs in Democratic-led cities that President Donald Trump has deemed “anarchist jurisdictions,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

In other words anything to the left of Trump is basically criminal.

New York, Portland, Ore., Washington, D.C., and Seattle could lose funding for a wide swath of programs that serve their poorest, sickest residents after the president moved last month to restrict funding, escalating his political battle against liberal cities he’s sought to use as a campaign foil.

“Kill the poor!”

“But sir, who then will … Read the rest

Trump has done what he said he was going to do, and had the raw interview posted on Zoshal Meeja. It’s 37 minutes of stupid. I haven’t watched all of it yet; none of what I have watched is anything remotely unfamiliar. He brings out the same stock phrases and then repeats them 900 times. He translates everything Stahl asks into his own stock phrases which he answers with his own stock phrases – it becomes Trump interviewing Trump. At the end he indignantly repeats Stahl’s question, “Are you ready for tough questions?” over and over and each time he puts on a special “this is you” voice and face, which looks and sounds nothing like Leslie Stahl but conveys … Read the rest

This. This is what I keep saying. This is why I keep recording Trump’s outrages with fury and loathing. This is why I say I would despise and detest him even if he had outstanding policies. (He couldn’t, really, because the evil that wants to take health insurance away from people is the evil of everything else about him – but the point remains.)

Obama: "There are consequences to [Trump's] actions. They embolden other people to be cruel & divisive & racist & it frays the fabric of our society. And it affects how our children seen things…it affects how the world looks at America. That behavior matters. Character matters" pic.twitter.com/zBs37th9q5

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 21, 2020

… Read the rest

“Sophie LaBelle” of Assigned Male Comics has a new one out:

That Genitalia Board in the first panel is enough to give you nightmares, but aside from that…

No it isn’t. Nobody is required to “date” (i.e. fuck) trans people. Nobody is required to do it and nobody is required to be silent about refusing to do it. “Sophie” is way too narcissistic and entitled to be an appealing “date” object.… Read the rest