Twitter claims to have a rule against wishing death on people. Cue hollow laughter.

Twitter has said that tweets wishing for Donald Trump’s death in the wake of the president’s diagnosis with Covid-19 violate its policies and could result in suspension.

But what about all those tweets wishing for JK Rowling’s death?

“Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against anyone are not allowed and will need to be removed,” the company said in a tweet. A spokesman told the Guardian this policy has been in place since April and applies to all users, not just Trump.

That last sentence is confused: they mean the rule applies to all targets, not just … Read the rest

That party last Saturday for the religious fanatic nominated to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s place appears to have been a super-spreader event.

A crowded Rose Garden ceremony last Saturday at which Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his supreme court nominee has come under scrutiny after at least seven figures in attendance tested positive for coronavirus, including the president himself.

On Friday, the president’s former counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, announced she had tested positive and had “mild” symptoms. Two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, also announced they have also tested positive.

Both senators say they will quarantine for ten days…which is interesting because it should be for fourteen days, and the confirmation hearings begin…just as they … Read the rest

Jenni Murray on why she decided to walk away from Woman’s Hour and the BBC:

I was not leaving, contrary to popular rumour, as a result of ageism on the part of the BBC. I made the decision a year ago when it became clear to me that it was time to move on and be free of the leash which, in recent years, had caused me to be what I can only describe as ‘cancelled’.

First came the furore concerning an article I had written in which I acknowledged that I was entering the most controversial and, at times, vicious, vulgar and threatening debate of our day.

I made clear that I was not transphobic or anti-trans. Indeed, I

This is blood-chilling.

Dear Mermaids, this is what your claim that trans teenagers might commit suicide because JK Rowling understands that sex is real has led to – people fantasising about it being true pic.twitter.com/vJvkYoGRJb

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) October 2, 2020

A teenager commits suicide (if this implausible story is even true) and Councillor Penny Zenny (who is a trans woman) asks the teenager’s mother “Was it JK Rowling?” Objection, your honor: leading the witness. In fact grabbing the witness by the neck and trying to force words out of her mouth.

Penny Zenny is easy to find on Facebook. PZ (oh there’s a funny coincidence) now has a self-pitying post (also public) about the angry reaction PZ got from … Read the rest

October 2 2016:… Read the rest

Trump made a bye-bye video to let us know how delusional he still is.

I haven’t watched it yet. I have to pace myself on these things, or I lose the will to live.

Trump has tweeted out a video of him explaining that he’s headed to Walter Reed hospital, but reassuring Americans that he’s doing “very well.”

“We’re going to make sure that things work out,” Trump said. He added that the first lady is also “doing very well.”

He doesn’t have that power. He can’t “make sure that things work out.” The virus decides.

Also, just as Obama sent best wishes, the campaign released a disgusting dishonest attack on…Obama.

Almost simultaneous to Obama remarks expressing best wishes to

Trump is on the way to Walter Reed.

The visual of Trump striding out alone to the helicopter is likely to be seen as a reassurance that his case of coronavirus is still mild.

Still mild today. Maybe less mild tomorrow and less mild again the next day.

It’s totally normal, says the White House. Nothing to see, says the White House.

White House officials have described the choice to move Trump to Walter Reed medical center as a choice made “out of an abundance of caution,” and have described him as “working from” Walter Reed for the next few days. But the move has prompted obvious questions: if the president has only “mild symptoms,” why move him to

It seems Princess Ivanka may have been detected in a crime.

A nugget in the New York Times’s investigation into the US president’s tax returns could potentially cause lasting damage to Ivanka, currently a senior adviser to the president and a leading surrogate for his re-election campaign.

Currently a sleazy nepotistic hanger-on helping her filthy daddy kill us all.

She apparently received “consulting fees” paid by the Trump Organization, helping reduce the Trump family’s tax bill, while she was simultaneously an employee of the organization.

“Trump’s private records show that his company once paid $747,622 in fees to an unnamed consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia,” the Times noted. “Ivanka Trump’s public disclosure forms –

After they learned that Hicks has the virus.

After White House officials learned of Hicks’s symptoms, Trump and his entourage flew Thursday to New Jersey, where he attended a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster and delivered a speech. Trump was in close contact with dozens of other people, including campaign supporters, at a roundtable event.

After they knew. This is how he treats friends and allies – it’s a wonder he doesn’t set the rest of us on fire so that he can make us into cheeseburgers.

The president did not wear a mask Thursday, including at the events at his golf course and on the plane, officials said. He was tested after he returned to the

I guess only the canaille wear masks?

Donald Trump‘s family ignored mandatory mask-wearing requirements at the debate between him and Democrat candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday.

So they’re mandatory because of a lethal pandemic, so what. Viruses don’t infect important people.

On Tuesday, members of the Trump family and the Trump administration entered the debate hall, where rules required everyone in the room wear masks, without masks, according to NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson.

A doctor in a white lab coat was reported to have started to approach Trump family guests to ask them to put on masks, also offering them one in case they did not have one.

Well one wouldn’t have done them much good.

As the

Republican donors are freaking out.

Republican donors who attended President Donald Trump’s fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club are panicking after being around the commander in chief hours before he announced that he was infected with the coronavirus.

Well, you know, being around Donald Trump is just not healthy.

“The donors have been texting and calling. Freaking out,” the person with direct knowledge said.

The donors to Donald Trump. Do I feel compassion for them? I can’t say that I do.

Trump’s campaign, as of Friday morning, has not sent out any official guidance to many of the donors involved with the event. After publication of this article, donors who attended the gathering were sent an email

At least now they’ve learned their lesson, right?

Nah.

WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is asked why he's not masked talking to reporters right now:

"I've obviously been tested. we're hopefully more than 6 feet away…we have protocols in place…even with a lot of mitigating factors, what you have is a virus that's contagious"

— amna (@IAmAmnaNawaz) October 2, 2020

Jesus. “Duhhhhh I’ve been tested” – guess what, dude, you can test negative one minute and then positive the next. When YOU KNOW YOU’VE BEEN EXPOSED you shouldn’t be out there quacking into reporters’ faces.

Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, addressing reporters without wearing a mask, says “I fully expect” other White House officials will test positive in

How ya like him now?

President Donald Trump has spent months trying to move the country’s focus away from the coronavirus. He’s purposely downplayed the threat it poses to Americans, pushed unscientific treatments and ensured the country that a vaccine would be arriving any day. In pre-recorded remarks at the annual Al Smith Dinner on Thursday night, Trump promised that “the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will be one of the greatest years in the history of our country.”

Hahahahaha cool, minutes later – oops Hope Hicks has the COVID, minutes after that, oops Trump has to quarantine, minutes after that, oops Trump has the COVID.

Just this morning, when I woke up, I was … Read the rest

You already know, but just to get things started…

You reap what you sow.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus, the President announced early Friday morning, an extraordinary development coming months into a global pandemic and in the final stretch of his reelection campaign.

Good.

He’s been laughing and jeering and sneering, he’s been putting other people in danger in their thousands, he’s kneecapped the national response to the pandemic so thoroughly that we have the worst death toll in the world, so it’s only fair that he should get it himself.

The White House doctor says

The President and First Lady are both well at this time, and they plan to

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Grab that pen and sign.

Saw on a comment about Stephen King coming out in support of Rowling:

Eva Webb: Adorable Antifascist Pumpkin Queen

because agreeing to disagree means agreeing to not exist, and agreeing to let the other person write papers that effect policy that affects the lives and rights of the people she’s attacking. there is no agree to disagree when you’re lobbying to have someone’s legal rights taken away or restricted

You don’t have the right to force other people to see you the same way you see yourself, otherwise we’d all want most of the world to see us as ultra-rich billionaires, and the tax authorities to … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on That’s showbiz.

Maroon @2: “And then four years later, Lester Holt sandbagged Dukakis by asking him if he would support the death penalty if someone raped his wife.”

It was Bernard Shaw, by the way.

It was perhaps in poor taste, but it was the easiest question in the world to answer politically. Dukakis could have said something like this:

“[optional: Bernard, that’s a disgusting and offensive question.] Would I support the death penalty for my wife’s killer? I’d want to do it myself with my own bare hands, slowly and painfully. I would be blinded by my rage and grief, and not interested in hearing any reasons why his life should … Read the rest

Trump’s “press secretary” tried to con journalists into thinking Amy Barrett was a Rhodes scholar.

If you watch it you see that she says “my bad” in a brushoff sort of way when she’s exposed as having lied to the reporters. We don’t refer to people who went to, say, Wharton as “Wharton scholars.” We say they graduated from Wharton or attended Wharton or got a BA at Wharton. (In Trump’s case we note that they did it by paying a less stupid kid to take the SATs for him.) The “press secretary” and former Fox News sleaze got caught telling a flattering lie about the religious fanatic Trump nominated for RBG’s seat.… Read the rest

Danger? What danger? I don’t see any danger, do you? Oh you mean danger to the female prisoners – oh well who cares about them.

She’s not just some random shouter, she’s a Councillor. And a woman.… Read the rest

Texas governor goes for more voter suppression.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order Thursday requiring counties to close multiple locations where voters can drop off completed mail-in ballots.

As an election security measure, counties will be limited to one dropoff site where poll watchers — designated by political parties and candidates — must be allowed to observe ballot deliveries by voters, Abbott said.

“Election security” my ass – it’s voter suppression.

Travis County has four dropoff locations, including three downtown, while Harris County has opened 12 locations as election officials strove to meet unprecedented demand for mail-in voting during the pandemic — particularly amid questions about the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service.

“As we work to preserve Texans’

How that nightmare looked from farther away:

Over the years, the presidential debates have become as much about entertainment as elucidation. As journalists we hype them like Vegas world heavyweight boxing bouts beforehand and score them like TV critics afterwards.

Indeed, and it’s maddening. There’s so much palaver about the stupid debates, as if they mattered, when in fact there are much better ways to evaluate the candidates and what they plan to do.

Ever since Ronald Reagan mastered the genre, the debates have tended to reward star power over expertise.

Well there you go. If it works for a Reagan and doesn’t work for a Mondale then it’s not a good instrument.

Presidential debates increasingly have come