Something to keep in mind as you eat your grilled chicken breast:

Supervisors at an Iowa Tyson Foods, a major US meat processor, placed bets on how many workers would become infected with coronavirus as an outbreak raged through the plant this spring, a wrongful death suit alleges.

The lawsuit, filed this week by the son of an employee who died with Covid-19, claims the company demonstrated “wanton disregard for worker safety”.

Isidro Fernandez, who died in April, was one of more than 1,000 workers infected amid the plant’s outbreak.

Meatpackers are notoriously terrible at worker safety. The company said it was ever so upset to hear it, but I don’t believe them. As I said – meatpackers are horrendous … Read the rest

The Beeb is reading Obama’s memoir.

A Promised Land sold nearly 890,000 copies in the US and Canada in its first 24 hours – a record for publisher Penguin Random House. It is expected to become by far the biggest-selling presidential memoir in history.

Ahhh Trump’s not going to like that.

The Beeb dishes on what Obama thought of various counterparts. Putin?

Mr Obama said the Russian leader reminded him of the political barons he encountered during his early career in Chicago. He writes he was “like a ward [district] boss, except with nukes and a UN Security Council veto”.

He continues: “Putin did, in fact, remind me of the sorts of men who had once run the Chicago

… Read the rest

Source: Trump told ally he knows he lost, but getting back at Dems for questioning legitimacy of his 2016 win @abbydphillip @DanaBashCNN @ArletteSaenz discuss pic.twitter.com/5vadCdDlv1

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) November 19, 2020

And no, he’s not going to stop.

I saw a segment on the BBC last night talking to Trump fans in the South, who regurgitated all these lies about fake ballots yadda yadda. It was unnerving.… Read the rest

Speaking of the princess and school – they changed their kids’ school because they refuse to avoid super-spreader events.

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and daughter, pulled their children out of their day school after other parents complained that the couple were not following coronavirus protocols, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.

…

Three Milton parents told JTA that the couple withdrew their children after other parents complained that Kushner and Trump weren’t following the coronavirus protocols that the school had laid out for families.

Which means what? That Trump and Kushner were putting other children and school staff and all their families at risk. That’s nice.

According to JTA,

… Read the rest

In Pompeo news:

Israel’s military occupation has received a symbolic US stamp of approval after Mike Pompeo toured an archaeological dig run by a far-right settler group and visited a settlement that farms grapes on land Palestinians say was stolen from them.

The trips on Wednesday and Thursday marked the first time a US secretary of state had officially visited settlements, a deeply provocative move that previous American administrations went to lengths to avoid.

And he does it weeks before they’re all kicked out. Charming. (I don’t think “went to lengths to avoid” is how you say that; I think it has to be “great lengths” or similar. Going to lengths just sounds meaningless.)

Speaking at a press

… Read the rest

Superspreader event.

There were 177,000 new virus cases in the U.S. yesterday — the second-highest daily total ever, trailing only a record set a mere five days earlier.

And *this* is the location the Trump campaign chose for its Giuliani presser. There are now about 50 people in this small room. pic.twitter.com/HZEwT0lYgM

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) November 19, 2020

… Read the rest

More stupid games:

The Trump campaign said it is dropping a lawsuit in Michigan, after two Republican canvassers in Wayne county briefly declined to certify the county’s election results.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, said in a statement, “This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan as a direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted.”

But, oops, the two Republicans stopped refusing, in response to pressure from an outraged public. Then they tried to go back to refusing but it was too late, the state … Read the rest

The Trump people confirm – oh no he’s not coordinating with Biden on the pandemic, good heavens no, what a silly idea.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, said a Trump administration official confirmed the White House is not coordinating with Joe Biden’s transition team about the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine.

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1329454314721521667?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1329454314721521667%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2Flive%2F2020%2Fnov%2F19%2Fus-election-donald-trump-joe-biden-coronavirus-covid-19-live-updates

Oh well, it’s only life and death.… Read the rest

More gloating over the dreary (however lucrative) future that awaits the princess and the pea:

Among the social set that Jared and Ivanka would prefer to rejoin—the one they occupied aboard Adriatic-anchored yachts and on the carpet at the Met Gala—there is a sense of looking around for who, if anyone, will welcome them back. Case in point: an article speculating that Ivanka would attempt to reenter the New York art scene spread around their social circle and wound up in my inbox a dozen times. (For what it’s worth, people familiar with the first daughter’s art collection referred to it as “unimpressive before COVID,” but, post-COVID, “virtually unsaleable.”)

You can see what she’s going for: the quiet, … Read the rest

A couple of Republican election officials in Michigan tried to play the racism card and got scorched.

Analysts and voting rights advocates, as well as Democrats, condemned Republican canvassers for an initial 2-2 vote along party lines that threatened on Tuesday night to stall official approval of Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Michigan, before reversing course and unanimously certifying its presidential election results.

…

Democrat Joe Biden crushed Republican Donald Trump in Wayne county by more than a two-to-one margin, and won the state by 146,000 votes, according to unofficial results. Wayne county is the state’s largest and home to Detroit – an overwhelmingly Black city that leans overwhelmingly Democratic.

Probably all the more so when the Republican … Read the rest

A former friend of the Princess’s confirms that she’s as loathsome as she seems to us peasants.

Donals Trump’s daughter was obsessed with status and used to blame classmates for her infractions of school rules while projecting a refined persona, Lysandra Ohrstrom, who was a maid of honour at her wedding, claimed in Vanity Fair.

“She had the Trump radar for status, money, and power, and her dad’s instinct to throw others under the bus to save herself,” alleged Ohrstrom, who described Ivanka, 39, as her best friend growing up.

…

Beneath her polish, the future president’s daughter occasionally betrayed “rougher, more Trumpian edges”, she wrote. “Ivanka would regularly relay stories of teachers or observers who had commented

… Read the rest

Republicans are shocked, shocked.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was scheduled to speak with the government’s top cybersecurity official on Wednesday. But the night before, Christopher Krebs was cast out of a job.

“I was going to tell him thank you for a good job” helping to secure the 2020 election, Capito (R-W.Va.) said after checking her schedule to see if the call was still on. “I’m still going to tell him that — just not today.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening fired Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, after he spent days actively debunking the president’s baseless voter fraud claims. And in a rare turn in the Trump era, Senate Republicans across the spectrum

… Read the rest

Powerful analogy! Birds are descended from dinosaurs therefore men are women. Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay….… Read the rest

As always, apologies for quoting the Daily Mail, but you know how it is.

The parents of an autistic teenage boy were warned he would be taken into care after they objected to him being given powerful hormone drugs to help him change sex.

Doctors at an NHS clinic had recommended he be given puberty-blockers – which delay adolescence – after the youngster declared he believed he was female.

But his mother and father, fearing the potential side-effects of the drugs, stopped him going to the clinic. And they suspected his abrupt decision to change sex was a result of his autism.

After the boy told the school he had been barred from treatment, a teacher told his parents

… Read the rest

It is so strange to be a nonbinary person interviewing OB-GYNs who talk about the reproductive care "women" need. I don't know how to describe it other than it feels like we're temporarily stepping into a world where I don't exist.

— Jo Yurcaba (@JoYurcaba) November 17, 2020

It is so strange to be a narcissist interviewing OB-GYNs who talk about women instead of about me. I don’t know how to describe it other than it feels like we are not talking about me. If we are not talking about me, it’s as if I don’t exist. Yes I really am that pathetic and needy. I’m so desperate to focus all the attention on me that I feel compelled to … Read the rest

It’s not that complicated.

As the only obstacle between President-elect Joe Biden and the formal start of the presidential transition, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy is struggling with the weight of the presidential election being dropped on her shoulders, feeling like she’s been put in a no-win situation, according to people who have spoken to her recently.

This was never a position that Murphy thought she would find herself in, the people said. But as the government official in charge of signing off on the election result, President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election has thrown Murphy into the middle of a political firestorm.

Facing mounting pressure from both sides, and even death threats, the sources say Murphy

… Read the rest

Kayleigh McEnany wouldn’t know George Orwell if he sat on her lap on the tube.

McEnany dismisses public health guidelines to slow the spread of coronavirus as "Orwellian" pic.twitter.com/S70IbQIce6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 18, 2020

Enforcing rules to prevent the spread of a lethal pandemic is not “Orwellian.”

Orwell would not have admired Donald Trump. I say this with great confidence.… Read the rest

Evil Don fired a DHS director for stating the truth and bragged about it on Twitter.

…votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020

NPR adds:

In response, Krebs tweeted “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomorrow.”

Trump lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden, in both the popular and electoral vote. Trump had for weeks prior to the election erroneously railed against mail-in voting as being ripe for fraud. The president had encouraged his supporters to vote in person on Nov. 3 — he later complained about

… Read the rest

What? What’s he done now?

I have reversed the ridiculous decision to cancel Wreaths Across America at Arlington National Cemetery. It will now go on!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2020

Let me guess – some crowd thing, that was canceled so as not to spread the virus even more, and he pitched a fit and said SPREAD THE VIRUS MORE.

Of course he did.

On Monday, after evaluating plans to hold a large annual event in the midst of an escalating pandemic, Arlington National Cemetery canceled the event planned next month, saying it could not mitigate the risk to thousands of visitors and cemetery staff.

But on Tuesday, after criticism from Republican lawmakers and public outcry,

… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/Jsoosty/status/1328834569458610179

The full image:

I can’t begin to express how insulting to women that photo is.… Read the rest