Trump’s disgusting bilge about the need to force children to be fanatically PatriOtic and believe that everything we’ve ever done as a country has been perfect and heroicalistic:

Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. (Applause.)

We’re not. There is much that’s interesting about our history, and even much that’s impressive. The Bill of Rights has been … Read the rest

Politico got Trump’s script for the National Archive harangue.

“We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny,” Trump plans to say, according to his prepared remarks. “We will reclaim our history, and our country, for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed.”

Every religion? What was the Muslim ban about then?

“America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history,” the prepared text states.

No it didn’t. The chain wasn’t unstoppable, and anyway it’s pretty rich to say the founding of a slave state set in motion the abolition of slavery. … Read the rest

Trump is reading a speech at the National Archives Museum criticizing the left's approach to the study of history, complaining of the New York Times' 1619 Project, critical race theory, and "propaganda tracts like those of Howard Zinn."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 17, 2020

Oh please. When has Trump ever read a word of Howard Zinn? Or any historian at all? Or any book that’s not about him?

This is Stephen Miller, with Trump as the carnival barker.

Trump announces he will be signing an executive order to establish a "national commission to promote patriotic education." He says "it will be called the 1776 Commission," a nod to criticism of the 1619 Project.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 17,

An “activist” called Benjamin Butterworth was on the tv yesterday saying how terrible JK Rowling is. He has an interesting history.

On Tuesday 17th September The Times published a story about parents who are raising their child as ‘gender neutral’.

September 2019 that is.

Hobbit Humphrey and Jake England-Johns are keeping the sex of their 17-month-old child a secret, even from their own family. They refer to the toddler by the pronoun “they” and plan to allow them to choose their own gender.

Journalists Sonia Poulton and Benjamin Butterworth discussed this story on Sky News. They talked about the projection of harmful gender stereotypes onto children and the conflation of sex and gender before turning to the idea

If this is how we decide what is true…we have a problem.

“Trans women are women legally.”

I’m not sure I believe the law has the power to change physical reality that way. The law can define people as citizens or non-citizens, criminals or not, and other social categories like that. It can define people as children or adults, I guess – certainly there are laws that rely on the categories. But can the law just decide that men who say they are women are in fact women? Maybe it has the power to do it, but does it have the right? And do we actually have to accept the law’s definition?

“The belief that trans women are men … Read the rest

House Whip Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, is not impressed by Barr’s claim that pandemic restrictions are second only to slavery as a violation of rights.

As AG Barr called a Covid-19 lockdown the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” other than slavery, @WhipClyburn says “it is incredible” that Barr would “equate human bondage to expert advice to save lives. Slavery was not about saving lives, it was about devaluing lives” pic.twitter.com/ZUJe89YOiy

— CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) September 17, 2020

That statement by Mister Barr was one of the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, godawful things I’ve ever heard. It is incredible the chief law enforcement officer in this country would equate human bondage to expert advice to

Now let’s tie together Barr and the Trump admin attacks on reasonable pandemic precautions and scientific advice in general into one smelly package:

Attorney General William Barr argued Wednesday that coronavirus-related lockdown orders were surpassed only by slavery as the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” in the nation’s history.

Oh yes. Certainly. The internment of Americans of Japanese descent in 1942 was as nothing compared to health measures during a lethal pandemic. The Trail of Tears? Pff, a walk in the park. Mass incarceration? Three strikes laws? HUAC? The Espionage Act of 1917? The Sedition Act of 1918? All mere vapor compared to inconvenient emergency health measures.

The remarks from the attorney general came during an event hosted by

I don’t know how I managed to miss this yesterday – Caputo is taking a two month “leave of absence”…i.e. he’s been told to stfu and take a break until after the election. Alexander is out altogether.

In a Facebook video posted on Sunday and obtained by POLITICO, Caputo vowed that “I’m not going anywhere” and that the attacks on Alexander had made him “permanent” in government.

Caputo took a 60-day medical leave today, and Alexander is now departing. pic.twitter.com/a3Da0hTneK

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) September 16, 2020

The video is hilarious given the knowledge that he’s been told to fuck right off. If I’d watched it not knowing that it wouldn’t have been funny at all.

Just to refresh our … Read the rest

More from Barr:

Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who described Mr. Barr’s comments on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish

Trump’s consigliere is trashing the prosecutors who work for the Justice Department.

In scathing remarks criticizing his own staff, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the Justice Department has recently acted “more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice” and equated some prosecutors to preschoolers and “headhunters.”

Too much deference is given to career prosecutors, rather than to politically appointed leaders who can be held accountable at the ballot box, he said in remarks that are likely to further strain relations between Barr and some of the Justice Department’s career prosecutors.

Ya think???

Barr did not mention any specific cases, but he has been criticized by current and former

Involuntary hysterectomies…why does that sound so familiar…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats demanded an investigation on Tuesday into claims by a nurse at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia that detainees there have been denied basic medical care and possibly subjected to hysterectomies without their informed consent.

Dawn Wooten, a registered nurse who worked full-time at the Irwin County Detention Center until July, outlined her allegations in a complaint filed on Monday to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General by a coalition of advocacy groups.

“If true, the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower complaint – including allegations of mass hysterectomies being performed on vulnerable immigrant women – are a

This sucks.

Biologists in New Mexico have sounded the alarm after thousands of song birds were found dead in recent days.

New Mexico State University Professor Martha Desmond told local media that the reason for the mass die off is a mystery but could be tied to smoke from wildfires, or the recent cold weather.

She says the number could be in the millions.

Scientists have reported North American bird populations have declined massively in recent years.

I know that swallows used to be abundant around here and now I very rarely see them. Barn swallows and violet greens, both, have all but disappeared from Seattle.

Some birds – including migratory warblers, swallows and bluebirds – were seen acting

Another day another lies conference:

Donald Trump started off the press conference by doubling down on his assertion that there will be “a hundred million vaccine doses by the end of 2020”. He said that vaccines should be ready by “mid-October”.

Trump criticized Joe Biden for spreading “anti-vaccine theories” by saying that Trump is trying to politicize a vaccine by rushing its development before the election. potentially foregoing safety precautions.

“They’re recklessly endangering lives,” Trump said, saying that if Democrats were in the same position, the would be saying how important vaccines are.

It’s not anti-vax to say Trump is making bullshit promises because he wants to win the election. Quite the contrary – a pretend vaccine is no … Read the rest

In one bit of good news (a scarce item these days), Navalny is doing better.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Nalvany plans to return to Russia, according to his spokesperson. He was recently poisoned with a nerve agent and has been undergoing treatment at a German hospital for more than three weeks.

“It’s puzzling to me why anyone should think otherwise,” Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh tweeted.

Fair point. Since Putin can poison him outside Russia as easily as inside, staying out of Russia would be futile.

Nalvany took to Instagram Tuesday to post a photo with his wife and children from his hospital bed — the first photo of him publicly released since he was admitted to the hospital.

The new Jesus and Mo:

And the ones who have to submit? Not the fantasists, but the people who retain their grip on reality. It’s only fair, right?

The J and M Patreon… Read the rest

It’s the herd mentality you see, it will save us.

President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday during a televised town hall that “herd mentality” could make the coronavirus “disappear” with or without a vaccine.

During a 90-minute town hall hosted by ABC News in the must win battleground of Pennsylvania, Trump defended his repeated assertion that the virus will eventually disappear even without a vaccine, citing what he called “herd mentality”…

Herd immunity, dipshit.

ABC News’ Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Trump whether the coronavirus “would go away without the vaccine?”

“Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away –” Trump responded.

Stephanopoulos interjected: “–And many deaths.”

“And you’ll develop, you’ll develop herd — like a

Look at this brainless heap.

Donald Trump, last night: "It's going to disappear."

Tomorrow, the United States may surpass 200,000 confirmed American deaths from COVID-19.pic.twitter.com/wYnDs7pSJg

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2020

“It’s going to disappear, George, it’s going to disappear.” Why is it? How does he know? What makes him say that? Look around, this studio is almost empty – he wants people, he wants football games – therefore it’s going to disappear. Obviously. If Donald Trump wants something, the natural world has to arrange things so that he gets that something. COVID is going to disappear because Trump wants crowds and football.… Read the rest

Emily Kirkpatrick at Vanity Fair thinks JK Rowling has one hell of a nerve expressing her opinions right out in public.

No longer satisfied with simply repeatedly expressing her transphobic opinions on Twitter and in 3,600-word screeds on her personal website…

Aw, seriously, where does she get off writing things on her personal website? Who does that? And not just any old things but screeds. Ewwww doncha just hate screeds? Good people write essays or posts or entries, but evil people write screeeeeeeeeeeeeds. Doesn’t it sound witchy? Bitchy witchy writing her witchy bitchy screeeeeeeeeeeds. Let’s punish her.

Also, for the thousandth time, what she’s written isn’t transphobic. It’s not “I hate trans people” or “trans people are hateful,” it’s … Read the rest

Wow.

Wildfire smoke has drifted all the way to Pennsylvania.

Mind you, there’s a big difference between wildfire smoke and dense wildfire smoke. If the smoke here looked like the smoke over Pennsylvania I’d be out taking a two hour walk after all this being locked up inside.… Read the rest

Interesting marketing ploy.

People are weird.

Updating to add the whole message.… Read the rest