Today Trump is blending theocracy with medical malpractice murder.

President Trump begins his WH briefing by saying places of worships are essential. He says he is calling on governors and local leaders to allow churches and other places of faith to open "right now."

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) May 22, 2020

But they’re not essential. Religion is supposed to be a spiritual thing, so clearly the bodily presence of a particular human can’t be essential. Religion is surely high up on the list of activities, joys, supports, sources of meaning or enlightenment or consolation or all those that can be conducted in solitude or at home with family as opposed to requiring physical presence during a pandemic. I get that … Read the rest

Why does Trump stand with his ass popped, his body bent forward, and his t-rex arms dangling? It’s not by accident. pic.twitter.com/LuEhHZMOwm

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 22, 2020

Bonus: how also to sit normally.… Read the rest

Trump says

President Donald Trump on Thursday said “we are not closing our country” if the U.S. is hit by a second wave of coronavirus infections.

“People say that’s a very distinct possibility, it’s standard,” Trump said when asked about a second wave during a tour of a Ford factory in Michigan.

Oh it’s standard; well that’s ok then. By the same token, it’s standard for fire to burn, so we’re not going to evacuate the building if the alarm goes off. Just deal with it.

“We are going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country,” Trump said. “We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going

… Read the rest

Another one of these:

The thought police strike again:@OUTPOSTGallery is evicting artist @stephaniedouet from her studio space after getting an anonymous complaint about a Facebook post.

She wrote this after reading about Keira Bell

https://t.co/mY7EdJHTB6 pic.twitter.com/xpJr20xTdO

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) May 21, 2020

Stephanie Douet says more on her blog today:

I have just been expelled from Outpost studios and membership for writing this post that their Committee describes as ‘explicitly transphobic and discriminatory’ and ‘causing discomfort and offence’.

My post may have been ignorant or insensitive, but it was neither transphobic or discriminatory, or was it intentionally hurtful.

My question is this: how is anyone ever gain any meaningful understanding, see someone else’s point of view or

… Read the rest

Sure enough, Donnie Defiant didn’t wear a mask at the Ford factory.

President Trump, sitting in front of what seems to be a new back drop saying “Transition to Greatness,” talking about his work with African American communities and opportunity zones. Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way” is playing in the background. pic.twitter.com/6Iqvyj7yR4

— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 21, 2020

Aw look, isn’t that cute, there’s Jared, too, with his mask on the table in front of him. I suppose that’s the Princess on his left – can’t tell about her mask.

Ford has a policy that everyone in their plants is required to wear masks, but Trump is not wearing one pic.twitter.com/LM2u5Zv1RF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21,

… Read the rest

Golly.

Many will disagree, but @FoxNews is doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on November 3rd. Sure, there are some truly GREAT people on Fox, but you also have some real “garbage” littered all over the network, people like Dummy Juan Williams, Schumerite Chris…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 21, 2020

So he just up and admits right out in the open that he thinks Fox is supposed to be helping him get re-elected.… Read the rest

Trump is on his way to Ypsilanti as we speak.

"I want to get our country back to normal. I want to normalize." — Asked if he'll follow Ford's policy and wear a mask during his visit to a plant in Michigan, Trump indicates he doesn't want to pic.twitter.com/XJ3CfqTxEF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2020

Hilariously, the transcript crawl renders the question about wearing a mask as “You’re a mess today at the Ford plant”? No doubt it will be corrected any minute now.

Anyway Trump of course doesn’t say he will, and does instantly change the subject. “I wanna NORmalize,” he says idiotically. Well duh, Sherlock, don’t we all; we’re not doing this because we like it. We … Read the rest

Michigan’s Attorney General has asked Trump to follow the rules.

Ahead of President Trump’s planned trip Thursday to a Ford manufacturing plant in Michigan, the state’s attorney general implored him to wear a face mask on his tour, citing a “legal responsibility” — and said he would be asked not to return if he does not do so.

In an open letter addressed to Trump, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) asked the president, who has consistently appeared barefaced in public and at the White House, to adhere to executive orders issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Ford’s policy mandating masks to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Trump is scheduled to visit a factory southwest

… Read the rest

Bad combination:

Floodwaters unleashed by a dam failure in central Michigan have reached a Dow Chemical facility and Superfund site, the company admitted Wednesday, raising the possibility that the flood could turn into a full-fledged environmental catastrophe.

Because the flood could contain toxic gunk, kind of like the Flint water supply.

The Times reports:

With much of Midland expected to be underwater by later on Wednesday, it was likely that the floodwaters would breach the levees designed to protect the Dow compound, said Allen Burton, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan. This meant that, at the site itself, flooding could reach storage tanks, potentially releasing chemicals onto farmland and residential areas that

… Read the rest

Mitch is all in an uproar because workers are being CODDLED. He’s not having it.

Mitch McConnell promised House Republicans Wednesday that the beefed up unemployment benefits enacted earlier this spring “will not be in the next bill.”

The Senate majority leader told the House GOP minority in an afternoon phone call that he is comfortable waiting to see how the nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus spending previously approved plays out before moving forward on the next relief legislation. And he told them that the ultimate end-product won’t look anything like House Democrats’ $3 trillion package passed last week, according to a person briefed on the call.

Well of course he’s comfortable. He’s been milking his job for $$$ for … Read the rest

wut pic.twitter.com/r283HEZpVc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2020

Right, because the only possible reason to have a woman as a running mate is because he wants to fuck her. Good job of insulting your own sex, KC.… Read the rest

Michigan can’t catch a break.

As if things weren’t already bad enough in Michigan, on Tuesday, dams in Edenville and Sanford flooded. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in Midland County and ordered all residents to evacuate the area immediately.

“If you have not evacuated the area, do so now and get somewhere safe,” Whitmer said in a statement. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in Midland County.”

It may be unlike anything we’ve ever seen, but federal regulators saw this coming. As other outlets have reported, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has long warned the owners to increase capacity of the Edenville dam’s spillways to prevent a flood, going as far back as 1999. The agency

… Read the rest

The BBC reports:

A Toronto teenager has become the first Canadian ever charged with carrying out an “incel”-inspired terror attack.

The 17-year-old boy is accused of fatally stabbing a woman in February.

Incel, short for “involuntarily celibate,” is an online subculture focused on members’ perceived inability to find romantic or sexual partners.

Well, that’s a very forgiving way of putting it. It’s an online subculture focused on the evil of women who think they have a right to refuse demands for sex. It’s a male online subculture that rages at women’s sexual autonomy.

The suspect, who cannot be named because he is a minor, had already been charged with murder shortly after the incident, which took place at an

… Read the rest

State of Nevada “thinks” that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, “I think” I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections. @RussVought45 @USTreasury

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

Michigan sends absentee ballot applications to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020

… Read the rest

Trump is getting excited about the G7 summit and toying with the idea that maybe just maybe it should be in person after all (so that he can insult people to their faces, dammit, like a real American).

“Now that our Country is ‘Transitioning back to Greatness’, I am considering rescheduling the G-7, on the same or similar date, in Washington, D.C., at the legendary Camp David,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “The other members are also beginning their COMEBACK. It would be a great sign to all – normalization!”

Yeah! Never mind that the curve isn’t flattening! Let’s do this thing!

Trump is clearly eager to look ahead to the next stage of reopening the country, but the

… Read the rest

Aw, now the Trumpies are ruining a perfectly good misogynist nickname by appropriating it from all those right-on lefty dudes. No fair!

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1263161964504719360

It’s SO KAREN to tell Twitter to do something just because the president of the United States called some guy a murderer. Who does she think she is??

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1263164947317612546

I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!!!!

OK Karen https://t.co/HrMza7SGE4

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 20, 2020

Don Junior is using it??? Aw, no, that’s got to ruin it.

https://twitter.com/WEdwarda/status/1263110330399547392 https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1263141582250872837… Read the rest

Did god make a clerical error?

35 of the 92 people (38%) who attended services at a rural Arkansas church March 6–11 tested positive for the coronavirus, ultimately killing three, according to a case study released Tuesday by the CDC.

…

Contact tracing found that an additional 26 people were infected after interacting with attendees of the church, and one person from that group died.

The CDC has mostly left it to the states to decide whether churches should close or not. It’s not hard to figure out why – who needs the hassle?

In Arkansas, the state banned indoor gatherings of more than 10 people, but exempted religious services.

Why? Because the state doesn’t want to tangle with … Read the rest

Oh look, more filth.

In yet another assault on checks and balances, President Trump abruptly removed the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) independent watchdog late Friday – the same night he announced plans to fire the State Department Inspector General (IG). At DOT, the acting IG was overseeing a high profile investigation of Secretary Chao’s alleged favoritism benefiting her husband Senator Mitch McConnell’s political prospects, but has now been replaced with a political appointee from within the agency. The acting IG’s ouster calls into question the future of the Chao-McConnell investigation, other critical oversight, and whether the watchdog was dismissed for unearthing damaging information. 

This move is the latest salvo of Trump’s assault on oversight. And it looks like the

… Read the rest

He had a reason.

There was a specific reason for President Trump’s sudden announcement on Monday that he was taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine. His goal was to undermine a whistleblower who had raised questions about the administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a whistleblower who claimed that it was his skepticism about the utility of the drug that led to his firing. How could hydroxychloroquine be as dangerous as former top vaccine official Rick Bright suggested, Trump offered, given that he himself was using it?

Ah. So by the same token, if Trump gets some disinfectant inside his body, that will show it’s safe. Somebody point that out to him.

“The only negative I’ve heard was the study

… Read the rest

The Trump Show resumed after all the burgers and ice cream were gone.

Trump on Nancy Pelosi calling him "morbidly obese": "I don't respond to her. I think she's a waste of time." pic.twitter.com/hqCe5LjNxN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 19, 2020

But wait! It turns out he does respond to her!

Just minutes after saying he would not respond to Nancy Pelosi calling him “morbidly obsese,” Trump unexpectedly unleashed an attack against the House speaker.

“Pelosi is a sick woman,” Trump said while answering a reporter’s question about his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. “She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”

But he doesn’t respond to her. Make a note of it.

"It was a

… Read the rest