Oh that certain group of people.

How on earth would this work? Is there going to be a security guard on every toilet door checking ID/the contents of everyone's pants? Or is purely designed to make a certain group of people feel unsafe, unwelcome and unwanted in society pic.twitter.com/bMRUhoSk9j

— Toby Moses (@tobymoses) March 31, 2020

I guess he’s never heard of women? I guess he has no idea that women have felt, and been, unsafe and unwelcome in society? I guess he has no idea that one of the many reasons women feel that way is that some men take advantage of isolated spaces to assault women? And that men are stronger than women, which means that women … Read the rest

The latest scandal is much scandal, very shock, many outrage.

Elton John referred to the boring show biz “personality” Sam Smith as “him” and “he” and the world lurched out of orbit and crashed into the sun.

There are calls to cancel Elton John because, during his 'living room concert' to raise funds for front line coronavirus staff, he introduced Sam Smith by using male pronouns when Sam identifies as non-binaryhttps://t.co/Aur6xhiWyP

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) March 30, 2020

Sam Smith is the one with the beard.

How are people supposed to remember to call him “them” when he looks so exactly what we’ve all grown up calling “a man”?

He looks like a man, and he has always been a … Read the rest

Jonathan Chait notes that it’s been difficult to get Trump to take the virus seriously. He’s not the only one; Republicans elsewhere are brushing it off as a mere case of the sniffles.

Republican governors in several states have downplayed the virus, either refusing to enforce social-distancing measures or even overruling local officials who attempt to do so. A new study finds that the single factor that best explains the speed of state-level reaction is its governor’s partisan identity. “States with Republican governors and Republican electorates delayed each social distancing measure by an average of 2.70 days,” the authors find, “a far larger effect than any other factor, including state income per capita, the percentage of neighboring states with

Of course he did.

On #NationalDoctorsDay, we recognize the remarkable men & women who treat their fellow Americans, find cures for the diseases & illnesses we face, and never waver in their efforts to treat every patient with the dignity, respect, and empathy they deserve. https://t.co/7PRogpEVTP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2020

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by latsot on Put out that light!

The one guy should have just visited his dad without posting about it on social media

Should? Why? He did nothing wrong.

While no harm was arguably done in this case, this kind of oppressive, bullying security theatre should concern us greatly. Panopticon-based policing is always open to abuses of the worst kind and to institutionalised inhumanity.

We tread a fine line with surveillance, particularly when it’s technologically-enabled. Having CCTV cameras everywhere is one thing when they are only used to forensically examine crime scenes (even when they radically expand the notion and boundaries of crime scenes) but CCTV linked to face-recognition software and used for pre-emptive police action is … Read the rest

Boxing instruction:

World champion Billy Joe Saunders has had his boxing licence suspended by the British Boxing Board of Control after he released a video advising men how to hit their female partners.

In the video, Saunders uses a punch bag to explain how to react if “your old woman is giving you mouth” and showing how to “hit her on the chin”.

Woman talks, man beats her up. Fair?

He later apologised, saying he would “never condone domestic violence”.

Well that’s just silly. Telling men to hit women who talk is more than condoning domestic violence aka male violence against women, it’s giving men instructions in violence against women.

Speaking to Talksport on Monday, he said it was

This is the kind of labyrinth of circular reasoning people get themselves into when they decide reality is all in the mind.

There's no baseline standard woman they are all different the thing they all have in common is that they have an affinity with/see themselves as being members of the category woman.

— Owen Thompson (@Technicallyowen) March 30, 2020

Women are all totally different, there is no one thing that defines them, they can be anything, everything, nothing, they can be dandelion fluff or the scent of grilled mushrooms or a dream someone had but doesn’t remember – you can’t pin them down, you can’t say what they are, they are infinite – except for just this one magically … Read the rest

He’s confirmed that the “press briefings” are not about the pandemic but about his “ratings” and the beautiful music he makes with that fiddle.

Polls are showing tremendous disapproval of Lamestream Media coverage of the Virus crisis. The Fake News just hasn’t figured that out yet!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

See you at 5 pm for more showboating and lying and … Read the rest

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

…alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

… Read the rest

Big cop is watching YOU.

Hello @SKinnock we know celebrating your Dad’s birthday is a lovely thing to do, however this is not essential travel. We all have our part to play in this, we urge you to comply with @GOVUK restrictions, they are in place to keep us all safe. Thank you. ^cy

— South Wales Police (@swpolice) March 29, 2020

But it was essential.

I felt that this was essential travel as I had to deliver some necessary supplies to my parents. I stayed long enough to sing ‘happy birthday’ to Dad, and then I was off. All the best, Stephen.

— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) March 29, 2020

Wales Online has more details:

South Wales Police has

Seriously? Now?

“Boosting the immune system” into a cytokine storm maybe?… Read the rest

Spot the problem.

I am giving consideration to a QUARANTINE of developing “hot spots”, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. A decision will be made, one way or another, shortly.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2020

… Read the rest

Meanwhile fans of “the boss” succeed in getting a woman fired for being critical of Trump in public.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center [in Buffalo] has terminated a top executive for Facebook posts that bashed President Trump’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Laura Krolczyk, Roswell Park’s vice president for external affairs, was initially placed on administrative leave from her position but was fired following the conclusion of an investigation into her remarks, spokeswoman Annie Deck-Miller confirmed Saturday.

I did a search on Facebook and found a slew of posts demanding her firing. I wonder how many of them are Russian influencers.

Laura Krolczyk, Roswell Park’s vice president for external affairs, was initially placed on administrative leave from her position but

Jesus christ.

Rudy Giuliani has advice for governors and mayors: Take the blame when you have to… when you play with your boss, sometimes it’s better when you don’t win the golf game. He’s the boss, he’s got all the resources pic.twitter.com/IntMpHvzsN

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 28, 2020

One, HE’S NOT THE BOSS.

That’s not what a president is. Trump is not an extra-big cop. He’s not our boss. He doesn’t hire or fire us, he doesn’t give us tasks to perform, he doesn’t call us into his office. He’s not our boss.

He’s not the boss of governors, either. Yes he’s the executive of the whole country, but that doesn’t mean the governors work for him, and they … Read the rest

He’s doing the daily rally. It’s so awful I can’t not share some of the awful. (I’m not watching. I’m just getting the awful via reporters on Twitter. I can’t bear watching.)

! Trump says he's told Vice President Mike Pence not to call the governors of Washington or Michigan.

"They don't treat you right, I don't call."

He says Pence is a different type of person and will call anyway.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 27, 2020

There’s a pandemic, and he refuses to call governors who don’t suck up to him enough.

Trump says of Pence: "He calls all the governors. I say, 'Mike, Don't call the governor of Washington. You're wasting your time. Don't call the woman

He really thinks he’s a god-emperor.

We are marshalling the full power of government and society to achieve victory over the virus. Together, we will endure, we will prevail, and we will WIN! #CARESAct pic.twitter.com/zb2PJTldGQ

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020

Also why is he bragging about doing something he should have done WEEKS ago?

How I wish he would just drop dead.… Read the rest

Trump is withholding assistance from governors who don’t kiss his ass.

In case you missed it, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago went on teevee with Sean Hannity on Thursday night and explained in rather precise detail how his pandemic shakedown is going to work. For example, he is not happy with Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of the state of Michigan, where Detroit has become a hot zone in which hospitals are overwhelmed and already preparing contingency plans to triage patients in order to ration things like ventilators. In several appearances addressing the crisis in her state, Whitmer has been critical of the federal response—or lack thereof—to the pandemic. The president* told Hannity:

“She is a new governor, and it’s

I wasn’t the only one confused by the Derbyshire police rebuke of walking in an empty landscape. The government had to clarify.

The government has said people should “stay local” and not travel unnecessarily for exercise.

New advice clarifies that people must use “open spaces” near to home, where possible.

It follows confusion over whether people could drive places to go walking, running, or cycling.

Exercise is one of the few defined reasons that people in the UK are allowed to leave their home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Derbyshire Police sparked a heated debate on Twitter this week when it shared drone footage of people walking in the Peak District, with a warning that daily exercise should not involve

Pandemic or no pandemic, Labour is still busy getting rid of all these pesky women who don’t agree that men become women by saying some words.

Earlier this week, the Labour party – you remember, the party of fairness and kindness and compassion and equality – decided that it has no place for a woman who has worked tirelessly to protect women from abuse and to remind the world about murdered women who are so often ignored.

Let’s start with murdered women. There are quite a lot of them: 241 women were killed in England and Wales last year. Most of them are killed by men – men they know. Often this is taken as mundane, just one of those