Yes Trump actually did order NOAA to contradict its own staff in order to back up his mistake about Alabama. Yes he is that dishonest and that petty and that dictatorial and that willing to abuse his power.

President Trump told his staff that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration needed to deal with a tweet that seemed to contradict his statement that Hurricane Dorian posed a significant threat to Alabama as of Sept. 1, in contrast to what the agency’s forecasters were predicting at the time, senior administration officials said. This led chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to call Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to tell him to fix the issue, the officials said.

That should never happen. Trump is not Henry VIII and we are not his subjects. Saying Trump is wrong is not treason and we get to do it.

He whined about it for days and days, the senior officials said.

Mulvaney then called Ross but did not instruct him to threaten any firings or make any punitive threats, officials said. He simply told Ross that the agency needed to fix the matter immediately, leading to a new statement that was issued Friday, Sept. 6.

But of course the agency didn’t “need” any such thing. The agency was being forced to by the underlings of an out of control authoritarian shit.

Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he did not direct NOAA to issue such a statement. “No, I never did that,” he said. “I never did that. It’s a hoax by the media. That’s just fake news. Right from the beginning, it was a fake story.”

That’s our Tiny Shoes. He issues an authoritarian order that he has no right to issue, and then he lies to us about it.

Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology are launching an investigation into the Commerce Department’s involvement in NOAA’s unusual decision to side with Trump over its scientists.

Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), chairwoman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, sent a letter to Ross requesting information related to the department’s dealings with NOAA regarding Dorian.

The Science Committee, which has jurisdiction over NOAA, is requesting a briefing with Commerce Department staff who may have been involved in issuing instructions to NOAA that led to several directives being issued to Weather Service staff and culminated in the Sept. 6 unsigned statement, which disavowed a tweet sent by the Birmingham office Sept. 1.

The Trump people will tell them to refuse, and the committee will give up.

“We are deeply disturbed by the politicization of NOAA’s weather forecast activities for the purpose of supporting incorrect statements by the president,” Johnson and Sherrill wrote to Ross. The House members are seeking answers to who ordered and helped draft the Sept. 6 statement and whether Commerce Department or White House staff members were involved in threatening NOAA leadership to secure the statement.

“We are committed to supporting the activities of the NWS and its dedicated staff. During your Senate confirmation hearing, you committed to allowing federal scientists to ‘be free to communicate data clearly and concisely’ and that you would ‘not interfere with the release of factual scientific data,’ ” Johnson and Sherrill wrote to Ross.

They noted that based on news reports, it appears that Ross violated the “values of scientific integrity.”

The Science Committee is requesting all records of communication between Commerce Department officials, NOAA and the White House between Sept. 1 and 9 pertaining to the president’s tweet and NOAA’s Sept. 6 statement.

The committee wants to hear from three Commerce Department officials in particular by Sept. 30: NOAA deputy chief of staff Julie Kay Roberts, Commerce Department chief of staff Michael Walsh Jr. and Commerce Department policy director Earl Comstock.

That’s all very good but we know Trump will just tell everyone to say no, and that will be the end of it.

There are other probes though.

In addition to the Science Committee’s investigation, others are initiating probes into NOAA’s decision to back Trump’s claim. These include the Commerce Department’s inspector general and NOAA’s acting chief scientist.

A spokesman for the NWS confirmed Tuesday that the Commerce Department inspector general had launched a probe. The spokesman said two senior leaders had received notice of the investigation.

Good. That’s good. We can’t have a dictator telling NOAA which weather it gets to warn us about.

In addition, NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean wrote an email Sunday saying he would open an investigation into whether the agency’s Sept. 6 statement, as well as previous emails to NWS staff, violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy.

“The content of this news release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific danger to public health and safety,” he wrote. “If the public cannot trust our information, or we debase our forecaster’s warnings and products, that specific danger arises.”

As a result, McLean told his staff that “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity.”

“I have a responsibility to pursue these truths,” he added. “I will.”

The scientific integrity policy includes a provision that states, “In no circumstance may any NOAA official ask or direct Federal scientists or other NOAA employees to suppress or alter scientific findings.”

Aha. That spells it out. That’s not the same as being enforceable, but maybe it will work out that way.

Framing is everything.

Transgender teen bullied for using girl’s locker room

Being a transgender teen at Galesburg High School, Ali Mcdorman, always knew she would eventually encounter hate. However, she never thought that hate would come from an adult.

“I feel like grown people…like adults… wouldn’t target a teenager,” said Ali McDorman, a 16-year-old student who identified as transgender three years ago.

But Ali said she was targeted. In a Facebook post last week, one parent wrote:

“Did you know… that Galesburg High School is allowing a male student (who identifies as a female) to be in AND a change in the same locker room as the girls while they are changing?? #GHS “

“It wasn’t derogatory towards me necessarily. They didn’t say my name,” Ali admitted. “But I am one of the three trans females at the high school. So I assumed it was me. I bit the bullet and I basically announced myself to be that person.”

That’s one way to frame it, but there are others. There is, for instance, “Girls at Galesburg High School forced to change clothes in front of boys.” The needs of Ali Mcdorman aren’t the only needs at issue here, but they are the only ones the story talks about. Ali Mcdorman apparently doesn’t pause for a second to wonder if girls might feel uncomfortable or worse having to share their locker room with him, regardless of how he “identifies.” He seems to think he’s the only person who matters here.

“I believe there was close to 200 shares, and about 800 comments,” said Holly McDorman, Ali’s mother. “I don’t think the original post had that intent (to bully Ali). But it certainly got to the point that Ali was definitely bullied and name called.”

“I think this entire situation blew out of proportions too quickly,” Ali said.

According to the National Center For Transgender Equality, transgender students have the right to use restrooms and locker rooms “that match their gender identity, and can’t be forced to use separate facilities.”

And according to the National Center For Burglars’ Equality, burglars have the right to force open windows and help themselves to whatever they find inside.

In other words the National Center For Gender Equality can assert that “right” all it likes, but the fact remains that such a right conflicts with the right of girls to have some facilities separate from those of boys, specifically toilets and changing facilities. Informing us what the National Center For Gender Equality says doesn’t mean we have to bow and tug our forelock and say “Okay.”

“For us it’s not even a question,” Holly said. “She’s a girl. She’s a female. So, of course, she’d use the locker room. Why would you send another female into the men’s locker room? It’s just that simple to us.”

That’s nice, but the article says Ali is transgender, so Ali is not a girl or female, Ali is a boy who “identifies as” a girl. We don’t all agree that “identifies as” magically changes people’s sex. It’s not self-evident that Ali’s self-identification should overrule girls’ disinclination to change their clothes in the presence of a boy. The girls have feelings too.

Now, both mother and daughter said they just want every student to feel safe and accepted in school.

“We can let everyone know that it’s ok to be themselves and that they can find acceptance in the world,” Holly said.

But what if they’re girls? What if they’re girls who don’t feel safe taking their clothes off with a boy in the room? What about them?

Professor Alice Roberts again, professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, linking to a bad article on Vox and pissing on feminists:

Beware biological essentialism: the latest frontier in civil rights, and the unholy alliance between gender-critical feminists and the far right:

It’s not “biological essentialism.” That would be claiming that liking to wear skirts=being a woman, and that’s not what we claim.

Francis Wheen asked:

Why are you trashing your academic reputation by promoting this slipshod, defamatory and unscientific drivel? Clearly you don’t know any GC feminists, or you’d realise how grotesque it is to smear them as agents of the “far right”. Shameful.

Hadley Freeman was tactful but firm:

I’m sure you meant well by tweeting that piece. But I cannot believe you actually read it before tweeting, given it’s already been multiply corrected and is full of absurd generalisations and anti science word salad. No professor would knowingly promote that.

Martina Navratilova clarified further

I, along with so many women, am not gender critical but rather biology critical. A big difference. Get a clue and call it what it is- women’s sports and fairness is about biology. Not gender. So – we are not gender critical- get it now?!?

And many more.

People have lost their minds.

Meet the first gender neutral penguin at aquarium Sea Life London.

Staff have decided not to describe the Gentoo penguin as male or female because they say gender is more of a human construct. Expert Aquarists say it would be normal for it to grow up as genderless in the wild as male and female penguins look almost the same until they mature and reach adulthood.

Not almost the same, just plain the same. Lots of birds are not visibly dimorphic at all and nobody knows what sex they are. That’s nothing to do with “gender neutral” though, it just means the sex is unknown. Animals don’t have “genders.” Of course gender is a human construct, but that’s not a reason to call animals “gender neutral.” If you don’t know the sex you don’t know the sex, and gender doesn’t come into it.

Graham McGrath, General Manager at Sea Life London, said: ‘While the decision may ruffle a few feathers, gender neutrality in humans has only recently become a widespread topic of conversation, however, it is completely natural for penguins to develop genderless identities as they grow into mature adults.’

They don’t develop “genderless identities”! They don’t develop any kind of identities. They get older. If they mate, they mate. Some males mate and leave, others stay and help rear the young. None of that is a matter of “gender,” much less animals that are “gender neutral.” They don’t argue over who gets to wear the high heels tonight, either.

Typical Trump admin: when in doubt, go for the kill everything option. If there’s a choice, always choose death and destruction.

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is expanding hunting and fishing in 77 national wildlife refuges in a move that critics contend is deferring management to states and could harm wildlife.

Not much of a refuge if you kill them, is it.

The Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said hunters and anglers can shoot and cast their rods on 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers) of federally protected land in 37 states, much of which is considered critical habitat for waterfowl and other birds to rest and refuel during their migration.

“This is the largest single effort to expand hunting and fishing access in recent history,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said last month before the changes were posted Tuesday in the Federal Register.

Well hey, why don’t we just gas them all – wouldn’t that be more efficient?

It’s the latest effort by the Trump administration to open public lands to recreation and industry, including oil and gas drilling, which critics say comes at the expense of the environment and wildlife.

“Critics say” – how could it not come at the expense of the environment and wildlife? It’s not some fanciful belief of critics, it’s just reality.

Hunting and fishing will be allowed at seven national wildlife refuges for the first time and expanded at 70 others. The agency, which also now permits it at 15 national fish hatcheries, said some 5,000 regulations have been eliminated or simplified to match state rules.

Conservationists said the changes went into effect without adequate environmental review.

“While the Trump policy retains federal ownership, it basically eviscerates federal management,” said Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “The states end up managing federal land with federal dollars but following state laws. That’s a sea change from federal management for conservation and biodiversity rather than promoting hunting.”

Yeah but hunting is good because Don Junior and Eric like to kill things. Case closed.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican, pretends not to understand what corruption is, what conflicts of interest are, what the emoluments clause means.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday defended military expenditures at President Donald Trump’s properties, arguing that hotels owned by the president are “just like any other hotel.”

“The president’s resorts are hotels that he owns. People are traveling. It’s just like any other hotel. I know people will look at it, I don’t know if that’s different than anything else,” he said at a press conference.

No, it’s not just like any other hotel, because the president can use his office to promote his hotel, and that’s just what we don’t want. That right there is the very thing we do not want, because it’s a conflict of interest, aka corrupt. “People will look at it” because it’s corrupt and shady and self-dealing, and people in government are not supposed to do that.

Ethics officials and lawmakers have raised concerns about foreign officials staying at Trump hotels, noting that Trump supporters and industry groups regularly hold events at Trump-owned locations. An analysis conducted by The Washington Post earlier this summer found that Trump’s properties had brought in $1.6 million in revenue from federal officials and Republicans who paid to be near the president.

McCarthy asserted Tuesday that shouldn’t be looked down upon either. “Is it different than if I go to eat or stay at a Marriott here or eat at the Trump?” he asked, adding: “The president isn’t asking me to, he’s competing in a private enterprise. It’s nothing he controls in that process, so if it’s in the process, they can stay there, yes.”

That’s not the rule. That’s never been the rule. The House minority leader is just brazenly lying to us.

If you want to watch and hear McCarthy say it, it’s in this tweet.

Now Bolton is twitter-bombing reporters with his version. He wasn’t fired, he quit!

Peter Baker:

Bolton differs from Trump version of his resignation. “Offered last night without his asking,” he texts me. “Slept on it and gave it to him this morning.”

Robert Costa:

Ambassador Bolton sends me a text message just now: “Let’s be clear, I resigned, having offered to do so last night.”

Brian Stelter:

Quite a moment on Fox –> Host @Kilmeade said “John Bolton just texted me. Just now. He’s watching. And he said, ‘Let’s be clear. I resigned.'”

Other news boffins are pointing out that Bolton, loathsome and wrong though he is, has intellectual and rhetorical powers that Trump does not, so the fight could get interesting.

The Guardian says it’s all a bit abrupt because Bolton was on the schedule for a briefing to be held in an hour or so.

This tweet is likely shocking news to both Bolton and the White House, who just announced that the national security adviser would appear alongside Mike Pompeo and Steven Mnuchin at a press briefing at 1:30 p.m. E.T.

The Post reported at the end of August that Bolton opposed Trump’s approach to Afghanistan.

Bolton, who has long advocated an expansive military presence around the world, has become a staunch internal foe of an emerging peace deal aimed at ending America’s longest war, the officials said.

His opposition to the diplomatic effort in Afghanistan has irritated President Trump, these officials said, and led aides to leave the National Security Council out of sensitive discussions about the agreement.

The sidelining of Bolton has raised questions about his influence in an administration that is seeking a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as an ambitious nuclear deal with North Korea and potential engagement with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Bolton, U.S. officials said, stands in opposition to those efforts, but he does so increasingly from the periphery.

Meanwhile Bolton has just informed us that Trump lied in that tweet. Of course he did.

I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

So Trump. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” meaning, “Nah, I’d rather fire you abruptly in a tweet but I’m too chickenshit to say so to your face.”

They deserve each other, all of them.

The count is now up to four times military personnel have stayed at Trump’s golf dump 50 miles south of Prestwick Airport.

The four trips — uncovered through interviews with people present, records of expenditures and social media postings — date back to at least September 2018 and continued through at least this past June. They include at least one instance in which a crew member said a nearby airport arranged for rides and lunches to and from the luxury waterside retreat. All the flights were shuttling crews between the United States and the Middle East, and at least three of them of them were divisions of the Air National Guard. In total, over 60 service members stayed at the posh property on these stopovers.

Democrats are trying to get a bill passed to prevent any more of this corruption. A normal president wouldn’t need a law forcing him to stop making the military stay at his hotels so that he can pocket more cash, but Child Trump isn’t a normal anything, let alone president.

The push to outlaw the practice will join a growing list of conflict-of-interest concerns that Democrats want to highlight in the coming months as House leaders decide whether to begin formal impeachment proceedings against the president. The overnight stops at Turnberry have already sparked a broader House Oversight Committee investigation of military spending at and around Trump properties. The Air Force over the weekend also launched a worldwide review of how it chooses lodging on overnight layovers. A legislative battle could be next.

There shouldn’t be any battle. Nobody should be defending this bullshit.

Yes, criminals always have a cunning plan to be in the path of a hurricane so that they can enter the US to kill and devour all the inhabitants.

Jen Gunter is in London chatting with reporters.

Though she became famous for her sharp criticisms of Paltrow (the jade egg scandal led to a lawsuit against Goop’s marketing), she has branched out from bodies and blogging, with two columns in the New York Times, a web series that unpicks health myths, and a new book, The Vagina Bible.

The book is already a bestseller, a sign there is a need for her expertise; last month a 62-year-old woman was hospitalised with second-degree burns after steaming her vagina.

What?

The BBC August 8:

Gynaecologists are warning of the potential risks of vaginal steaming after it emerged a Canadian woman burned herself attempting one.

A case study, involving a 62-year-old, was published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada.

The woman had been suffering from a prolapsed vagina and believed the treatment could help avoid surgery.

Vaginal steaming, which involves sitting over a hot water and herb mix, has seen a growth in popularity.

Sitting over a hot water and herb mix to do what? Besides causing burns? Steam is good for coughs, because it loosens up the crap in the lungs so that you can cough it out and thus breathe more easily. It doesn’t follow that steam is just generally Good. We don’t need to steam our eyeballs, or our armpits, or our kneecaps. Same with the vagina but more so.

What about this unfortunate woman?

Dr Magali Robert, who authored the article, said the injured woman attempted to steam her vagina on the advice of a traditional Chinese doctor.

The woman, who gave permission for her case to be shared, sat over the boiling water for 20 minutes on two consecutive days before presenting at an emergency department with injuries.

Boiling water?? Dear god. I accidentally let my hand stray into the plume of steam from a kettle just for a fraction of a second a few weeks back and that hurt. Just a fraction of a second so there was no damage, but still, the pain was fierce. You do the math.

Back to the Graun on Gunter and Goop.

Gunter argues that the wellness industry and the anti-abortion industry are, if not exactly dancing together, certainly at the same disco. The former manipulates that confusion to take women’s money, the latter to take their power. “I even started to notice overlap between the language,” she says with a shudder. “The anti-science views of wellness and the anti-science of the religious right. Themes like ‘purity’ and ‘cleanliness’ with their similar rituals. It’s predatory. It’s the patriarchy by another name. And it keeps women back by telling them lies about their body. They might be different lies, but the effect is the same.” It is her responsibility, she says, with something like a sigh, to “step up”.

Women are basically seen as filthy. We know this. The taboos on menstruation, the disgust for women who have sex with more than 1 (one) man, the desperate efforts to scour out that demonic thing between their legs – it’s all the same phobic terror.

Gunter’s skill is in her rawness, her frankness about her own experiences and the way she takes celebrity trends apart like oranges, spitting out pips.

“When I realised that people were believing Goop’s fairy tales, I thought: ‘I’ll take them on.’” The first anti-Goop post she wrote, on vaginal steaming, centred around the idea that women have long been believed to be unclean. “It’s one of the core beliefs of the patriarchy. That women are dirty inside. And yet Goop presents this as female empowerment? In Hippocrates’s time they used to think that the womb wandered the body, causing mayhem, and you would coax it back into place by putting fragrant herbs between the legs. This is the same thing. It’s in so many cultures, this belief that the uterus is toxic. I couldn’t believe it was now being presented as female empowerment. It’s bad feminism. And it’s bad science.”

But it makes $$$$.

She was stunned, and yes, angry. “Paltrow is able to call up any magazine in the world and get on the cover. And this is what she’s doing with her privilege. Grifting off desperate women.”

…

Would she like to sit down with Paltrow one day, have a conversation about, say, weaponising women’s fears about femininity? “No, I don’t think I’d ever get an answer that would be satisfying. People have had to spend money, just to prove her breast cancer bra thing was false, money that could have been used to study something important. Many of the medical experts she publishes are part of the anti-vaccine world and post a lot of conspiracy theories. So, either it’s a grift, or she’s a true believer. As a ‘feminist businesswoman’ she’s claimed the right to ‘try out’ being a reporter, and then, ‘try out’ being a doctor. It doesn’t work like that.”

It doesn’t except that it does. It’s working for Trump and his litter, and it works for Paltrow.

The Air Force says oh hmmm you may have a point, we’ll look into it further.

The U.S. Air Force has ordered a world-wide review of how it chooses overnight accommodations on long flights following revelations that air crews had occasionally stayed at President Donald Trump’s Scotland resort while refueling at a small commercial airport nearby.

“Occasionally” – when it should be never. Never never never.

The review comes as additional instances of military personnel staying at Trump properties have been uncovered. The C-17 crew’s overnight stay at Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland earlier this year, first reported by POLITICO on Friday, was not an isolated incident.

In September 2018, on its way back to the U.S. from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a unit of the Maine Air National Guard landed at Prestwick Airport, the airport closest to Trump’s luxury waterfront resort. The crew and their passengers then spent the night at his hotel, according to one person who was present, an Instagram post and a voucher detailing the crew’s itinerary reviewed by POLITICO.

…

The Air Force also said the the decision to stay at the Trump resort would have been the result of “a multitude of factors,” including the lack of suitable lodging closer to the civil airport or at a nearby military base. It did not provide evidence that nearby hotels were cheaper or unavailable at the time of the crews’ stays, however.

I’m sorry but that is just not credible.

Funny thing, if you look at Google maps, there are two golf clubs right next to Prestwick, one north and one south. By “right next” I mean they’re the first things you come to. Trump’s club is much farther away. The Marine Hotel, Troon is 400 feet from the Royal Troon golf club just north of Prestwick. $109 per night. Is it likely that Trump’s hotel is cheaper than that? The South Beach hotel, half a mile away, is $113.

How about hotels near Prestwick St Cuthbert Golf Club on the south. Huh, the Premier Inn in Ayr, 1.1 mile away, is a mere $63. Adamton Country House hotel, which looks charming, is $43.

Come on now, Air Force. Be serious.

Interesting. Shorts for girls are more than twice as expensive as shorts for boys:

No. It’s worse this year : girls’ shorts one pair £9-£14. Boys’ 2 pair £8-12

I guess the images explain it. Boys get to move and act like ordinary reasonable human beings while wearing shorts, but girls have to wear their hair up prettily and look down bashfully and fiddle with their earlobes seductively and point one foot inward awkwardly while wearing shorts. All those extras require extra engineering, and that doesn’t come cheap.

I’m joking but I’m also dead fucking serious, because this kind of messaging to girls makes me absolutely livid. Why are the two children posed so very differently? Why is the girl made to do some kind of Ivanka Trump performance? Why does everybody have to push girls into this stupid deforming crushing mold at every turn? Is it because putting the girl in a not-skirt caused everybody at the agency to panic so hard that they threw every “feminine” trope in the book at her? What the hell is wrong with everyone?