The House voted to censure Trump’s loathsome racist tweets.

The measure, introduced by Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who was born in Poland, is titled “Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.”

It unfavorably compares Trump’s comments to those of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, who praised the impact of immigrants on the United States, and “strongly condemns” Trump’s language, stating that it has “legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

(And that’s not even all. It’s a gruesome abuse of power, and it’s misogynist, and it’s blatant bullying and incitement.)

“This is an affront to 22 million naturalized citizens who were born in another country,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a cosponsor of the measure, said of Trump’s tweets on the floor Tuesday. “It’s an affront to the hundreds of millions of Americans who understand and love how American democracy works.”

Mitch McConnell blathered about how we all have to elevate the discourse.

Pressed when he stopped short of calling the president’s attacks racist, McConnell said, “The president is not a racist. I think the tone of all of this is not good for the country.”

In response, Ocasio-Cortez told ABC News that McConnell is “complicit in advancing racism in America” for not criticizing Trump.”

“When you tell American citizens to go back to their country … that has everything to do with race,” she said.

And when you’re a birther, and when you take out an add to demand death for black suspects, and when you say “good people on both sides,” and when you have a history of racial discrimination in housing.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday that he didn’t consider Trump’s comments to be racist, and accused Democrats of trying to play politics against Trump with the resolution on the floor.

As opposed to what Trump was doing when he told the four women to get out of the country?

Just to be clear, 193 members of the House #Republican Conference just openly supported the use of #racist language by the @potus … 193 members of Congress who are more than just #enablers, more than just #complicit, they are, themselves, #racists

— Kurt Bardella (@kurtbardella) July 16, 2019

On the border:

At a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso, Texas, an agent told a Honduran family that one parent would be sent to Mexico while the other parent and their three children could stay in the United States, according to the family. The agent turned to the couple’s youngest daughter — 3-year-old Sofia, whom they call Sofi — and asked her to make a choice.

Sofi’s choice. Ironic, isn’t it. I don’t suppose the agent knew her name or knew of Sophie’s Choice.

“The agent asked her who she wanted to go with, mom or dad,” her mother, Tania, told NPR through an interpreter. “And the girl, because she is more attached to me, she said mom. But when they started to take [my husband] away, the girl started to cry. The officer said, ‘You said [you want to go] with mom.’ “

Marvelous, isn’t it? Pick out the youngest child and make her choose – so as to scar her for life.

Tania and her husband, Joseph, said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family. They were aided by a doctor who had examined Sofi and pleaded with agents not to separate the family, Joseph and Tania said.

But it’s our official policy to be as inhumane and cruel as possible, to discourage people from trying to escape to a better life.

Because the doctor made a huge point of it, in the end the family was allowed to stay together and they’re now with relatives in the Midwest…but Border Patrol did its best to wreck their lives.

The family fled Honduras after Tania witnessed her mother get killed. Her sister-in-law also was a witness and was later kidnapped, tortured and slain to keep her from testifying. The gang MS-13 then posted a note on the family’s door telling them they had 45 minutes to leave, Tania said. That’s when the family left to seek asylum in the U.S.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat whose office assisted the family in its efforts to be removed from the MPP program, said she is asking DHS to investigate allegations that the Border Patrol planned to separate the family and asked a 3-year-old girl to pick which parent she would go with.

“It’s an outrage, and it’s absolutely horrifying that a toddler would be asked to choose between two parents. It was just stunning to me. It’s one thing to read about it; it’s another thing to actually hear a parent recounting the story firsthand in their own voice,” Escobar said.

H/t Rob

It just amazes me how cheerfully some men can dismiss women’s rights without pausing for even a second to remember that other people’s rights aren’t theirs to dismiss.

I'll ignore your framing and respond to your main point. I haven't said "stand aside". I do say, essentially, that meeting what we agree are the dreadful outcomes for trans men and women requires that we *meaningfully* recognise and engage with the causes of those outcomes. /1

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) July 16, 2019

Actually we don’t “agree are the dreadful outcomes for trans men and women.” Too much of that is just automatic-pilot hyperbole, and much of the rest is discredited claims about the numbers. No, I don’t agree that trans people have it worse than everyone else, and so much worse that we all (except men of course) have to give up our rights.

It's not good enough to respond by saying 'but women's rights'. There is (I think) a moral responsibility to engage with the data and ways to diminish its causes. And that is likely to mean less grandstanding and more careful, accretive compromise by both sides. /2

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) July 16, 2019

“It’s not good enough to respond by saying ‘but women’s rights'”…says the man.

What do we have to do to make that good enough? Why isn’t it good enough? Why don’t our rights matter?

He doesn’t bother to say. Not his problem.

Also Kellyanne Conway: she ignored a subpoena.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday said she was “taking one for the team” by defying a House subpoena compelling her to testify on her multiple violations of the Hatch Act.

“They’re trying to silence me and take away my First Amendment rights,” she said in an interview on Fox News of her decision to skip the House Oversight hearing for which she received a subpoena to attend. “I would be happy to testify, just so we’re clear. I have nothing to hide. I have done nothing wrong.”

It’s not a “First Amendment right” to use your job in the White House for campaign purposes, just as it’s not a “First Amendment right” to lie under oath or to commit fraud via spam.

Last month, Conway was cited by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency that oversees Hatch Act compliance, for multiple violations of the 1939 law that prohibits government employees from participating in political speech while performing their official duties. Conway was cited for speaking in her official capacity about both the 2020 election and 2017’s special Senate election in Alabama.

…

In a letter to House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings on Monday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said Conway would be skipping the hearing. The Justice Department “has advised me that Ms. Conway is absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser” to Trump, he told the committee.

If that’s true (which of course is disputed) then it’s example #759,365 of how “checks and balances” are a joke. Congress is supposed to be able to oversee the executive branch, so if people like Conway have absolute immunity from being questioned about violations of law, Congress can’t do the thing it’s supposed to be able to do. Checks and balances? Not that anyone can see.

Uglier again.

Here’s video, courtesy of @cspan pic.twitter.com/PNqIznSDcO

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 16, 2019

This clip is shorter but the audio is much better and you can hear Feinberg’s questions as well as Conway’s replies.

“What’s your ethnicity?” Kellyanne Conway asks a reporter when the reporter asks her about the intent of the president’s tweets.

“A lot of us are sick and tired of this country – of America coming last, to people who swore an oath of office.” pic.twitter.com/Tia1VUQluP

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 16, 2019

Republicans are rushing to condemn Trump’s racism no just kidding they’re amplifying it.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Tuesday responded to President Donald Trump’s racist tweets by suggesting that Democrats are baby killers if they support abortion.

Non sequitur much?

At a press conference at the Capitol, Republican leaders — including Cheney — refused to condemn Trump’s tweets which suggested that four Democratic congresswomen of color should go back to their home country even though all four are American citizens.

Instead of calling the tweets racists, Cheney branded Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar (MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (MA) and Rashida Tlaib (MI) as “socialists.”

…

Additionally, Cheney called the Democratic congresswomen “racist.”

She asserted that the congresswomen were “wrong that any individual seat at the table is only valuable, only legitimate if that person espouses some pre-approved set of beliefs deemed appropriate based on their religion, gender or race.”

And they’ve claimed that where, exactly? Don’t let the truth slow you down.

Pro-tip: don’t be a woman. It’s dangerous.

Greek police have arrested a suspect in the murder of an American scientist who was found dead in an abandoned World War II bunker on the island of Crete last week.

The unnamed suspect is a 27-year-old Greek man who was brought in for questioning Monday and was later arrested after he “confessed his crime,” according to Maj. Gen. Constantinos Lagoudakis, director of Police General Directorate of Crete.

He murdered her why? Oh, you know, he wanted to use her, and that’s easier when they’re dead.

The suspect claimed that he spotted U.S. citizen Suzanne Eaton walking toward the Evelpidon monument during the afternoon of July 2 and, “motivated by sexual satisfaction,” hit her twice with his car to stop her, according to Eleni Papathanassiou, a spokeswoman for Crete’s police department.

The suspect claimed he put Eaton, who was apparently unconscious, in the trunk of his vehicle and drove to the bunker’s ventilation drain, where he raped her and abandoned her there, Papathanassiou said.

Now be honest: haven’t we all done that a few times?

Who was this woman a man so casually destroyed for a poke?

Eaton, a 59-year-old molecular biologist and mother of two, was attending a scientific conference held at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in northwest Crete when she vanished on July 2.

That’s who.

Can we hope she didn’t suffer?

An autopsy determined that Eaton died at noon on July 2. Her body showed signs of “a violent criminal act and possibly sexual abuse,” Lagoudakis said in his statement Tuesday. She had many broken ribs and face bones as well as multiple injuries to both hands, according to Papathanassiou’s statement.

A police source told ABC News that Eaton fought for her life when she was attacked by someone with a knife. Her body had substantial injuries from a blade that was “defensive” in nature, the source said.

All for a fuck.

Eaton was a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

“We have come to know Suzanne as a lively and committed woman who made a decisive contribution to the development of our institute. Her sudden and untimely death is devastating for us all,” Michael Schroeder, director of the TU Dresden Biotechnology Center, said in a statement last week. “We will remember Suzanne as a remarkable person. We are profoundly saddened and speechless.”

She was also a professor at the Biotechnology Center of the Technical University of Dresden in Germany, known as TU Dresden.

“We were shocked to learn of the death of our dear colleague and friend, Prof. Suzanne Eaton,” Hans Muller-Steinhagen, rector of the TU Dresden, said in a statement last week. “We have lost an immensely renowned scientist and a truly outstanding human being.”

Because one random guy wanted “sexual satisfaction.”

CNN is doing a live update thing on Trump and racism.

House Democrats said they are staying focused on their policy agenda and will call out President Trump’s tactics to “deflect” and divide the country.

Rep. Katherine Clark said at a news conference Tuesday Democrats are going to continue to speak out against racist attacks.

“This president with his racist attacks is showing us that he is not concerned with anything but further enriching those who are already rich and powerful. And his plan is to distract us, to divide us, so they can pickpocket us while we’re not looking,” Clark said. “That’s what we are speaking out against. This attack on American values, this attack on trying to be a country that is the United States of America, not the divided states.”

Well he does want to keep enriching those who are already rich and powerful, though not nearly as much as he wants to keep enriching himself. But let’s not treat the racism as a mere distraction: he wants to keep performing noisy belligerent ignorant racism from his platform as president of the US, too. It’s not a tiresome chore to him, it’s fun. He loves it.

Meanwhile the Republicans are trying to push it behind the door.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was just asked about President Trump’s racist tweets about four progressive Democratic congresswomen and those representatives’ response to the attacks.

McCarthy said the Democrats’ response has been politically charged.

Ah, politically charged; were they indeed. How very shocking. Of course it’s not at all politically charged for Trump to scream that they should get out of the country.

McCarthy says “We should get back to the business of America.” Certainly we should, but we can’t just ignore the Top Dog screaming racist insults from the podium over and over again.

Trump, meanwhile…

Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

It’s not good for heads of state to tell citizens to get out. That’s not what Trump is supposed to be doing.

Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body! The so-called vote to be taken is a Democrat con game. Republicans should not show “weakness” and fall into their trap. This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

They were, and he does.

The White House transcript of Trump’s racist bullying today:

Q    Mr. President, three of the congresswomen that you talked about were born in America.  (Inaudible.)  What were you talking about?

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, they’re very unhappy.  I’m watching them; all they do is complain.  So all I’m saying is, if they want to leave, they can leave, John.  They can leave.

But that’s not how that works. Legislators are allowed to want to change some things, to improve things. Legislators are allowed to point out things that are not good enough. That’s an important part of their job. They are not required to say everything is already perfect. They’re allowed to say some things are not good enough, and as a member of another branch of government, Trump has no business at all telling them they should leave the country if they don’t like it.

That is of course independent of the long ugly history of conservatives telling critics to love it or get out.

Now, you can say what you want, but get a list of all of the statements they’ve made.  And all I’m saying: that if they’re not happy here, they can leave.  They can leave.  And you know what?  I’m sure that there’ll be many people that won’t miss them.

Q    But they’re American citizens.  What do you make of the fact that they’re American citizens?

THE PRESIDENT:  But they have to love — they have to love our country.  They’re Congress people.  And I never used any names.  But these are people —

No they don’t. There is no “love” test for being a federal legislator.

And as for loving our country…what has Trump ever done in that line? He racially discriminated in housing early in his career. He’s stolen and cheated and lied throughout his career. He tried to get the Central Park 5 executed. He stoked birtherism against Obama. What has Trump ever done that indicates any genuine love of the country at all?

The reality is that he’s made many millions of us come closer to hating it than we’ve ever been. A state that can let a Donald Trump take power is a very broken state. I detest what he’s making us stand for, and so do millions and millions of other people.

Mata’afa Keni Lesa in The Samoa Observer:

The truth is this. We just cannot stop thinking about Feagaiga Stowers.

Having been chosen as Samoa’s flag bearer, this Pacific Games was supposed to have been her moment.

This is a young woman who has had to endure tremendous difficulties in her childhood, where she eventually entered the Samoa Victims Support Group, to end up where she is today. It’s an incredible story.

Indeed, Stowers meteoric rise has proven there is hope for everyone. And she’s done everything possible to be on top of her game, where she deserves to be.

This was until she stepped up on the weightlifting platform on Saturday where her hopes of clinching a Pacific Games gold – and that of a proud nation – were crushed by a fellow competitor, Laurel Hubbard.

Who, as we all know, is a man. This is cheating.

Hubbard does not belong in the women’s competition. As a transgender, there are only two ways Hubbard should continue to compete. Hubbard could either step up against the men or the organisers of the Pacific Games, or any competition Hubbard enters, should introduce a new division for transgenders.

We are talking about sports here. One of the values of sport is fairness. We cannot say that allowing a transgender to compete against women is fair. It is grossly unfair for women like Stowers, or all women, for that matter.

This is why we cannot stop thinking about Stowers and how gutted she must have been, at being denied the gold medal in the women’s 87kgs division by Hubbard, who lifted a total of 268kgs. Stowers lagged behind by seven kilos. Imagine that? Given Hubbard’s genes, think of how hard Stowers had to work to try and keep up. And she did. It’s an amazing achievement, still she lost the gold medal by seven kilos to a competitor who [is] technically a man.

Technically, factually, physically, literally a man. He’s a man who “identifies as a woman” but that’s not the same thing as literally being a woman, and pretending otherwise has a number of drawbacks, as we’ve been noticing for some time now.

Ironically when the kiwi athlete was asked about competing against women, Hubbard responded: “I think you have to be true to yourself.”

Really? Well why cannot Hubbard do us all a favour then, be “true to yourself” and compete in the division where Hubbard rightfully belongs? What do you think?

I’ll tell you what I think. I think that’s absolutely typical of the self-centered greedy smug indifference to the needs and desires of not-self that is so typical of this loathsome “movement.” You know what would be nice? It would be nice if people like Hubbard started “identifying as” decent people with an awareness of other people’s needs, and acting accordingly.

It’s always so heartwarming to see a corporation win an award for marketing fake meds to credulous customers.

The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists (AAHP) has awarded Wegmans Food Markets with the Integrative Medicine Award. This honor recognizes a retailer that promotes and sells products that encompass a broad range of therapeutic approaches to achieve optimal health and wellness for consumers seeking to participate actively in their healthcare.

Whuff whuff fluff uff fuff fuff. “A broad range of therapeutic approaches” including ones that don’t work. “For consumers seeking to participate actively in their healthcare” by throwing their money away on water labeled as homeopathic “medicine.” I have a wonderful piece of land in Florida I’d like to sell you.

“On behalf of Wegmans, I am happy to accept AAHP’s Integrative Medicine Award,” said Karen Shadders, Vice President of Health, Wellness, Home & Entertaining at Wegmans, who attended the reception. “We strive to offer our consumers as much choice as possible when it comes to caring for the health of their families and themselves.”

Including the “choice” of potions and powders with no active ingredients at all but lots of advertising. Some “choice.”

Founded in 1923, the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists (AAHP) is the leading industry association for the manufacturers, distributors and marketers of homeopathic drugs. AAHP promotes excellence in the practice of homeopathic pharmacy, manufacturing, marketing and distribution by supporting the requirements, criteria and published guidelines in the HPUS, relevant Federal statutes, as well as other industry regulations/compendia — all to help members provide safe, effective homeopathic medicines to consumers, retailers and healthcare practitioners.

It’s just open fraud. The medicines can’t be “effective” except as placebos, and all this “homeopathic pharmacy, manufacturing, marketing and distribution” is nothing but a scam. Shame on them.

I was thinking Jeffrey Epstein would be denied bail because he’s a flight risk, but today I learned there’s another reason: he could use his millions to tamper with the case.

Further, prosecutors said Epstein could use his wealth to tamper with the investigation — and has a history of doing just that.

For example, prosecutors said in a court filing Friday that Epstein made $350,000 in payments to two possible co-conspirators after the Miami Herald’s stories were published in November 2018. The payments were made to two individuals who could potentially testify against Epstein at trial, the prosecutors said in the court filing.

“This course of action, and in particular its timing, suggests the defendant was attempting to further influence co-conspirators who might provide information against him in light of the recently re-emerging allegations,” prosecutors wrote.

In addition, police reports, court documents and interviews with victim attorneys revealed a number of intimidation and bare-knuckle tactics that accusers and witnesses told police they faced after Florida authorities opened their first investigation into Epstein.

During that probe, at least three private investigators who police believed were working on Epstein’s behalf tracked down accusers and possible witnesses to the alleged attacks, according to police reports. They sat in black SUVs outside the homes of accusers, questioned their current and former boyfriends, and chased one parent’s car off the road, according to police reports and a lawyer for three accusers.

Good grief.

The judge said he plans to make a ruling Thursday.

C-Span has the whole video, most of which is a prepared speech that he reads haltingly and clumsily. Around 41:25 he opens it up for questions, so we get his full thought-vomit as opposed to snips.

He notes with fake surprise that his “go home” tweets were controversial, and adds that “A lotta people love it, by the way. Lotta people love it.” Yes, no doubt they do, and that’s a problem. Throwing raw meat to people who are already racist is a problem. Inciting racist hatred is a problem. A president who does that is beyond a problem – it’s hard to know what to call that, because all the existing words seem too mild.

Starting at 42:27 he pretends to think Pelosi said “Make America white again” when in fact she was commenting on Trump’s racism.

At 42:56 he names Omar.

“These are people that in my opinion hate our country.”

More from the PhD candidate in Catholic ethics who is searching for a “carrier” to gestate a baby for him and his husband:

https://twitter.com/BrandonAmbro/status/1150456814628216832

Stupid. A stupid argument, he says. Stupid and made by people who lack any understanding of the issue. (Would that apply to boodle, who already has the PhD and has produced two babies recently?)

What jumps out at me in that revolting tweet is his complete, self-satisfied, oblivious lack of empathy for women. I find it stunning that a guy who wants to find a woman who will gestate and give birth to a baby for him feels comfortable publicly dismissing women who point out that they are more than “carriers” – dismissing them and calling them stupid and uninformed for good measure.

I can easily believe it’s true that in certain contexts professionals do refer to “carriers” when it’s necessary to distinguish them from gestational parents aka birth mothers. In certain limited contexts that may be acceptable for convenience. But for the men in the equation? Who will never do this particular form of hard labor for anyone? For them to call the women “carriers” in public, on Twitter?

Not even close to acceptable.

Contempt and hatred for women is making a strong comeback these days, and callous shits like this guy are one of the reasons.

Hey hey hey it’s International Nonbinary Day.

So that’s means it’s…most people day. So that’s exciting. Ok, as you were.

I’m Christian. Nonbinary femme. He/him/his and she/her/hers. Please don’t call me or refer to me as guy, man, bro, dude, sir, gentleman, Mr., etc. If there is a feminine version of a word (like “alumna”) use that for me. Happy #InternationalNonBinaryDay

— christian lewis (they/them/theirs) (@clewisreviews) July 14, 2019

I’m Christian. Nonbinary femme. He/him/his and she/her/hers. Please don’t call me or refer to me as guy, man, bro, dude, sir, gentleman, Mr., etc. If there is a feminine version of a word (like “alumna”) use that for me. Happy #InternationalNonBinaryDay

WHAT IS NONBINARY FEMME??? What can that possibly mean??? If you call yourself “femme” how can you also call yourself “nonbinary”? What are even words?

Never mind, the important thing is, it’s all about him her alumna waitress princess nonbinaryette.

to all you cis gays with thousands of followers, share my stuff and get me followers, you owe me (and your other nb friends), its #InternationalNonBinaryDay

— christian lewis (they/them/theirs) (@clewisreviews) July 14, 2019

It’s only cis gays who owe herhimwaitress? Not cis straights? So I don’t owe him this sharing then, but never mind, I’m doing it out of sheer generosity.

He’s been working out the best way to correct everyone. That is some demanding labor, let me tell you; it can keep a princess up all night.

These pics may be of me exploring makeup and colorful eyebrows, but this years I’ve also been working through pronouns, coming out in professional settings, finding the best way to correct friends/colleagues when they constantly misgender me—but that’s hard to capture in a selfie

— christian lewis (they/them/theirs) (@clewisreviews) July 14, 2019

So true. All that profundity and correctingness is very hard to capture in a selfie.

H/t Josh

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL NONBINARY DAY EVERYONE!!