Kim sent Trump another letter – a very beautiful letter.
It was three pages.
Not only that – it was top to bottom. No seriously, right from top to bottom. He said so. “Beautiful…three page…I mean right from top to bottom.” He made a side to side gesture to illustrate top to bottom, in case we don’t understand what letters are.
Top to bottom! Kim must really love and admire Trump if he sent him a beautiful letter that was top to bottom.
About those ICE raids on Wednesday…
US immigration officials say they have temporarily released about 300 people who were arrested in a massive raid in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Democrats and rights groups have condemned the arrests as “cruel”.
Nearly 700 workers from seven agricultural processing plants were arrested for allegedly not having proper documentation to be in the US.
Pictures emerged of children crying after being separated from their parents.
The thing about illegal immigration is…it’s not the kind of crime that is powered by greed or malice or aggression…the kind of crime that Trump, for one, commits regularly and without turning a gilded hair. It’s not a real “crime” (as we generally use the word) despite the illegality.… Read the rest
Another sport buckles to the pressure.
Cricket Australia entered the fraught debate about gender identity and sport yesterday, releasing separate policies for the inclusion of transgender players in elite and community cricket.
The policy for elite cricket, consistent with the approach taken by the International Cricket Council, requires transgender players to keep their testosterone levels below a prescribed concentration for a 12-month period, sign a statutory declaration committing to their gender identity and to have their cases assessed by an expert panel.
The policy provides a pathway for a transgender woman to one day represent Australia in an Ashes series or World Cup.
That is, the policy provides a pathway for a man who identifies as a woman to … Read the rest
Trump retweeted Katie Hopkins twice yesterday.
He also retweeted someone yelling
Retweet if you see @IlhanMN GETS A PASS By The Media says @TuckerCarlson!
“Media ignores @Ilhan Omar’s Tax Fraud with someone she wasn’t married to! Omar’s Marriage History can’t be verified by local reporters on accusations she married her brother to skip our immigration laws!”
Less than a week after the white supremacist mass murder.… Read the rest
During his visit to El Paso Trump babbled to people in a hospital about…
…
…his crowd size.
And the visit is now a campaign ad featuring grinning Trump and his nightmare thumb.
Not just any old logic but exciting new trans logic.
Particularly stupid is the “What? Like, they won’t date you just because you’re trans?”
No, fool. Not “just because you’re trans”; because you’re male, with a male body. “Cis lesbians” i.e. lesbians “aren’t always into that” because lesbians are into women, with female bodies. Bullying lesbians for being attracted to women is just plain old homophobia.
If Aisha wants to “date” how about Aisha dates other “trans lesbians”?
Also Pheobe’s final panel is rich. “To turn around and hate trans girls just for being trans, and for loving who they love?” Not wanting to “date” i.e. have sex with male bodies is not hatred. It’s a sexual orientation, which … Read the rest
Interesting. William Barr thinks two old movies that glorify vigilante “justice” aka revenge are emblematic of the human desire for justice.
“I believe a sense of justice is hardwired into human beings,” Barr recalled during an interview with Crime Story podcast host Kary Antholis. “Don’t ask me why, but it is there and it’s satisfying to see justice done.”
Why not ask him why? You’d expect lawyers to be interested, and it’s not a particularly arcane subject. There’s been research into a sense of fairness in chimpanzees, for instance, and I’m sure that’s just one item of many.
But hey, why read up on such things when there are crappy old movies to watch.
… Read the restBarr elaborated on his theory of
Andrew McCabe is suing the Trump administration.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has sued the Trump administration for what he calls his “unlawful” termination, arguing that his firing last year was the result of improper political interference by the president.
“It was Trump’s unconstitutional plan and scheme to discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him,” the complaint alleges.
The star witness will be Trump’s Twitter account.… Read the rest
The attorney for a Montana man accused of throwing a 13-year-old boy to the ground at a rodeo because the teenager didn’t remove his hat during the national anthem said Wednesday his client believes he was acting on an order from President Donald Trump.
The president’s “rhetoric” contributed to Curt Brockway’s disposition when he grabbed the boy by the throat and slammed him to the ground, fracturing his skull, at the Mineral County fairgrounds Saturday, attorney Lance Jasper told The Missoulian.
That’s the lawyer talking, so who knows how true it is, but it’s certainly plausible.
… Read the restBrockway, 39, told a sheriff’s deputy that he asked the boy to remove his hat out of respect for
A radical feminist woman wrote a piece last month about “non-binary” as the new misogyny.
Last summer she lived in a house with three other women.
… Read the restWe spent a lot of time together that year, and there were many late-night conversations about the sexism, misogyny, and male violence we had experienced. We talked about not fitting into what society had expected of women, we stopped shaving together, and we encouraged each other to not be ashamed of our natural bodies. We called rape crisis lines, organized protests, and exposed violent men in our communities. Mitali* shaved her head in a defiant act of rebellion against Indian expectations of beauty. Joy* became empowered to use her voice to speak up
There’s the Greenland ice shelf melting, which means much bigger rises in sea level happening much faster; there are the permanently dying forests which will become grasslands; there are the shrinking water tables…
And there is the little matter of the food supply.
… Read the restAs the planet warms, parts of the world face new risks of food and water shortages, expanding deserts, and land degradation, warns a major new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those effects are already underway, and some of them could soon become irreversible.
The changing climate has already likely contributed to drier climates in South and East Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, reducing the food and water supply. In
The Times is cold about Trump’s campaign stops in Dayton and El Paso yesterday.
… Read the restTrump’s schedule was meant to follow the traditional model of apolitical presidential visits with victims, law enforcement officials and hospital workers after calamities like the mass shootings that resulted in 31 deaths in Dayton and El Paso and that created a new sense of national crisis over assault weapons and the rise of white supremacist ideology.
That plan went awry even before Trump, who has acknowledged his discomfort with showing empathy in public, departed Washington. On Tuesday night, he attacked on Twitter the former Democratic congressman from El Paso, Beto O’Rourke, and as he prepared to leave the White House on Wednesday morning, he went after
On his way from Dayton to El Paso yesterday, Trump was so full of grief and sympathy that he tweeted
Watching Sleepy Joe Biden making a speech. Sooo Boring! The LameStream Media will die in the ratings and clicks with this guy. It will be over for them, not to mention the fact that our Country will do poorly with him. It will be one big crash, but at least China will be happy!
It doesn’t get much more compassionate than that.… Read the rest
Trump tweeted this nightmare yesterday:
He thinks that’s what he was there for – to stand in the middle of a row of people in uniform, grinning broadly and showing us his filthy thumb.
Grinny grin grin grin.
It was just one long party.… Read the rest
Oh goody, the blog of the American Philosophical Association has a post on – you’ll never guess – the errors of TERFs. Not that they call it that. It’s a response to the IHE piece, as the APA blog explains:
… Read the restEditor’s note: The letter below was penned in response to another letter titled “Philosophers Should Not Be Sanctioned Over Their Positions on Sex and Gender” that appeared in Inside Higher Education on July 22, 2019. On July 30,IHE published a response titled “Taking Trans Lives Seriously” and declined to publish the following letter. The signatories are concerned that the climate in a field of study is being mischaracterized and important voices have been left
And now for something completely different.
Each year in Italy, grazing animals are moved from high pastures down to the plains. Newborn lambs are unable to make this journey on their own. Instead, they ride in the pouches of a specially made saddle on the back of a donkey or a mule nanny. They are taken down at rest stops and returned to their mothers for a bite to eat and a bit of nuzzling.
Photo: medeamoon
H/t Vanina… Read the rest
The Guardian is following Trump’s awful road trip.
Predictably, Trump talked about irrelevancies.
The president met with first responders and some of the shooting victims at a local hospital. [Senator Sherrod] Brown said Trump expressed a desire to give an award to the police officers who helped end the shooting quickly.
“I said, Mr. President, respectfully, the most important thing you can do for these police officers is take assault weapons off the street,” Brown said.
Trump was generally vague about committing to any concrete action on gun control. Brown said.
It’s so Trump. Ignore the reality, ignore the incalculable anguish on all sides of him, instead prattle about giving an award to someone.
Meanwhile the ice keeps melting. All of it.
… Read the restAlaska’s exceptional summer continues.
The most rapidly changing state in the U.S. has no sea ice within some 150 miles of its shores, according to high-resolution sea ice analysis from the National Weather Service. The big picture is clear: After an Arctic summer with well above-average temperatures, warmer seas, and a historic July heat wave, sea ice has vanished in Alaskan waters.
…
In the continually warming Arctic, sea ice has completely melted around the Alaskan coast before, notably during 2017’s melt season, but never this early. “It’s cleared earlier than it has in any other year,” said Thoman. (Sea ice starts regrowing again in the fall,
Meanwhile, in Trump’s America –
A 39-year-old man has been charged with felony assault of a minor in Montana after he allegedly slammed a 13-year-old boy to the ground for not taking his hat off during the national anthem. The incident took place Saturday at the Mineral County Fair and Rodeo in western Montana. Witnesses told a local CBS affiliate that as the anthem began, Curt Brockway grabbed the teen, picked him up, and then slammed him headfirst to the ground. As people nearby approached, Brockway said he slammed the boy to the ground because of his hat. “He said (the boy) was disrespecting the national anthem so he had every right to do that,” eyewitness Taylor Hennick said.
So, … Read the rest
Racist in chief Trump is being “I can if I want to!” today, tweeting more racism to show us who’s boss.
Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!
He shouted his usual grievances at reporters.
… Read the restTrump defended himself before leaving the White House, telling reporters that criticism of him was politically motivated. He placed the blame for the scourge of mass shootings that have marked his presidency on mental illness and a culture of violence.
“These
