The first installment of the Republican convention seems to have been exciting. (I didn’t watch it. I don’t watch conventions. I’d rather watch paint dry.) Kimberly Tinfoil gave a psychotic all-caps fascist shouting rant, and the gun-pointing St Louis couple gave a slightly quieter fascist rant.

During their speech Monday, Mark McCloskey described Cori Bush, the activist leading protesters in St. Louis, as a “Marxist revolutionary.”

…

“That Marxist revolutionary is now going to be the congresswoman from the 1st District of Missouri,” Mark McCloskey said on Monday. “These radicals are not content with marching in the streets. They want to walk the hall of Congress, they want to take over, they want power. This is Joe Biden’s party. These are the people who will be in charge of your future and the future of your children.”

Joe Biden is about as “Marxist” as Ivanka Trump.

Patricia McCloskey spoke after her husband, claiming that Democrats “are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities” and want to “abolish the suburbs all together.”

She added that Democratic leadership would bring “crime, lawlessness, and low quality apartments into now thriving neighborhoods. These are the policies that are coming in to a neighborhood near you. So make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”

In other words – everybody who isn’t rich enough to buy a huge house in an expensive neighborhood is a murderous criminal, and also [whispers] not white. Be afraid!

Apparently the NY Times doesn’t pay much attention to the California fires.

This “historic” spate of California wildfires have so far displaced hundreds of thousands during a pandemic, killed seven, destroyed at least tens of thousands of structures, burned through the equivalent acreage of a small state and sent plumes of smoke over several regions, forcing millions indoors during a heat wave.

Yet the country’s paper of record – the New York Times – seems unwilling to feature this incredibly newsworthy disaster that has affected millions of Americans prominently on its pages.

It is a big country, a big unwieldy country, but all the same.

… when the Washington Post dedicates its lead, above-the-fold front page image to the wildfires and the New York Times chooses to run an image of a water park party in Wuhan, China? Well, that’s a choice, to say the least.

I guess the Times is a little Caliphobic.

Pompeo is going to address the Republican convention later. Guess what Secretaries of State are not supposed to do.

Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, will address the Republican national convention in pre-taped remarks from Jerusalem this week, violating a longstanding tradition that the country’s top diplomat avoid partisan politics, CNN has confirmed:

Well you see it’s not “improperly,” because he’s doing it and he decides what’s improper. MAGA!

Pompeo’s speech comes one month after he sent a cable to state department employees stating that “presidential and political appointees and career SES (Senior Executive Service) are subject to significant restrictions on their political activity; they may not engage in any partisan political activity in concert with a partisan campaign, political party, or partisan political group, even on personal time and outside of the federal workplace”, CNN noted.

Unless they really want to.

Even more hilariously, they’re saying he’s doing it as himself, not as Secretary of State.

Ohhhh cool that’s fine then. And Trump is speaking from the White House later this week not as president but just as Don from Queens, who just happened to have all this video equipment and access to the White House and odds and ends like that.

Is it men’s turn now?

Awwww look at that poor sweet sad little girl sitting holding her knees and trying not to cry because 98% of straight men are unwilling to date her. (She looks way too little to be dating anyone, at only 6 or 7, but whatever.) How could straight men be so mean that they make her mouth turn down and her eyes close – look at her sitting there all alone instead of “dating” (they really mean fucking) a nice straight man.

(Wait, if the sweet little girl wants a straight man, why aren’t straight men allowed to want whatever it is they want? Straight women, women over the age of 7, women with the usual plumbing? Why is the sweet little girl holding out for a straight man? Isn’t a trans woman good enough for her? Is she a TRANSPHOBE??)

So anyway Trans Rights Campaign says THIS HAS TO CHANGE. Meaning – straight men have to stop having sexual preferences? If that’s what has to change, what are they proposing? Camps? Re-education? Torture? Shock treatment? Persecution? Firings? Prison?

Whatever it is, I don’t suppose straight men will put up with it. I wonder if then they will see what we’ve been getting at.

The New York Attorney General explains what they’re up to with that subpoena:

Maybe Eric will talk about that in his speech to the Republican convention.

Another one summarily fired for crimethink.

By “parted ways with Sasha” they mean “fired Sasha for crimethink.”

What terrible thing did she say?

Does that look like a firing offence to you? To anyone? Really?

It does to this unpleasant inquisitor:

Filth indeed.

Golly.

One wonders what number would be NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Sir, sir, just a moment sir, not so fast sir, we have some questions for you sir, we have a subpoena for your records sir.

New York state’s attorney general has filed a new lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump’s company and several other defendants, according to court records.

The complaint against the Trump Organization and the other defendants was filed with a New York state court in Manhattan, the court records show.

Trump is at the Republican convention at this very moment, telling the assembled worshipers how awesome he is. Law-abiding no, but awesome yes.

A copy of the complaint was not immediately available, and its subject matter could not immediately be determined. A letter filed with the court indicates that Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, is among the defendants.

You know what else Eric Trump is among? Speakers at Daddy’s convention.

Also! In other news! Other but related – Kellyanne Conway is quitting.

In a statement on Sunday, she cited a need to “devote more time to family matters.”

…

Her time in the White House was not without controversy. Two days after the inauguration, Conway coined the term “alternative facts” during an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press. She was also cited for violating the law against political activity by government employees multiple times, and the government office investigating those activities recommended her dismissal in 2019.

Her time in the White House was not without controversy i.e. she showed herself to be a sleazy lying hack who defended everything Trump did and said no matter what. Good riddance. Whoever replaces her will be just as bad but good riddance anyway.

Eastern Airlines 1967:

Sure, we want her to be pretty…don’t you?

Oh yes, definitely, I want her to look like a Barbie doll, thank you sir.

That’s why we look at her face, her makeup, her complexion, her figure, her weight, her legs, her grooming, her nails and her hair.

What about her breasts? What about her bum? Do you check her between the legs? Best to be safe about these things. Do you check her teeth, including the back ones? Her tongue? Her armpits?

Anyway at least they’re all very white.

Jeez. Be careful out there, mind how you go, soyez sage. Don’t forget (let alone refuse) to wear a mask.

The number of COVID-19 cases connected to a wedding reception in Millinocket continues to climb, with state health officials saying on Saturday that they could trace 53 confirmed cases of coronavirus to the reception. That’s up from 32 confirmed cases on Friday.

53! From one wedding! Some were secondary or tertiary.

Millinocket Regional Hospital has reported that it tested 366 people who attended the reception or came in contact with those who did. Of the 53 cases linked to the reception on Saturday, 13 were secondary and 10 were tertiary, Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long said Saturday evening.

One woman has died. She didn’t attend the reception.

Big Moose Inn, which hosted the event, was cited for an “imminent health hazard,” which carries no fine but can bring harsher penalties if state officials determine the venue violated health rules again. The wedding reception had 65 people, more than the state maximum of 50 for indoor gatherings.

…

“Social gatherings such as weddings and receptions pose an elevated risk for virus transmission,” the Maine CDC said in a statement. “The possibility of COVID-19 transmission increases as the number of attendees increases, even when some attendees are indoors and others are outdoors. This is because outdoor attendees may reasonably be expected to come indoors and interact with others, increasing the possibility of COVID-19 transmission.”

Err on the side of caution.

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on All our fault.

Fun things here:

1) Wokeness/CRT views people as “racialized” rather than being of a particular race. This is neither typo nor poor word choice on her part. Rather, it is exactly the way the woke understand the world: as interacting systems of discourse that impose “race” (among other things) on groups of (not individual) people. It is the discursive systems that racialize. There is nothing, literally nothing, outside of the discourse.

2) White women’s fears drive policing, the economy, and politics. White women are apparently the most powerful force in the nation. Why did the DJIA jump? White women. Why did Trump win? White women. Why did Obama win twice before him? White women. Why did the Civil Rights movement succeed? White women. Why are our taxes what they are? White women. Damn. Being a white woman is fucking awesome!

3) White women’s fears are society’s fears. But if S is one of a society’s fears, then we should expect S to be a fear of most, if not all, people in the society. So S is reasonably a black woman’s fear, a brown woman’s fear, and a white man’s fear.

4) White women’s fears are not real issues. It’s clear that white women are either very stupid or very evil. If they’re afraid of things that aren’t real, then they’re stupid. If they’re not actually afraid of those things but pretend to be while wielding the power mentioned in (2) and (3), then they’re evil.

5) White women’s fears are not the fears we should have. If a white woman is afraid of something, that’s a dead certain indicator that it’s not something to fear. So the next time a white woman expresses fear, know that you’ve just learned something about the world: whatever it is she’s afraid of is perfectly safe.

It’s all Karens’ white women’s fault. All of it.

Stupid bitches. Who cares what happens to us?

Ok! Hey all white women friends – WE ARE BEING PLAYED TO HELP IN THE MAINTENANCE OF WHITE SUPREMACY. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS EXCEPT THAT EVERYTHING IS OUR FAULT. FIX IT!

The Guardian reports:

Police are investigating after a sign at Oradour, in the Haute-Vienne region of south-central France near Limoges, was defaced with the word mémoire (memorial) sprayed over and replaced by menteur (liar).

The desecration has caused national outrage across France, where Oradour remains a potent physical symbol of Nazi brutality.

On 10 June 1944 – four days after the Normandy landings – a 200-strong detachment of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, part of the notorious Das Reich division, marched into the village.

In retaliation for the reported kidnapping of a Nazi officer and attacks by the French resistance in the region, they rounded up the village’s 652 inhabitants and ordered everyone into the village square.

The men were then taken at gunpoint into nearby barns; the remaining 247 women and 205 children were herded into the church. The men were machine-gunned in the legs, then the barns and church were set alight. Those who tried to escape were shot. Only six villagers survived.

The village was left as it was, to be a memorial.

Hilarity break.

It’s hilarious because every single element of it screams “FANTASY.” I keep saying the whole trans Doctrine is based on fantasy, and this is a classic of the genre.

One, an actual woman in a store parking lot looked at a man’s fake tits and decided to comment on them? No.

Two, the woman was jealous of his fake tits? No.

Three, our hero “turned to her”? But he was already facing her, or how could she have looked at his “latest configuration” of fake tits? So no.

Four, he looked her up and down? That’s a classic of the kind of self-flattering stage business narcissists include in their stories about themselves. No.

Then smiled at the man and said the thing? Since none of the preceding really happened, No.

Then put his hand on the man and got away with it? No.

Then she started crying? What, because she didn’t know about menopause? Because she’d been hoping to keep menstruating forever? No.

Beware of people who think their fantasies are real, or try to make other people think their fantasies are real. Beware of purported “political” or “social justice” movements that are based on fantasy. Beware of bullshit.

Don’s sister knows what he is.

Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’ll have to put her at the border” amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on.

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”

Not so much religious as compassionate, which non-religious can be too. Religious people can be very cruel. Donald Trump may be the most non-compassionate person on the planet.

In response to a question from The Washington Post about how she knew the president paid someone to take the SATs, Mary Trump revealed that she had surreptitiously taped 15 hours of face-to-face conversations with Barry in 2018 and 2019. She provided The Post with previously unreleased transcripts and audio excerpts, which include exchanges that are not in her book.

…

The allegation that the president paid someone to take his SATs, which was one of the most publicized allegations in Mary Trump’s book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” stems from a conversation that Barry had with her niece on Nov. 1, 2018.

Barry told how she tried to help her brother get into college. “He was a brat,” Barry said, explaining that “I did his homework for him” and “I drove him around New York City to try to get him into college.”

Then Barry dropped what Mary considered a bombshell: “He went to Fordham for one year [actually two years] and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.”

Mary was right: that is a bombshell. Not in the least surprising, but bombshell-level damning.

But “Karen” is definitely not the new “bitch” or “cunt” no no no no it is strictly limited to evil women with evil suburban haircuts.

Another Republican admitting how terrible in every way Trump is – not only incompetent and lazy, but also criminal and authoritarian, and also vindictive and brutal.

LA Magazine transcribed the worst bits:

“On a phone call with [FEMA], he told [them] to cut off the money and no longer give individual assistance to California,” says Taylor, who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from 2017 to 2019. “He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the State of California didn’t support him and that politically it wasn’t a base for him.”

In public Trump said it was because California wasn’t raking its floors, but it was pretty obvious that was a (ludicrous) screen for his desire to see California die because it doesn’t love Trump.

Taylor also discusses the President’s ideal border policy, which he says included forcefully tearing children away from their families “to show those parents that they shouldn’t come to the border in the first place.”

“A lot of the time the things he wanted to do weren’t just impossible, but in many cases they were illegal,” Taylor continues. “He didn’t want us to tell him it was illegal anymore because he knew that there were, and these were his words, he knew that he had ‘magical authorities.’”

Also, if he wins this one, he’ll kill us all.

“People who are still serving in this administration have said to me, just wait until the second term. It’ll be no holds barred, it will be shock and awe. We’ll do what we want.”

H/t Holms.

It’s all a bit of a clusterfuck apparently.

President Trump generated a good deal of drama over the past few months when he moved the convention to Jacksonville, Florida in attempt to get around pandemic restrictions in the original host city of Charlotte, North Carolina. But when COVID-19 cases shot up in Florida, events in Jacksonville were called off, and some party business was moved back to Charlotte.

“We’re leaving.”

slam

knockknock

“We’d like to come back.”

Now the convention has been pared down considerably and will be somewhat virtual – but it appears Trump hasn’t totally abandoned his dreams of a massive, mask-free crowd.

Which is a dream of a mound of corpses three or four weeks later.

CNN reports:

President Donald Trump, a television producer at heart, is hoping for a convention next week that looks vastly different from the all-digital event Democrats have staged over the past days – including an emphasis on live programming and at least some type of audience who can respond to the multiple appearances he is planning.

He’s a television producer at heart and also at mind – he cares about showing off and making a noise far more than he cares about all the boring policy and security crap they keep trying to tell him about.

Calling aides at all hours from Air Force One or the White House residence, Trump has conveyed last-minute ideas on venues or gimmicks and demanded progress reports on the speakers he wants during his nominating extravaganza, which he hopes will provide a boost to his poll numbers.

Ha! Yes, people just long to listen to Don then Melania then Princess Ivanka then Don 2 then Eric then Bergdorf I mean Tiffany then Jared then Princess Ivanka’s personal groomer.

I think I have a drain to clean out that evening.

H/t Sackbut

The narcissism is so off the charts it’s almost funny.

“Me, and My wife, and My daughter, and My son, and My son, and My daughter.” He thinks of all of them as fragments of himself, and the next best thing to His Awesomeness In All His Splendor.

From the cheerful news column – a successful gorilla birth at Bristol Zoo:

Keepers arrived to find the new arrival nestling in the arms of its mother.

Photographs taken just hours after the birth on Wednesday show Kala – a nine-year-old western lowland gorilla – cradling the newborn. Staff said both were “doing well”.

They say “its mother” because the zoo doesn’t know the sex yet and won’t for a while. Kala’s first infant was via emergency caesarian section and didn’t survive.

Lynsey Bugg, the zoo’s curator of mammals, said: “We knew we were having a baby gorilla due and we’ve been on baby watch for a little while.

“On Tuesday Kala looked nice and comfortable and not causing us any concerns or worries.

“I came in [on Wednesday] morning to find a brand new baby in the house. It was lovely.”

Captive great apes don’t always know what to do with an infant, but not in this case.

That’s a good mama.