Temporary fill-in substitute interim pretend White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is out there trying to convert the Mueller report into a reason to forget all about Trump’s obstruction of justice.

“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,’” Barr wrote to lawmakers, adding that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that Mueller’s investigative findings are “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

“That is not what these documents do,” Mulvaney said, referring to Mueller not reaching a verdict on obstruction.

“When you do an investigation like this, there’s typically two outcomes — either criminal indictments come down

Fox News today:

… Read the rest

Lionel Shriver is a crap writer. Witness:

For it’s more the case that the EU is a bloated bureaucracy packed with pampered timeservers inventing gratuitous regulations to justify their sinecures.

The first sentence of the second paragraph of a piece in Harper’s. That’s a crap sentence. “more the case that” – why use a clunker like that? “bloated bureaucracy packed with pampered” – have you no ear?? Then that long string of lifeless stale words. It’s just a terrible sentence, and there’s something wrong with a writer who doesn’t notice.

And that kind of thing makes a difference, because it makes the reader suspect she’s not really thinking about what she’s saying, but just rolling out a punditty reaction. … Read the rest

Trump decides the way to make people stay home is to make their lives at home even worse.

US opposition politicians and aid agencies have questioned a decision by President Donald Trump to cut off aid to three Central American states.

Mr Trump ordered the suspension of aid payments to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to push their governments to stop migration into the US.

To stop it how? A Berlin Wall type of thing? Just tell them they can’t leave, end of story? We tend to see that as tyrannical and unjust, those of us in the “no you’re not supposed to bully and torment people” community.

In 2017, Guatemala received over $248m while Honduras received $175m and El

It would be funny/tragic if it turned out that cheating at golf is what did him in.

Shortly after he became president, Trump played with Tiger Woods, the current world No. 1 Dustin Johnson and the veteran PGA Tour pro Brad Faxon. Given the quality and profile of his companions, you might have thought Trump would have been on his best behavior. Not so.

On one hole, Trump dunked a shot into the lake, but as his opponents weren’t looking he simply dropped another ball — and then hit that into the water, too.

“So he drives up and drops where he should’ve dropped the first time and hits it on the green,” recalls Faxon.

Apparently someone was looking.… Read the rest

One judge says No.

Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic, a judge said in a ruling that restored the Obama-era restrictions.

In a decision late on Friday, US district court judge Sharon Gleason threw out Trump’s executive order that overturned the bans that comprised a key part of Obama’s environmental legacy.

Presidents have the power under a federal law to remove certain lands from development but cannot revoke those removals, Gleason said.

“The wording of President Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawals indicates that he intended them to extend indefinitely, and therefore be revocable only by an act of Congress,”

Whoa.

Paleontologists have found a fossil site in North Dakota that contains animals and plants killed and buried within an hour of the meteor impact that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This is the richest K-T boundary site ever found, incorporating insects, fish, mammals, dinosaurs and plants living at the end of the Cretaceous, mixed with tektites and rock created and scattered by the impact. The find shows that dinosaurs survived until the impact.

The beginning of the end started with violent shaking that raised giant waves in the waters of an inland sea in what is now North Dakota.

Then, tiny glass beads began to fall like birdshot from the heavens. The rain of glass was

Down we continue to go.

Trump’s presidential campaign has started selling $28 “Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff” T-shirts that feature a drawing of Rep. Adam Schiff with a pencil for a neck and a clown nose.

It really has.

Little Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff

He spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking. He should be forced to resign from Congress!

Everyone should buy a Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff shirt today!

BUY Now: https://t.co/5SMsrJC8nU pic.twitter.com/v3Vvmma0e6

— Official Team Trump (@TeamTrump) March 29, 2019

While we’re here, let’s pay a visit to Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign.

By promoting values such as healthy living, encouragement, kindness, and respect, parents, teachers, and other adults can help prepare children for their futures.

Mmm, encouragement, … Read the rest

No wonder Trump chose him.

Stephen Moore, the economics commentator chosen by Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, was found in contempt of court after failing to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony, child support and other debts.

Trump loves to refuse to pay people what he owes them, so no doubt he likes people who do the same as long as they don’t do it to him. Kindred spirits type of thing.

In a divorce filing in August 2010, Moore was accused of inflicting “emotional and psychological abuse” on his ex-wife during their 20-year marriage. Allison Moore said in the filing she had been forced to flee their home

Not a misogynist dude at all.

… Read the rest

Sorry if you’re sick of McKinnon, but the combination of sports cheat and philosophy instructor and pugnaciously misogynist trans activist is just too special.

Transphobes want to control what trans people say, what spaces we have access to, and which fights we're constantly fighting

Transphobes want to use our words against us, but also to stop US from using our own words

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) March 29, 2019

This is all to say: WE SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING

And we won't shut up

You are TERFs. You are TRANSPHOBES. You are CIS.

You will not control our words, our bodies, our actions.

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) March 29, 2019

“You are CIS even though you reject that … Read the rest

So we’ve got philosophy instructors publicly fantasizing about women dying in grease fires and we’ve got presidents calling Congressional representatives “pencil neck.”

“Little pencil neck Adam Schiff,” he says, to cheers and applause.

TRUMP: "Little pencil neck Adam Schiff. He has the smallest, thinnest neck I have ever seen. He is not a long-ball hitter." #BeBest pic.twitter.com/NW7oU3z4Il

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 28, 2019

He goes on to say Schiff has the “smallest, thinnest neck” he’s ever seen. Are we supposed to assume “neck” is a euphemism for “dick”? No doubt we are. But keeping it above the waist…is a wide neck better than a thin one? Really?

Trump has plenty of neck, for sure. Trump’s neck is as wide … Read the rest

Meanwhile McKinnon – who teaches philosophy, let’s not forget – is still defending the “die in a fire” brand of rhetoric.

I don't want them to LITERALLY die in a grease fire…

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) March 29, 2019

Haw haw. Yes, so funny, so wry, so sophisticated. Of course it’s also true that mouthy feminist women tend to be targets of a great deal of “voicing of violent revenge fantasies” of that kind on Twitter and other social media, and it has been known to drive some of them off social media altogether, which means they are silenced in that particular medium…but let’s giggle about it amongst ourselves anyway, because we know better than those stupid cis women … Read the rest

Finally.

It is great to see straightforward, non ideological, answers to common questions that have respect for established science and the paucity of evidence around gender incongruity. pic.twitter.com/uWyDZVITcf

— Andy Lewis (@lecanardnoir) March 29, 2019

“It is not possible to change biological sex.”

It takes only eight words.

“There is no agreed scientific basis for someone having the mind of someone from the opposite sex or being born in the wrong body.”

Bam.… Read the rest

The corrupt self-dealing sleazy treasonous shits on the Trumpian side of Congress are whining that Adam Schiff should resign as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. The hell he should.

The House Intelligence Committee’s Republican minority demanded Thursday that Rep. Adam Schiff, the panel’s Democratic chairman, resign from that role over his handling of Russia investigations involving President Donald Trump.

Schiff, who has been one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s leading advocates, laid out what called the “evidence of collusion” in a fiery response.

The call for Schiff to step down, submitted during a hearing in a letter signed by all nine of the committee’s Republican members, came hours after Trump tweeted Thursday morning that Schiff “should be

Sports editor dude at not-NY Times explains to women athletes why it doesn’t matter if trans women shove them aside:

I’m writing this knowing that most of the people reading it will disagree, knowing that the responses will likely be aggressive. But I’m writing it because I feel the other side deserves a voice. This does not make me right. This does not make me wrong. But in the debate over transgender athletes there has been one dominant narrative, so this is an attempt to try to change a few minds.

He means the women. You know, the historically dominant sex, historically in charge of all the narratives. He’s hoping to be able to be heard over the domineering roar … Read the rest

All right then.

We @IndexCensorship are seriously concerned about apparent rise in police intervention on issues of legal speech in UK, particularly apparent confusion between speech that social media platforms might choose to outlaw under their terms of service and legally permissible speech. https://t.co/PdoFyQm5ta

— Jodie Ginsberg (@jodieginsberg) March 28, 2019

We are discussing this with @Twitter and have raised with @Law_Commission as it reviews hate crime law, and with @HumanRightsCtte. We will also raise with @PoliceChiefs.

— Jodie Ginsberg (@jodieginsberg) March 28, 2019

Good. Carry on.… Read the rest