Trump made Juneteenth very famous.

I try to limit this to once per month, but: Oh Good God.

(via WSJ. https://t.co/Y6BfkryJ01)

Among a million other things, Juneteenth has for decades been an official state holiday–in Texas. pic.twitter.com/psIjpcYRXW

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) June 18, 2020

The Times explains the car crash:

Reviewing a list of potential locations over the past few weeks, [Brad] Parscale quickly settled on Tulsa, Okla., people familiar with the planning said in interviews, mostly because it seemed easy. A deep red state President Trump carried by 36 percentage points four years ago, Oklahoma wasn’t in play for the November election. But it was the furthest along of any state in the country in terms of

CNN has some more nibbles from Bolton’s book.

Bolton writes that in December 2018, Trump offered to help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a Justice Department investigation into a Turkish bank with ties to Erdogan that was suspected of violating US Iran sanctions. When the Turkish leader presented Trump with a memo from the law firm representing Halkbank, Trump flipped through it and then declared he believed the bank was totally innocent of violating US sanctions related to Iran.

Well thank goodness he looked into it thoroughly before committing himself.

Trump told Erdogan he would “take care of things,” and explained that the Southern District prosecutors “were not his people, but were Obama people,” and the problem would

Another twerp heaves another rock:

Harry Potter fans—yes, I’m addressing roughly the entire Millennial generation—we need to have another tough conversation with ourselves: We must end our Harry Potter fantasy now.

She goes on to detail what a passionate, indeed obsessive fan she was growing up, and then gets on with the stoning.

I’m also a ciswoman, which means my feelings are not the point right now. As significant as the franchise has been for me, if I am actually going to be the ally I fancy myself to be, that means I have to consider the damage Rowling (and potentially the entire series) has done to trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.

She’s a woman, so her feelings … Read the rest

This just in: Trump fails in his attempt to throw the children of undocumented immigrants out of the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot carry out its plan to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as “Dreamers,” to avoid deportation and remain in the U.S.

The decision is a big legal defeat for President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, which has been a major focus of his domestic agenda.

That is, the issue of brown people messing up his shiny gleaming white country.

The decision authored mostly by Chief Justice John Roberts said the government failed to give an

Brave and stunning Charlotte Clymer, who as Charles Clymer was notorious for being a domineering “I’m a good guy!” male feminist who liked to talk over women, has a piece in USA Today explaining to JK Rowling how unsafe and vulnerable trans women are…in all-too-typical oblivion of or indifference to the ways women are unsafe and vulnerable.

The rights and dignity of transgender people are constantly under attack, not only legally but physically, as we see with continuing violence against trans people, and culturally, as evidenced by the controversy J.K. Rowling stirred up last week.

You know who else is constantly under attack physically? Women. The statistics say so. Culturally we’re under attack from misogynists and pussy-grabbers and guys … Read the rest

Matt Gaetz is such a worthless piece of crap.

Things got HEATED between Cedric Richmond and Matt Gaetz just now.

Richmond: "It's not about the color of your kids. It's about black males…If one of them happens to be your kid, I'm more concerned about him then you!"

Gaetz: "Who the hell do you think you are?!" pic.twitter.com/5mHsClRRJD

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 17, 2020

… Read the rest

Bolton’s book is lighting up the Twitternet.

This one got my attention:

There really isn’t anything Trump could do that would surprise me. But that said, giving China his blessing to build concentration camps is truly one for the history books.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) June 17, 2020

He what?

David Choi at Business Insider:

President Donald Trump approved of a concentration camp for Uighur Muslims in China during a private meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to former national security adviser John Bolton’s upcoming memoir, “In The Room Where It Happened.”

In a private meeting during the 2019 G-20 meeting in Japan, Trump and Xi were only accompanied by their interpreters, according to Bolton’s book, parts of

Josh Dawsey at the Post has been reading Bolton’s book.

He tried the same move on China as he tried on Ukraine.

During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases

Daniel Dale had some time so he made a list (non-exhaustive) of Trump’s lies about Obama.

Trump has long been fixated on his predecessor. Since May 1, as his presidential campaign against former Vice President Joe Biden has heated up, Trump has made at least 12 separate false claims about Obama and his record in office.

Trump added a new one Tuesday in a speech about police reform, declaring that Obama and Biden “never even tried” to fix problems in policing. That’s not even close to true.

It’s true of Trump. It’s not true of Obama.

Trump touted his own efforts to address policing problems, then said, “President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to

Fallon Fox achieving peak woke:… Read the rest

It’s not as if they’re not trying to persuade Trump not to kill them.

On 16 April, the White House issued guidelines for the nation’s slow reemergence from lockdown. But the next day, rather than promote his own administration’s advice, Donald Trump tweeted demands to immediately “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”. At every step of the crisis, say public health experts, the president has undermined the government’s efforts.

Now, local officials are begging Trump to cancel his planned rally in Tulsa this weekend amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma, one of six US states to report record numbers of infections in recent days.

No, he’s not going to do that, but he is going … Read the rest

So, this should go well.

New cases of the novel coronavirus in Oklahoma’s Tulsa County have nearly doubled in recent weeks, according to the latest data from the Tulsa Health Department. The county is home to the city of Tulsa, where President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold his next rally on June 19.

What do rallies feature? Huge crowds! All mashed together so that everyone can see how huge the crowd is!

Tulsa County reported a total of 263 new cases from June 5 to 11, a jump from 149 new cases reported from May 29 to June 4, a rise of over 76 percent.

The county’s seven-day rolling average of daily cases has been on a

News from the Boogaloo:

Facebook on Tuesday removed almost 900 accounts associated with the far-right Proud Boys and American Guard, including those belonging to Proud Boys supporters who marched into a protest zone in Seattle Monday and confronted anti-racist demonstrators.

…

Facebook had previously banned the groups for promoting hate, but individual members continued to post images with weapons and urge others to attend protests that followed the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd in police custody.

Facebook is under heightened scrutiny as provocateurs use it to coordinate and recruit. It has also acted to make it harder to find groups in the so-called Boogaloo movement.

Now about those Russian accounts…… Read the rest

Oh, man, this is the kind of thing that makes me totally furious. Well there are lots of those, but still – this especially. Another man in pearls steals women’s history.

Transgender Woman Will Lead Gender Studies Program At Rutgers

Next up:

White Man Will Lead Critical Race Theory Program At Rutgers

Just kidding, they would never do that. Never never never. They would eat broken glass before they would do that. But women? Oh that’s completely different…because, you see, women are karens, so they have privilege over men in pearl necklaces.

Rutgers University: Catherine Fitzpatrick may be the first openly transgender woman in the U.S. to lead a women’s and gender studies program

That is, “Catherine” Fitzpatrick may be … Read the rest

Look at this absolute shit.

Dear @jk_rowling,

This week, two black trans women – Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells and Riah Milton – were murdered. The details are horrific, involving dismemberment and bodies in rivers. In light of that, I want to take a moment to explain to you why your TERF ideology is lethal. pic.twitter.com/WCDu33f8Hj

— Jacob Tobia (@JacobTobia) June 12, 2020

Two people are murdered, and this shit uses them to pretend their murders are the fault of feminist women.

Trans women are by and large murdered by cisgender men who, after understanding that a woman is trans, feel "misled" or "tricked" by her because her genitals don't align with what a woman is "supposed to have"

— Jacob

Also in Trump’s speech on race-not speech on race, the loudest dog whistle ever:

Trump closed his speech ostensibly about systemic racism in policing with a subtle defense of the Confederacy, which fought on behalf of slavery: "We must build upon our heritage, not tear it down." pic.twitter.com/sM2YxmHjdv

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 16, 2020

That speech was aimed directly at the amygdalas of the so-called “alt right.” One suspects Stephen Miller wrote it. And the fake-out to media, pretending it was about police reform and coopting vulnerable, mourning Black families to pull it off was classic Trump. https://t.co/Oxpqz1D9fx

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) June 16, 2020

Our heritage of Jim Crow laws and the blocking of Reconstruction and “vagrancy” laws … Read the rest

Or maybe that wasn’t his “speech on race” (which god knows nobody wants to hear), maybe it was his “ban on chokeholds except when the cops really want to use it” speech. It can be hard to be sure with him.

Trump has taken the podium in the Rose Garden, and he said he had just privately met with several families who lost loved ones to police brutality. “All Americans mourn by your side,” Trump said to the families, who were not present for the Rose Garden event. “Your loved ones will not have died in vain.”

What, because he’s now signed an order saying no chokeholds except when you really want to? That makes all those deaths not … Read the rest

Trump has apparently given his “speech on race.” Many are confused.

I guess this is the part where he actually talked about it, sort of.

…as we strive to deliver safe [here he stops reading and ad libs] byootifull elegant [returns to reading] justice (and liberty) for all.

What the everloving fuck is elegant justice? What’s he talking about? Why does he think he needs to add interior decoration adjective to the word “justice”? And I suspect he also added that “and liberty,” because it doesn’t make sense there. I suspect “the Pledge of Allegiance” has trained him to think “libertyandjustice” is all one word.

Then he calls a bunch of law enforcement people to come up and stand next … Read the rest

For some reason Laurie Penny thought we needed to hear the formulas from her too, in case we hadn’t already heard them enough times from enough other fools and cowards.

What happened to sisterhood?

Good question. What happened to yours?

Last week, beloved children’s author J.K. Rowling became the world’s most famous transphobe.

Second sentence, and already in the ditch. Calling her a “transphobe” assumes what needs to be argued, aka poisons the well. Who says she’s a “transphobe”? On what basis do they say it? Is it true? Is it true even in the terms of people who go along with most of the dogma?

After the Harry Potter writer spent days defending transphobia on Twitter and in

Rowling is back, composing tweet after tweet after tweet to make a child artist’s day week year. Bonus: some of the child art is gorgeous.

I want that one on a wall.… Read the rest