Hilarity break.

Do you think this really happened? pic.twitter.com/XkbOIpb1BO

— #IAmLabelFree ♥️ (@LabelFreeBrands) August 23, 2020

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 … Read the rest

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 … Read the rest

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.

God I wish i had the physical power to really scare a bunch of young guys in their 20s instead of them shouting at me and thinking calling me Karen was enough of an abuse to shut me up

— Rachel McCormack (@R_McCormack) August 22, 2020

Immediately they started shouting at me and asking why I cared about Tory voters and calling me Karen and then decided to record me while screaming Karen

— Rachel McCormack (@R_McCormack) August 22, 2020

… Read the rest

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.

NEW: Testimonial ad from Trump's Former DHS Chief of Staff @MilesTaylorUSA, declaring his support for Joe Biden and describing Trump's presidency as "terrifying" and "actively doing damage to our security."

WATCH & go to https://t.co/Nz2NiSCquN for more. pic.twitter.com/iChqOdIIew

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) August 17, 2020

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

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 … Read the rest

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

Half of the convention’s key speakers are the president and his family members? pic.twitter.com/293IJbsk80

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 22, 2020

“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.… Read the rest

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

There seems to be a lot of irritation about the Rose Garden. I share it, not least because I hate that cold colorless dull aesthetic.

Bunny Mellon, who designed the White House Rose Garden for President Kennedy, on the crabapple trees First Lady Melania Trump removed:

"The force of the summer sun that bakes the city of Washington would be broken by the height and width of these trees."https://t.co/gjkf9V8asr

— David Gura (@davidgura) August 22, 2020

So they are – I mean were – crabapples.

Remembering the White House Rose Garden pic.twitter.com/OD1FOQuHPJ

— ☇RiotWomenn☇ (@riotwomennn) August 22, 2020

Again, to be fair, tulips are spring flowers, but there are plenty of August flowers that could be there instead of … Read the rest

Trump again pretending to think Democrats are mean to “God” and that he gives a shit:

Before playing golf on Saturday, Donald Trump took time to spread a false claim about God on Twitter.

“The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat [sic] National Convention,” the president wrote.

“At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from – it’s done. Vote Nov[ember] 3!”

It should be where they’re coming from, but it isn’t. It should be because school children are forced to say the pledge, and nobody should be forced to make avowals … Read the rest

I saw something yesterday saying Melania Trump would be saying something for the Republican convention from “the newly renovated [by her] White House Rose Garden.” Uh oh, I thought, what’s she done to it.

Before and after photographs of newly renovated White House Rose Garden:
courtesy #Getty and @marycjordan pic.twitter.com/w6bzoNHMjC

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 22, 2020

Ew.

To be fair, the one on the left is obviously spring – the crabapple* trees would not be flowering even if they were still there. But they’re not still there. They’ve been swept away. The vibrant various colors have been replaced by icy blue and white.

It’s funny, in a way, because the minimalism is so unlike the vulgar garishness of that … Read the rest

From a post here last October:

“Attorney General” Bill Barr met with Rupert Murdoch last night; nobody knows what they talked about.

I’m sure it’s all very innocent. I’m sure Barr in no way tried to pressure Murdoch to make Fox even more slavishly adoring of Trump. I’m sure it’s entirely normal for an Attorney General to visit the boss of a notoriously political tv network, just to lift a few beers and shoot the shit.

The Guardian today:

The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to “muzzle” Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network.

Barr’s meeting with

Now that’s funny.… Read the rest

The Times asks a silly question: Who Should Compete in Women’s Sports?

The answer is in the question. Women, duh.

But the full title is: Who Should Compete in Women’s Sports? There Are ‘Two Almost Irreconcilable Positions.’

Only when it comes to women, right? Nobody else is expected to nod compliantly to such a ridiculous set-up. Who should win a prize established for black writers? There Are Two Almost Irreconcilable Positions – I don’t think. But it’s ok to bully women that way, because women are required to be Nice, which includes giving away their own rights and smiling pleasantly while they do it.

While scientific and societal views of sex and gender identity have changed significantly in recent decades,

I think Trump’s throwing a funeral for his brother at the White House is tacky, at best. It’s not normal; it’s not what presidents do. It’s gross. It’s exhibitionist. It’s narcissistic. It’s ick.

Trump on Monday said he wanted to hold a service for his younger brother, who died Saturday, at the White House, telling reporters, “I think he’d be greatly honored. He loves our country. He loved our country so much. He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country.”

That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to do his funeral in the building.

It is a rare event for the East Room to be used for funeral events, outside of a ceremony

They all knew.

(Of course they did. How could they not? How could anyone? He’s not subtle about it.)

Wow. A must watch. pic.twitter.com/opFrP9cyyX

— Republicans for Joe Biden (@RepsForBiden) August 21, 2020

… Read the rest

Trump is trying out a new brand of birtherism: pretending Biden wasn’t born where he was born.

Which is weird because…what? Who cares? What difference does it make what town or city or village or megalopolis someone was born in?

President Trump traveled to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, just miles away from former Vice President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, to deliver a scathing speech in which he claimed Biden ‘wasn’t born’ in Scranton, just hours before the Democratic presidential hopeful was set to accept his party’s nomination.

Oh no, not Not Born in Scranton! The horror!

But perhaps Trump’s most vicious and bizarre attack was on Biden’s claim to be a native son of Scranton, asserting that Biden, who

This isn’t the approach to the climate crisis, this is the climate crisis. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, authors of Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, have the details.

In few places is this as clear as California, where extreme wildfires have become the new abnormal. There is currently a “fire siege” in northern California, with wildfires burning in every one of the nine Bay Area counties except for San Francisco, which is entirely urbanized. Tens of thousands of residents have evacuated and people are choking on smoke.

And that’s not some random inexplicable thing, it’s the climate crisis.

California’s governor announced on Wednesday that there were 367 fires, and conflagrations have grown so rapidly that there are

Trump is attacking California, again, for being on fire.

“I see again the forest fires are starting,” he said at a rally in swing-state Pennsylvania. “They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

“Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added.

He wants to make “them” pay for it because California votes for Democrats plus it’s full of Those people – you know the ones.

“I’ve been telling them this now for three

Proud to demand the end of women’s sport.

“We are asking rugby clubs at all levels of the game to stand with us against a ruling that is exclusionary and that will impact some of the most vulnerable people in the community”.

Join us and @LgbtiqS in calling @WorldRugby to #TackleTransphobia https://t.co/Y0ngO2VbQE pic.twitter.com/Qj8KSdOL5S

— stonewalluk (@stonewalluk) August 21, 2020

… Read the rest

Navalny needs to get out of Russia. Putin has nailed the doors shut.

The Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation organised an air ambulance to pick up Mr Navalny and bring him back to Berlin, where it said the Charite hospital was ready to treat him.

…

At a news conference in Berlin, Mr Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov said at first doctors at the hospital had been helping to facilitate his transfer but abruptly stopped doing so.

“[It was] like something was switched off – like medicine mode off, cover-up operation mode on – and the doctors refused to co-operate any more, refused to give any information even to Alexei’s wife,” he said.

“The doctors who were helping to do