Now let’s tie together Barr and the Trump admin attacks on reasonable pandemic precautions and scientific advice in general into one smelly package:

Attorney General William Barr argued Wednesday that coronavirus-related lockdown orders were surpassed only by slavery as the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” in the nation’s history.

Oh yes. Certainly. The internment of Americans of Japanese descent in 1942 was as nothing compared to health measures during a lethal pandemic. The Trail of Tears? Pff, a walk in the park. Mass incarceration? Three strikes laws? HUAC? The Espionage Act of 1917? The Sedition Act of 1918? All mere vapor compared to inconvenient emergency health measures.

The remarks from the attorney general came during an event hosted by

I don’t know how I managed to miss this yesterday – Caputo is taking a two month “leave of absence”…i.e. he’s been told to stfu and take a break until after the election. Alexander is out altogether.

In a Facebook video posted on Sunday and obtained by POLITICO, Caputo vowed that “I’m not going anywhere” and that the attacks on Alexander had made him “permanent” in government.

Caputo took a 60-day medical leave today, and Alexander is now departing. pic.twitter.com/a3Da0hTneK

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) September 16, 2020

The video is hilarious given the knowledge that he’s been told to fuck right off. If I’d watched it not knowing that it wouldn’t have been funny at all.

Just to refresh our … Read the rest

More from Barr:

Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who described Mr. Barr’s comments on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish

Trump’s consigliere is trashing the prosecutors who work for the Justice Department.

In scathing remarks criticizing his own staff, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the Justice Department has recently acted “more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice” and equated some prosecutors to preschoolers and “headhunters.”

Too much deference is given to career prosecutors, rather than to politically appointed leaders who can be held accountable at the ballot box, he said in remarks that are likely to further strain relations between Barr and some of the Justice Department’s career prosecutors.

Ya think???

Barr did not mention any specific cases, but he has been criticized by current and former

Involuntary hysterectomies…why does that sound so familiar…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats demanded an investigation on Tuesday into claims by a nurse at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia that detainees there have been denied basic medical care and possibly subjected to hysterectomies without their informed consent.

Dawn Wooten, a registered nurse who worked full-time at the Irwin County Detention Center until July, outlined her allegations in a complaint filed on Monday to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General by a coalition of advocacy groups.

“If true, the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower complaint – including allegations of mass hysterectomies being performed on vulnerable immigrant women – are a

This sucks.

Biologists in New Mexico have sounded the alarm after thousands of song birds were found dead in recent days.

New Mexico State University Professor Martha Desmond told local media that the reason for the mass die off is a mystery but could be tied to smoke from wildfires, or the recent cold weather.

She says the number could be in the millions.

Scientists have reported North American bird populations have declined massively in recent years.

I know that swallows used to be abundant around here and now I very rarely see them. Barn swallows and violet greens, both, have all but disappeared from Seattle.

Some birds – including migratory warblers, swallows and bluebirds – were seen acting

Another day another lies conference:

Donald Trump started off the press conference by doubling down on his assertion that there will be “a hundred million vaccine doses by the end of 2020”. He said that vaccines should be ready by “mid-October”.

Trump criticized Joe Biden for spreading “anti-vaccine theories” by saying that Trump is trying to politicize a vaccine by rushing its development before the election. potentially foregoing safety precautions.

“They’re recklessly endangering lives,” Trump said, saying that if Democrats were in the same position, the would be saying how important vaccines are.

It’s not anti-vax to say Trump is making bullshit promises because he wants to win the election. Quite the contrary – a pretend vaccine is no … Read the rest

In one bit of good news (a scarce item these days), Navalny is doing better.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Nalvany plans to return to Russia, according to his spokesperson. He was recently poisoned with a nerve agent and has been undergoing treatment at a German hospital for more than three weeks.

“It’s puzzling to me why anyone should think otherwise,” Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh tweeted.

Fair point. Since Putin can poison him outside Russia as easily as inside, staying out of Russia would be futile.

Nalvany took to Instagram Tuesday to post a photo with his wife and children from his hospital bed — the first photo of him publicly released since he was admitted to the hospital.

The new Jesus and Mo:

And the ones who have to submit? Not the fantasists, but the people who retain their grip on reality. It’s only fair, right?

The J and M Patreon… Read the rest

It’s the herd mentality you see, it will save us.

President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday during a televised town hall that “herd mentality” could make the coronavirus “disappear” with or without a vaccine.

During a 90-minute town hall hosted by ABC News in the must win battleground of Pennsylvania, Trump defended his repeated assertion that the virus will eventually disappear even without a vaccine, citing what he called “herd mentality”…

Herd immunity, dipshit.

ABC News’ Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Trump whether the coronavirus “would go away without the vaccine?”

“Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away –” Trump responded.

Stephanopoulos interjected: “–And many deaths.”

“And you’ll develop, you’ll develop herd — like a

Look at this brainless heap.

Donald Trump, last night: "It's going to disappear."

Tomorrow, the United States may surpass 200,000 confirmed American deaths from COVID-19.pic.twitter.com/wYnDs7pSJg

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2020

“It’s going to disappear, George, it’s going to disappear.” Why is it? How does he know? What makes him say that? Look around, this studio is almost empty – he wants people, he wants football games – therefore it’s going to disappear. Obviously. If Donald Trump wants something, the natural world has to arrange things so that he gets that something. COVID is going to disappear because Trump wants crowds and football.… Read the rest

Emily Kirkpatrick at Vanity Fair thinks JK Rowling has one hell of a nerve expressing her opinions right out in public.

No longer satisfied with simply repeatedly expressing her transphobic opinions on Twitter and in 3,600-word screeds on her personal website…

Aw, seriously, where does she get off writing things on her personal website? Who does that? And not just any old things but screeds. Ewwww doncha just hate screeds? Good people write essays or posts or entries, but evil people write screeeeeeeeeeeeeds. Doesn’t it sound witchy? Bitchy witchy writing her witchy bitchy screeeeeeeeeeeds. Let’s punish her.

Also, for the thousandth time, what she’s written isn’t transphobic. It’s not “I hate trans people” or “trans people are hateful,” it’s … Read the rest

Wow.

Wildfire smoke has drifted all the way to Pennsylvania.

Mind you, there’s a big difference between wildfire smoke and dense wildfire smoke. If the smoke here looked like the smoke over Pennsylvania I’d be out taking a two hour walk after all this being locked up inside.… Read the rest

Interesting marketing ploy.

In which a bookshop alienates a significant percentage of potential customers by threatening to "shame" them should they try and purchase an actual book. #parallelfuckinguniverse https://t.co/TSUDayRT6J pic.twitter.com/wu00LtNgvl

— Dr Louise Moody (@drlouisejmoody) September 15, 2020

People are weird.

Updating to add the whole message.… Read the rest

MY NEW VIDEO. #HowWeGotHere

Remember your life before #COVIDー19? pic.twitter.com/D3WNVoGrY8

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) September 15, 2020

… Read the rest

Alison Flood in the Guardian reviews Rowling’s new novel. (Oh does she have a new novel? I hadn’t heard.)

Before it had even come out, criticism of JK Rowling’s new Robert Galbraith thriller, Troubled Blood, was already wall-to-wall, after an early review in the Telegraph claimed that its “moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress”.

In other words people who hadn’t read it were already tearing it to shreds because of a highly dishonest remark in the Telegraph.

As the pair look into the disappearance – and this is a spoiler – one of the avenues they investigate is the possibility Margot was murdered by Dennis Creed, a now-imprisoned and notorious serial killer who once

In the more long-term bad news…

The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.

From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010 to slow the loss of the natural world. It is the second consecutive decade that governments have failed to meet targets.

Well let’s look forward to 2030. Or 2050. Or maybe 2100.

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, published before a key UN summit on the issue later this month, found

Nick Cohen tells us that in addition to being crappy the latest attack on Rowling is wrong on the facts. He knows this because he’s actually read the novel they’re screaming about, because he has a review copy. It hasn’t even been released yet.

The hideous hashtag #RIPJKRowling was trending as trolls and their easily manipulated followers poured out their hatred. Rowling was a rat and a racist. She should ‘Sit Down and Shut the Fuck Up For The Rest of Time You Transphobic Bitch’. She wants trans people ‘to die’.

The ‘evidence’ that provoked the malice was so flimsy, even Twitter should have been embarrassed to publish it. Pink News, which dominates the LGBTQ+ outrage market, gave

Social media ACLU continues to make a fool of itself, no doubt because it lets Chase Strangio set policy on trans issues.

At least 21 transgender women have been murdered in the US this year.

Transmisogynistic violence is an epidemic, and yet instead of addressing a system that perpetuates this violence, our community is being attacked by politicians, by lawmakers, and yes, by famous authors.

— ACLU (@ACLU) September 14, 2020

Trans women are murdered by men, usually in a context of “sex work.” Men are not inspired by feminists to commit violence against women who identify as men; that’s not how any of this works. Male violence is not the fault of women.

Also…quite a few women have … Read the rest

Within weeks – i.e. before the election. Definitely before the election.

Donald Trump has been on Fox & Friends this morning. Among the tidbits are that he said he had read Bob Woodward’s book Rage last night, and that it was “boring”. The book runs to some 400 pages.

Trump can barely read at all. People who can barely read read very slowly. They read one word at a time instead of a sentence or phrase at a time; it’s slow work. Being barely able to read rules out being able to skim effectively.

(By the way whatever happened to “speed reading”? Remember that? Claims of being able to read an entire page at a glance and thus read an … Read the rest