A motorcycle rally is worth dying for, right? And worth killing people for?

More than two weeks after nearly half a million bikers flocked to South Dakota, the tally of coronavirus infections traced back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has surpassed 260, an estimate that is growing steadily as more states report cases and at least one death.

…

A Minnesota man in his 60s who went to the rally was later hospitalized for COVID-19 and died earlier this week, said Kris Ehresmann, head of infectious disease for the Minnesota Department of Health.

Minnesota has counted more than 45 cases tied to the rally, and that only includes people who got tested and then notified state health departments about

Here’s the tweet:

Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded! https://t.co/dHsw6Y6Y3M

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2020

Here’s CNN’s coverage:

President Donald Trump is continuing to wage battle against interpretations of history which he claims are un-American.

So the true-American or yes-American interpretation is that slavery was a benign arrangement that worked out very well for everyone, especially the slaves? In other words an enormous lie? That’s affirm-American?

In a Sunday morning tweet, the President said the US Department of Education would investigate whether California schools are using the New York Times’ “1619 Project” in [the] public school curriculum. The Pulitzer-Prize winning collection reframes American history around the date of

I can see only the first two paragraphs but that’s plenty. Iain Gately in The Sunday Times:

It’s been nearly six months since we were first asked to work from home, and one of the early silver linings of lockdown was — I think we can all agree — not having to spend a large proportion of every morning and evening with our nose pressed into a stranger’s armpit on a packed train or bus.

But, with a half a year to reflect, did we wish our commutes away too readily? If you’re not back at your desk, isn’t a small piece of you missing that daily ride to and from the office? For many of us, the commute

From Pliny’s Far Corner Cafe:… Read the rest

Trump doesn’t want any more of that god damn anti-racism training around here, understood?

Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies’ antiracism training sessions, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda”.

You know, racism is kind of divisive too.

To be fair, I’m not sure I trust the people who do mass trainings of this kind to do it well, having sat through some silly bullshit even just working for the Seattle Parks Department, but on the other hand I trust Donald Trump a whole lot less than that.

The OMB director, Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on “critical

Jessica Krug won’t be teaching her classes this year.

In a statement released on Friday night, the University provost, Brian Blake, and dean, Paul Wahlbeck, wrote: “Dr Krug will not be teaching her classes this semester. We are working on developing a number of options for students in those classes, which will be communicated to affected students as soon as possible.”

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Krug’s biography on the GW website lists imperialism and colonialism and African American history among her areas of expertise. Her writings center heavily on issues of African culture and diaspora.

In itself there’s nothing wrong with that. People should be interested in other cultures and histories. But she faked it, which is another matter.

In Krug’s book

Is it a Sign?

A parade of boats in Texas celebrating their support for Donald Trump ended in disarray when multiple vessels got into trouble on apparently choppy waters leading to several sinking and a slew of distress calls being made to rescue officials.

Well, buddying up to Trump tends to end that way.

The event, called the Lake Travis Trump boat parade, had been organized on Facebook with images of Trump campaign slogans adorning a variety of boats.

Does Antifa have submarines?

Meanwhile Trump is playing golf.

Donald Trump visited one of his own golf courses on Saturday amid one of the worst recent scandals to his presidency in recent months and after expert warnings that up to

In a public post in a public Facebook group, a discussion of what to tell contact tracers.

Layperson looking for feedback. So I am in training to be a contact tracer, I have a trans family member so I escalated the way we were initially asking these questions. For epidemiological reasons we are required to ask for the following information:

Sex at birth

Gender identity

Sexual orientation

I have now been asked to create the verbatim myself that will go out to all the trainers for current and future training. The reason for this post is I am hoping to hear what would be prefered in terms of the verbiage for how a tracer would ask for that info.

Who is that fascinating man?

Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.

Well, “patchy” – more like non-existent. Trump’s relationship with the facts and the truth is like Trump’s relationship with Tiffany: it doesn’t exist. Trump wouldn’t even recognize facts and the truth if they came up to him at a party and sat on his lap.

Darroch wrote that Johnson had been “fascinated” by Trump on his visits to Washington as foreign secretary before he became prime minister, with particular focus on the president’s use of language.

This includes “the limited

Aw, he mad.

Jennifer Griffin of Fox News Did Not Confirm ‘Most Salacious‘ Part of Atlantic Story https://t.co/rUpbSWhHac via @BreitbartNews All refuted by many witnesses. Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. @FoxNews is gone!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2020

The Guardian gives details:

The Atlantic magazine published a story that described how Trump said he cancelled a visit to pay respects at an American military cemetery outside Paris in 2018 because he thought the dead soldiers were “losers” and “suckers”. Other outlets confirmed the news and detailed more incidents of Trump’s insulting attitude to American soldiers.

Among those was the Fox News national security correspondent, Jennifer

Greene’s post was so bad Facebook removed it.

Facebook said Friday it removed a Republican congressional candidate’s post [that depicted her holding a gun next to the images of three progressive congresswomen] for violating its policies against incitement of violence.

Brackets added for clarity.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a House candidate who has history of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic remarks and who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, on Thursday posted a picture of herself holding a rifle next to images of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — three of four members of the so-called liberal freshmen “squad.”

The terrible thing is, she will win that seat.

In the accompanying post, Greene railed against

Oh no, a 19-year-old was not allowed to order alcohol in a pub because the photo on xir id didn’t resemble xir. Tears ensued.

A transgender woman has spoken of her upset after she was refused service in a pub because staff did not think she looked like the person on her ID.

Savanna Galloway, 19, said she left Wetherspoons on Tuesday in tears after being told she would not be served.

She showed her passport to prove her age, but was told by two members of staff her picture did not resemble her.

Wetherspoons has issued the required groveling apology but has also said it still requires “‘a valid ID which resembles the person presenting it’ to be … Read the rest

Melania Trump today:

.@TheAtlantic story is not true. It has become a very dangerous time when anonymous sources are believed above all else, & no one knows their motivation. This is not journalism – It is activism. And it is a disservice to the people of our great nation.

— Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) September 4, 2020

Melania Trump in 2011:

Your periodic reminder that Melania Trump was a shameless birther. pic.twitter.com/0CSpsAlqdf

— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) December 5, 2019

Not journalism but activism YOURSELF, you lying piece of crap.… Read the rest

Trump tells cities and the people in them we’re bad and stupid and he hates us.

President Donald Trump, on Wednesday, signed a memo threatening to withhold federal funding from Democrat-run cities the White House deems “anarchist jurisdictions” because of their handling of ongoing civil unrest that continues to ripple around the country. 

“Anarchist jurisdictions” – this from a greedy cynical asshole who has broken a thousand laws and gotten away with it because he’s filthy rich.

The five-page presidential memo, officially titled “Memorandum on Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities,” is more of a political document than a policy one. The real point of the memo

Fox News confirms it. It will be interesting to see how he spins that. Fox has always hated him, it’s so unfair?

And there it is. Fox News confirms the story that the White House has been denying all day. This thing's a done deal.pic.twitter.com/7kVY3vmAwB

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) September 4, 2020

… Read the rest

Another exciting one of whatever these are, where reporters ask questions and Trump just says whatever pops into his head for a minute or two.

LOL. After a bizarre aside about "central casting" college football coaches, Trump announces that Lou Holtz will be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. pic.twitter.com/ElLjMjXsoF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 4, 2020

Football! Medals! Central casting! Gerbil, ski pole, lima bean, choo choo train.

"It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia … but I think China probably at this point is a nation you should be talking about" — Trump responds to a question about the Navalny poisoning pic.twitter.com/c460n6kGbN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 4, 2020

Russia…North Korea! China! Hillary! Football!

Trump on

A guy who writes for Forbes on “LGBT life, identities and being queer” wants us to know how wrong the Spectator is on trans issues.

Being transgender was declassified from the international classifications of diseases by the UN’s WHO body last year, and numerous trans activists have pointed out their lived experience is not a debate.

That doesn’t tell us much. Maybe the WHO was bullied into the “declassifying.” The second item is hand-waving bullshit. If someone’s purported “lived experience” relies on a belief system that defines women in a way that most women don’t want to be defined, then the belief system damn well is open to debate. Women get to say we’re not a feeling in … Read the rest

Alan Goodman, a professor of biological anthropology, explains that race is real but not genetic.

Like a fish in water, we’ve all been engulfed by “the smog” of thinking that “race” is biologically real. Thus, it is easy to incorrectly conclude that “racial” differences in health, wealth, and all manner of other outcomes are the inescapable result of genetic differences.

The reality is that socially defined racial groups in the U.S. and most everywhere else do differ in outcomes. But that’s not due to genes. Rather, it is due to systemic differences in lived experience and institutional racism.

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As a professor of biological anthropology, I teach and advise college undergraduates. While my students are aware of

Always great when the Attorney General of the whole country says things that aren’t true on national tv – especially when the untrue things convey that voter fraud is a much bigger problem than it is, weeks before an election which could see an evil corrupt monster re-elected.

In his latest warning about the dangers of mass mail-in voting, Attorney General William P. Barr pointed to a case in Texas that he said highlighted the risk of fraud.

“Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion,” Barr told CNN on Wednesday. “For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected, he — from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for

All fine, completely normal, nothing to worry about.

Here’s the photo she posted: https://t.co/psgZSVV8Tw pic.twitter.com/60bXKMDacP

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 4, 2020

Updating to add full image.… Read the rest