Oregon needs federal help.

Sen. Jeff Merkley said he expects Pres. Donald Trump to approve Oregon’s request for emergency federal assistance for the wildfires e soon, perhaps as early as Thursday afternoon or Friday.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown made the formal request for support Wednesday, and Oregon’s congressional delegation issued a letter of support the same afternoon.

On Thursday, as fires continued to ravage the state, Brown told reporters she was still waiting on a response to the request from the White House. About 900,000 acres of Oregon have burned, she said.

We hate to rush him and everything but…

Brown and state officials said they are working to get more firefighters on the ground. A strike team is

The air in Seattle blew past unhealthy this morning, then past very unhealthy this afternoon; it’s now at hazardous and still climbing; after hazardous it’s just we can’t count it any more.

But as for Oregon…

Hundreds of firefighters battled two large wildfires Friday that threatened to merge near the most populated part of Oregon, including the suburbs of Portland, and the governor said dozens of people are missing in other parts of the state.

The state’s emergency management director, Andrew Phelps, said officials are “preparing for a mass fatality event” and that thousands of structures have been destroyed.

Gov. Kate Brown said more than 40,000 Oregonians have been evacuated and about 500,000 are in different levels of evacuation

Chris Cillizza is not one of the great journalists, but I like his take on Trump’s efforts to prevent panic over a new lethal contagious disease.

There is, without doubt, a worthy debate to be had as to whether Woodward, who technically works for the Post but in practical terms has been writing books for years now, should have immediately gone to the Post after Trump made his statements about downplaying the virus and demanded space on the website (and in the next day’s paper) to write a big contemporaneous piece about it.

But that conversation pales in comparison to this one: If the President of the United States knew that Covid-19 was worse than people thought — and

Few face masks, no social distancing.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Thursday he was “pretty puzzled” and “rather disheartened” by President Donald Trump’s crowded campaign rally in Michigan — at which few of the several thousand attendees could be seen wearing face masks and virtually none appeared to be practicing social distancing.

In unusually frank remarks during a CNN town hall event focused on the novel coronavirus, the nation’s top public health official lamented that commonsense mitigation measures had become politicized and claimed that aliens from far-off worlds viewing Americans’ behavior amid the pandemic would conclude that Earth was all but doomed.

Except for the “all but” part. Being aliens, they wouldn’t feel any … Read the rest

Now here’s a smart guy.

Brilliant call.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts will end nearly all of his state’s social-distancing restrictions on Monday even as the number of new coronavirus cases has trended upward over the last few months.

Cases are going up so – shrug – might as well stop trying.

The new rules will still limit the size of large indoor gatherings, such as concerts, meeting halls and theaters, but will drop all other state-imposed mandates in favor of voluntary guidelines, as other conservative states have done.

Because “conservative” now means “ignore all expert health advice and refuse to take sensible steps to damp down a lethal pandemic.” They really want to go with that?… Read the rest

Richard Wolffe

The Inuit are supposed to have dozens of words to describe snow. The Brits have endless ways to talk about rain. Now it’s time for Americans to delineate all the many ways that Donald Trump is dumb.

I’ve been working on that project since July 2016.

(I know there’s a retort that he’s having a lot of success for someone who is dumb. Yes but the dumb is why he’s having the success. Sadly, pathetically, maddeningly, tragically, there are enough Murkans who love to see somebody stupid in the White House to put him there and keep him there despite impeachment.)

If Bob Woodward’s new blockbuster teaches us anything new about the character of the 45th president, it’s

He leads with “I don’t say this out of ego but”

Hahahaha no obviously not.

He also implies that he’s getting it in the same sense Obama did, but Obama got the actual prize, awarded by the committee, not a nomination, awarded by one far-right jackass.

But never mind, Trump isn’t bragging about his farcical nomination out of ego.… Read the rest

My writing for @FiLiA_charity on Holbeck, the legal red light zone in Leeds. A feminist action is currently underway by @LeedsReSisters there. https://t.co/ET1dGNE5Tf

— Dr EM (@PankhurstEM) September 10, 2020

I’m reading it. It’s tough going – I’ll be reading it in segments and taking breaks. Here’s one item:

Male violence and rape, and police inaction over these crimes, is also a problem for women and children not in prostitution who live near or enter the Holbeck zone. In 2015, ‘Sally – a young woman with learning disabilities, then aged 17 – was approached at a bus stop in Beeston on a weekday afternoon, bundled into a car, and raped in a nearby home. With DNA evidence, the attacker was

Interesting.

The “I heart Rowling” poster didn’t get complaints, but Network Rail took it down anyway, because…………….??????

So then Network Rail got 128 158 complaints about the taking down, and ignored them.… Read the rest

More than 1,000 people died from COVID yesterday.@realDonaldTrump watched eight hours of TV.

If I’m president, you might not always agree with me. But I promise you I will always show up and fight for you. pic.twitter.com/HvVJLS83TZ

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 11, 2020

… Read the rest

Jessica Krug doing her academic woman of color thing.

H/t Lady Mondegreen… Read the rest

From Pliny:… Read the rest

New level of disgust. We knew he’d done it, but now we learn he bragged about it to Woodward.

President Donald Trump bragged that he protected Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from congressional scrutiny after the brutal assassination of the American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Why does the pestiferous sack of shit think that’s something to brag of?

Woodward wrote that Trump called him on January 22 shortly after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During the conversation, Woodward pressed the president about Khashoggi’s gruesome murder.

…

“The people at the Post are upset about the Khashoggi killing,” Woodward told Trump on January 22, his book says. “That is one of the most gruesome things.

Via TheDudeDiogenes, Identity Theft by Zaid Jilani:

He starts with an analogy Apple’s CEO made between Emmett Till and Jacob Blake and points out what a terrible analogy it is.

I don’t write this to justify the shooting. If it turns out [Blake] didn’t pose any imminent threat to the officers or to the kids at the time of the shooting, it wasn’t justified. But there is no universe where it is legitimate to compare what is at worst an incompetent arrest and unjustified nonlethal shooting of someone wanted for an alleged violent crime to a brutal racist killing of an innocent child.

And yet such comparisons are now commonplace. Our contemporary political debates induce us to identify ourselves

He’s not called Don Junior for nothing.

While speaking about 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, charged with homicide in the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of a third during unrest in Kenosha, Donald Trump Jr. said, “We all do stupid things at 17.”

The president’s son made the comment during an interview with “Extra” host Rachel Lindsay, a former contestant on “The Bachelor.”

Well, lots of us do, yes – things like getting drunk, getting pregnant, scratching the car, failing calculus, not cleaning up the kitchen when asked. We don’t all shoot two people to death.

“If I put myself in Kyle Rittenhouse(‘s shoes), maybe I shouldn’t have been there. He’s a young kid. I don’t want

Trump’s caught in his zipper.

REPORTER: Why did you lie to the American people and why should we trust what you have to say —

TRUMP: That's a terrible question and the phraseology. I didn't lie. What I said, we have to be calm. pic.twitter.com/TZrvRa5fpU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 10, 2020

“How dare you accuse me of lying! I never lie!!!” “Sir, that’s a lie right there, sir.”

"We're rounding the final turn" — Trump on the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/HAClFPSGfr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 10, 2020

Uh…what?… Read the rest

Less than a week but still too long.

Less than a week after George Washington University announced Jessica Krug would not resume teaching this semester after the professor revealed she had been lying for years about being Black, the school announced she has resigned.

“Dr. Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately. Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” the university said in a statement obtained by CNN on Wednesday.

We need a word for this move – this form of fraud in which a person with more social privilege pretends to be a person with less social privilege. Maybe we already have … Read the rest

The Guardian has some more details on Trump’s compassionate and patriotic desire to shield the American people from the truth about COVID-19.

Specifically asked whether he downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump told reporters, “In order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so.”

As one does. If the house is on fire, you tell the people in it that it’s not serious, because you don’t want them to panic.

The president insisted his strategy was focused on encouraging Americans to remain calm, as the virus spread across the country.

“You have to show leadership, and leadership is confidence in our country,” Trump said.

Well, see, here’s the thing – the danger is a contagious disease that is lethal to … Read the rest

A bizarre item this morning.

@esteem_acetUK have now deleted their tweet. This doesn’t answer any of our questions or explain why it was posted in the first place. #RSE #safeguarding #edutwitter #teacher5oclockclub #SLTchat #WomenEd #pastoralchat #BacktoSchool pic.twitter.com/GvB1RhzbAO

— Safe Schools Alliance (@SafeSchools_UK) September 10, 2020

Penis masks! How creative! But…back to school gifts?

No no, that’s not what they meant, they said.

It is NOT about offence caused. It is about appropriate boundaries & an understanding of #safeguarding, particularly online.

Incidents such as this call professional judgement into question & result in campaignIng against ALL #RSE. Good quality #RSE helps to safeguard children https://t.co/6Opvyb9S65 pic.twitter.com/wsIUusSBXM

— Safe Schools Alliance (@SafeSchools_UK) September 10, 2020

Whatever. I became curious about … Read the rest