The Post reports the unsurprising news that Trump’s verbal attacks on scientists are not helping the response to COVID.

This week’s remarkable character assault by some top White House advisers on Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, signified President Trump’s hostility toward medical expertise and has produced a chilling effect among the government scientists and public health professionals laboring to end the pandemic, according to administration officials and health experts.

From Trump’s point of view that means it’s working. He wants them chilled.

Though Trump does not automatically distrust the expertise of public health officials, he is averse to any information or assessment that he considers “bad news,” that compromises his economic cheerleading message or that jeopardizes

Congressman John Lewis spent his life fighting racism and injustice wherever he confronted it, from boycotts, sit-ins, and other protests in the streets, to championing bold, progressive policies in Congress. #ripjohnlewis pic.twitter.com/Sj3joYHWni

— The Black Caucus (@TheBlackCaucus) July 18, 2020

.@RepJohnLewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation. Every day of his life was dedicated to bringing freedom and justice to all. pic.twitter.com/xMbfAUhLUv

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 18, 2020

Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did:https://t.co/KbVfYt5CeQ

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 18, 2020

I think that photo is from the inauguration. I … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Papito on The beautiful suburbs.

What makes a suburb “successful” is a good ratio of property value to number of children. Property value is maintained by zoning. With high property value, you get rich people living there, and public schools funded by rich people’s property taxes, and a lower rate of public school attendance because rich people don’t have as many kids as poor people and so many rich people send their kids to private schools anyway.

What “abolishes” a suburb is revising the zoning to allow smaller lots, or (god forbid!) apartment buildings, increasing population density and reducing per-unit prices. Cheaper, smaller housing brings a lower ratio of property tax to children. People who … Read the rest

Trump did another publicly funded campaign speech in the Rose Garden yesterday. He promised to Keep America Racist.

The Democrats in D.C. have been and want to, at a much higher level, abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs by placing far-left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions. They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations that you read about today. Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise.

Oh, gee, I wonder what he’s talking about there. Why would zoning make crime rates go up?

Joe Biden and his bosses from the radical left want

The fascist coup is getting closer, is perhaps under way.

.@CBP respects the right to peacefully protest, but violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated. Our agents are in Portland to stop criminals from continuing to destroy federal property and injure federal officers and agents. Statement: pic.twitter.com/cZBDsr2pkG

— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) July 17, 2020

CBP is Customs and Border Patrol – who don’t have jurisdiction over domestic protests. Do they? That’s not how any of this works is it? Deranged fascist presidents can’t just call in bombers and prison guards and heavy artillery and Border Patrol whenever they feel like staging a tantrum, can they?

Our personnel are clearly marked as federal LEOs & have unique identifiers.

Jeet Heer in the Nation:

Protests have been roiling Portland for over six weeks. Even prior to these protests, Portland was a site of a long-running battle between right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and left-wing activists who are usually lumped together under the antifa label. It’s possible that the antifa connection made Portland a spot of particular interest to the Trump administration, which has used the loosely organized anti-fascist groups as a scapegoat for social upheavals in the wake of police brutality.

The deployment of unidentified federal officers is particularly dangerous in a situation like that in Portland and elsewhere in America, because it could easily lead to right-wing militias’ impersonating legal authorities and kidnapping citizens.

That would … Read the rest

Dispatch from Yakima County:

First came the warning: A police officer in the small city of Selah told a group of young people that if they continued drawing “Black Lives Matter” chalk art on the sidewalk in front of City Hall, they would be charged with a crime.

Chalk art on a sidewalk? What “crime” will they be charged with then?

Then someone (the story doesn’t say who) sent in a pressure washer to blast it all away.

The standoff last week was just one of a growing series of conflicts between conservative leaders of Selah, a community with only a few dozen Black residents, and young people from a wide range of backgrounds who believe the city is

Here we see them in action. It’s absolutely dumbfounding.

So is all this fascist grabbing people off the streets in camo and unmarked rental vans legal? Probably not.

Legal scholars questioned whether the detentions pass constitutional muster.

“Arrests require probable cause that a federal crime had been committed, that is, specific information indicating that the person likely committed a federal offense, or a fair probability that the person committed a federal offense,” Orin Kerr, a professor at University of California, Berkeley Law School, told The Post. “If the agents are grabbing people because they may have been involved in protests, that’s not probable cause.”

Well it’s the same city. Isn’t that a fair probability?

Federal officers from the U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security have stormed

In Burundi, does child marriage happen to self-identified girls? pic.twitter.com/1gbwwgEuVt

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) July 15, 2020

In Senegal, can a girl identify as a boy and be sent to school? pic.twitter.com/FA8bWe8A10

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) July 15, 2020

In India, how many of the 63m missing women were self-identified? pic.twitter.com/sD8exbo8YV

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) July 15, 2020

In Kenya, how will you ensure that period products get to the right people? pic.twitter.com/lx5zz7vnhn

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) July 15, 2020

In South Africa, are self-identified girls at equivalent risk for HIV and teenage pregnancy? pic.twitter.com/FU0vQOU4ya

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) July 15, 2020

Your entire operation is dedicated to raising up girls and women who are victims of systematic sex discrimination.

Well of course. Trans “woman” gets massive book deal for book about “gender.” Of course he does.

The first book by Munroe Bergdorf, a manifesto on gender by the black transgender activist and model, has been bought for a six-figure sum after a bidding war between 11 publishers.

Bergdorf’s Transitional will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Exploring six different facets of human experience – adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race – the book will draw on Bergdorf’s own experiences, including growing up in a mixed-race family, going to an all-boys school and starting her transition at the age of 24. In it, she will argue that transition is an experience every person faces in every phase in

On the other hand there are genuine assaults on freedom. It’s just that they don’t come from the CDC.

In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

Things had been calm; the Portland cops and the feds had mostly kept a low profile.

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

Uh…what? That could be anybody. That could be far-right vigilantes. That’s terrifying.

They

Meeting to discuss mask policy postponed because…

… because dozens of people not wearing masks filled the room.

Well at least they’re sincere.

Utah County Commissioner Tanner Ainge said Wednesday the gathering in Provo, Utah violated current health recommendations and moved to suspend the meeting until a later date. His motion to adjourn was approved with a 2-to-1 vote, with the dissent coming from a commissioner who had organized the meeting.

“This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing,” Ainge said at the meeting. “We are supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks.”

The audience responded with a loud chorus of boos. 

Because…why? Do they really want to make health and safety a libbrul thing and disease and peril a conservative thing?… Read the rest

You think one pandemic is bad…

I first worried about the possibility of a double pandemic in March. Four months ago, it felt needlessly alarmist to fret about two rare events happening simultaneously. But since then, federal fecklessness and rushed reopenings have wasted the benefits of months of social distancing. About 60,000 new cases of COVID-19 are being confirmed every day, and death rates are rising. My worry from March feels less far-fetched. If America could underperform so badly against one rapidly spreading virus, how would it fare against two?

COVID-19 has made clear what happens when even powerful, wealthy countries are inadequately prepared for rare but ruinous events. Months into the pandemic, international alliances are strained, resources

Bully complains of bullying.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle has stepped down from the Labour frontbench, saying he had been the victim of a “torrent of online hate” because of a “campaign by the rightwing media”.

…

Russell-Moyle did not specify the details of the abuse he had suffered. His resignation came weeks after he apologised to the author JK Rowling for accusing her of “using her own sexual assault as justification for discriminating” against trans people.

And of course by “discriminating against trans people” he means saying such shocking things as:

I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on He says please read it all.

Les sigh. This is just a little of what goes through my head when I see this sort of thread/post/article/etc.

Trans women are women.

Trans men are men.

Non binary people are non binary.

For some, these terms are porous and they live between them.

Gender is not absolute.

What are women? What are men? Are you using the same senses of these words as the people you’re responding to? As law does? As science does? As literature does? As the totality of our species history does? If yes, can you show that? If not, how do you justify that, and what are the potential … Read the rest

1919. pic.twitter.com/v37DFMFmbQ

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 13, 2020

… Read the rest

A man offers to explain it all yet again, for those of us who are just to thick to take it in the first several thousand times.

Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non binary people are non binary.
For some, these terms are porous and they live between them.
Gender is not absolute. (2/10)

— Ben Beaumont-Thomas (@ben_bt) July 16, 2020

To the trans people who feel betrayed by the Guardian's coverage of trans issues: there are many people in the company who want to tell your stories, struggles and triumphs, honestly and compassionately. (4/10)

— Ben Beaumont-Thomas (@ben_bt) July 16, 2020

But the stories, struggles and triumphs of women? Not so much. Women are boring. Women … Read the rest

Has the virus just sort of disappeared like a miracle yet?

Not in Florida.

Florida has once again broken its single-day record of coronavirus deaths, as the state struggles to get the virus under control.

Florida health officials announced 156 residents died of coronavirus yesterday, breaking the record of 132 deaths reported on Tuesday morning.

The new figure brings the total number of coronavirus deaths in Florida to 4,677. The state has also confirmed more than 315,000 cases.

The grim news comes as Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, refuses to issue a statewide mask mandate, despite the state’s climbing case count.

FREEDOM!

Not in Georgia, now the no-mask-mandate state.

It is officially official. Governor Kemp does not give