Contagion is freedom! Masks are tyranny!

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Americans to wear masks to limit the spread of coronavirus, as more than half of US states report increases in new cases.

“I think that’s what people ought to do,” the Kentucky Republican told an ABC News reporter. “That’s what we’re doing in the Senate, and that’s what I’m counseling other people to do.”

Some other Republicans have said similar things, Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio among them.

However, other congressional Republicans have taken a much more laissez-faire approach to encouraging mask usage.

Because that’s how contagion works – it’s all a matter of choice. You choose to let the virus infect you, or you choose not to. … Read the rest

Oops.

All of President Donald Trump’s campaign staffers who attended his rally in Tulsa on Saturday are quarantining this week after interacting with several colleagues later tested positive for coronavirus, CNN has learned.

Now about all those people in the audience…

After eight staffers tested positive, several of the campaign’s top officials decided to quarantine for the week instead of going into the office, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN. Staff had only recently returned to the office after months of working from home because of coronavirus restrictions.

They’re working to re-elect the guy who put them in harm’s way for his own selfish purposes.

The fallout from Trump’s push to hold a rally with thousands

Trump plans to have a fireworks & sojers party at “Mount Rushmore” next month. What a disgusting idea in every way.

Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people.

Desecration and uglification. That thing is a monstrosity.

The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009.

Loud noises! Bangs! Roars! He can understand those.

Trump has long shown a fascination with Mount

Oh what do you know look at that – the Independent in 2018 doing a whole piece on the need for girls’ toilets in schools.

Unesco is urging governments around the world to prioritise providing single-sex toilets in schools, warning as many as 1 in 10 girls in some countries are missing out on lessons because of their period.

The UN’s education body surveyed 189 countries as part of its sixth annual gender review, obtained exclusively by The Independent ahead of International Women’s Day.

While the report found some progress had been made in gender equality in education, it said one in three countries still failed to allow equal numbers of boys and girls into primary school.

…

One

M. K. Fain on that election in Queens:

Emilia Decaudin, a man, has won the Female District Leader position for New York City’s 37-A district, which resides in Queens. Last year, Decaudin successfully petitioned to eliminate the sex parity rule in New York Democratic Leadership Council roles—a rule which was put in place by feminists to ensure women’s fair and equal participation in the democratic process.

And along came a man to say no, let’s not ensure women’s fair and equal participation in the democratic process. Let’s keep women out, instead.

Decaudin, who identifies as transgender and non-binary, defeated Deirdre Feerick, a woman, for the female position by a margin of about 5.5 points. Feerick was an experienced politician

They have another scalp.

Damian Barr is leading a charge of writers, including one former Booker prize winner, who are calling on the Booker Foundation to remove the allegedly “homophobic” peer Emma Nicholson from her position as vice-president.

Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, who voted against the same-sex marriage bill in 2013, is the widow of the late former chairman of Booker, Sir Michael Caine, who helped establish the prize. She is currently a vice-president of the Booker Foundation, and a former trustee of the prize.

Barr, a novelist, memoirist and host of the Literary Salon, learned of her association with the prize earlier this week, after Munroe Bergdorf, the model and transgender activist, said she was referring

Another ignorant twerp jumps, very belatedly, on the Let’s All Monster JK Rowling train.

Since J.K. Rowling published “Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues” to JKRowling.com, Harry Potter fans, Wizarding Worldfilm stars and LGBTQ+ organizations have been speaking out against Rowling’s statement. Fans of Rowling’s work are questioning how to move forward, whilst LGBTQ+ organizations are publishing responses aiming to combat misinformation within the author’s essay.

No, the responses aren’t aiming to combat misinformation, they’re aiming to enforce a novel and stupid orthodoxy and to destroy yet another woman who doesn’t adhere to it.

Whilst some have defended Rowling’s right to an opinion, others, including Forbes.com Diversity & Inclusion Contributor Dawn Ennis, have illustrated

George Washington University has issued a statement on William Barr:

The George Washington University Law School released a statement on June 23, 2020 calling for Attorney General William Barr to resign, for Congress to censure him, and for the Justice Department’s Inspector General to investigate him.

Barr received a juris doctorate from the Law School in 1977, served on its board of advisors, and has previously been honored by the school.

Most of the faculty signed.

The Law School’s statement cites the following as instances of Barr’s failure to uphold his constitutional oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The signers assert that Barr

• Deliberately misled Americans about the contents of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s

So why won’t Moses and Jesus validate him?

Jesus and Mo on Patreon

The new book… Read the rest

Trump did another gig yesterday, for a conservative group in Arizona. He said some words:

I want to thank also Kimberly, and I want to thank my son — boy, I watched my son.  I got here — wow.  I said, “What’s this all about?”  He’s good.  And people like him.  People like him a lot.

To everyone here today, and watching live all across our country, thank you for bravely defending our nation, our values, and our great American heroes.  (Applause.)

You know what’s going on because you’re on the frontlines of a tremendous intellectual struggle for the future of our country.  It’s really what you’re talking about — the future of our country.  You see what’s happening. 

Amnesty International explains its view on women’s rights.

“We live in a society that is more likely to discriminate and commit violence against transgender people, so we are proud to stand with them here in the UK and around the world,” they say.

“More likely” than what?

They don’t say. What does that mean then?

It’s similar to that “the most vulnerable in society” of Jolyon Maugham’s on Monday. Maugham’s is more precise in a way, but it’s still just an assertion, and it’s not true. It’s not difficult to think of people who are more vulnerable than trans people (trans people as such, trans people who are vulnerable because of being trans). Uighurs come to mind. … Read the rest

The ACLU is right in line with the current craze for reviving misogyny.

When we say abortion access for all, we mean EVERYONE who can get pregnant, not just women.https://t.co/r6BXs8hGFI

— ACLU (@ACLU) June 24, 2020

Yeah. Those selfish greedy mean women trying to keep pregnability just for themselves. EVERYONE can get pregnant. EVERYONE can be forced to drop out of high school because he gets pregnant. EVERYONE can lose his chance to go to university because he gets pregnant. EVERYONE can be forced to give up a job because his employers don’t provide maternity parental leave. EVERYONE can spend nine months getting increasingly uncomfortable and tired. EVERYONE can push a baby out of a narrow channel with considerable … Read the rest

Trump once against refers to coronavirus with the racist "Kung Flu" moniker, prompting huge cheers from his Turning Point Action audience. He then expresses confusion about what the "19" in "Covid-19" stands for. pic.twitter.com/jLhWBW91aw

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2020

I hope he drops dead before finishing the speech.… Read the rest

I saw it via Mayor Watermelon this morning.

What man tracking what woman down? This man tracking this woman down.

This Karen cut me off, break checked some almost causing a accident flipped me off and called me out of my name. She didn’t know I had time today. #karenareyouokay #karen #blacktwitter pic.twitter.com/sQsKpLcE6D

— Karlos Dillard (@karlosdillard_) June 23, 2020

It’s horrible to watch. He’s a bully. He would be a bully even if she had “flipped him off” but his claims about her are not even convincing. And hello, he’s a man, he followed her home in his car, and then stood there shouting at her and filming her while she screamed and cried.

It reminded me of … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Fox and Owl and Drew.

I despise people who worry about being “seen as.”

People who were worried about being “seen as”, let gangs of rapists sexually enslave little girls in the North of England, because when the rapist is Muslim one has to worry about being called racist.

And this isn’t a knock on the Muslim community, the Catholic Church covered up child rapers for decades if not centuries, because it was worried that if word got out that they were basically a giant pedophile and money laundering ring their moral credibility would be undermined.

During all this time, they didn’t stop raping kids or embezzling money the Irish state gave … Read the rest

In which the doctor backs himself into a corner, to the amusement of onlookers.

That is an excellent idea. So this space would *solely* be for females, not transwomen?

— Daytime Pub Smell (@DaytimePubSmell) June 23, 2020

So, to clarify, transwomen could *not* use this new space?

— Daytime Pub Smell (@DaytimePubSmell) June 23, 2020

So all 'ciswomen' need to do to successfully achieve segregation from both men and transwomen is keep up the assaults?

— Daytime Pub Smell (@DaytimePubSmell) June 23, 2020

… Read the rest

How the contagion happens:

Six months into the coronavirus crisis, there’s a growing consensus about a central question: How do people become infected?

It’s not common to contract Covid-19 from a contaminated surface, scientists say. And fleeting encounters with people outdoors are unlikely to spread the coronavirus.

(All the same I do wish people would move away when they can. It does annoy me when they stick to the middle of the sidewalk when it would be so easy to just veer to the side.)

Instead, the major culprit is close-up, person-to-person interactions for extended periods. Crowded events, poorly ventilated areas and places where people are talking loudly—or singing, in one famous case—maximize the risk.

These emerging findings

Something I always wonder about this guy.

The day I refuse to affirm my commitment to protecting the most vulnerable in society is the day I'll have outlived my use as a campaigner.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) June 22, 2020

He’s not a random young woke “activist” on Twitter, he’s an adult QC, yet he echoes the childish woke rhetoric as if there were nothing childish about it. It sounds bizarre coming from establishment figures like QCs.

Specifically, what makes him think that men who say they are women are “the most vulnerable in society”? That claim entails thinking that men are vulnerable to women; how did he get there? What sense does that make? Why does he believe that, … Read the rest

Trump’s people think it’s time to change the plan, but Trump doesn’t wanna.

In what amounts to a relaunch of a relaunch, Trump now travels to Arizona, a battleground state, to embrace his most comfortable signature issue with an event marking the 200th mile of his wall on the US-Mexico border (most of the construction has in fact replaced existing barriers).

The president will then speak at a “Students for Trump” event in Phoenix. Despite soaring cases of coronavirus in Arizona, his campaign team will be hoping for an enthusiastic turnout to get back on track.

In other words despite the fact that cases are swiftly rising in Arizona, Trump is eager to put more people at risk of … Read the rest

Trump wants to see cruel and unusual punishment for people who make political gestures he dislikes.

Trump referred to the protesters who tried to tear down the Andrew Jackson statue near the White House as “vandals” and “hoodlums” who don’t love America.

“We are looking at long term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums and these anarchists and agitators,” the president told reporters shortly before leaving for Arizona.

He wants people in prison for years for a minor property crime.

“Call them whatever you want. Some people don’t like that language, but that’s what they are. They’re bad people. They don’t love our country. And they’re not taking down our monuments. I just want to make that clear.”