All entries by this author
Jun 22nd, 2020 3:29 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More rally!
Even as more of his campaign staffers test positive for coronavirus, Trump is still scheduled to hold a campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, tomorrow.
The president will speak at a “Students for Trump” event at the Dream City Church in Phoenix, despite Arizona seeing a rise in its number of coronavirus cases.
In a video, two of the church’s leaders said they have installed cutting-edge technology that “kills 99.9% of Covid within 10 minutes.”
Oh yes? What “technology” is that exactly? Why isn’t it being installed everywhere?
These two fellas explain it. It’s ionization. Or ionizidation. The one guy isn’t quite sure. Anyway it cleans out all the particulates and the virus can’t live in that. They said … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
9 comments
Jun 22nd, 2020 2:58 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
White House press secretary has no problem with Trump’s racism.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked if Trump regrets using the racist phrase “kung flu” to describe coronavirus during his Saturday rally. McEnany replied that the president “never regrets putting the onus back on China” for the coronavirus pandemic.
But that wasn’t the question. The question was whether he regrets using the racist phrase “kung flu” to describe the coronavirus. Lying Fox News sleaze changed the subject.
Another reporter noted that, earlier this year, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway described the phrase “kung flu” as offensive and wrong.
Asked repeatedly whether the White House disagrees with Conway’s characterization, McEnany ignored the question and then called on someone
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3 comments
Jun 22nd, 2020 11:45 am |
By Ophelia Benson
People in Lebanon can no longer pay their Ethiopian “maids” who are really their slaves…so they take them to the Ethiopian embassy and leave them there.
Lebanon’s economy is collapsing with the country’s currency losing 70% of its value in the past six months.
Now many of the country’s middle class claim they can no longer afford to pay their domestic maids.
More than 100 Ethiopian migrant workers have been dumped outside their embassy in the capital in recent days.
There’s a video at the link. It’s worth watching.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Jun 22nd, 2020 11:20 am |
By Ophelia Benson
A rather sad account of transgender life:
Am I a woman? I used to believe I was. I used to have stars in my eyes. My role model was the Bond girl (and self-described “Transsexual Supermodel”) Caroline Cossey. She was gorgeous and glamorous. If she could do it, couldn’t I? Me, a socially awkward boy who struggled to find brotherhood in the company of boys, who more easily made friends with girls. Why not?
I have a lot of sympathy for that struggling to find brotherhood in the company of boys. I had friends who were boys who struggled that way. It wasn’t that they “felt like girls,” as far as I remember, so much as it … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
15 comments
Jun 22nd, 2020 9:52 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump’s niece really doesn’t like him.
“I think he’s freaking out,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success. “He will treat her savagely.”
On Sunday, Axios reported that Trump insists Mary Trump is “not allowed” to write her book, because doing so would violate a non-disclosure agreement she signed.
Trump told Axios: “She’s not allowed to write a book. When we settled with her and her brother, who I do have a good relationship with – she’s got a brother, Fred, who I do have a good relationship with, but when we settled, she has a total … signed a nondisclosure.”
It’s interesting how he extorts NDAs from people. I guess he … Read the rest
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3 comments
Jun 22nd, 2020 9:02 am |
By Ophelia Benson
So now Don is furious at Brad and so are Jared and Princess, but Brad is furious at the news media and the news media are…reporting the news.
The Tulsa fire department said 6,200 people attended. The Trump campaign claimed 12,000. The arena holds 19,000.
Who ya gonna believe, the fire department or the Trump campaign? Hahaha just kidding.
Trump’s demeanour on returning to Washington was widely scrutinised. He was initially quiet on Twitter on Sunday but the president was reported to be “furious” at the “underwhelming” event, which followed a week of controversy about whether it should even be held. According to NBC, Trump was “particularly angry that before he even left DC, aides made public that six
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5 comments
Jun 22nd, 2020 8:45 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh that’s gotta hurt.
Four authors represented by JK Rowling’s literary agency have resigned after accusing the company of declining to issue a public statement of support for transgender rights.
Ouch. Four! Resigned! Will the agency even survive?
Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir said they could no longer work with the Blair Partnership, the London-based agency that represents all aspects of the Harry Potter author’s work, because they were not convinced the company “supports our rights at all avenues”. One other author is understood to have also quit the agency but wishes to remain anonymous.
Who?
In a joint statement, Fisher, Davies and Jónsdóttir said that following Rowling’s recent intervention on transgender rights, they had
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18 comments
Jun 21st, 2020 4:31 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Life in the USofA:
Right-wing extremists are turning cars into weapons, with reports of at least 50 vehicle-ramming incidents since protests against police violence erupted nationwide in late May.
At least 18 are categorized as deliberate attacks; another two dozen are unclear as to motivation or are still under investigation, according to a count released Friday by Ari Weil, a terrorism researcher at the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Weil has tracked vehicle-ramming attacks, or VRAs, since protests began.
The 20 people facing prosecution in the rammings include a state leader of the Virginia Ku Klux Klan, as well as a California man who was charged with attempted murder after antagonizing protesters and
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7 comments
Jun 21st, 2020 2:46 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh. Well ok then.
Yes well you can see how that would be frustrating, having the press focus on a highly contagious virus that has killed 122,000 Americans in the past four months when it could be focusing on the awesomeness of
Wait a minute. He’s frustrated because the press is focusing on a lethal disease that is burning through the population when it should be focusing on … Read the rest
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1 Comment »
Jun 21st, 2020 10:37 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The bit where he says we have to test for the virus less, so that we won’t know how bad it is.
The crowd cheers this murderous claim.
2.19 minutes on his Adventure Going Down the Ramp – and he’s only begun.
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10 comments
Jun 21st, 2020 10:07 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Richard Wolffe at the Guardian observes the humiliation.
…nothing truly comes close to the embarrassment of his so-called comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday.
It was so toe-curlingly cringeworthy, such a crushing humiliation. There are 80s pop bands who have enjoyed greater comebacks than Donald Trump.
Ok the smaller than expected crowd was humiliating but at least the rally itself was good, right? Trump on top form? Feeding off the energy of the [smaller than expected] crowd?
Trump told the crowd at great length why he couldn’t possibly walk down a ramp unaided. He even re-enacted his walk down the deadly incline. He also treated them to a long excuse about why he couldn’t hold a glass
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16 comments
Jun 20th, 2020 5:02 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Barr is every bit as evil as anyone thought but not as fiendishly clever. Not so clever at all really.
President Donald Trump on Saturday denied involvement in firing Geoffrey Berman, the powerful prosecutor atop the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, shortly after Trump’s attorney general sent Berman a letter saying the President had done so.
Who, me? Nah I didn’t. Pass the burgers.
Attorney General William Barr told Berman, whose office has led prosecutions and investigations of Trump’s allies, that Trump had agreed to remove him after he refused Barr’s effort a day prior to oust him.
“Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service,” Barr wrote in his letter to Berman.
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