John Cleese seeks information.

I'm baffled by the debate over JKR

Am I right in thinking that if I tomorrow declare myself to be a woman, then anyone who doesn't accept that must hate me ?

This is a genuine request for information, even if the question itself seems odd to many older people ?

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 19, 2020

It’s like this, see – is the experience of being a woman inextricably linked to biology? Or is it just totally random and arbitrary and unpredictable?

It's a debate over whether the struggles and experience of being a woman are inextricably linked to having the biology of a woman. JKR and many feminists think it is. Many trans

After that one I watched this one, on detransitioning.… Read the rest

This is now available.… Read the rest

Oh look, more “cis white woman=bitch cunt whore,” this time from the proudly non-cis (but still white, which seems careless) Morgane Oger.

That cis white female pedestal you put yourself on is your cage.

Say what? We don’t put ourselves on it, and it’s not a pedestal.

We don’t put ourselves on it because we didn’t make ourselves either white or female, we were just born both. It’s not a pedestal because we are still objects of contempt or loathing or both.

Dear cis woman leveraging patriarchy for personal advantage, I beg you to be careful what you ask for.

Dear condescending man telling women what we are and what to say, I beg you to fuck off.… Read the rest

Maybe it’s all legit, I don’t know, but yes it does seem very odd for a young adult man to “adopt” a teenage boy (not that a teenage girl would look any better).

Anyway, the jokes are rolling in.

For all those wondering, this is my son Nestor. We share no blood but he is my life. He came from Cuba (legally, of course) six years ago and lives with me in Florida.

I am so proud of him and raising him has been the best, most rewarding thing I’ve done in my life. pic.twitter.com/Am2rlJpNoc

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) June 18, 2020

So many questions but one of mine is how long it will take before @tedcruz challenges someone

Oh what was that about Matt Gaetz’s explosion of rage at Cedric Richardson for…what was it now? Worrying about the safety of black children while not asking Matt Gaetz for approval first? Something like that? How dare Richardson assume that Matt Gaetz doesn’t have any black children? Yes that was it.

Surprise revelation!

Nestor turned 19 a few days ago & will be off to University. He arrived here at 12.

As you can imagine, I was triggered when (to make an absurd debate point) a fellow congressman diminished the contributions of Republicans because we don’t raise non-white kids.

Well, I have.

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) June 18, 2020

Erm. I hate to say it, but I don’t have to, … Read the rest

One beneficial effect of the virus:

Carnival suffered losses of $4.4bn (£3.6bn) in three months, as the cruise company’s business was all but sunk by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Revenues dropped to $700m from $4.8bn for the same March-May period in 2019, as bookings dried up and the corporation’s cruise lines suspended sailings after severe outbreaks onboard its ships.

These things just do not make sense in light of the climate catastrophe.

But but but freedom, my rights, freedom to do whatever I want to wherever I want to including in a tightly enclosed space shared with hundreds of people 5 miles above the planet.

American Airlines has removed a passenger from a flight after he refused to wear a face covering in compliance with its Covid-19 safety policy.

Brandon Straka was asked to wear a face mask on Flight 1263 from New York to Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday.

When Mr Straka refused, he was asked to leave the flight, the airline said.

Mr Straka said there was no law that required him to wear a face covering on the flight.

Doesn’t matter. There’s no law that says you can’t play … Read the rest

Trump is livid, LIVID, about all these crazy political Supreme Court justices. How can they be so political?! It’s an outrage!

These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

There is already a conservative (or right-wing) majority on the court. Roberts voted with the liberals on the DACA ruling, and Trump clearly thinks that’s an outrage. It’s hilarious that he complains about “politically charged decisions” though (or that Scavino translates whatever scream of rage … Read the rest

Trump made Juneteenth very famous.

The Times explains the car crash:

Reviewing a list of potential locations over the past few weeks, [Brad] Parscale quickly settled on Tulsa, Okla., people familiar with the planning said in interviews, mostly because it seemed easy. A deep red state President Trump carried by 36 percentage points four years ago, Oklahoma wasn’t in play for the November election. But it was the furthest along of any state in the country in terms of reopening, and it had seen fewer than 400 Covid-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

A city with a supportive Republican mayor, where the coronavirus was no longer having a deep impact on daily life, seemed like the

CNN has some more nibbles from Bolton’s book.

Bolton writes that in December 2018, Trump offered to help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a Justice Department investigation into a Turkish bank with ties to Erdogan that was suspected of violating US Iran sanctions. When the Turkish leader presented Trump with a memo from the law firm representing Halkbank, Trump flipped through it and then declared he believed the bank was totally innocent of violating US sanctions related to Iran.

Well thank goodness he looked into it thoroughly before committing himself.

Trump told Erdogan he would “take care of things,” and explained that the Southern District prosecutors “were not his people, but were Obama people,” and the problem would

Another twerp heaves another rock:

Harry Potter fans—yes, I’m addressing roughly the entire Millennial generation—we need to have another tough conversation with ourselves: We must end our Harry Potter fantasy now.

She goes on to detail what a passionate, indeed obsessive fan she was growing up, and then gets on with the stoning.

I’m also a ciswoman, which means my feelings are not the point right now. As significant as the franchise has been for me, if I am actually going to be the ally I fancy myself to be, that means I have to consider the damage Rowling (and potentially the entire series) has done to trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people.

She’s a woman, so her feelings … Read the rest

This just in: Trump fails in his attempt to throw the children of undocumented immigrants out of the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot carry out its plan to shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as “Dreamers,” to avoid deportation and remain in the U.S.

The decision is a big legal defeat for President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, which has been a major focus of his domestic agenda.

That is, the issue of brown people messing up his shiny gleaming white country.

The decision authored mostly by Chief Justice John Roberts said the government failed to give an

Brave and stunning Charlotte Clymer, who as Charles Clymer was notorious for being a domineering “I’m a good guy!” male feminist who liked to talk over women, has a piece in USA Today explaining to JK Rowling how unsafe and vulnerable trans women are…in all-too-typical oblivion of or indifference to the ways women are unsafe and vulnerable.

The rights and dignity of transgender people are constantly under attack, not only legally but physically, as we see with continuing violence against trans people, and culturally, as evidenced by the controversy J.K. Rowling stirred up last week.

You know who else is constantly under attack physically? Women. The statistics say so. Culturally we’re under attack from misogynists and pussy-grabbers and guys … Read the rest

Matt Gaetz is such a worthless piece of crap.

Things got HEATED between Cedric Richmond and Matt Gaetz just now.

Richmond: "It's not about the color of your kids. It's about black males…If one of them happens to be your kid, I'm more concerned about him then you!"

Gaetz: "Who the hell do you think you are?!" pic.twitter.com/5mHsClRRJD

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 17, 2020

… Read the rest

Bolton’s book is lighting up the Twitternet.

This one got my attention:

There really isn’t anything Trump could do that would surprise me. But that said, giving China his blessing to build concentration camps is truly one for the history books.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) June 17, 2020

He what?

David Choi at Business Insider:

President Donald Trump approved of a concentration camp for Uighur Muslims in China during a private meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to former national security adviser John Bolton’s upcoming memoir, “In The Room Where It Happened.”

In a private meeting during the 2019 G-20 meeting in Japan, Trump and Xi were only accompanied by their interpreters, according to Bolton’s book, parts of

Josh Dawsey at the Post has been reading Bolton’s book.

He tried the same move on China as he tried on Ukraine.

During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that “Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.

“He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases

Daniel Dale had some time so he made a list (non-exhaustive) of Trump’s lies about Obama.

Trump has long been fixated on his predecessor. Since May 1, as his presidential campaign against former Vice President Joe Biden has heated up, Trump has made at least 12 separate false claims about Obama and his record in office.

Trump added a new one Tuesday in a speech about police reform, declaring that Obama and Biden “never even tried” to fix problems in policing. That’s not even close to true.

It’s true of Trump. It’s not true of Obama.

Trump touted his own efforts to address policing problems, then said, “President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to

Fallon Fox achieving peak woke:… Read the rest

It’s not as if they’re not trying to persuade Trump not to kill them.

On 16 April, the White House issued guidelines for the nation’s slow reemergence from lockdown. But the next day, rather than promote his own administration’s advice, Donald Trump tweeted demands to immediately “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”. At every step of the crisis, say public health experts, the president has undermined the government’s efforts.

Now, local officials are begging Trump to cancel his planned rally in Tulsa this weekend amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma, one of six US states to report record numbers of infections in recent days.

No, he’s not going to do that, but he is going … Read the rest