The WH continues to treat the coronavirus as a PR problem instead of a public health crisis. It is failing and flailing in the face of the first crisis it did not create. Its previously successful formula — stonewalling and lying — won’t work here. https://t.co/stbz3rCy0b

— Michael R. Bromwich (@mrbromwich) February 28, 2020

So Pence’s press secretary is filtering what we get to learn from the government about this potential pandemic. They’ll be sending it to Fox News for approval next.… Read the rest

Oh, man, here we go. The Trump gang is getting it wrong already. Very very wrong.

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.

The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS.

The whistleblower is seeking federal protection, alleging she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns

… Read the rest

Democracy Now has a brief but terrible report:

In Mexico, a radio broadcaster was shot to death Tuesday afternoon outside her home in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. She was known as Bárbara Greco on air. The 37-year-old had recently spoken out on violence against women and children in Mexico in response to the recent killing of a 7-year-old girl in Mexico City. Her friends and colleagues reported that her real name was Teresa Aracely Alcocer. Last December, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Mexico had suffered the second-highest number of journalist killings in 2019, after Syria.

The punishment for speaking out on violence against women and children is…death by violence.… Read the rest

The loathsome Morgane Oger is gloating about Vancouver’s withdrawal of education funding for Vancouver Rape Relief, because VRR is an all-women organization.

Tonight, a supremacist organization with a purity test on womanhood learned that cultivating exclusion and discrimination really does have a price.

I profoundly encourage Vancouver Rape Relief to reconsider its untenable policy to arbitrarily exclude some women.

— Morgane Oger (@MorganeOgerBC) February 27, 2020

A “purity test” he calls it. A man who pretends to be a woman calls a women’s organization for women who have been raped “a supremacist organization with a purity test on womanhood”…because it doesn’t agree with him that he is a woman. It’s as if Michael Bloomberg were a trans poor person and … Read the rest

Last summer Twitter permabanned Roger Dubar of Satiria. Of course it did.

A brand-new ideological view of “gender identity” has appeared, never before seen in history. It holds that the only difference between men and women is self-declared “gender identity”. It insists, regardless of their biological sex, that gender non-conforming people are the gender they say they are. It also insists that it is hate speech to even suggest that no one ever believed these ideas before.

…

Biological sex has real-world implications, in medicine, women’s sports, women’s prisons, statistical reporting, criminology, sexual attraction and in many other areas. Sex remains a protected characteristic in human rights law, despite the best efforts of some trans rights activists to change

… Read the rest

What we need is more shouty honest tell it like it is guys, right?*

Bernie Sanders’s performance in the last debate before Super Tuesday was a bellowing, boorish mess. The Vermont senator’s signature response when challenged was to pump up the volume, as though persuasiveness were measured in decibels. It was particularly excruciating to watch Pete Buttigieg attempt to inject some facts and reason into the proceedings, only to be interrupted again and again by Sanders’s shouting.

When I expressed dismay to a Democratic friend, he assured me it was just “Bernie being Bernie.” At least Sanders, the argument goes, speaks his mind. He is not scripted. He is true to himself. He may not play

… Read the rest

There’s something hilarious (however depressing) about people announcing some stale wrong pejorative stereotype as if they’d discovered it themselves from their own personal experience and detached observation.

https://twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1232899704117088258

Aw how sweet – the old he thinks/she feels insult, offered with shy sincerity as if no one had ever said it before.

https://twitter.com/LaraAdamsMille1/status/1233046347391086595 https://twitter.com/SiouxsieAHF/status/1233075262675353602 https://twitter.com/NoToMisogyny/status/1233030502413717510

He’s the brains she’s the feefees. Never heard that before.… Read the rest

Is Pence a good choice to lead the US response to the new virus?

“Mike is not a czar,” Trump said. “I don’t view Mike as a czar.”

Pence is not a public health expert, either. Instead, as governor of Indiana, he slashed public health spending and delayed the introduction of needle exchanges, which led to the state’s worst outbreak of HIV.

So he’s not just not a good choice, he’s a specifically bad choice, one with a record of fucking up government response to a contagious disease. Swell.

Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, who conducted the research linking the Indiana HIV outbreak to Pence’s policies, tweeted that the decision “speaks to a lack of seriousness by the White House.”

… Read the rest

Gotta watch out for that overreach stuff. It can get in your clothes and your pipes and your engines and just mess everything up. Like making lynching a federal crime – that would be a terrible reckless thing to do.

Historic legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime passed the House by near-unanimous consent Wednesday—with four representatives opposing it.

Not because they like lynching – no no. Because they don’t like federal overreach.

Three Republicans voted against the measure: GOP members Ted Yoho of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The chamber’s lone Independent, Justin Amash of Michigan—who famously switched from Republican to Independent over his support for impeaching President Donald Trump—also voted

… Read the rest

Soutik Biswas at the BBC on why the Delhi violence has echoes of the Gujarat riots:

What began as small clashes between supporters and opponents of a controversial citizenship law quickly escalated into full-blown religious riots between Hindus and Muslims, in congested working class neighbourhoods on the fringes of the sprawling capital.

Armed Hindu mobs rioted with impunity as the police appeared to look the other way. Mosques and homes and shops of Muslims were attacked, sometimes allegedly with the police in tow. Journalists covering the violence were stopped by the Hindu rioters and asked about their religion. Videos and pictures emerged of the mob forcing wounded Muslim men to recite the national anthem, and mercilessly beating up a

… Read the rest

More Trump trying to pull intelligent sentences out of his empty head:

Asked if he was worried about the spread of novel coronavirus in the United States, President Trump said, “No, because we’re ready for it.”

No we’re not.

“It is what it is. We’re ready for it. We’re really prepared,” the President continued. “We have, as I said, we have the greatest people in the world. We’re very ready for it. We hope it doesn’t spread. There’s a chance that it won’t spread, too. And there’s a chance that it will.”

Ah. There’s a chance that it won’t spread, and a chance that it will. What a relief to know that someone is in charge!

“It’s just a

… Read the rest

Trump said some words to the cameras, in the hopes that everyone would hear the words and feel safe.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday placed Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the US government response to the novel coronavirus, amid growing criticism of the White House’s handling of the outbreak.

At a wide-ranging White House news conference, the President defended the White House’s response, stressing the administration’s ongoing efforts and resources devoted to combat the virus.

What efforts? What resources?

“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low,” Trump said.

All what they’ve done?

Trump has been publicly downplaying the novel coronavirus’ effects, because he thinks doing otherwise could cause further panic

… Read the rest

Pushing back.

Last week:

We are extremely disappointed by the City of Vancouver’s intent not to fund our public education work and the message it sends to the women who seek out a women-only group as part of their resistance to male violence.#VanCityCouncil #fail #women #womenresistance #womenonly pic.twitter.com/GPqltxw7ty

— VancouverRapeRelief (@VanRapeRelief) February 20, 2020

An hour ago:

We're at @CityofVancouver today with our supporters speaking to the importance of funding a grassroots women's group. You can follow it live https://t.co/xF2Z6D5ew5 #vancitycouncil #womenonlyspace #raperelief #radfem #yvr pic.twitter.com/UGnot4mF6q

— VancouverRapeRelief (@VanRapeRelief) February 26, 2020

Thank you everyone who's come down already to support us today. We are grateful for all the support we've received so far. From those who have written

… Read the rest

Out of Florida:

Newly released body-camera footage shows the moment a police officer in Florida arrested a six-year-old girl as she cried and begged not to be taken from school.

Kaia Rolle was led to a police vehicle with her hands fastened behind her back in zip ties after having a tantrum at her school in Orlando that included kicking and punching school personnel.

Later in the story we learn that she has sleep apnea which is thought to affect her behavior.

By the time police officers arrived at the Lucious & Emma Nixon academy, she had already settled down.

In the video, Kaia can be seen seated and listening to a teacher read as officers approach her.

… Read the rest

More on Trump’s tightening of the screws on the intelligence-gathering branch of government:

Maguire and several of his deputies were reportedly fired because an official in his office, election security expert Shelby Pierson, briefed Congress without Trump’s knowledge on Russia’s ongoing election interference, though the White House is disputing that version of events. The NSA, CIA, and Pentagon have been urged by the White House not to share information about Russia and Ukraine with lawmakers, while the “Gang of Eight” senior members of Congress were bypassed leading up to at least one major intelligence operation.

Say that again?

The NSA, CIA, and Pentagon have been urged by the White House not to share information about Russia and Ukraine with lawmakers… Read the rest

The murderous riots in Delhi are absolutely fucking horrifying – a reprise of Partition and the Ayodhya riots.

Twenty-three people have been killed so far in the deadliest violence the Indian capital has seen in decades.

…

Photographs, videos and accounts on social media paint a chilling image of the last few days – of mostly Hindu mobs beating unarmed men, including journalists; of groups of men with sticks, iron rods and stones wandering the streets; and of Hindus and Muslims facing off.

https://twitter.com/NicolaCareem/status/1232585295939457024

Some 189 people are injured, according to officials at the Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, where many of them have been admitted.

BBC reporters at the hospital say they saw people with all sorts of injuries, including

… Read the rest

Arielle Scarcella has had enough.

Millennial lesbian vlogger Arielle Scarcella caused a stir last Friday when she announced that she no longer feels a part of the contemporary LGBTQIAA+ movement, the latest evolution of the gay rights movement that stands for ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Allies and others.’

My first introduction to Scarcella was via one of Magdalen Berns’s early videos, in which Magdalen took issue with some bit of trans dogma Scarcella was pushing. It’s been heartening to see her changing her mind since then.

Scarcella, who vlogs about women, sexuality and culture and has over 600,000 YouTube followers, denounced the ridiculously “woke” rainbow coalition movement as “a safe haven for the mentally unstable”, stating

… Read the rest

The BBC is doing a Lent talk. This year’s sermon: how Jesus is like a trans woman.

Jesus’ 40-day struggle in the wilderness led to his discovery of who he was and what his mission would be. This year’s Lent Talks theme is identity – losing and gaining identity, struggling with identity, accepting and owning identity. Anglican priest Rachel Mann reflects on the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and on her journey of identity as a trans woman.

… Read the rest