Trump and his enforcers continue his project to belittle the press.

The Trump administration has fired another shot in its war with the US press, suspending the credentials of Brian Karem, White House correspondent for Playboy and an analyst for CNN.

The 30-day revocation was announced on Friday and echoes hugely controversial action taken against CNN’s Jim Acosta in November 2018.

For Trump and gang it doesn’t really matter whether the revocation sticks or not, the point is to perform hatred of the press for the adoring crowds.

Karem had his pass suspended after an altercation with Breitbart reporter and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka in the White House Rose Garden in July, around a “social media summit” convened

Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter seven hours ago:

This is what the women attending our support group for women who have been raped or battered found when they arrived at the location of their last session. Shame on the misogynist bullies who did it.

It’s a dead rat.… Read the rest

I posted about Antonio Basco Wednesday so here’s the latest.

At first, it seemed like Margie Reckard’s funeral would be a small affair.

The 63-year-old, who was killed when a gunman opened fire in an El Paso Walmart this month, left behind few relatives, and none live in El Paso. Her husband, Antonio Basco, had no other family and invited anyone to show up.

Elodia Perches, co-owner of La Paz Faith–Perches Funeral Home, said the funeral home has received more than 400 flower arrangements so far.

One local florist said her business delivered more than 50 arrangements, with orders coming in from New York and Michigan. One of those arrangements came from the family of a victim of

The Borowitz Report:

After rebuffing Donald J. Trump’s hypothetical proposal to purchase Greenland, the government of Denmark has announced that it would be interested in buying the United States instead.

I say we take the offer.

“Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added.

But but but we have checks and balances.

If Denmark’s bid for the United States is accepted, the Scandinavian nation has ambitious plans for its new acquisition. “We believe that by giving the U.S. an educational system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass into a great nation,” the spokesperson said.

The only condition is … Read the rest

Incident in Trump’s USofA:

The wife of an Arkansas jail administrator was arrested and charged with assault several days after police say she pulled a gun on four black teenagers who were going door to door to raise money for their high school football team.

Police in the eastern Arkansas city of Wynne, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock, said the incident happened Aug. 7. Police responding to reports of “suspicious persons” found the four children on the ground, with Jerri Kelly, who is white, standing over them holding a gun, Memphis TV station WMC reported.

The officer let the children stand up, and they told him they had been selling discount cards to raise money

Originally a comment by Artymorty on As if women are completely invisible.

I wish more people in the press would stop framing these laws as adding to the rights of trans males, and instead talk about what they really are: laws that take the right away from women to decide for themselves when and how much they’re willing to accommodate trans-identified males in their spaces. The trans lobby pushes the idea that all trans-identified males are genuinely as harmless as women — analogous to gentle, effeminate homosexuals. (I’m picturing that naive cosmologist from yesterday and her “keep being fabulous!” comment and how inappropriate it is to apply the word “fabulous” to the likes of Karen White or Jonathan Yaniv … Read the rest

Holly Lawford-Smith on bad news out of Australia:

I know the sex self-id bill was expected to pass, but I’m still kind of in shock that it did, 56 v. 27 at Lower House yesterday. It’s just surreal, that Labour & the Greens are supposed to be progressive parties (whose members would probably call themselves feminists), and yet they’re pushing through legislation that replaces sex (an objective characteristic that affects how people are treated) with gender identity (a subjective characteristic that may play no role at all in how you are treated). Women in Australia still face a range of serious issues, including but not limited to pregnancy and breastfeeding discrimination, insufficient research into female-specific medical problems, subjection to

Buy Greenland jokes:

David Frum:

Buy Greenland. Tow it into the Gulf of Mexico. Airflow over melting ice cools Texas and Florida. Global warming problem solved!

Yoni Appelbaum:

Honored sirs, I am PRINCE KIELSEN and I am contacting you with exciting opportunity. I recently inherited an island but need a small amount of cash. Send a money order for $600,000,000 to my account and I will give you “Greenland.”

John Noonan:

All I’m saying is why settle for Greenland when Canada is right there for the taking

Robby Soave:

Uh, we should definitely buy Greenland. Have any of you looked at a map? It’s like, gigantic. It’s bigger than freaking Africa.

Donnie Two-Scoops wants to buy Greenland.

In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.

I can see it now – casinos, golf courses, condo towers with DONALD TRUMP in letters 60 feet high, shooting ranges stocked with the last remaining elephants and lions, McDonalds and Burger King on every corner, only white people allowed.… Read the rest

Patrick Strudwick at BuzzFeed reports that two trans people have quit The Guardian because they consider it “transphobic.”

A transgender employee of the Guardian — which once called itself the “world’s leading liberal voice” — has resigned, accusing the newspaper in an email to staff of being “an incredibly transphobic organisation”.

In a cutting resignation letter sent last month, the employee said the paper “fundamentally not only stands against my own values but also against what I am”. A second trans staff member resigned weeks later, also citing the “harm” they say the newspaper is doing to trans people.

Following the leak of the email to BuzzFeed News, the trans employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she

The Guardian has more details:

Omar and Tlaib were planning to see the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah and to spend time in the disputed city of Jerusalem. They would have had to pass through Israeli security checks to enter both the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Former Israeli diplomats also spoke out against the ban, arguing that the country should instead attempt to show Israeli perspectives during the women’s trip.

Alon Pinkas, formerly Israel’s consul in New York, said the country should “engage Omar and Tlaib, [and] show them where they are wrong or have a partial and skewed perception of reality.”

It could have been a chance to show Omar and Tlaib the point of view … Read the rest

Barak Ravid:

I want to tell you a secret: A month ago when Netanyahu decided to allow Omar and Tlaib into the country they alreadty supported BDS and he knew it back then. There is only one reason for Netanyahu’s backtracking today – the pressure from Donald Trump

Jennifer Rubin:

The ban is a stunning, unprecedented step, one that signals Israel, long a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, cannot tolerate criticism. For Netanyahu it sends message that he is Trump’s puppet, willing to damage the long-term relationship with US

Michael McFaul:

Prime Minister Netanyahu respected the independence of our legislative branch when he accepted the invitation of the U.S. Congress to speak even though the

My friend @marstrina sums it up nicely:

At the end of the day I think the fundamental philosophical difference at stake in this contestation is about social embeddedness: does our image of ourselves require external referents & feedback, or is it self-generated and unique?

The attraction of the latter view is the illusion of liberty and autonomy it offers. But a world populated entirely by self-contained individuals whose innermost selves are neither accessible to nor influenced by anyone else is a zombie dystopia, if you stop and think about it.

That whole idea that we can transcend social embeddedness to be self-generated and unique and oh so special makes my skin crawl. It’s Trumpism, basically. It’s egotism, it’s … Read the rest

Meanwhile Israel – or Netanyahu – has joined Trump in demonizing Tlaib and Omar.

Israel announced Thursday it was barring the entry of two US congresswomen after Donald Trump encouraged the move, a remarkable step both by the US President and his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to punish political opponents.

Deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely told CNN on Thursday of Israel’s decision to ban Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country. The announcement came shortly after Trump said Israel would be showing “great weakness” by allowing them to enter the country.

Ah, so this must be more of that tough-guy masculinity we’re told Trump represents.

Trump has criticized the two lawmakers —

Yesterday it was neo-Nazis in Seattle:

Neo-Nazis affiliated with the anti-Semitic Daily Stormer Book Club plastered racist fliers on three Seattle synagogues.

The fliers were posted over the weekend by a masked man and featured an illustration of Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts biting an arm marked America, according to Patch.com.

The flier read “Send them back” and “deport the commie brown infestation.” The first phrase echoes recent language from President Donald Trump, who called on the freshman lawmakers, known as “The Squad,” to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

I think the … Read the rest