All entries by this author

Kavanaugh wouldn’t say

Sep 7th, 2018 10:36 am | By

Kavanaugh is being very deferential to Trump.

Justice Neil Gorsuch called President Trump’s personal attacks on federal judges “demoralizing” during his confirmation hearing last year. “When someone criticizes the honesty, the integrity or the motives of a federal judge, I find that disheartening,” Gorsuch said, adding: “I’ve gone as far as I can go ethically.”

Not very far, but far enough for Trump to fly into a rage and talk about withdrawing the nomination. (He had to be talked out of it.) Kavanaugh is being way more prudent.

The president’s second nominee for the Supreme Court demurred, for example, when asked whether it was appropriate for Trump to say that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “mind is shot

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Dude’s a symptom

Sep 7th, 2018 10:19 am | By

Obama has Said the Name.

Former President Obama on Friday delivered a blistering criticism of the political tactics of his successor President Trump, saying he had built on the fears of the powerful as they look to diminishing importance in a rapidly changing nation.

“It did not start with Donald Trump,” Obama said during a noon speech at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “He is a symptom not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, the fear and anger that’s rooted in our past.”

Naturally; Trump isn’t intelligent enough to originate anything. But by god he does have a talent for connecting with The Evil in people, and drawing it out and … Read the rest



Apparently Giuliani is the boss of everything

Sep 6th, 2018 5:44 pm | By

Giuliani says Trump will not answer questions. Mind you he’s been saying that for weeks, but maybe now he’s saying it for real no backsies.

President Donald Trump will not answer federal investigators’ questions, in writing or in person, about whether he tried to block the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, one of the president’s attorneys told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said questions about obstruction of justice were a “no-go.”

Because look: he stole the election fair and square and now he’s in there and you can’t do a damn thing about it so ha.

Giuliani’s statement was the most definitive rejection yet of special counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts to interview

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Flores? Who’s that? Some illegal?

Sep 6th, 2018 2:22 pm | By

Just in case you were worried that the Trump mob is too busy looking for moles to keep on torturing people they don’t like – worry no more: they’re still at it.

The Trump administration announced a new rule Thursday that would allow immigrant children with their parents to be held in detention indefinitely, upending a ban on indefinite detention that has been in place for 20 years.

The rule, proposed by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, goes into effect in 60 days and will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to keep children with their mothers in detention facilities while their cases for asylum play out in court.

A DHS official speaking

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Eat the poor

Sep 6th, 2018 12:04 pm | By

This is what those “unsung heroes” who are secretly trying to keep Trump from smashing all the porcelain are actually doing: giving huge tax cuts to billionaires while seeing to it that poor people are thrown out of the food stamps program. Please tell us more about how noble and courageous they are.

Nearly two million low-income Americans, including 469,000 households with young children, would be stripped of benefits under the House version of the farm bill being considered this week by congressional negotiators, according to an analysis by a nonpartisan research firm.

The bill, a multiyear spending measure that narrowly passed the House in June, includes a proposal to reformulate income and expense criteria for the 42 million

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Unwavering faith

Sep 6th, 2018 11:48 am | By

Ahh good, he still has support from a friend.

 … Read the rest



Catch 22 22 22 22

Sep 6th, 2018 11:15 am | By

The Democrats at the Kavanaugh hearing are throwing down.

On Day 1, Senate Democrats tried to stop the hearing before it even started. On Day 3, they went into full-on revolt: One by one, starting with Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), they threatened to release confidential documents about President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“I am going to release the email about racial profiling, and I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate,” he said. Within the hour, Booker did just that.

Other Democratic senators soon joined in, threatening to release confidential emails and documents from Kavanaugh’s time as a lawyer in the George W. Bush White House. Senate Minority Leader Charles E.

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“If you want to know who this gutless loser is”

Sep 6th, 2018 11:03 am | By

Sarah Sanders ventriloquising the lunatic she works for:

The media’s wild obsession with the identity of the anonymous coward is recklessly tarnishing the reputation of thousands of great Americans who proudly serve our country and work for President Trump. Stop. If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT at 212-556-1234 and ask them. They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act. We stand united together and fully support our President Donald J. Trump.

We might as well be brawling in a bar.… Read the rest



You can try to understand your own unique gender for you

Sep 6th, 2018 10:16 am | By

Ok, now I get it! At last I understand what is meant by “gender identity.” One Justin Hancock created a chart last year that explains it all.

What’s Your Gender?

You get to choose your gender your gender identity, whether you are a he/she/they or zie and you get to choose how you want to do your own gender. This is true no matter what body you may have, or what chromosomes you may have or how you feel about your body.

You can work out your gender by learning some more about different identities and seeing if any of those fit you, or you can try to understand your own unique gender for you. Hopefully you will find this

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Kelly scurried in and out

Sep 6th, 2018 9:37 am | By

Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman give us a look inside the West Wing in the aftermath of the “We are the unsung heroes” editorial yesterday.

Mr. Trump erupted in anger after reading the Op-Ed article and John F. Kelly, the chief of staff, and other aides scurried in and out of the press office trying to figure out how to respond. Advisers told Mr. Trump that this was the same as leakers who talk with the news media every day, but a hunt for the author of the offending article was quickly initiated and scrutiny focused on a half-dozen names. Aides said they assumed it was written by someone who worked in the administration but not the White House itself,

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Actually, we’re the real heroes of the story

Sep 5th, 2018 5:25 pm | By

David Frum has a ringing retort to the disgustingly self-congratulatory Times op-ed.

If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand. That duty may be risky to their careers in government or afterward. But on their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution—and there were no “riskiness” exemptions in the text of that oath.

My point exactly. Don’t tell us how secretly defiant you are, get him out. Until then, just shut up.

The author of the anonymous op-ed is hoping to vindicate the reputation of

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No YOU’RE putting your ego first

Sep 5th, 2018 5:17 pm | By

Sarah Sanders has issued a press release that was obviously dictated by Trump and cleaned up a little. Jake Tapper shares it:

Nearly 62 million people voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2016, earning him 306 Electoral College votes – versus 232 for his opponent. None of them voted for a gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times.

You see why I say it’s obvious. Even his piggiest people don’t talk that childishly for public consumption.

We are disappointed, but not surprised, that the paper chose to publish this pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed. This is a new low for the so-called ‘paper of record, and it should issue an apology, just as it did after

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Adults in the room, doing jack shit

Sep 5th, 2018 4:27 pm | By

Also in the annals of High-minded Horseshit: the Times breathlessly posts a Deep Throatesque anonymous op ed by Someone High Up in the Trump administration, saying don’t worry folks, we’re keeping Trump under control, and it’s all worth it because TAX CUTS and DEREGULATION and MORE BOMBS. Apparently we’re supposed to be impressed.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

In other words you want … Read the rest



Help prevent shame spirals

Sep 5th, 2018 3:52 pm | By

California’s consumer protection office sued Goop for making bullshit claims about putting  jade and rose quartz eggs in one’s vagina. Goop settled. Goop has to pay a not nearly large enough sum of money.

Goop claimed its jade and rose quartz eggs, which are inserted vaginally, could balance hormones and regulate menstrual cycles, among other things.

Based on exactly what, one wonders. Just a little daydream? A hunch? A poetic feeling for the wisdom of nature?

Goop said in a statement that while it “believes there is an honest disagreement about these claims, the company wanted to settle this matter quickly and amicably. This settlement does not indicate any liability on Goop’s part”.

Both the jade and rose quartz

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Consequence: a result or effect of an action or condition

Sep 5th, 2018 11:59 am | By

Don’t worry, folks, it’s all just hysteria.

During opening statements at the start of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) repeatedly dismissed concerns that Kavanaugh will play a key role in restricting women’s reproductive rights as mere “hysteria.”

Is it time to remind Ben Sasses that the root word of hysteria means “uterus”?

Also, is Ben Sasses seriously claiming that Kavanaugh will not tip the balance of the Court? Because nine is really not such a big number that he should be confused about it.

Referring to a string of protesters who were thrown out of the hearing while yelling things like, “stop the oppression of women!“, Sasse said, “People are going to

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Look, look, they issued statements and everything

Sep 5th, 2018 11:30 am | By

Trump has gone Full Woodward. Of course he has.

Oooh, a press statement from the press secretary – now that’s authoritative!

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Think about the message it sends to women and girls

Sep 5th, 2018 11:17 am | By

The Guardian has a piece by Hannah Mouncey, an Australian trans woman who plays Australian rules football.

 Graham Denholm/AFL Media/Getty Images

That’s Mouncey in the red jersey.

Late last week, the AFL released its long-awaited policy on transgender participation in Australian rules football. In it are a set of requirements trans women need to follow if they aim to play at AFLW level. These include having your testosterone below a certain level for two years, which I have no problem with, as well as the requirement that trans women undertake number of physical tests designed to ascertain if they have an advantage over cis women playing AFLW – the presumption being that this is because they are trans.

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No doubt

Sep 5th, 2018 10:28 am | By

Oh lord, so confused. About those “pronoun badges” offered by the Edinburgh Student Union

While I personally see this as a fantastic step forward on EUSA’s part, the wider reaction on Facebook has been less than encouraging. In a poll, 81 per cent of people (at the time of publishing) said that they don’t think the pronoun badges are a good idea, with only 19 per cent of respondents voting in favour.

While the results of this poll surprised me, many of the comments on both the original article and the poll unfortunately did not. In response to the original article, one Facebook user simply responded with a gif which stated “we need a new plague”. On the

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Reduced to ashes

Sep 4th, 2018 11:52 am | By

There’s the dreadful news from Rio:

The stately national museum, once home to Brazil’s royal family, was still smoldering at sunrise on Monday when scores of researchers, museum workers and anthropologists began gathering outside, dressed in black.

Some sobbed as they began taking stock of the irreplaceable losses: Thousands, perhaps millions, of significant artifacts had been reduced to ashes Sunday night in a devastating fire. The hall that held a 12,000-year-old skeleton known as Luzia, the oldest human remains discovered in the Americas, was destroyed.

In recent years, state and city governments in Brazil have failed to pay police officers and doctors on time. Public libraries and other cultural centers have shut down. The ranks of the

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“You are not a good witness.”

Sep 4th, 2018 11:26 am | By

Part 2 of the Post on Woodward on Trump:

Gary Cohn kept Trump from yanking the US out of NAFTA by stealing the letter saying “We’re out!” off his desk.

Cohn and Kelly both pretty much hate him.

Woodward illustrates how the dread in Trump’s orbit became all-encompassing over the course of Trump’s first year in office, leaving some staff members and Cabinet members confounded by the president’s lack of understanding about how government functions and his inability and unwillingness to learn.

But, again, who did they think he was? Other than an angry loudmouth?

Last March, John Dowd met with Mueller and his deputy.

Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the

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