Not all that funny.

I have to say that I find this pretty amusing. After Princeton’s President (like officials of many other colleges) wrote a letter flagellating himself and his University for systemic racism, the U.S. Department of Education has begun investigating Princeton for violating Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The charge is taking federal money for years while purporting to abide by federal nondiscrimination and equal-opportunity standards. If Princeton is indeed rife with “systemic racism” that it hasn’t addressed, then surely they have violated that agreement.

I saw items about it earlier today, and had the same ambivalent reaction.

I get why it’s a little funny, I suppose. I definitely get that it can be cringe-inducing to see presidents of ivy league universities and the like accuse their universities of systemic racism, but at the same time…should we really just assume that there is no such systemic racism? If the “we” in question means white people? Do we just know, for certain, that we recognize it when we see it and instantly leap to stamp it out, leaving the world cleaner and better?

I don’t think we do know that, and I don’t think we should assume it. We should probably also avoid narcissistic displays of self-accusation, but I don’t know that that’s what the Princeton president was doing. (I grew up in Princeton by the way. It’s very very white, and very impressed with itself, and very snooty – at least it was then. That’s Princeton the town, but most people I know who went to the university confirm that the two take their style from each other.)

The thing is, the white majority went along for decade after decade not giving a single thought to systemic racism, or any other kind, and taking the racism around them (us) for granted. The Civil Rights movement started a change in that, but is it finished? Of course it’s not. Trump has dragged us sharply backwards in some ways, with enthusiastic help from Stephen Miller and Don Junior and other assorted shits. The problem isn’t solved or over, so how likely is it that crusty old elite institutions like Princeton have shed all trace of racism? By the way it was much favored by the few [editing to add: pre-Civil War] southern boys who went north for further education – Yale and Harvard were seen as way too Yankee, while Princeton was more relaxed and forgiving…of white boys.

It’s true that I wouldn’t have any idea how to come up with concrete evidence that Princeton is systemically racist – not unless I got some social science training at least – but I don’t think that means I have to assume there absolutely is none. I think the jeering about this is a bit trumpish.

This is amusing because I don’t believe that Princeton is systemically racist, though there may be private instances of racism. And yet the University had to admit deep-seated racism to keep in tune with the Zeitgeist. By so doing, it got itself investigated. It’ll be interesting to see how Princeton plays this one, maintaining that it has a climate of systemic racism but yet doesn’t violate federal statues.

But maybe it’s not quite that simple. Maybe they’re not just “keeping in tune with the Zeitgeist.” Maybe they really do think racism isn’t over yet and therefore they shouldn’t take it for granted that there’s no trace of it at Princeton. Is that out of the question? I’m not seeing it.

Heh.

Heh heh.

Heh heh heh heh.

Troubled Blood, the new book from Robert Galbraith aka J K Rowling, has shifted more copies in a day than Lethal White sold in its first week, according to publisher Little, Brown.

Oops.

Aaron Rupar on Trump’s Hymn to White Resentment:

The solution, Trump claimed, is to “restore patriotic education to our schools.” He said he’ll create a new “1776 Commission” to “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding.”

“Our heroes will never be forgotten. Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul,” he added.

What this will end up meaning in practice isn’t clear, and isn’t really important. For Trump, what matters is to signal to racial reactionaries that he’s on their side.

In case they hadn’t already figured that out.

This legacy of racism has tangible consequences. Black Americans have lower life expectancies and make less than whites, even adjusted for education. (And adjusting for education is important, because in this area as well Blacks fare worse than whites.

See also: police violence, rates of incarceration, length of sentences, and the like.

But instead of even paying lip service to structural racism, Trump has consistently denied that such a thing exists. In a July interview with CBS, for instance, Trump responded to a straightforward question about why he thinks Black people continue to be killed by police by lashing out — at the questioner.

“And so are white people. So are white people,” Trump said. “What a terrible question to ask.”

But it’s not a terrible question to ask, Mister Narcissist, because racism is real and does make a difference, or a million differences.

Um…

Mister Stupid say that man is bad man, he doesn’t say anteefuh is bad people who do bad things, he must be bad man.

The Voting Rights Act? What’s that? Never heard of it.

North Carolina Is Already Rejecting Black Voters’ Mail-In Ballots More Often Than White Voters’

In North Carolina, absentee ballots have already been sent back and the state has been updating statistics on those ballots daily. As of September 17, Black voters’ ballots are being rejected at more than four times the rate of white voters, according to the state’s numbers.¹ Black voters have mailed in 13,747 ballots, with 642 rejected, or 4.7 percent. White voters have cast 60,954 mail-in ballots, with 681 — or 1.1 percent — rejected.

…

“When there’s a barrier, it’s going to fall hardest on the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the community, which is very frequently going to be poor voters and voters of color,” said Myrna Pérez, the director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Mail-in voting has more barriers than in person voting – that’s why it’s annoyed me all along that Washington state went to all-mail-in voting. That is, in person voting has the barrier of physically getting to the voting place, but mail-in has several hoops to jump through in addition to filling in the little circles. There are more details it’s possible to overlook.

He’ll sue! He’ll sue any damn scientists who say he’s bullshitting. He’ll sue them into oblivion!

Scott Atlas, a Trump coronavirus adviser, has threatened to sue a group of Stanford professors who wrote an open letter denouncing multiple public statement[s] Atlas has made about responding to Covid-19.

A letter from his lawyer said the professors’ statement “maliciously defames” Atlas and demanded the signers of the letters to withdraw their claims or be sued, according to Politico.

The open letter, which was published last Wednesday, said that Atlas’s statements and opinions “run counter to established science and, by doing so, undermine public-health authorities and the credible science that guides effective public health policy”. Over 100 faculty members with various medical expertise signed the letter.

I don’t think you can sue over that kind of thing. If you could there would be no such thing as peer review, because who would risk it?

In recent weeks, Atlas has raised concerns among public health experts by questioning the use of masks and embracing the controversial “herd immunity” response to the pandemic. Atlas was criticized for not having a background in public health or infectious diseases, as Trump’s former top advisors Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci had.

Again – not a good candidate for a lawsuit. It’s not libel if it’s true, and it’s not libel if it’s evidence-based criticism.

Another woman steps up to say Trump sexually assaulted her.

Amy Dorris told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that Mr Trump groped various parts of her body and forcibly kissed her as she came out of a bathroom at the US Open tennis tournament.

Trump’s lawyers say nuh uh he did not.

She says Trump was lurking outside the women’s room waiting for her.

“He just shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off. And that’s when the grip became tighter and his hands were very gropey and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything,” she told the Guardian.

“I was in his grip, and I couldn’t get out of it.”

Of course not. He’s a very large man, and he grabs whatever he feels like grabbing.

Speaking to The Guardian, Mr Trump’s lawyers say there would have been other witnesses to the assault and suggested the allegation could be politically motivated ahead of the November election.

There would? Why would there? If Trump wanted witnesses why did he loiter outside the toilet? If Trump wanted witnesses why didn’t he just assault her in the stands with everyone watching? Don’t be schewpid; following women to isolated spots is how it’s done.

This guy. Honestly.

He doesn’t so much gasp as emit a loud histrionic breath-squeal of shock-horror when Bev Jackson says “We personally don’t believe that anyone can be born in the wrong body.”

We not only don’t believe it, we can’t believe it. It’s six impossible things before breakfast all over again. We can’t believe these dopy science-fictiony fantasy run amok claims, because they are not believable.

I suppose they think there’s a giant warehouse in the sky, full of angels in overalls putting the right soul in the right body and occasionally getting it wrong. The box was mislabeled, or an angel is hungover after all that beer mixed with vodka, or they do it on purpose because they know it teases.

The full video:

The Pantanal is on fire:

The Pantanal, a vast floodplain in South America, is among the largest wetlands in the world. The mosaic of grasslands, shrublands, forests, marshes, and lakes covers an area as large as West Virginia. It is home to thousands of species, including many that are rare and endangered, such as jaguars, giant river otters, hyacinth macaws, and giant armadillos.

Though the number of ranches and cattle pastures have increased on the plateaus that surround the Pantanal in Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia, the floodplain itself has remained mostly free of development in recent decades. But in the past few years, the Pantanal has faced a new challenge: uncontrollable fire.

The 2019 fire season (July through October) was unusually active, and a shortage of rainfall during the 2020 wet season (December through April) meant Pantanal wetlands never had a chance to recharge. That made it easier for fires to continue burning throughout the first half of the calendar year, when fire activity is typically minimal in this region. The unusually dry conditions have meant that many fires that were lit intentionally—often to maintain pastures—have been escaping and burning uncontrolled through Pantanal ecosystems.

And once such fires have started to spread rapidly and widely, they can outpace the available infrastructure for firefighters to contain or stop them.

Via Arnaud Desbiez on Facebook:

The biggest problem of Pantanal burns is the direct impact with the loss of fauna that has an ecological importance in the ecosystem.

That’s a hotel logo but it’s a powerful photo anyway.

Another Spiritual Message heard from:

A charismatic and outspoken pastor with a national following drew hundreds to a Snohomish church Wednesday to hear a spiritual message, while some embraced another message the pastor has made repeatedly in Facebook videos: He is adamantly against rules about being forced to wear a mask in public.

That’s redundant, and a thumb on the scales in favor of the “charismatic” (says who?) pastor – there are rules about wearing a mask in public, there are no “rules about being forced to wear a mask in public.” Nobody comes up to you and pins you to a wall and glues a mask to your face. There are potential fines and there is the possibility of being asked to leave, and escorted out if you refuse to leave, but there is no physical forcing people to wear masks.

While speaking to more than 2 million Facebook followers across the country, Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke admits taking bold, controversial stands on religious and political issues, and he makes it very clear — he regards wearing a mask as an insulting violation of both his religious and political expression.

More wording that makes the pastor sound more reasonable than he is. Telling people not to wear masks isn’t “bold” and it isn’t merely “controversial” and it is in no way either a religious or a political issue, it is a medical issue.

So when hundreds of people gathered to see Pastor Locke speak at The House Ministry Center near Snohomish, subtle anti-mask messages were seen emblazoned on T-shirts. Most people attending walked through the smoky haze without wearing a mask.

The smoky haze has nothing to do with it; ordinary face masks do nothing to protect us from the smoke.

One attendee, who asked not to be identified, told KIRO 7, “This is about freedom. The place is packed, there’s no social distancing, people embrace and people are not wearing masks because we believe in the freedom to worship the way we choose to worship.”

But no one is hindering their freedom to worship, or trying to hinder it. And “this” is not about freedom; it’s about not killing other people. Your mask protects other people – and their masks protect you. It’s a social contract in miniature. Your refusal to wear a mask puts other people at risk, not you. I’m not seeing the spiritual grandeur here.

Governor Inslee’s Safe Start plan indicates religious services must be at only 25% of a building’s capacity or up to 200 people, whichever is less, and everyone inside is mandated to wear a mask.

KIRO 7 learned the Snohomish County Health department called the church, and indicated a message was not returned. Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney has called Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order “unconstitutional” and said he would not enforce it.

Let’s have more contagion in Snohomish County. Freedomfreedomfreedom.

Oopsie.

Olivia Troye, who until recently served as Vice President Mike Pence’s top coronavirus task force adviser, slammed President Donald Trump’s pandemic response in an interview with The Washington Post and in a new video for the group Republicans Voters Against Trump.

“When we were in a task-force meeting, the president said, ‘Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing — I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people,'” Troye says in the two-minute video. “Those disgusting people are the same people he claims to care about. These are the people who are still going to his rallies today, who have complete faith in who he is.”

Yebbut they don’t have huge apartments with everything shiny golden shiny, and they don’t have a melania, and they don’t have forty seventeen failing golf courses. They’re disgusting.

So now HHS is putting out disinformation under the CDC byline. That’s not cool.

A heavily criticized recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by C.D.C. scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections, according to several people familiar with the matter as well as internal documents obtained by The New York Times.

The guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus. It came at a time when public health experts were pushing for more testing rather than less, and administration officials told The Times that the document was a C.D.C. product and had been revised with input from the agency’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield.

And that “guidance” makes absolutely no sense. The whole point is that people can spread the virus while they are asymptomatic – they can and they do – so why in hell would the CDC say something so stupid? They wouldn’t; Trump’s HHS would, but under the CDC byline. It’s unbelievable.

But officials told The Times this week that the health department did the rewriting itself and then “dropped” it into the C.D.C.’s public website, flouting the agency’s strict scientific review process.

It should be called the death department, not the health department.

A new version of the testing guidance, expected to be posted Friday, has also not been cleared by the C.D.C.’s usual internal review for scientific documents and is being revised by officials at Health and Human Services, according to a federal official who was not authorized to speak to reporters about the matter.

Fabulous. Do more of the same. That should go well.

“The idea that someone at H.H.S. would write guidelines and have it posted under the C.D.C. banner is absolutely chilling,” said Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director at the Centers for Disease Control in 2009.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the agency during the Obama administration, said, “H.H.S. and the White House writing scientifically inaccurate statements such as ‘don’t test all contacts’ on C.D.C.’s website is like someone vandalizing a national monument with graffiti.”

…

The current guidelines on testing, posted on Aug. 24, said people without symptoms “do not necessarily need a test” even if they have been in close contact with an infected person for more than 15 minutes. Public health experts roundly criticized the C.D.C. for that stance, saying it would undermine efforts to contain the virus.

These hacks. These fucking fucking Trupian hacks.

“Suggesting that asymptomatic people don’t need testing is just a prescription for community spread and further disease and death,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, which usually works closely with the C.D.C.

Some experts also said the recommendation appeared to be motivated by a political impetus to make the number of confirmed cases look smaller than it is.

No shit. That’s all Trump is interested in.

At a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Dr. Redfield said the agency was revising the recommendation and would post the revision, “I hope before the end of the week.” The revision was written by a C.D.C. scientist but was being edited on Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House coronavirus task force, according to a federal official familiar with the matter.

So it will say asymptomatic people don’t need to be tested even if they’ve been exposed. Genius.

Trump’s disgusting bilge about the need to force children to be fanatically PatriOtic and believe that everything we’ve ever done as a country has been perfect and heroicalistic:

Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. (Applause.)

We’re not. There is much that’s interesting about our history, and even much that’s impressive. The Bill of Rights has been an inspiration and a model for many countries shaking off tyrannical rulers or ruthless colonialists or both at once. But that doesn’t mean we’re perfect, to put it mildly, and yes the bad stuff does have to be taught. Slavery was real; the repeal of Reconstruction was real; a century of Jim Crow was real. Yes, citizens do need to understand that, because the consequences are all around us. Trump’s mindless Wee Da Best is worthy of a childish clown like him and no one else.

To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.

Bullshit.

On this very day in 1787, our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience.

It would be interesting if someone asked him to expand on that point. He wouldn’t have the faintest idea. He doesn’t know what tradition, what kind of wisdom, experience of what – he knows literally nothing about it.

Yet, as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy.

Founders? Not so much. Confederate generals? They’re not our “founders.” Slaveholders and slave traders? Why shouldn’t statues of them be taken down? They were put up to intimidate that class of people who had been enslaved, so why shouldn’t they be moved to museums instead of sitting in the middle of town?

The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. As I said at Mount Rushmore — which they would love to rip down and it rip it down fast, and that’s never going to happen — two months ago, the left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.

Comical to see so clearly where he interjected his own genius, isn’t it.

Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country. That is why I recently banned trainings in this prejudiced ideology from the federal government and banned it in the strongest manner possible.

How do you ban something in a particularly strong manner? Ban is ban. Does he mean he shouted at everyone while he signed the paper? Pounded the desk? Grabbed everyone by the crotch?

Under our leadership, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.

That’s unfortunate.

Today, I am also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an Executive Order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the “1776 Commission.” (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding. Think of that — 250 years.

What about it? Too short? Too long? Half of 500? What’s his point?

Recently, I also signed an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who have ever lived.

Somebody should tell him about the National Portrait Gallery.

Politico got Trump’s script for the National Archive harangue.

“We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny,” Trump plans to say, according to his prepared remarks. “We will reclaim our history, and our country, for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed.”

Every religion? What was the Muslim ban about then?

“America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history,” the prepared text states.

No it didn’t. The chain wasn’t unstoppable, and anyway it’s pretty rich to say the founding of a slave state set in motion the abolition of slavery. How about skipping the middle part and just abolishing slavery at the founding? Eh?

The Office of Management and Budget recently disseminated a directive to federal agencies to stop any use of “critical race theory” or “divisive, un-American propaganda training session.”

Racist rallies on the other hand are just fine; good people on both sides.

The EPA has put off an internal speaker series on environmental racism to review its compliance with the OMB memorandum, and POLITICO reported last week the Department of Education is scouring a host of internal forums, ranging from book clubs to training documents, to root out “Anti-American propaganda” in service of the White House’s directive.

BEE MOAR RACIST!

Oh please. When has Trump ever read a word of Howard Zinn? Or any historian at all? Or any book that’s not about him?

This is Stephen Miller, with Trump as the carnival barker.

That’s funny because he’s the least patriotic president we’ve ever had. He’s trashing the country for his own entertainment and enrichment. That’s not patriotism.

An “activist” called Benjamin Butterworth was on the tv yesterday saying how terrible JK Rowling is. He has an interesting history.

On Tuesday 17th September The Times published a story about parents who are raising their child as ‘gender neutral’.

September 2019 that is.

Hobbit Humphrey and Jake England-Johns are keeping the sex of their 17-month-old child a secret, even from their own family. They refer to the toddler by the pronoun “they” and plan to allow them to choose their own gender.

Journalists Sonia Poulton and Benjamin Butterworth discussed this story on Sky News. They talked about the projection of harmful gender stereotypes onto children and the conflation of sex and gender before turning to the idea that one can be born in the wrong body.

BUTTERWORTH: Of course some people are born in the wrong body.

POULTON: No, no. I have to take complete issue with that. That is a really dangerous statement.

Butterworth continued to defend the absurd claim that one can be born in the “wrong” body (so many slapstick cartoons suggest themselves).

Butterworth is at least consistent – he “identified as” black for awhile – at least long enough to fill a slot meant for a black person at a conference.

LSE students wrote an open letter to Butterworth, asking him to stand down and give his place to a black delegate. He did not.

He stopped “identifying as” black after that, but he’s cheerfully dogpiling on women who say that being a woman isn’t like putting on a coat.

If this is how we decide what is true…we have a problem.

“Trans women are women legally.”

I’m not sure I believe the law has the power to change physical reality that way. The law can define people as citizens or non-citizens, criminals or not, and other social categories like that. It can define people as children or adults, I guess – certainly there are laws that rely on the categories. But can the law just decide that men who say they are women are in fact women? Maybe it has the power to do it, but does it have the right? And do we actually have to accept the law’s definition?

“The belief that trans women are men is not a protected belief”

But it’s not a belief. The shoe is on the other foot – the belief that a man becomes a woman by saying so is a belief, while saying that a man is not a woman is not a belief, it’s just reality.

It’s quite gaslighty, this business of pretending that it’s a mere frivolous lightly-adopted belief that men are not women.

” and was considered “not worthy of respect” by the judge in the Forstater case.”

Even a judge doesn’t get to tell us we have to stop knowing that men are not women. We do know that men are not women, and we couldn’t stop knowing it if we tried. We could pretend, we could lie and bullshit and flatter, but that’s the utmost that is possible. Given that some of us think lying and bullshitting are bad, we’re not very motivated to make the attempt.

House Whip Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, is not impressed by Barr’s claim that pandemic restrictions are second only to slavery as a violation of rights.

That statement by Mister Barr was one of the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, godawful things I’ve ever heard. It is incredible the chief law enforcement officer in this country would equate human bondage to expert advice to save lives. Slavery was not about saving lives. It was about devaluing lives. This pandemic is a threat to human life, and the experts, the medical experts, the scientists are telling us what it takes to respond successfully to this pandemic. And if this administration – this godawful duo of Trump and Barr – were going about the business of doing what is necessary to protect the people of this great country, we would be beyond this pandemic by now.

Now let’s tie together Barr and the Trump admin attacks on reasonable pandemic precautions and scientific advice in general into one smelly package:

Attorney General William Barr argued Wednesday that coronavirus-related lockdown orders were surpassed only by slavery as the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” in the nation’s history.

Oh yes. Certainly. The internment of Americans of Japanese descent in 1942 was as nothing compared to health measures during a lethal pandemic. The Trail of Tears? Pff, a walk in the park. Mass incarceration? Three strikes laws? HUAC? The Espionage Act of 1917? The Sedition Act of 1918? All mere vapor compared to inconvenient emergency health measures.

The remarks from the attorney general came during an event hosted by Hillsdale College, where Barr delivered a speech defending his intervention in high-profile Justice Department cases and comparing career prosecutors to preschoolers.

“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest. It’s — you know, other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said during a question-and-answer session following his remarks.

Very cogent, except for the fact that it’s not like house arrest, because we are allowed to shop for necessities and go out for exercise and the like. We’re urged to stay home as much as possible and we’re told (in some jurisdictions) to social distance, but we’re not under house arrest. People in actual quarantine are, but the rest of us aren’t. I daresay Barr knows that perfectly well.

At one point, Barr seemingly suggested that the federal response to the pandemic should be guided by politicians and elected officials rather than medical experts and the broader scientific community.

“The person in the white coat is not the ‘grand seer’ who can come up with a right decision for society. A free people makes its decision through its elected representative,” he said.

That’s just great – feeding the idiotic fanatical hostility to medical expertise we’re already dealing with. Barr is such scum.