Oops, that was the carotid artery

Sep 8th, 2018 5:20 pm | By

Just one of those things.

A man has been jailed for six years for killing a woman he stabbed in the throat during a “bizarre and violent” sex game.

Jason Gaskell severed 21-year-old Laura Huteson’s jugular vein and carotid artery with a knife while having sex at his home in Hull on 27 February.

As one does. You know how it is – you get warmed up, everybody’s panting like a dog, and out comes the knife.

“It appears you harboured a desire for, and regularly put into practice, a particularly extreme form of sexual activity in that you enjoyed sadomasochism whereby you held the throats of sexual partners very tightly and regularly used a knife in the midst of sexual congress, usually by holding it against the throat of a woman.”

Well, it has to be a woman, of course. What fun is it otherwise?! It has to be someone smaller, someone not as strong, someone it’s easy to subdue or cause pain or choke, should the need arise.

So anyway, she’s dead but he had a really fun evening.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments


Kavanaugh lied under oath

Sep 8th, 2018 10:41 am | By

At Slate, Lisa Graves reports that Brett Kavanaugh received stolen emails and lied about it under oath.

Much of Washington has spent the week focusing on whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. After the revelations of his confirmation hearings, the better question is whether he should be impeached from the federal judiciary.

I do not raise that question lightly, but I am certain it must be raised.

Newly released emails show that while he was working to move through President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in the early 2000s, Kavanaugh received confidential memos, letters, and talking points of Democratic staffers stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda. That includes research and talking points Miranda stole from the Senate server after I had written them for the Senate Judiciary Committee as the chief counsel for nominations for the minority.

Receiving those memos and letters alone is not an impeachable offense.

No, Kavanaugh should be removed because he was repeatedly asked under oath as part of his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for his position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit about whether he had received such information from Miranda, and each time he falsely denied it.

Under oath, in confirmation hearings for a position on an important Appeals Court. That’s bad.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 4 comments


Dear Sirs: please fire all the women

Sep 8th, 2018 9:35 am | By
Dear Sirs: please fire all the women

So. Lucy Bannerman in the Times (the one in London):

A transgender lecturer orchestrated a smear campaign against academics across the UK in which universities were described as dangerous and accused of “hate crime” if they refused to accept activists’ views that biological males can be women, it can be revealed.

Natacha Kennedy, a researcher at Goldsmiths University of London who is also understood to work there under the name Mark Hellen, faces accusations of a “ludicrous” assault on academic freedom after she invited thousands of members of a closed Facebook group to draw up and circulate a list shaming academics who disagreed with campaigners’ theories on gender.

In other words this is a trans woman. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t see this kind of thing nearly so much from trans men? Like, almost not at all? Isn’t it interesting that whatever else trans women bring with them after transition, they sure as hell hang on to the misogyny? Because guess what: the “academics” in that last sentence are all women.

The online forum, seen by The Times, also revealed that members plotted to accuse non-compliant professors of hate crime to try to have them ousted from their jobs. Reading, Sussex, Bristol, Warwick and Oxford universities were among those deemed to have “unsafe” departments because they employed academics who had publicly disputed the belief that “transwomen are women” or questioned the potential impact of proposed changes to gender laws on women and children.

It’s a skillful trap, isn’t it. Trans women bully women relentlessly, which tends to nudge women into going public with their doubts about how true it is to assert that “transwomen are women,” which results in more and worse bullying, which nudges more women, and so on in a circle forever (until the crash comes).

Natacha Kennedy claimed the list is necessary as a warning to students, in case they strayed into an “unsafe” course taught by one of these witches women.

Aimee Challenor, the former Green Party candidate who used her father as her election agent even though he was facing charges of raping and torturing a ten-year-old girl, for which he was later jailed, was among those who responded to Ms Kennedy’s post of August 14 to the Trans Rights UK Facebook group, with suggestions of who to blacklist. All the named academics were women.

Emphasis added.

One of them is Kathleen Stock, who makes the philosophy department at Sussex “unsafe” by arguing against “redefining the category of woman and lesbian to include men.” You might as well call it “unsafe” to argue against redefining the category of peaches to include potatoes.

“File a hate crime report against her, and then the chairman and vice-chair,” advised one. “Drag them over the fucking coals.”

For the hideous crime of saying men are not women.

Rosa Freedman, an expert in human rights law at the University of Reading, had also upset activists by saying that biological males should not have access to a women’s refuge.

So the plotters plotted what words to use to persuade her university to fire her. “Call it hate speech!” they told each other, wiping the foam from their lips.

Professor Freedman told The Times: “We are talking about the aggressive trolling of women who are experts. I have received penis pictures telling me to ‘suck my girl cock’. This is straight-up, aggressive, anti-woman misogyny. In no way have I made the space unsafe. I find it deeply distressing that an academic would set out to smear my name and impugn my reputation, simply because I put forward a perspective, based on robust and specific evidence, with which they disagree. That is not academia. That is silencing people.

“The idea that writing about women’s rights automatically becomes a hate crime in some people’s eyes is ludicrous. All it has done has made me more determined to write about this, in a respectful way that allows other perspectives to come through, and not just the views of those who shout the loudest.”

It does brace up the ol’ determination, that’s a fact.

Professor Stock said: “What would make a philosophy department unsafe is if its academics weren’t allowed to challenge currently popular beliefs or ideologies for fear of offending. Deliberately plotting to have my department lose students, or to have me dismissed, through covert means, is surprising behaviour from a fellow academic.” Both professors praised the support that they had received from their universities.

Bannerman notes that Brown last month didn’t do quite so well.

One member of the Facebook group, Sahra Rae Taylor, stood by her contribution to the list. She said: “That way we can advise people applying that ‘if you want to study law, then don’t go to these places’. Which would allow them at least to avoid being taught (and marked, and under the influence in some way) by a transphobic douchebag.”

Ah yes, very academic, much serious thought.

Ms Kennedy, who describes herself on Facebook as a “stroppy, bolshie transgirl with attitude who hates the Tories with a passion”, refused to comment. She represented Goldsmiths during trans awareness week in February.

Then it gets weird.

It confirmed that she was an employee but would not explain which department she worked in or why she appeared to be listed twice in the staff directory: once as Mark Hellen, in the department of educational studies, and secondly as Natacha Kennedy, who is named in equality and diversity reports. Both profiles appear to be active.

That doesn’t even explain what kind of staff. Administration perhaps?

It also remained unclear why an academic paper on Ms Kennedy’s specialist subject of transgenderism in children, published by the Graduate Journal of Social Sciences in 2010, cited two co-authors: Natacha Kennedy and Mark Hellen.

Neither Ms Kennedy nor Goldsmiths would clarify whether the paper was by two individuals or the same person. A spokesman said: “Goldsmiths prides itself on its inclusive community and is committed to the values of freedom of speech within the law.”

Inclusive of what, exactly?

Updating to add: Natacha Kennedy on Facebook:

Capture“I’m sure the people of Ireland will give the fake-tanned fart-face a welcome the cunt deserves.”

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 14 comments


Every woman out there

Sep 7th, 2018 5:19 pm | By

The state of this.

https://twitter.com/HannahMouncey/status/1036362423370797056

If you didn’t know better, you’d look at the picture and think the “not ok” bit was the huge man playing football on a women’s team…but no, that’s not what Hannah Mouncey means at all. What Hannah Mouncey means is “not ok” is excluding huge men from playing football on women’s teams. It’s not ok to say “No, you can’t endanger women by playing on their teams when you’re built like a god damn tank.”

Risking the women’s broken bones, concussions, smashed faces – that’s perfectly fine, and it’s progressive, and it’s top intersectional.

What a selfish pig, and proud of it. It’s astounding.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 16 comments


That’s not how our democracy is supposed to work

Sep 7th, 2018 3:27 pm | By

Obama gave a talk at the University of Illinois today. The Atlantic has the full transcript.

I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us, as citizens of the United States, need to determine just who it is that we are, just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen, not as an ex-president but as a fellow citizen, I am here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it.

Now some of you may think I’m exaggerating when I say this November’s elections are more important than any I can remember in my lifetime. I know politicians say that all the time. I have been guilty of saying it a few times, particularly when I was on the ballot. But just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different. The stakes really are higher. The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire. And it’s not as if we haven’t had big elections before, or big choices to make in our history. The fact is, democracy has never been easy and our Founding Fathers argued about everything. We waged a Civil War. We overcame depression. We’ve lurched from eras of great progressive change to periods of retrenchment.

But we’ve never had anyone this bad squatting at the top before.

Progress doesn’t just move in a straight line. There’s a reason why progress hasn’t been easy and why throughout our history, every two steps forward seems to sometimes produce one step back. Each time we painstakingly pull ourselves closer to our founding ideals, that all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, the ideals that say every child should have opportunity and every man and woman in this country who is willing to work hard should be able to find a job and support a family and pursue the American dream, the ideals that say we have the responsibility to care for the sick and infirm and we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the natural resources of this country and of this planet for future generations—each time we have gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back. The status quo pushes back.

Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical, because it helps them maintain the status quo, and keep their power, and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments. It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years. A fear and anger that’s rooted in our past but is also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.

He notes that things are not going well right now.

They’re subsidizing corporate polluters with taxpayer dollars, allowing dishonest lenders to take advantage of veterans and students and consumers again. They’ve made it so that the only nation on Earth to pull out of the global climate agreement—it’s not North Korea, it’s not Syria, it’s not Russia or Saudi Arabia—it’s us. The only country! There are a lot of countries in the world. We’re the only ones. They are undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia. What happened to the Republican Party? Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they are cozying up to the former head of the KGB, actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened? Their sabotage of the Affordable Care Act has already cost more than 3 million Americans their health insurance. And if they are still in power next fall, you better believe they are coming at it again—they’ve said so.

In a healthy democracy, there are some checks and balances on this kind of behavior, this kind of inconsistency, but right now, there’s nothing. Republicans who know better in Congress—and they’re there, they are quoted saying, ‘We know this is kind of crazy’—are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work.

And by the way, the claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders—that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy is supposed to work. These people aren’t elected. They are not accountable. They are not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that is coming out of this White House and then saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10 percent.’ That’s not how things are supposed to work! This is not normal. These are extraordinary times, and they are dangerous times.

But the good news is: in a couple of months we (Americans) get to vote.

It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue, to say that we do not pressure the Attorney General or the FBI to use the criminal-justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents, or to explicitly call on the Attorney General to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up, that’s not hypothetical. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press, because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans. We are supposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them. We are supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?

He says we need to bring people together.

When I say bring people together, I mean all of our people. This whole notion that has sprung up recently about Democrats need to choose between trying to appeal to white working-class voters or voters of color and women and LGBT Americans, that’s nonsense. I don’t buy that. I got votes from every demographic. We won because we reached out to everybody and [by] competing everywhere and by fighting for every vote, and that’s what we’ve got to do in this election and every election after that. And we can’t do that if we immediately disregard what others have to say from the start, because they are not like us, because they are white or they’re black or a man or a woman, or they’re gay or they’re straight. If we think that somehow there is no way they can understand how I’m feeling, and therefore don’t have any standing to speak on certain matters, because we’re only defined by certain characteristics. That doesn’t work if you want a healthy democracy. We can’t do that if we traffic in absolutes when it comes to policy.

He says better is good, better isn’t everything, it isn’t the absolute, but it’s good – better is better.

The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides, is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer. You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You cannot doubt, because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate. This is not a rock concert. This is not Coachella. We don’t need a messiah. All we need are decent, honest, hardworking people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. And they’ll step up, and they’ll join our government, and they’ll make things better if they have support.

You have to vote.

If you are really concerned about how the criminal-justice system treats African Americans, the best way to protest is to vote, not just for senators and representatives, but for mayors and sheriffs and state legislators. Do what they just did in Philadelphia and Boston, and elect state’s attorneys and district attorneys who are looking at issues in a new light, who realize that the vast majority of law enforcement do the right thing in a really hard job, and we just need to make sure all of them do.

If you’re tired of politicians who offer nothing but thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting, you’ve got to do what the Parkland kids are doing. Some of them aren’t even eligible to vote yet. They’re out there working to change minds and registering people. And they’re not giving up until we have a Congress that sees your lives as more important than a campaign check from the NRA. You’ve got to vote.

If you support the #MeToo movement, you’re outraged by stories of sexual harassment and assault, inspired by the women who’ve shared them, you’ve got to do more than retweet a hashtag. You’ve got to vote.

Part of the reason women are more vulnerable in the workplace is because not enough women are bosses in the workplace, which is why we need to strengthen and enforce laws that protect a woman in the workplace, not just from harassment, but from discrimination in hiring and promotions, and not getting paid the same amount for doing the same work. That requires laws, laws get passed by legislators. You’ve got to vote!

When you vote, you’ve got the power to make it easier to afford college, and harder to shoot up a school. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make sure a family keeps its health insurance, you could save somebody’s life. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make sure white nationalists don’t feel emboldened to march with their hoods off, or their hoods on, in Charlottesville in the middle of the day. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of your time—is democracy worth that?

H/t George Felis

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 8 comments
Tags:


Opining

Sep 7th, 2018 12:02 pm | By

Trump still thinks it’s illegal to criticize him.

President Donald Trump said Friday he wanted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch an investigation into who authored the explosive anonymous opinion article published in The New York Times earlier this week.

“Jeff should be investigating who the author of that piece was, because I really believe it’s national security,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Yeah no that’s not a reason. That “because” isn’t. What Donald Trump “really believes” ≠ the law.

It’s not clear what national security reasons would prompt a Department of Justice investigation. It is not a crime to leak information that is not classified.

Asked for clarification whether the president was directing Sessions to investigate The New York Times op-ed or opining that Sessions should, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said, “opining.”

“Look, he’s concerned that someone is trying to undermine the executive branch and he wants it looked at,” she said.

No you look, Sarah. The guy you work for is not a king or a god-emperor; we’re allowed to try to “undermine the executive branch” i.e. get that maniac out of there before he destroys everything.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 2 comments
Tags:


The corrupt bargain Washington Republicans have made

Sep 7th, 2018 11:38 am | By

Michelle Goldberg at the Times notes how Kavanaugh evaded all questions about whether he will protect Trump from law enforcement when he is on the Supreme Court, and notes that unless two Republicans suddenly discover a conscience he’ll soon be on the Court.

He will owe his elevation to Trump, who is in effect an unindicted co-conspirator in a campaign finance crime that helped him achieve his minority victory. There’s every reason to believe that Kavanaugh will shield the president from accountability or restraints on his power. Yet even Republicans who think Trump is a menace are desperate to confirm his judicial pick.

What we have here, in miniature, is the corrupt bargain Washington Republicans have made with a president many of them privately despise. They know Trump is unfit, but he gives them tax cuts and right-wing judges. Those tax cuts and right-wing judges, in turn, strengthen the president’s hand, buying him gratitude from rich donors and potential legal cover. Republicans who participate in this cycle seem convinced that the situation is, and will remain, under their control.

And that the goals are worthwhile – that it’s such a good thing to make already rich people even richer and already struggling people downright desperate, and to make women prisoners of their own reproductive systems again, that the criminality and cruelty and vulgarity of Trump are a small price to pay.

So about that anonymous op-ed on Wednesday.

It was revealing, though not necessarily in the way the author intended. We already know that many of Trump’s closest aides hold him in contempt. What’s fascinating is how this official, who describes the president as amoral, anti-democratic and reckless, rationalizes working for him regardless.

Exactly. Anonymous Hero parades the usual Republican shit before us as if we’ll all agree that it’s great stuff, and then asks us to admire the people who help Trump stay in office by preventing some of his crazy from going public.

If Kavanaugh weren’t confirmed, it would be a profound blow to Trump, and not just because he would look weak and disappoint his evangelical base. Without Kavanaugh, Trump wouldn’t be assured of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court if and when it rules on him and his administration. With Kavanaugh, the tie-breaking vote on the Supreme Court will be a right-wing apparatchik chosen in part for his deference to executive power.

A vote for Kavanaugh is thus a vote to give Trump a measure of impunity. Republican senators who know the president is out of control have a choice — they can maintain a check on his ill-considered autocratic inclinations, or solidify right-wing power on the Supreme Court for a generation. It’s obvious which way they’ll go. Maybe they’ll tell themselves having adults in the room at the White House makes it O.K.

Allow me to state the obvious: nothing makes it ok.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 2 comments
Tags:


In which I kink-shame the Times

Sep 7th, 2018 11:04 am | By
In which I kink-shame the Times

Just your standard ad on a New York Times story.

Capture

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog


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” when he called for her to resign.

“I’m not going to get within three Zip codes” of answering that question, he replied.

Kavanaugh wouldn’t say if it’s okay for Trump to say that the Justice Department should not prosecute Republicans because it will hurt their chances of holding the House in the midterms.

He also refused to say that it was inappropriate for Trump to insist that Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn’t fairly adjudicate a fraud lawsuit against Trump University because he is the son of Mexican immigrants. Speaker Paul Ryan once called this “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

One way to view this is as a potential justice being carefully apolitical. Another way is to view it as being way too loyal to his benefactor (who happens to be a blatant criminal on a national scale).

But the nominee’s steadfast unwillingness to even mildly distance himself from Trump’s sustained attacks on the third branch of government, despite being given dozens of opportunities to do so by senators in both parties over the course of 24 hours in the hot seat, means that the question lingers of how independent he’ll be once confirmed to the highest court in the land.

Also…

Several Democratic senators expressed concern that Trump did not add Kavanaugh — widely known in legal circles as an outspoken critic of investigations into sitting presidents — to his list of potential Supreme Court picks until last November— six months after the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.

“In this age of President Donald Trump, this expansive view of presidential power takes on added significance,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Because Trump has chosen a justice who will be ruling on any case to do with Trump’s immunity from prosecution. The state of play seems to be that no matter what Trump has done – even if evidence turns up showing that he has committed mass murder – he gets a pass as long as he’s president, and Republicans refuse to remove him as president for any reason whatsoever.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:


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 amplifying it.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments
Tags:


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 the president about any efforts to obstruct the investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russians.

Most definitive how? Jonathan Lemire doesn’t say.

If the legal team holds its stance, it could force Mueller to try to subpoena the president, likely triggering a standoff that would lead to the Supreme Court.

And that’s why Trump nominated Kavanaugh.

Mueller’s office has previously sought to interview the president about the obstruction issue, including his firing last year of former FBI Director James Comey and his public attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump’s legal team has argued that the president has the power to hire and fire appointees and the special counsel does not have the authority to ask him to explain those decisions. Giuliani said Thursday the team was steadfast in that position.

So it’s basically just “I can because I can and it doesn’t matter how corrupt and criminal it is, you can’t touch me, so ha.” In other words the US is an authoritarian kleptocracy and that’s the end of it.

Though the president has publicly said he was eager to face questions from Mueller, his lawyers have been far more reluctant to make him available for an interview and have questioned whether Mueller has the right to ask him about actions that he is authorized, under the Constitution, to take as president.

This is what I mean; this is fucked up. We shouldn’t be having a criminal guy who does criminal things telling us we can’t touch him because of the Constitution – the one that he 1. knows nothing about and 2. shits on every chance he gets. We shouldn’t have thug Giuliani thugging around the place and telling us the thugs can do whatever they want. This is ALL WRONG.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments
Tags: ,


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 on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the rulemaking is to terminate the 1997 Flores settlement agreement that said children could not be held in detention longer than 20 days. The result may mean the issue is taken to appellate courts or even the Supreme Court.

There’s always time to get rid of regulations that protect vulnerable people. Always.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog


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 recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Under the bill, states could remove about 8 percent of those receiving aid from the rolls, according to the research firm, Mathematica, which used data from the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service.

Yeah! Stick it to those disgusting losers who don’t have much money, oh and by the way Trump will be needing Air Force One for another golfing/shopping/ranting trip today/tomorrow/over the weekend.

About 34 percent of seniors in the program, or 677,000 households, would lose benefits under the proposal, according to the study. More than one in 10 people with a disability, another 214,000 households, would also lose eligibility.

Good! They should be out digging for coal; it builds character.

Those estimates do not account for another proposal in the measure, which would impose strict new work requirements on beneficiaries. An additional 1.2 million people could be stripped of aid under that plan, according to a separate analysis released in May by the Congressional Budget Office, the study’s authors said.

…

President Trump favors imposing stricter requirements on adult recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps, and has disparagingly described beneficiaries as “welfare” recipients.

On Wednesday, he called for lawmakers to adopt the House version of the bill, which also includes billions in subsidies for agricultural states in the Midwest.

“The Trump Economy is booming with the help of House and Senate GOP,” he wrote on Twitter. “#FarmBill with SNAP work requirements will bolster farmers and get America back to work. Pass the Farm Bill with SNAP work requirements!”

Then he went back to watching tv.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 16 comments


Unwavering faith

Sep 6th, 2018 11:48 am | By

Ahh good, he still has support from a friend.

 

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags:


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. Schumer (D-N.Y.) cheered them on via Twitter.

Because they shouldn’t be confidential.

Within the hour, Sen. Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) released another email chain from Kavanaugh in 2002, with him debating whether Native Hawaiians should have the same protection as Indian tribes. The words “Committee Confidential” are stamped diagonally across each page.

“I would defy anyone reading this document to conclude this document should be deemed confidential in any way, shape or form,” she said.

Wait, there’s more.

These are two of tens of thousands of documents a lawyer for Bush who is vetting the Kavanaugh documents marked as confidential, meaning members of the Senate Judiciary Committee can see them, but the public cannot.

Practically, for Booker, that meant he could not display an email in which Kavanaugh discussed government racial profiling in 2002 when he used it Wednesday to try to pin down the nominee on his views of the policy. Republicans on the committee immediately raised a point of order during Booker’s questioning, claiming that the senator was unfairly cross-examining Kavanaugh without providing him the documents. They argued that Kavanaugh could not respond to specific questions about this email if he did not have the email in front of him.

He doesn’t have it in front of him because the Republicans have classified everything!

Make America a mob state again.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog


“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.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 4 comments


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 useful.

Gender Scales

First of all have a look at these scales.

I did. I looked, and saw, and all was explained.

gender scales BISH

look masculine………………….Look feminine

rational………..emotional

tough………soft

takes charge…………takes part

independent…………sharer

head strong……….sensitive

active……….passive

outgoing…………shy

There you have it – that’s gender, and where you place yourself on that dotted line is your Gender Identity. We know which is meant to be which because of the helpful “masculine…..feminine” on the first line.

Now, you may have thought that all those adjectives (plus one pair of verbs + adjective) were simply more or less crude descriptions of personality, character, habits, and the like – but no no no, those are Gender Identifiers on a highly technical scientific chart of Gender Scales. Just plot your position on each line and then…um…I guess tell us in great detail what your position is on each, so that we will understand exactly, I mean exactly, what your Gender Identity is.

Nailed it.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 21 comments
Tags:


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, although they could not be sure.

Look for someone who is massively pleased with himself and not terribly bright.

Yeah I know – sarcastic “Well that narrows it down a lot” response is deserved.

Mr. Trump angrily lashed out during public events and on Twitter. He assailed what he called the “gutless editorial” by the unnamed official and he dismissed Mr. Woodward’s book as “a total piece of fiction” and “totally discredited.” He attributed the accounts to a news media that has sought to destroy his presidency.

Trump acted like Trump, to the surprise of no one.

In the hours after the Op-Ed published, Washington has been scrambling to pin down the identity of this anonymous official.

“It is not mine,” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of State, said of the piece during brief remarks in India on Thursday.

“I come from a place where if you’re not in the position to execute the commander’s intent, you have a singular option, and it’s to leave,” Mr. Pompeo said. “And this person instead, according to The New York Times, chose not only to stay, but to undermine what President Trump and this administration are trying to do.”

…

Mr. Trump’s mood vacillated from fury to calm throughout Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. Some of his top aides worked the phones to figure out who was leaking or who might have spoken, and his daughter Ivanka Trump and other advisers tried to quell his distress.

He seemed satisfied that Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mattis had denied remarks attributed to them in Mr. Woodward’s book — Mr. Kelly was quoted calling the president an “idiot” and Mr. Mattis said he had the understanding of a “fifth or sixth grader.” But his ire was trained particularly on two former aides, the former director of the National Economic Council, Gary D. Cohn, and the former staff secretary, Rob Porter, according to people close to the White House.

It’s just such a puzzle, why so many people who work with Trump have criticisms of him.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments
Tags:


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 like-minded senior Trump staffers. See, we only look complicit! Actually, we’re the real heroes of the story.

But what the author has just done is throw the government of the United States into even more dangerous turmoil. He or she has enflamed the paranoia of the president and empowered the president’s willfulness.

What happens the next time a staffer seeks to dissuade the president from, say, purging the Justice Department to shut down the Mueller investigation? The author of the Times op-ed has explicitly told the president that those who offer such advice do not have the president’s best interests at heart, and are, in fact, actively subverting his best interests as he understands them on behalf of ideas of their own.

He’ll grow more defiant, more reckless, more anti-constitutional, and more dangerous.

Oh gee, so he will – I hadn’t thought of that part.

The new Bob Woodward book set the bad precedent. The high official who thought the president so addled that he would not remember the paper he snatched off his desk? Those who thought the president stupid, ignorant, beholden to Russia—and then exited the administration to return to their comfortable, lucrative occupations? Who substituted deep-background gripe sessions with a reporter for offering detailed proof of presidential unfitness, or worse, before the House or Senate? Yes, better than the robotic servility of the public record. But only slightly.

What would be better?

Speak in your own name. Resign in a way that will count. Present the evidence that will justify an invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, or an impeachment, or at the very least, the first necessary step toward either outcome, a Democratic Congress after the November elections.

Your service in government is valuable. Thank you for it. But it is not so indispensable that it can compensate for the continuing tenure of a president you believe to be amoral, untruthful, irrational, anti-democratic, unpatriotic, and dangerous. Previous generations of Americans have sacrificed fortunes, health, and lives to serve the country. You are asked only to tell the truth aloud and with your name attached.

Exfuckingactly.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments
Tags:


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 the election for its disastrous coverage of the Trump campaign.

No it didn’t. That’s one of Trump’s pet lies.

President Trump has laid out a bold and ambitious agenda. Every day since taking office, he has fulfilled the promises he made. His accomplishments in less than two years have been astounding.

The individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected President of the United States. He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people. This coward should do the right thing and resign.

Trump breathes in every word.

Sarah Sanders gave us a picture of it.

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments
Tags: