Pliny says sure Trump should get the intel briefings.… Read the rest

The 1776 Report is about the teaching of history but not one of the people on the 1776 Commission is a historian.

Larry P. Arn, Chair, is “an educator.” Vice Chair Carol Swain taught political science and law at Vanderbilt. Brooke Rollins is a lawyer. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist. Phil Bryant is a former governor of Mississippi. John Gibbs worked for HUD. Scott McNealy is a businessman. Ned Ryan is the CEO of American Majority. Charlie Kirk is a conservative talk show host. And so on. It’s a passel of conservatives, a few of them academics, a few of those in fields adjacent to history, but no actual historians except possibly Hanson who along with being a … Read the rest

Trump’s people organized that rally, the one that led to the terrorist attack on Congress.

Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.

A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event

So, yes, I’m going to have to read at least some of that ridiculous rah rah us! report, to see exactly how bad it is. And yes I’m going to have to inflict it on you.

The declared purpose of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission is to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.” This requires a restoration of American education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” And a rediscovery of our shared identity rooted in our founding principles is the path to a renewed

The Trump administration’s “1776 Report” has historians running out of red ink.

“It’s a hack job. It’s not a work of history,” American Historical Association executive director James Grossman told The Washington Post. “It’s a work of contentious politics designed to stoke culture wars.”

…The 45-page report is largely an attack on decades of historical scholarship, particularly when it comes to the nation’s 400-year-old legacy of slavery, and most of those listed as authors lack any credentials as historians. While claiming to present a nonpartisan history, it compares progressivism to fascism and claims the civil rights movement devolved into “preferential” identity politics “not unlike those advanced by [slavery defender John C.] Calhoun and his followers.”

“I don’t know where

I didn’t realize that former presidents get intelligence briefings.

Adam Schiff says Trump should be the exception, which seems only prudent.

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff said Sunday that President Donald Trump should be barred from daily intelligence briefings immediately — and remain cut off from briefings once President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.

…

Schiff’s comments come a day after Susan Gordon, Trump’s former principal deputy director of national intelligence, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing that Trump must not be briefed on intelligence after Jan. 20.

…

Former presidents typically receive routine intelligence briefings and access to classified information after they have left office.

Schiff added that he thinks U.S. allies withheld information from the

At least he’s miserable.

The President has been in a foul mood for several days and has lost interest in the performative parts of the presidency he once relished, a source he’s spoken with in recent days told CNN.

While he’s eagerly anticipating his military-style send-off from Joint Base Andrews on Inauguration morning — one of the few items that have cheered him up recently — there were already signs the crowd may be smaller than he’d hoped. And a slate of actual celebrities lined up for Biden’s inauguration has disappointed a president who tried and often failed to secure A-list support for his own presidency.

It’s so typical that he doesn’t get how pathetic and feeble he’s going to … Read the rest

Speaking of “can you think of one good quality in Trump?” –

Ainsley Earhardt: "They'll criticize President Trump but no one can argue, he is a worker. He doesn't drink alcohol, he stays up late at night, he watches every show, he's working — he got to work immediately." pic.twitter.com/1FcS8gCW5f

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) January 19, 2021

Objection!

No. Not drinking and staying up late do not add up to being “a worker.” Trump was very productive on Twitter, too, but that also doesn’t count as “work,” especially given the quality and content of his tweets. And what really doesn’t count as work – what counts as a pathetic infantile waste of time – is “watching every show.” The giant … Read the rest

Smug bullying white guy trashes multiculturalism the day after Martin Luther King day and the day before the white guy’s status vanishes like a puff of smoke.

Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker. pic.twitter.com/Mu97xCgxfS

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 19, 2021

Also – “our enemies stoke these divisions,” he says, in the very act of stoking his own divisions.

24 hours + 30 minutes.… Read the rest

Daily Kos reports:

This [is] a quick heads-up on the “1776 report”, which was released today by the White House, of all days, on MLK Day. It’s another attempt to re-write and white-wash history and prop up the modern white supremacist movement.

The report was written by the “1776 Commission”, a rag-tag group of mostly white and conservative “historians”; it states that criticism of the Founding Fathers’ slave ownership ‘has done enormous damage’ and has had a ‘devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric’. The report claims that the nation’s founders detested slavery even though many of them owned enslaved people.

So what’s the idea here? That praise of the “founding fathers'” slave ownership would do tremendous … Read the rest

39 hours 23 minutes.… Read the rest

JL at the Glinner Update on the theft of the McIver Baths:

The McIver Ladies Baths is in the beautiful Sydney suburb of Coogee. It was built in 1886 and has been for the exclusive use of women and children ever since. Screened from view by its cliff-foot location, the pool provides the perfect place for women to swim and sunbathe in peace and safety, free from male interest and male eyes.

Make no mistake, that’s an issue when it comes to swimming.

Recently the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Association (R&CLSA), which manages the pool, decided that access would be extended to (genuine) transwomen, ie those who’ve undergone sex-reassignment surgery. The information on the website was updated accordingly.

Oops.

Gwyneth Paltrow's 'vagina' candle reportedly explodes in UK woman's home https://t.co/1BtKRUnsPD pic.twitter.com/f8KYB6e9fQ

— New York Post (@nypost) January 18, 2021

Makes ya think, don’t it.

The wording is deliberate, I think…on Google you see

Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘vagina’ candle explodes in UK woman’s …

And even when you see the whole thing you still flinch just a bit before you register the last word. Wicked but in this case appropriate, I think, given the preposterous recklessness of millionaire Paltrow telling women to shove her expensive candles up themselves*.

Plus it’s funny. Paltrow needs to be an object of ridicule.

Maybe she could team up with trans women of the “include us in your women-only swimming pools” type to create ever … Read the rest

Navalny news:

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on his supporters to protest after he was arrested at a Moscow airport Sunday.

“Don’t be afraid. Take to the streets. Don’t do it for me, do it for yourselves and your future,” Navalny said in a video posted to YouTube, the social media platform that has brought his anti-Kremlin message to the farthest corners of Russia. Navalny’s supporters say they will organize nationwide protests on Jan. 23.

A judge ruled to remand Navalny in custody for 30 days following his return from Germany, where he was recovering from an August poisoning that he blames on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities had warned that Navalny would be arrested for

She didn’t mean anything by it, and besides Trump told her to.

A Texas real estate agent who was part of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the US Capitol said on Monday she was just following the orders of Donald Trump even as she faced federal charges for her part in the insurrection.

“I have no guilt in my heart,” Jenna Ryan told NBC News. “I’m glad I was there because I witnessed history. And I’ll never get the chance to do that again.”

I certainly fucking hope not.

“President Trump requested that we be in DC on 6 January,” she said. “So this was our way of going and stopping the steal.”

…

“I listen to my president,

Trump is working hard on those pardons. Not the pandemic, not the vaccination program, not telling Putin to release Navalny, not helping with the investigations of the insurrection he made happen, but with mostly corrupt pardons.

On Sunday, Trump met his son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka Trump and senior advisers to thrash out a lengthy list of pardon requests, the Washington Post reported. The meeting took up much of the day. The president was personally engaged with the details of every case, it said.

With a normal president that wouldn’t need saying. With Trump it’s so rare as to need saying.

CNN reported on Monday that the final batch of clemency actions was expected to feature criminal justice

“Gender and identity reporter” Vic Parsons at Pink News tells us about a protest against those evil bitches who like to swim at a women and children only beach:

A “swim-in for trans inclusion” at the women-only coastal swimming pool in Coogee, Sydney, on 17 January saw trans and cis swimmers defy a transphobic policy the pool released last week and celebrate transgender pride and solidarity.

That is, there was a swim-in to pressure women who use the women-only coastal swimming pool in Sydney to agree that it can stop being women-only now, and to celebrate the pride and solidarity of men who take everything away from women.

Protestors held signs reading “Stop drinking JK’s pool-aid!” and “Let them swim”.

Allons enfants de la patrie…

This video from @NewYorker is incredible.

A man rifles through confidential Senate documents and says, “I think @tedcruz would want us to do this.” pic.twitter.com/GowauKXpaq

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) January 17, 2021

… Read the rest

The pardons are being a nice little racket for some.

Allies and associates of President Donald Trump have collected tens of thousands of dollars in fees from those seeking pardons from the President, The New York Times reported Sunday.

I assume Donald expects a cut.

The Times, citing documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers, reported that the lobbying for clemency intensified as it became apparent Trump had no standing to challenge his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. Those who monetized the lobbying efforts include a former federal prosecutor, a former personal lawyer to the President and a former top Trump campaign adviser, among others, the Times reported.

Nothing at all filthy or shaming … Read the rest

As it happened:

The moment Alexei Navalny was detained at passport control in Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport. Camera @LizaVereykina Producer @LizaShuvalova pic.twitter.com/2TLZF02Zge

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) January 17, 2021

… Read the rest