Fauci agrees that it’s nice not having Trump ruining everything.

“One of the things that we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open and honest,” Fauci told reporters [last week]. “If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them. And to make everything we do be based on science and evidence.

“That was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago with the president, and he has said that multiple times.”

Asked if he would like to amend or clarify anything he said during the Trump presidency, Fauci insisted he had always been candid, noting wryly, “That’s why I got in trouble sometimes.”

…

At Thursday’s briefing, Fauci was asked how it feels to no longer

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That’s one way of looking at it.

I think people are too quick to forget that we didn’t have the language & understanding of trans identities in the 80s that we do now. Many of the people who died would have been trans but wouldn’t have had the privilege to come out as such. That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist

— Calum McSwiggan (@CalumMcSwiggan) January 25, 2021

But it’s the wrong way. It’s not that we lacked the language and understanding of a truth, it’s that we hadn’t been bombarded with the rhetoric and bullying of a stupid ideology.

“Trans identities” are not a scientific discovery, they’re a pseudo-official name for a type of fantasy.

The fact that the ideology … Read the rest

Josh Hawley is a piece of work.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, called out Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, for claiming in a widely read op-ed that he’s been “muzzled.”

In a cover essay published by the New York Post on Monday, Hawley claimed that he’d been “canceled” and “muzzled” in the U.S. The title of Hawley’s essay is “It’s time to stand up against the muzzling of America.” The GOP lawmaker, who has been widely criticized for formally objecting to Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electoral votes when they were certified by Congress earlier this month, linked to the article in a tweet Ocasio-Cortez later retweeted with criticism.

You were given prime space to say this

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There is discussion over whether or not to charge all the insurrectionists, not because some of them were innocent bystanders but because the courts could be swamped.

The internal discussions are in their early stages, and no decisions have been reached about whether to forgo charging some of those who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

Justice Department officials have promised a relentless effort to identify and arrest those who stormed the Capitol that day, but internally there is robust back-and-forth about whether charging them all is the best course of action. That debate comes at a time when officials are keenly sensitive that the credibility of the Justice Department

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Four Seasons Total Landscaping won’t get him out of this one. Giuliani being sued for telling damaging lies:

An election technology company that has been the focus of consistent conspiracy theories by Donald Trump and his allies has sued the former President’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani for defamation after he pushed the “Big Lie” about election fraud on his podcast and TV appearances.

Dominion Voting Systems is seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages.

“Just as Giuliani and his allies intended, the Big Lie went viral on social media as people tweeted, retweeted, and raged that Dominion had stolen their votes. While some lies — little lies — flare up on social media and die with the next news cycle,

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All the kids are doing it.

https://twitter.com/uracontra_/status/1353765817024970753… Read the rest

Pure fluff, but it is nice to have actual humans there again.

On Sunday, the first dogs arrived from Delaware, where they had been waiting until things were unpacked and settled enough to allow a comfortable entry for the two German Shepherds at their new pad.

“Champ is enjoying his new dog bed by fireplace and Major loved running around the South Lawn,” the White House said a press release early Monday morning. Champ lived at the vice president’s residence during the Biden’s time there, and Major was adopted by the family in 2018 from a Delaware pet rescue.

Awwww.

On Sunday they picked up bagels at a deli in Georgetown.

Biden’s visit to a DC dining establishment

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They’re not wasting time.

The single article of impeachment against Donald Trump will on Monday evening be delivered to the Senate, where the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is promising a quick but fair trial.

Trump made it easy for them, by standing up there and ordering the crowd to march on Congress.

Pelosi is going to take the article from the House to the Senate later today, and that’s the start of the impeachment, but then they’re pausing for two weeks to get a lot of urgent work done and give the lawyers time to prep.

Though the Senate is now controlled by Democrats, two-thirds of senators must vote against Trump if he is to be convicted.

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Also, hey now, what’s that fancy thing on your wrist, sir, and why are you not covered in coal dust?

Really, NY Times, really? We've just had the tackiest president in history flaunting fictional wealth and you pick on his watch?
Is That a Rolex on Biden’s Wrist? https://t.co/PijbJ2Uxe9

— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) January 22, 2021

Tan suit tan suit tan suit!

Is the Times really going to keep doing this shit?

https://t.co/QXjgWJUPqt

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) January 22, 2021

Really, @nytimes? Between this and the breathless story about how the President and Dr. Biden co-own a Peloton, I'm starting to think you're reaching…https://t.co/7OJH6BYiAv pic.twitter.com/pfP284mKcZ

— Erica C. Barnett ericacbarnett on all platforms (@ericacbarnett) January 22,

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Awwww.… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/KateVWilliams/status/1353320597191876608 https://twitter.com/KateVWilliams/status/1353320859444899840 https://twitter.com/KateVWilliams/status/1353322307188649985

Feminism can’t defend women if it’s forced to speak for those who do not share this experience.

Why are we being forced, or at least bullied and bullied and bullied, to speak for the people who don’t share our experience? What is that? I still can’t take in how it’s grown and then swallowed everything.… Read the rest

The end:

Trump left the White House with his wife, Melania, at about 8:20 a.m., refusing to take questions from the press. He walked to Marine One with an ominous send-off: “I just want to say goodbye, but hopefully it’s not a long-term goodbye. We’ll see each other again.” Later, in a brief departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews before flying to Florida, he gave a familiar and repetitive summation of what he views as his accomplishments in office. He of course neglected to mention the incident that will come to overshadow everything else that happened over the past four years: a lethal insurrection carried out by his supporters after a rally in which he’d again falsely claimed that

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They didn’t mean it, they were just overexcited.

A Texas man who participated in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January has been charged with threatening to “assassinate” the New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Garret Miller of Texas faces five criminal charges arising from his participation in the pro-Trump riot, including “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted buildings or grounds without lawful authority” and making threats.

According to court documents, he allegedly tweeted: “Assassinate AOC.”

He is also charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, obstructing or impeding any official proceeding, and certain acts during civil disorder.

High spirits! The thrill of the moment!

[His lawyer Clint] Broden said: “Mr

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Can Trump at least get his social life back?

Asking if Donald Trump can rehabilitate himself in US public life as did a disgraced president before him, legendary Washington reporter Elizabeth Drew was not optimistic.

“For all their similarities,” she wrote, “Nixon and Trump clearly are very different men. For one thing, Nixon was smart.”

For one very big thing. Massive, really. Who with more intelligence than a sponge wants to hang out with Trump? Who wants to listen to that raspy voice talking repetitive bullshit in a 300-word vocabulary for hours and hours? No one.

Drew, 85 and the author of the classic Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall, published her thoughts in the Washington

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Trump thinks he can still call the shots.

Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, splitting rounds of golf with discussions about maintaining relevance and influence and how to unseat Republicans deemed to have crossed him, the Washington Post reported.

Trump, the Post said, has said the threat of starting a Maga (Make America Great Again) or Patriot party, gives him leverage to prevent senators voting to convict, which could lead to him being prevented from seeking office again.

Or, it might piss them off so much they not only vote to convict, they urge other Rs to do the same.

Also, there’s something else that might prevent Trump from seeking office again: the fact that … Read the rest

Slogans instead of thinking. Always, because that’s all there is. Jessica Valenti glaring at feminists who don’t want women and girls to have to share their sports with men who identify as women:

I hate to give oxygen to the kind of thinking that pits cisgender women against trans women, and so I can’t bring myself to link to the uninformed and often downright hateful arguments being bandied about by those claiming to be feminists. The short version is that there’s a fear that cis women and girls will be somehow harmed if they are in the same bathrooms or on the same sports teams as trans women and girls. That by protecting the rights of trans students, cis students

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Interesting.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr David Bell, who served as a staff governor at the Tavistock Trust, wrote an internal report in 2018, raising the concerns brought to him by colleagues about the way the Gender Identity Development Service was treating patients.

He faced disciplinary action.

But after 24 years working with the Tavistock, Dr Bell, a former President of the British Psychoanalytic Society, has recently retired, and in his first television interview since then, he began by outlining his worries about the service.

‘Children have been very seriously damaged’ by NHS gender clinic, says former Tavistock staff governorhttps://t.co/1TnFTMpSRZ

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) January 23, 2021

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The English department will stop teaching English literature.

The University of Leicester will stop teaching the great English medieval poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer in favour of modules on race and sexuality, according to new proposals.

Management told the English department that courses on canonical works would be dropped in favour of modules that “students expect” as part of plans now under consultation.

Foundational texts such as The Canterbury Tales and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf would no longer be taught, under proposals to scrap medieval literature. Instead, the English faculty will be refocused to drop centuries of the literary canon and deliver a “decolonised” curriculum devoted to diversity.

Why not do both? Why not have English literature with Chaucer … Read the rest

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None of this is normal or ok.

Trump’s legacy is armed and dangerous people in Congress.

Over the past couple of weeks, Republicans have been having temper tantrums about new safety protocols that have been put in place in the US Capitol following the deadly 6 January insurrection. Lawmakers are now supposed to walk through metal detectors to enter the chamber and vote but a number of Republicans have been ignoring the rules. “You can’t stop me,” Louie Gohmert, a Texas congressman, reportedly sneered at Capitol police, as he shamelessly skirted a metal detector…

…“Nah, I’m not going to do that,” the Georgia congressman Rick Allen reportedly told officers who attempted to scan him after he set off the

… Read the rest