Hadley Freeman tells us about a new Pixar movie:

Obviously, there will be spoilers here, so look away, easily spoiled people. Soul is about a jazz musician, Joe (Jamie Foxx), who has a terrible accident just as he gets his big break. He starts to go up to “the Great Beyond” but, desperate to return to Earth, agrees to mentor a soul about to be born in the hope of sneaking back himself. Joe is assigned the notorious soul 22, whose constant negativity drove previous mentors, including Muhammad Ali and Carl Jung, to despair. Soul 22 is voiced by Tina Fey and, understandably, given she’s yet to be born, Joe asks, “Why do you sound like a middle-aged white

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I missed this – hero Capitol cop who lured the insurrectionists away from the Senate chamber got a promotion and a glam assignment.

Vice-president Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, were escorted at Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony by Eugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer hailed as a hero for single-handedly leading the mob that broke into the Capitol two weeks ago away from the Senate chamber.

Goodman has also been promoted to acting deputy sergeant-at-arms for the Senate, one of the most prominent positions in the Capitol Hill security force, according to an official announcement at the ceremony.

That’s good.

Congress peeps are still pressing for him to get a Congressional Gold Medal as well.… Read the rest

Another layer of treasonous plotting reported:

In yet another earth-shaking report, the New York Times said Trump plotted with an official at the Department of Justice to fire the acting attorney general, then force Georgia Republicans to overturn his defeat in that state.

Force them to. I don’t see that happening. Based on how they acted in reality I think they would all have resigned rather than let Trump “force” them to steal an election.

Former acting US defense secretary Christopher Miller, meanwhile, made an extraordinary admission, telling Vanity Fair that when he took the job in November, he had three goals: “No military coup, no major war and no troops in the street.”

The former special forces officer

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So that’s it then, no more women’s sports in the US.

Joe Biden’s first day in office delivered an incremental victory for transgender athletes seeking to participate as their identified gender in high school and college sports.

That is, Joe Biden’s first day in office delivered an incremental victory for male athletes seeking to participate as female in high school and college sports, and a loss for girls and women.

In Idaho, a law signed in March by the Republican governor, Brad Little, became the nation’s first to prohibit transgender students who identify as female from playing on female teams sponsored by public schools, colleges and universities. The legislation was overwhelmingly supported by the state’s Republican-dominated house and the

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From last week:

Several Republican members of Congress on Tuesday complained about — or outright bypassed — the metal detectors to enter the House floor, which were ordered put in place by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after last week’s deadly riot at the Capitol.

…

Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Steve Stivers of Ohio, Van Taylor of Texas, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Debbie Lesko of Arizona and Larry Bucshon of Indiana, among others, were seen not complying with police at checkpoints or complained about the measure’s implementation, according to press pool and media reports.

Boebert, a newly elected member who vowed in a viral video to carry a gun in the Capitol, was seen in an apparent dispute

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A bit of Senate history, from the Senate Historical Office, which I didn’t know there was such a thing.

On May 22, 1856, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” became a combat zone. In one of the most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the Senate’s entire history, a member of the House of Representatives entered the Senate Chamber and savagely beat a senator into unconsciousness.

The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state. In his “Crime Against Kansas” speech, Sumner identified two Democratic senators as

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I should think so.

A group of Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz over their objections to the Jan. 6 certification of the presidential election results that coincided with the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

By objecting to the certification, Cruz, and Hawley, “lent legitimacy” to the violent mob of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, the letter sent to incoming Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., said.

The letter, spearheaded by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, asked for an investigation into the two members to “fully understand their role” as it relates to the attack on the Capitol and to

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Rachel Maddow showed this clip last night; she said she had literally had nightmares about it.

BREAKING: the man seen in this widely-viewed video beating a D.C. officer with a hockey stick during the #CapitolRiots is 29yo Michael Foy of Wixom, Michigan. Today @FOX17 obtained the FBI’s charging documents #Hockeystickman #FBIDetroit #Michigan pic.twitter.com/ue4I0119u9

— Doug Reardon (@ReardonReports) January 21, 2021

He lifts the hockey stick over his head and slams it down on the cop, over and over.

He’s in jail pending a court appearance.

A Michigan man, allegedly seen attacking police with a hockey stick during riots at the U.S. Capitol, was arrested on Thursday after FBI agents got an unwitting assist from the suspect’s Facebook-posting father, officials

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New brooming.

President Joe Biden is forcing out two Trump-era counsels from the National Labor Relations Board, the first time in more than 70 years a president has exercised that power over the agency.

I wonder why it’s been so long. Republicans are not what you’d call pro-labor.

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Peter Robb, a Trump appointee, was fired Wednesday after refusing a request from Biden to step down from his post. On Thursday, Biden asked for the resignation of Robb’s replacement, Deputy General Counsel Alice Stock, by 5 p.m. or said she would be dismissed.

Robb’s dismissal — hailed by union officials and their Democratic allies, who blame him for what they say is a pro-management

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Oh wait hold the phone we have to stop being pleased that Kamala Harris is VP. It’s transphobic to be pleased! Stop it at once or I’ll tell the authorities.

https://twitter.com/genderisharmful/status/1352358345840189453

Maybe it’s satire. Is there any chance it’s satire?… Read the rest

Well, you see, he’s a white guy.

Downing Street has said it is up to Joe Biden how he decorates the Oval Office, after it was reported that a bust of Winston Churchill, lent by the UK government, has been removed.

“The Oval Office is the president’s private office, and it’s up to the president to decorate it as he wishes,” Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said, adding: “We’re in no doubt about the importance President Biden places on the UK-US relationship, and the prime minister looks forward to having that close relationship with him.”

Really; they’re allowing us to decide how we decorate our own rooms? I’m overwhelmed by the magnanimity.

Johnson’s relaxed attitude is in marked

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NBC News reporter says:

Likewise @laurenboebert – straight into the chamber after setting off mags. Cap police aren’t making a big deal about it, but members know they’ll be fined $5k

— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) January 21, 2021

Translation: they set off the metal detectors, which means they could be armed, which is a big no-no after the insurrection just 15 DAYS AGO.

Why aren't Cap police making a big deal of it. IT IS A BIG DEAL.

— Amy Feller Gallant (@AmyFeller) January 21, 2021

I would like to know that myself.… Read the rest

James Kirkup on the Care Quality Commission’s reports on the gender identity services offered by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust:

The CQC describes an NHS facility that — until last month — put vulnerable children on a pathway to the use of untested medicines and life-changing interventions, sometimes without keeping proper records proving consent for treatment or demonstrating the reasons for that treatment. An NHS service where staff were afraid to raise concerns about procedure and practice for fear of ‘retribution’ from their employers. An NHS service that failed to ask fundamental questions about the growing number of vulnerable children being presented for treatment.

It all sounds so old-fashioned, in the most literal sense, doesn’t it? Like the … Read the rest

Yesterday I watched Anderson Cooper interview Amanda Gorman, the Youth Poet Laureate who blew everyone away at the inauguration. I was interested and impressed by what she was saying, and then suddenly I was some step beyond that, which I don’t know what to call but was about realizing that “Daaaaaamn this 22-year-old is doing what very few long-term adults can do who even is this” – and very soon after that Anderson Cooper ran out of cool and said more or less the same thing. (“You’re awesome!” were his exact words.)

The thing she was doing that suddenly struck me all of a heap was talk extemporaneously with barely a trace of fumble or filler words or backtracking … Read the rest

The Executive Order:

Section 1.  Policy.  Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love.  Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. 

Wait a second. What do we mean by “whether they will be denied access to the restroom”? Everybody is denied access to one of the two multi-user restrooms, because they are sorted by sex, because there are some men and boys who just will use opportunities like public restrooms with incomplete partitions to peer at or photograph or assault women. Women don’t want … Read the rest

So that’s why Trump put a whole bunch of trump hacks in the Pentagon after he lost the election.

The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.

By “the Pentagon” here they mean civilian management, not the military.

The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department on

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So the Biden people find that Trump just dropped that whole vaccine distribution thing as if it were a rotting rabbit carcass.

The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus. But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration’s Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States.

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Andrew fucking Jackson is gone.

President Biden has filled the Oval Office with images of American leaders and icons, focusing the room around massive portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt that hangs across from the Resolute Desk. It is a clear nod to a president who helped the country through significant crises, a challenge Biden now also faces.

…

Biden is also nodding to segments of the Democratic Party’s base via historic references. Behind the Resolute Desk is a bust of Cesar Chavez. The office also includes busts of Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and sculpture by Allan Houser of the Chiricahua Apache tribe that once belonged to the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) — the first Japanese-American elected to

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Not such a cheerful inauguration day for Joseph Biggs.

A Proud Boys leader caught on camera storming the U.S. Capitol with a pro-Trump mob has been arrested and charged for participating in the deadly insurrection.

Joseph Biggs, a top organizer with the white nationalist organization, has been slapped with three charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, for his role in the Jan. 6 riots.

Prosecutors say the 37-year-old Florida resident is a “self-described organizer” of the Proud Boys, which describes itself as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.”

Biggs can be seen in several videos and photos taken inside the Capitol building, including one where someone

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It’s another not-Trump, but since it has been Trump for all this time let’s enjoy the not-Trump now that we can.

https://twitter.com/7im/status/1352019219957784576

Trail of Tears guy out; good.

This is more than not-Trump; a lot more.

https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/1351967310505005057

President Biden has now signed the executive order which means the US is rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Will be deposited with UN later today and take formal effect in 30 days pic.twitter.com/pApATyB2WN

— Leo Hickman (@LeoHickman) January 20, 2021

Historic moment in US Senate: @KamalaHarris, first woman/Black/South Asian VP, swears in first Black senator from Georgia, first Jewish senator from Georgia & first Latino senator from California pic.twitter.com/ImMSgLye9F

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) January 20, 2021

And does it in … Read the rest