Still struggling.

Donald Trump has less than a week in office and the My Pillow man is at the White House with a document that references the Insurrection Act. https://t.co/NQZgYjDCcK

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 15, 2021

The Independent has more:

One of Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, went to a meeting at the White House with notes suggesting “martial law if necessary”.

That’s the ticket. Just throw caution to the winds and get the military to lock us all up. During a pandemic: bonus points.

The notes, captured by a photographer as Mr Lindell entered the Oval Office on Friday, come after Mr Lindell tweeted then deleted calls for the president to “impost martial

… Read the rest

Yikes.

https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1350191568892911616

Play the clip. It’s quite astonishing.

They’re talking about dilation, by the way, not “dialation.”… Read the rest

Wednesday’s news but still worth noticing.

A man who wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt during last week’s insurrection at the Capitol was arrested by US Marshals in Virginia on Wednesday.

Robert Keith Packer, 56, was booked into Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk on federal felony charges.

Here's the Arrest Warrant for Robert Keith Packer. He's charged with:

– Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct on Capitol Grounds
– Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority#13NewsNow pic.twitter.com/6QX4Imfkq2

— Evan Watson (@EvanWatsonNews) January 13, 2021

Multiple internet sleuths — including former colleagues and neighbors — had identified Packer in recent days after photos of him wearing the white supremacist sweatshirt went viral.

He wore it … Read the rest

What it was like:

A Washington DC police officer who tried to stop Trump-supporting insurrectionists from attacking the Capitol on 6 January has revealed that some rioters shouted “‘Kill him with his own gun!” as he lay injured on the ground.

…

The police officer, who has spent almost 20 years on the force, endured several Taser shocks in the back of his neck before things got worse. “Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, ‘Kill him with his own gun,” he said.

…

Fanone, who works as a plainclothes narcotics detective, put on his uniform and rushed to the Capitol with his partner. He was among the dozens of officers injured

… Read the rest

What was the plan?

Capitol rioters intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials”, federal prosecutors have claimed in a court filing. Prosecutors were asking for one of the rioters, Jacob Chansley, to be detained, stating that he left a note for the vice-president, Mike Pence, warning that “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming”. Prosecutors and federal agents have started to bring more serious charges against the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, including charging a retired firefighter with throwing a fire extinguisher at a police officer’s head, and another with beating an officer with the pole of an American flag.

They will probably pay a higher price than the guy who told them to do … Read the rest

Kathleen got my attention.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1350019991014432768 https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1350020488911839232

So I had to read the explainer to see if it’s all that bad. It’s all that bad and worse. It doesn’t read like grown-up university policy writing at all, it reads like homework.

How it’s filed:

Home Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Student EDI Learning Resources Learn More Trans and/or non-binary What is Transphobia?

The definition:

Transphobia is the hatred, fear, disbelief, or mistrust of trans and gender non-conforming people.

Key word there – disbelief. If we don’t believe every single thing a self-declared trans person tells us about xirself, we are transphobic.

That’s telling, because it’s not generally part of the definition of misogyny or sexism or racism or homophobia or contempt … Read the rest

In related news –

Police in the United States are three times more likely to use force against leftwing protesters than rightwing protesters, according to new data from a non-profit that monitors political violence around the world.

In the past 10 months, US law enforcement agencies have used teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and beatings at a much higher percentage at Black Lives Matter demonstrations than at pro-Trump or other rightwing protests.

As we saw just last week.

The statistics, based on law enforcement responses to more than 13,000 protests across the United States since April 2020, show a clear disparity in how agencies have responded to the historic wave of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence, compared with

… Read the rest

Surprise surprise, there’s a surge in trumpish ideologies in the US military.

The Pentagon is confronting a resurgence of white supremacy and other right-wing ideologies in the ranks and is scrambling to track how acute the problem has become in the Trump era.

It’s an issue that has simmered in the military for years, but is now front and center following signs that former military personnel played a role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last week.

…

In another sign of the challenge, the Army on Monday announced it was ousting a junior officer who was investigated for posting a video to his 3 million TikTok followers joking about Jews being exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.

… Read the rest

Giuliani did his bit to rile up the insurrectionists.

Donald Trump has fallen out with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and is refusing to pay the former New York mayor’s legal bills, it was reported, with the president feeling abandoned and frustrated during his last days in office.

Giuliani played a key role in Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results of November’s presidential election through the courts. The lawyer mounted numerous spurious legal challenges, travelling to swing states won by Joe Biden, and spread false claims the vote was rigged.

Claims he has to have known were false.

Trump’s refusal to pay Giuliani’s bills is another blow to the former federal prosecutor. Giuliani is already under fire

… Read the rest

They’ve found the guy with the treason flag.

A man who carried the Confederate battle flag into the U.S. Capitol as part of an invasion by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump surrendered with his son Thursday after arrest warrants were issued for their roles in the riot, the FBI said.

Kevin Seefried, who was carrying the flag that he later told authorities had been displayed outside his Delaware home, and his son Hunter Seefried are expected to be arraigned later Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

They helped with the breaking and entering part.

The document also says that video footage on Twitter shows Hunter Seefried punching out glass in a window at the

… Read the rest

The princess and prince don’t let underlings use their toilets. So what do underlings do? Hold it, of course. Yes for eight hours! What are you, some kind of bleeding heart do-gooder?

In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.

According to the Washington Post the president’s daughter and her top White House adviser spouse have apparently exiled the squad of men and women assigned to keep them from harm’s way from using the toilets in their sprawling Washington DC mansion.

“Instructed not to

… Read the rest

How about no?

As in, no, no, no, no, NO.

The Daily Beast:

In an interview with BBC News to promote his new book Saving Justice, former FBI Director James Comey said President-elect Joe Biden should “consider” pardoning his predecessor Donald Trump when he takes office on Jan. 20th.

No, he really shouldn’t. Not for a second.

Asked if Biden should take a page from Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon in 1974, Comey replied, “I don’t know. He should consider it.” While he said he’s not sure Trump—who has reportedly floated the idea of pardoning himself—would accept such a pardon, he added, “As part of healing the country and getting us to a place where we

… Read the rest

Chase Strangio is explaining how sex is a matter of choice and decided in the head rather than the body.

A few notes on women and girls who are trans in sports. There is a relentless effort to situation trans people as a threat to cis people in sport and elsewhere. There simply is no threat.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) January 14, 2021

To situation? I suppose she meant ” to situate” but that’s a stupid word for that too. “To describe” would have done the job perfectly well. She’s straining to sound authoritative and scholarly, but the “scholarship” here is bogus. Anyway – yes there damn well is a threat. There’s a threat of women not being able to … Read the rest

There may have been some collaborationist activities from some legislators the day before the coup attempt. Investigations are under way.

More than 30 House Democrats are demanding information from Capitol security officials about “suspicious” visitors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 5 — a day before violent insurrectionists swarmed the building — that would only have been permitted entry by a member of Congress or a staffer.

“Many of the Members who signed this letter … witnessed an extremely high number of outside groups in the complex on Tuesday, January 5,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), in a letter to the acting House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, as well as the acting head of the Capitol Police.

… Read the rest

The Post reports that Trump is in a bad mood. You don’t say.

With less than seven days remaining in his presidency, Trump’s inner circle is shrinking, offices in his White House are emptying, and the president is lashing out at some of those who remain. He is angry that his allies have not mounted a more forceful defense of his incitement of the mob that stormed the Capitol last week, advisers and associates said.

Really. All he wanted to do was slaughter all the Democrats in Congress and install himself as dictator. What’s the big deal?

He’s in a rage at Pence, and souring on Giuliani.

Trump has instructed aides not to pay Giuliani’s legal fees, two officials

… Read the rest

I guess this is making America great again too.

So were we in the House. @laurenboebert was told by the Sergeant of Arms in the chamber to not make any social media posts. It was said repeatedly. She defied it because she is more closely aligned with the terrorists than the patriots.

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) January 12, 2021

It's very clear she was communicating with the insurrectionists. During her speech on the floor when she was screaming at the top of her lungs, she said she had constituents right outside, as the Insurrectionists were trying to break down the doors

— Solomon E.K. (@ESKatsky) January 12, 2021

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Arnaud on 10 beans a day.

I am so angry that I… I don’t know what to say.

Every time this government acts, or fails to act far too often, I swear that they have reached rock bottom; surely they can’t go lower than this? And every time they do.

But in truth I mean, we should have been prepared for this fiasco, after this intervention by a Tory MP a couple of months ago complaining that food vouchers effectively went to crack dens and brothels! This was clearly preparing the ground for later moves!

In the wider scheme of things this is part of a trend to basically assess-strip the UK; the pandemic has … Read the rest

Originally a comment by latsot on 10 beans a day.

I read that Chartwells made £2bn profit last year and paid tax on about 2% of that. Needless to say, they are big Tory donors, their CEO is friends with ex Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, and there was no tender process for this contract. This is rife. It’s nowhere close to exaggeration to say that the Tories are using the current catastrophe to divert very large amounts of money to themselves and their friends. At last count there were exactly umpteen companies with no prior experience in the provision of PPE or meals or whatever, and which were losing money, who were suddenly awarded contracts worth tens of … Read the rest

One Democrat pointed out that they were debating impeachment in the crime scene.

“We are debating this historic measure at an actual crime scene,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Wednesday morning, discussing House Resolution 24, the measure that would impeach President Trump for the second time. He was speaking in the same chamber that was evacuated one week ago as a mob of pro-Trump extremists breached security and flooded into the halls of Congress.

The chamber where members crouched on the floor when the police started shouting “Get down, get down!” Which must have been pretty terrifying.

Recalling the events of last Wednesday, McGovern said Congress was disrupted as it was performing one of its core duties in

… Read the rest

Mofo is impeached, AGAIN. First ever to be impeached TWICE, because he’s such an evil monstrosity.

The Democratic-led U.S. House delivered the historic rebuke to Trump on Wednesday afternoon — exactly one week after his supporters stormed the Capitol building in a rampage that led to five deaths, including that of a Capitol police officer.

The article of impeachment charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection.”

Some 13 months ago, all House Republicans voted against the president’s first impeachment. On Wednesday, 10 GOP members joined with all Democrats to impeach Trump.

…

Ten Republicans broke party ranks to vote in favor of impeachment, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who chairs the House Republican Conference.

“None of this would have

… Read the rest