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

Navalny has gone home to Russia and been arrested on arrival.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained after defiantly flying back to Moscow on Sunday, his spokesperson said, months after he was left in a coma when he was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.

Facing the threat of his arrest on touching down, the prominent Kremlin critic boarded a plane in Berlin, Germany, where he was evacuated for treatment in August from a hospital in Siberia on the insistence of his family.

The plane, which was originally headed for Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, was diverted to the capital’s Sheremetyevo Airport shortly before landing, Navalny’s press officer Kira Yarmysh confirmed in a tweet, without explaining why the

… Read the rest

News from Afghanistan:

Two women judges working for the Afghan Supreme Court have been shot dead.

They were killed by unidentified gunmen on their way to work on Sunday. The deaths are the latest in a string of assassinations targeting journalists, activists and other political figures.

The women were shot dead in an early morning ambush, which also saw their driver wounded.

The incident happened in the Qala-e-Fathullah area of Kabul and no group has said it carried out the attack.

No group has said it carried out the murders.… Read the rest

Guy says “Arrest me” so they do.

BREAKING: New York man arrested for role in US Capitol chaos. He’s accused of jabbing a bat at a police officer. A childhood Facebook friend tipped feds. Some of his social media posts ….. are well……. pic.twitter.com/RTzTRuUtem

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 17, 2021

More:

NEWBURGH, Orange County (WABC) — Police arrested a man from Orange County after he implicated himself in the siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Edward Jacob Lang, 26, posted pictures on social media including one that said “This is me.”

So FBI agents turned up and arrested him.

There’s not a whole lot of intellectual fire power in this “rebellion” is there…… Read the rest

Originally a post by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany Room.

As a part of my ongoing efforts to study the rise of authoritarianism I recently finished reading This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Pomerantsev. Here are what I take to be some of the main points.

Where the totalitarian movements of the 20th century used to peddle some official story (an ideology, a philosophy, a world view etc.) that purported to be true and back it up with appeals to supposedly objective facts and rational arguments, the new authoritarians have adopted a more “postmodern” approach. Rather than claiming the truth for themselves, the likes of Trump, Putin, and Erdoğan are content to put so much conflicting information out there that … Read the rest

A space for women and children:

There are few things I find more calming than being near water. Drawing a hot bath or driving to the beach early in the morning feels a bit like turning the volume down in my head, like cutting off anxiety’s dripping tap at its source.

When a friend first took me to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney I was scared of being denied entry, but quickly became enchanted with the place, returning over and over. Known simply as the “women’s baths” among friends, the ocean pool just south of Coogee beach has operated for over a century, providing a space for women and children to swim and spend time, sheltered from both stronger

… Read the rest

Another “expert” lecturing us from a great height:

To the small group of cis women worried about sharing spaces with trans women: you’ve almost certainly already been doing so for most of ur life. The online trend of anti-trans hysteria is new, not trans women existing in th world we all share (under patriarchy we all experience)

— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) January 15, 2021

Over history, ideas of who is a Real Woman/who is not has been weaponised to justify slavery, forced sterilisation, rape, genocide.

Feminism rejects oppressive definitions of women. Womanhood is no longer only afforded to bodies that are white, wealthy, fertile, appealing to men

— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) January 15, 2021

It never was. There was never … Read the rest

Contemptible to the bitter end.

For now, Trump is undecided on whether he will pen a letter to Biden to leave in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Some of his advisers have encouraged him to think about continuing the tradition. Early in his presidency, Trump liked to show off to visitors the letter he received from President Barack Obama…

Tradition shmadition. Other people have to pay him all the respect, but he does not have to reciprocate.

Initially, Trump had planned to depart the White House a day early. But he now plans to leave on the morning of January 20. His departure aboard Marine One from the White House South Lawn will likely be visible

… Read the rest

Trump likes to brag about grabbing them, but he doesn’t like men he compares to them.

Mike Pence, Trump’s fanatically loyal vice-president, appears to have borne much of Trump’s fury. Trump had been badgering Pence to refuse to certify Biden as president – something which is almost certainly illegal.

Pence, having stood by Trump as the president bragged about sexually assaulting women, defended white supremacists, paid off women who said they had had affairs with him, strong-armed a foreign government to interfere with the presidential election and had hundreds of children locked in cages at the US-Mexico border as a result of his hardline immigration policies, defied Trump at the last.

“You can either go down in history as

… Read the rest

I love these people who document their insurrectionist activity on social media.

A Texas real estate agent who took a private jet to the Capitol last week and called it “one best days of my life” was charged Friday for participating in the violent insurrection.

Jenna Ryan, a Frisco, Texas real estate broker and life coach, has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds after documenting her two-day excursion to D.C. on social media.

So kind of a mediocre life coach then. I think I won’t be seeking her out for coaching.

Ryan went on a PR offensive after the riot, telling Spectrum News that she “answered

… Read the rest

What Trump can expect starting next Wednesday:

[N]ow, finally, the end is at hand. Trump is suffering a series of wounds that, in combination, are likely to be fatal after Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20. Trump is obviously going to surrender his office. Beyond that looming defeat, he is undergoing a cascading sequence of political, financial, and legal setbacks that cumulatively spell utter ruin. Trump is not only losing his job but quite possibly everything else.

… Many of his sources of income are drying up, either owing to the coronavirus pandemic or, more often, his toxic public image. The Washington Post has toted up the setbacks facing the Trump Organization, which include cancellations of partnerships with

… Read the rest

Isaac Chotiner at the New Yorker talked to Eric Foner about the attempted insurrection.

These events have drawn comparisons to coup attempts around the world, but also to the Reconstruction era, when white mobs inflicted violence on citizens and legislators throughout the South.

To better understand the lessons of Reconstruction for our times, I recently spoke by phone with Eric Foner, an emeritus professor of history at Columbia, and one of the country’s leading experts on Reconstruction.

He literally Wrote the Book on the subject.

Foner: I guess the sight of people storming the Capitol and carrying Confederate flags with them makes it impossible not to think about American history. That was an unprecedented display. But in a larger

… Read the rest

His “right”?

Transgender footballer Hannah Mouncey has slammed the AFL’s gender diversity policy and is preparing to take the league to court to fight for the right to play in Canberra’s first-grade women’s competition.

Above that lede is the familiar photo of Mouncey in action, twice the size of the woman next to him.

Mouncey, who was prevented from entering the AFLW draft in 2017 based on her “strength, stamina or physique”, is now unable to play in the ACT’s top female comp unless she meets certain criteria outlined in a new AFL policy released in October last year.

The 31-year-old said she had met with the AFL’s legal department since the release of the policy but has been left

… Read the rest

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