Invaluable Aaron Rupar records the attempted coup minute by minute.

"You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength," says Trump, before demanding that Congress try to overthrow the election results pic.twitter.com/EXvUDv0U3e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021

Trump attacks four Black people within 30 seconds pic.twitter.com/OP7fO3KBzC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021

"We gotta get rid of the weak congresspeople. The ones that aren't any good. The Liz Cheneys of the world." — Trump pic.twitter.com/h5h22ZWxMZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021

He needs to be locked up. Now, this minute. He’s a threat to us all. He shouldn’t be free to go outside and do this. He NEEDS to be locked up.… Read the rest

Trump told his people to storm Congress and they’re doing it.

I’m sheltering in place in my office. The building next door has been evacuated. I can’t believe I have to write this.

— Rep. Haley Stevens (@RepHaleyStevens) January 6, 2021

President Trump explicitly told these people to go to the Capitol at the end of his speech. https://t.co/3fsiC0F0yk

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 6, 2021

"The caravans are forming again" — Trump pic.twitter.com/f2lgzWvTz9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021

"Mike Pence, I hope you're gonna stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now.

Oh about those laws being faithfully executed…

Trump’s fascists are storming Congress.

Capitol Police are ordering two House offices to be evacuated as hundreds of Trump supporters stormed barricades around the building.

Cannon House office building — which is massive — is also being evacuated, per multiple sources.

Capitol police just went door by door, running down hallways.

— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) January 6, 2021

Whoa: Trump supporters going at it with the police on the steps of the Capitol as Congress counts the Electoral College ballots inside https://t.co/LiQhaa5KkQ

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 6, 2021

… Read the rest

Pence is disappointing The Loser. Sad!

Mike Pence has released a letter announcing that he will not attempt to block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory today.

Citing his constitutional obligations, Pence writes that the vice-president does not have the “unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted”.

“Our Founders were deeply skeptical of concentrations of power and created a Republic based on separation of powers and checks and balances,” Pence said.

It would be nice if Pence had made that point before the last two weeks of Trump’s reign of terror.

Donald Trump has repeatedly pressured Pence to try to block Congress from finalizing Biden’s victory, even though there is no precedent for doing so.

Philosophy in action.

I’m not a philosopher, so I get to think it does have some bearing. I get to think that and I do think that: I think that the fact that people like Oseroff are doing things like checking to see whether specific individuals have signed an open letter bullying an individual woman colleague is in fact one reason to be very wary about signing that letter.

I think the fact that people like him – especially men like him – do this kind of crap is a sign that there’s something amiss with the whole thing – the issue, the activism, the movement, the campaign, the whatever it is.… Read the rest

The state of this.

Just look at that. Now they’re hunting around to check on WHAT COMMONISST FAGGOT TRAITOR TERF has failed to sign. They’re drawing up A List of People Who Need To Have Signed Because We Suspect Them and then checking the list name by name – have YOU signed the letter Condemning The Witch? And have you, and you, and you?

And, as many have pointed out, it’s pretty striking to see a philosophy academic call it “fussy” to think the facts claimed in the letter attacking a woman and a colleague should be accurate.… Read the rest

It’s knife-edge, but for now…Warnock won and Ossoff is claiming the win.

Democrat Jon Ossoff — who as of 9 a.m. ET Wednesday leads Republican David Perdue by about 16,000 votes in the Georgia runoff that could give Democrats control of the U.S. Senate — claimed victory Wednesday. The Associated Press, which NPR relies on for its results, has not yet called the contest.

Perdue hasn’t conceded.

Tentative celebrations.… Read the rest

1/5/2021- Good Luck! #FairFightAction #GeorgiaRunoff #GeorgiaSenateElections #StaceyAbrams #RaphaelWarnock #JonOssoff #KellyLoeffler #DavidPerdue https://t.co/Mvqjvbc1lT pic.twitter.com/WGMX0xLqSK

— Clay Bennett (@BennettCartoons) January 4, 2021

… Read the rest

A man redefining feminism for us, in such a way that it includes him and doesn’t include feminist women.

femalism, n. aka: terfism, gender critical feminism, transphobia.

Femalism is the belief that women’s rights should be apportioned by anatomical assessment. Opposed to feminism, which derives women’s rights from social/historical realities.

— Prof. Grace Lavery (@graceelavery) January 5, 2021

As if the social/historical realities had nothing to do with the physical (and, yes, anatomical) ones.… Read the rest

Always the same slogans where an argument should be, always the childish catastrophizing. It’s not cute when Trump does it, why would it be cute when trans activists do it?

I would love to know exactly how kylo knows she/he suffers violence “as a direct result of Stock’s arguments.” How would someone know that? I suppose the violence-source could shout Stock’s name while punching, but that seems pretty god damn unlikely, and short of that – what?

Nothing, which is why it’s wise to be careful about saying things like that, i.e. it’s wise to NOT SAY THEM. It’s stupid, it’s catastrophizing, it’s obviously not something a person could know. Saying it while claiming to be philosophy-backgrounded is a … Read the rest

The Seattle National Weather Service people get great photos, on account of how their building is a few yards away from Lake Washington (which is the eastern boundary of Seattle).

For those of you who were not awake earlier we give you the 1st colorful sunrise of 2021. Hello Mount Rainier! A real smorgasbord of atmospheric features, lenticular clouds, sun pillar and crepuscular rays. Reality check…rain returns later today. #wawx #sunrise #seattle pic.twitter.com/CUOeyv8LSm

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) January 5, 2021

… Read the rest

Oh dear. As many people predicted but Trump apparently forgot to consider, he can’t go bopping off to Scotland for some golf because there’s a wee pandemic on.

US President Donald Trump — just like anyone from outside the country — would not be welcome in Scotland at the moment due to coronavirus-related restrictions, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Tuesday.

Sturgeon was asked during a news conference about unconfirmed Scottish media speculation that Trump could be planning a trip to one of his golf courses in Scotland around the time of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

The White House is very indignant over these tyrannical rumors.

“Anonymous sources who claim to know what the President

Misogynist philosophy bro strikes again.

A open statement regarding transphobia in philosophy.https://t.co/lLjrSFe3t6

— Jonathan Ichikawa (@jichikawa) January 5, 2021

Womanphobia on the other hand will be firmly ignored on pain of further punishment from Jonathan Ichikawa.

The Letter:

We are professional academic philosophers committed to the inclusion and acceptance of trans and gender non-conforming people, both in the public at large, and within philosophy in particular. We write to affirm our commitment to developing a more inclusive environment, disavowing the use of professional and cultural authority to further gendered oppression.

So we’re supposed to think that feminist women are “using professional and cultural authority to further gendered oppression.” Meaning what? Feminist women are bullying men? That’s what he’s saying?… Read the rest

Interesting…

The murk surrounding Donald Trump’s likely whereabouts on his last day as president has thickened considerably with news that an official plane he has used in the past is due to fly to Scotland the day before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

…

Scotland’s Sunday Post has reported that Prestwick airport, near Trump’s Turnberry golf course resort, has been told to expect a US military Boeing 757 that has occasionally been used by Trump, on 19 January.

He’s more than stupid enough to think he’ll be able to order up the plane again a few days or weeks later. He’s also more than stupid enough to think rules about travel during the pandemic don’t apply to him. … Read the rest

O…..kay.

"If we have a Democratically-controlled Senate, we're now basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now we're in a cold civil war" — @chiproytx https://t.co/VZ0H6jaoId

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 5, 2021

…the American people – regular people that are out there working every day, hard-working Americans – they’re getting trampled by a system that is rigged against them.

So it’s the Democrats who grind the faces of the poor, and the Republicans who have their interests at heart. (Mind you, the Democrats do very little more than Republicans to help working people, but that’s partly because they keep having to claw back a little of the ground Republicans have grabbed.)… Read the rest

The other day I saw a bit of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession, and stared with the usual surprise. The things people can convince themselves of: they surprise me.

Let’s see:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical

Another step into the sunshine of utopia: we now get to know what pronouns courtroom lawyers “use.” Well, we don’t, but the lucky people of British Columbia do.

In an effort to be more inclusive of transgender people, the Provincial Court of B.C. has created a new policy asking lawyers to provide pronouns when introducing themselves and their clients in court.

While some lawyers have already started including pronouns in their introductions, the court will now expect everyone to share how they wish to be referred to.

In a press release, the provincial court provided an example of such an introduction: “My name is Ms. Jane Lee, spelled L-E-E. I use she/her pronouns. I am the lawyer for Mx.

Hindu nationalists are still trying to bully the much-admired historian Romila Thapar.

Romila Thapar is the preeminent historian of ancient India, an octogenarian feted the world over for her scholarship excavating answers to questions at the heart of the country’s past. She holds honorary doctorates from top universities including Oxford, is the recipient of the Kluge Prize — akin to the Nobel in social sciences — and has lectured at colleges across the world.

All this makes her a fine target for religious fanatics.

At the age of 89, Thapar is the subject of attacks by supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, who view her as an opponent to be discredited.

“In the early days, I used

Yo FBI listen up.

The President, in a phone call with GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, appeared to solicit election fraud by asking him to “find 11,780 votes.” Our letter with @RepKathleenRice making a criminal referral to @FBI Director Wray to open an investigation: pic.twitter.com/9FZeVKN07Y

— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) January 4, 2021

… Read the rest