Should Trump get intelligence briefings?

Uh, no. He shouldn’t have been getting them for the past four years and he sure as hell shouldn’t be getting them now.

President Joe Biden said that former President Donald Trump should not receive intelligence briefings even though they typically have been given to other former presidents.

Biden told CBS News in an interview that Trump was “unfit to be president” and his “erratic behavior” is why he should [not] have access to the nation’s classified information.

…

Biden added, “I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the

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Intent doesn’t matter?

https://twitter.com/marcatracy/status/1357806202277797889

Use/mention distinction.

Also…

Many articles in a Sunday newspaper are first posted online earlier in the week. February 7 is the print date from the archive. It appeared this week online.

— Bill Dedman, investigative reporter and author (@BillDedman) February 5, 2021

Maybe there’s more to it.

The Daily Beast is patting itself on the back for being the source:

The New York Times on Friday announced the ouster of science and health reporter Donald McNeil Jr., who The Daily Beast reported had allegedly used racist language while on a 2019 trip with students to Peru.

McNeil, formerly the paper of record’s top reporter on COVID-19, leaves amid fallout from an incident that occurred during a 

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More “Jessica”:

https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1353537371023630336

They’re so bitchy, do they need Tampax, do they need Midol, are they all PMS hur hur hur?

https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1357480835964751875 https://twitter.com/trustednerd/status/1357694475515011079

I’m sure that will go well for him.… Read the rest

Chase Strangio is just straight-up libeling people now.

The reality is that people like JK and Shrier and all the rest of them are closely aligned with white supremacists in power and their rhetoric in turn creates dangerous policy proposals and eventually laws. We have a lot of mobilizing to do. https://t.co/YltsTKIc1s

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) February 5, 2021

I hope JKR has a word with Chase. She’s not bashful about introducing her lawyers to libelers.… Read the rest

An old acquaintance continues to contribute to the gaiety of nations.

The Canadian trans person who sued female beauticians for refusing to wax their balls has made more than 30 emergency calls to the fire brigade in the last three weeks. Each time responders arrived, there was no emergency, just Jessica engaging in 'inappropriate and lewd conduct' pic.twitter.com/31P4b0mjMw

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) February 5, 2021

That’s the erstwhile Jessica Yaniv, of course, after another whimsical name change. It seems there’s a celebrity Jessica Simpson, so no doubt Yaniv will be suing her for impersonation soon.

He did sue his local health service just a couple of weeks ago, so while he was also harassing the Langley fire department. Busy guy.… Read the rest

This seems like a bad idea.

Hunter is writing a book about himself.

When Joe Biden first launched his presidential bid, inquiries about his son, Hunter, were so taboo they were met with the full fury of the campaign.

“Ask the right question!” Biden snapped at a reporter early in the campaign who asked about Hunter Biden’s business interests in Ukraine.

That’s bullshit. As I said about 5 thousand times during the campaign, Biden should have stopped him. Biden should have told his son he couldn’t leverage his daddy’s job into a highly lucrative job for himself for which he had no particular qualifications. It was sordid at best and corrupt at worst. Joe Biden had no right to … Read the rest

Well shown and said.

"They're not 'The Squad' They're Ilhan. They are Alexandria. And they're Rashida. They are people. They are our colleagues … this is an AR-15" — Steny Hoyer printed out one of Marjorie Taylor Greene's incendiary tweets pic.twitter.com/pXOmMtyrFs

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 4, 2021

Marjorie Taylor Greene was a 40-something year old grown ass woman when she was posting and saying all sorts of crazy and violent stuff. “I was allowed to believe” is something a child would say. https://t.co/PWHR5ku3uc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2021

This was incredibly powerful and moving.

Thank you, @RepDeanPhillips. https://t.co/8gdyTXgpoN

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 5, 2021

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Marjorie Greene has been stripped of her committee duties, and she’s exploiting her rebuke as a way to get people to give her money. Very trumpy.

Greene defended herself ahead of the vote in a speech on the House floor and attempted to distance herself from the dangerous and debunked QAnon conspiracy theory, which she has previously embraced.

But Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California, who has introduced a resolution to expel Greene, told reporters he still believes she should be removed from Congress even after watching her floor remarks. The congressman said of his resolution, “I’m committed to bringing it up, and I said that to leadership that there needs to be a vote sooner rather or later

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The Pioneer Plaque…

https://twitter.com/SatiriaNews/status/863010308855615488

Not really transphobic, because hey, it doesn’t say who is which or how anyone identifies.

Anyway. Ignoring Satiria’s satir, I’m mildly intrigued by the image. It was launched in March 1972. It’s a little odd that they chose that nice young couple from Connecticut to represent all of humanity. No infants, no children, no old crocks, and no people from Shanghai or Kolkata or Mombasa.

Also, down to finer detail…it’s only the man who is doing something, the woman is just standing there passively. The man stands solidly while the woman is pointing her toe for no apparent reason. Advertisers do this – if a woman’s bare feet are visible in an ad she has to … Read the rest

Quote of the day:

I’m looking forward to the ACLU’s fight for the inclusion of sawhorses, seahorses, and pommel horses in the next running of the Kentucky Derby.

–Your Name’s not Bruce?… Read the rest

The current right-wing gotcha is claiming that Ocasio-Cortez lied about being in the Capitol during the attack. “She wasn’t even there!! She was in her office next door!!! Doesn’t count!!!!”

But some have questioned her story, with conservative critics mentioning that her office is in the nearby Cannon House, not the main Capitol building. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, whose office is close to Ocasio-Cortez’s, tweeted: “Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway.”

That’s fascinating, but how would AOC or anyone else have known that at the time?

Ocasio-Cortez has vigorously defended her account of the day. She shared a tweet by the alt-right activist Jack Posobiec, who claimed that the congresswoman was “not in the Capitol building at the

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Speaking of carefully choosing photos for your “Hooray for transwomen in sport!” tweets…

Anyone else notice how when an athlete comes out as a transwoman, the press only show photos of them alone, so they look lonely, isolated, harmless? This is cyclist Emily Bridges 1/ pic.twitter.com/iWVfs5SIYb

— miri #IStandWithJKRowling (@MirandaNewsom) January 22, 2021

But soon, Emily will be competing against female riders, because that will make Emily happy. What about the girls, you ask? Yes, what about them? If Emily is winning and happy, isn’t that enough? Won’t that be fairness, equality, justice? 4/ pic.twitter.com/Z2q18zTZ7Z

— miri #IStandWithJKRowling (@MirandaNewsom) January 22, 2021

Cross-country is a lonely business. 6/ pic.twitter.com/FOHwDFHU21

— miri #IStandWithJKRowling (@MirandaNewsom) January 22, 2021

Of course when you

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The Guardian reported a few days ago that Maajid Nawaz (who, from what I’ve seen, has been moving ever farther to the right lately) has been talking up trumpish conspiracy theories.

The prominent radio presenter and activist Maajid Nawaz, co-founder of a respected British anti-extremist thinktank and a one-time government adviser, has alarmed former admirers and academics with his interest in conspiracy theories about the lockdown and voter fraud in the US election on his Twitter account.

As an LBC radio host, he regularly takes provocative stances, but now a string of controversial and potentially harmful tweets is prompting further questions.

Followers were initially alarmed when Nawaz, who set up the Quilliam Foundation in 2008, inspired by his

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Well knock me down with a feather – a Washington Post cartoonist gets it.

Oh hey, I found another. pic.twitter.com/lIJjNwXpEo

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) February 4, 2021

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I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not, until I scrolled down and saw that she’s blocking anyone who asks, so that’s a no. She actually means this.

Today for #NationalGirlsAndWomenInSportsDay, I’m celebrating the incredible strength and bravery of trans women & girls who live and compete authentically & are forced to fight for their inclusion. Trans women are women & every woman deserves the opportunity to thrive in sports. pic.twitter.com/QsLaLRD6tu

— Emily Adams (@eaadams6) February 3, 2021

It’s national women and girls in sports day, so she’s celebrating the “bravery” of men who beat women in sports by claiming to be women. Also their “strength,” which is kind of the issue.

Laurel Hubbard (@laurelHubbard11)

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This just in: women talk too much.

The president of the Tokyo Olympics has refused to resign after igniting a storm of criticism by saying that women do not belong on committees because they talk too much.

Yoshiro Mori, the 83-year-old former prime minister and president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, made the remarks at a meeting of the Japan Olympic Committee on Wednesday.

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Speaking at an online JOC meeting about proposals to increase the number of female directors, Mr Mori said that in his experience at the Japan Rugby Football Union, women made meetings last too long.

“It takes twice as long. Women have a strong sense of rivalry. If one raises her hand to speak

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Facebook targets pro-violence advertising to – naturally – the people most likely to use it.

As part of my research while working as a consulting producer on Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, I made many pro-Trump social media accounts. The accounts were a window into the Trump echo-chamber, where the unhinged threats and vitriol posted by radicalized users are chilling. Yet as shocking as the posts can be, they make perfect sense if you look at the ads that bombard those accounts.

Roughly four out of five ads shown to my pro-Trump profiles sell tactical gear clearly intended for combat. This is not a new thing – it has been going on since I started looking at these accounts in June 2019,

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The ACLU is digging in.

FACT ONE: Trans girls are girls. pic.twitter.com/R5OWNl5ooI

— ACLU (@ACLU) February 3, 2021

But that’s not a “fact.” It’s an ideological construct, of a peculiarly fatuous kind, and it’s not true; it’s the opposite of a fact.

FACT THREE: Including trans athletes will benefit everyone. pic.twitter.com/H0Fpt8xb4X

— ACLU (@ACLU) February 3, 2021

Nonsense.

Say it with us: Trans people belong EVERYWHERE — including on sports teams. https://t.co/3e7Or90lZ5

— ACLU (@ACLU) February 3, 2021

Include trans people on sports teams by all means, just not male people on female teams, because it’s unfair.… Read the rest

USA Today reports:

A group of high-profile women athletes and women’s sports advocates is taking on the contentious issue of transgender girls and women in sports by proposing federal legislation to exempt girls’ and women’s competitive sports from President Joe Biden’s recent executive order that mandates blanket inclusion for all transgender female athletes.

In the Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation, signed on Inauguration Day, the Biden administration said that any school that receives federal funding must allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face action from the federal government.

But the group of women’s sports leaders, including tennis legend Martina Navratilova, several Olympic

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https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1356629545626042371 https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1356632007086927874… Read the rest