There are at least two separate forms of manipulation in this here Lemkin Institute for Genocide Protection – the “Institute” that issued a “statement” three weeks ago that said gender critical feminists are genocidal Nazis. One of them is calling themselves an “institute” when they’re not what most of us think of an institute as being. I said in my first post on the subject that I couldn’t find out much about the “institute” but I didn’t think it was a couple of teenagers and their phones, but the joke’s on me, it turns out to be pretty much that, except the “teenagers” are academics old enough to know better.

The other is helping themselves to the name of Raphael Lemkin.

Borrowing a famous name isn’t necessarily bad or wrong. What a Maroon cited the Susan B. Anthony List. But what about guest’s example of Gandhi? Not quite the same, is it. Why? I think because literal genocide or massacres or other bloody horrors. I could be wrong, I’m bumbling around among intuitions here, but the appropriation of Lemkin feels more a step too far to me than the appropriation of Eleanor Roosevelt would.

Originally a comment by latsot on Don’t call me a basket case.

I found the forbidding of ‘blind’ as in ‘blind study’ especially zogborst.

As a disabled person and wheelchair user I find that words don’t matter nearly so much as attitude. Blind people know they’re blind and if I ever forget I can’t walk it’s going to hurt when my face bounces off the deck. We’re generally not shy about our disabilities or embarrassed about them. We’ll joke about them and are happy for others to do the same providing, as tigger said, the intent is humour rather than abuse. My friend Henrietta, who some of you might know from Twitter, is paralysed from the chest down and has the biggest collection of unfortunate wheelchair accident gifs I’ve ever seen. She finds them hilarious. She’s right, they are. It’s a mixture of “yeah… done that” and “he totally deserved it”.

Those I’ve spoken to about this agree that we’d much rather people be straighforward than mangle language without ever actually consulting us. It feels performative and it makes me personally feel as though I’m expected to be grateful.

A couple of illustrations about attitude:

I’m asked very often why I’m in a wheelchair. I don’t mind this at all and I don’t think it’s rude… providing I’m asked by someone I’m already having a conversation with. It’s natural to be curious and frankly it gives me something to talk about. My conversational skills are not the best. But if someone marches up and asks me out of the blue, it no longer feels like a matter of curiosity. It feels threatening. It happens more than you might expect. I’m also asked this quite a lot by people I’m arguing with on Twitter. There, the intent is very clearly malign and it’s definitely rude.

But a lot of people are shocked when someone asks me the question in good faith. They think it’s a topic that should be avoided, for some reason. Who’s that helping, exactly? Me or them? I’d much rather they just ask than pretend I’m not very obviously in a wheelchair and they’re very obviously wondering why.

I’m also asked quite a lot if I need help going up slopes and curbs. It’s easy to see in most cases that the intent is a genuine desire to help someone who might struggle and I always decline politely and warmly. These people are not being patronising, they’re going out of their way to offer help because of simple, honest empathy. It’s not offensive at all.

It is offensive when people grab the back of my chair and push me up the slope without warning or permission. Again, this happens a lot more often than you’d think. It happened when I was doing the Great North Run, for goodness sake! Would anyone just pick up another runner and carry them for a bit, all the time grinning to their friends? It happened in London a couple of weeks ago and when I reacted with shock and some anger, the man was furious at me since he was “only trying to help”.

Was he, though? Was he really? Or was it a performance? His reaction suggests the latter. I don’t like being used as a prop. And if you hang your bag on the back of my chair in the tube or at a bus stop so you don’t have to carry it (yep, happens surprisingly often too) then you deserve the elbow that is about to make contact with your testicles.

So don’t walk on eggshells around us. Make a joke about us rolling our chairs over eggshells, if you like. Just don’t joke about our being unable to walk on eggshells, unless you know us quite well. And don’t alter language on our behalf, it just mildly embarrasses us.

I understand the need for somewhat performative language in many areas. It’s a sign that people are paying attention to issues without having to address them explicitly and personally. It’s a signal that everyone has understood the tone a conversation will take and the boundaries that have been set. And it’s an agreement that some words and phrases are unacceptable for cultural or historical reasons. It’s when people go out of their way to invent offence on behalf of other people that we get idiocy like the ‘blind’ example above.

Wait, I’m probably not allowed to say “idiocy”, am I?

Wikipedia on the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities:

The Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG), formerly the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation,^[1] is a non-profit organization devoted to genocide and mass atrocity prevention.^[2][3] The institute is best known for its Raphael Lemkin Seminar for Genocide Prevention held annually at the Auschwitz concentration camp,^[4][5][6][7] and for serving as the technical secretariat of the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention.^[8]

So. It looks to me as if the “Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention” has helped itself to the prestige of the above mentioned institute and seminar. It looks to me as if it’s hoping to sound more established and respected than it actually is. That needn’t mean it’s worthless or fraudulent; it has put out some informative and sensible statements. On the other hand it has also put out a statement accusing feminist women of inciting genocide, so I’m not feeling particularly charitable about it.

Aha – I wonder if they found that intern.

I wonder if it did find that intern, and then let that intern write a statement for them. I wonder I wonder.

It seems like awfully quick work, but who knows, maybe they’re just efficient that way.

Here’s a funny thing – the Lemkin Institute is on Facebook, with all of 781 followers, and almost no activity. One like per post – maybe put there by the person who posted. Even funnier than that – its “statement” calling feminist women genocidal is not there. Why not?

As people at Ovarit are saying*, the statement reads as if it were written by a trans ideology zealot. It certainly does not read as if it were written by a reasonable adult campaigner for human rights and against genocide…but then again that so often applies to the ACLU and NOW and other rights organizations these days, so who knows if it means some rogue actor wrote it or not. But I’m suspicious.

*thanks to guest for the reference

Updating to correct: the statement is there, dated November 30. Two shares, no likes. H/t Eava

Now here, from nine days ago, is the Lemkin Institute talking about something concrete and specific:

Gender critical feminists haven’t cut anyone’s electricity or access to gas, nor have we threatened to or tried to or planned to. I wonder if the Institute can make out the difference here.

This may be why lots of people started talking about the Lemkin Institute:

One birdbrain replied “Interested to see how they’ll deny away the *actual official genocidal prevention institute* voicing their concern over their rhetoric.” There is no such actual official institute, and if there were, this wouldn’t be it.

I’m sure “Katy” is having the best fun of his life getting people to call feminist women genocidal Nazis simply because we refuse to agree that men like “Katy” are women and our sisters and welcome in our spaces.

This is breathtaking. An institute for prevention of genocide equates non-belief in magic gender with actual genocide. Genocide.

I haven’t been able to find out how reputable or established or widely known the Lemkin Institute is, but I don’t think it’s just a couple of teenagers and their phones.

It issued a statement last month saying we (gender criticals) are on the way to committing genocide.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention voices its concern over the growing number of laws introduced in the United States that target transgender individuals and the transgender community. Anti-trans hostility in the US has become a staple of the Republican Party’s election strategy and is clearly being used to stoke voters’ fears of a changing world by raising the specter of a malevolent polluting force tied to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy. The Lemkin Institute believes that the so-called “gender critical movement” that is behind these laws is a fascist movement furthering a specifically genocidal ideology that seeks the complete eradication of trans identity from the world.

That’s so crazy it makes my head swim…and scares me a little. I think it’s threatening toward people like me. Are we going to end up screaming at each other “No you’re the genocider no you are”?

If trans ideology disappeared while the people who formerly called themselves trans simply went on with their lives being lesbian or gay, or gender-nonconforming, or both, would that be genocide? Or would it be people dropping a particular way of describing themselves in favor of a different one?

The Lemkin Institute seems to be saying we’re like China versus the Uyghurs: trying to force a set of people to abjure their beliefs and way of life to make themselves acceptable to a totalitarian government. That is, they seem to be saying that unless they’re saying that we’re actually hoping and plotting to kill all the trans people until there isn’t a single one left.

It’s slightly staggering that they don’t pause to remember that gender critical people don’t have quite the same kind of power and reach that the Chinese government has or that Hitler had. We don’t control armies or prisons or the medical establishment or the universities (all too obviously) or the banks or the media. We don’t “seek the complete eradication of trans identity from the world”; we point out what’s wrong with trans ideology and its consequences for women. Also, by the way, we’re not the ones cheering on surgeries that sterilize people.

I’ll stop there for now. I’m having a hard time believing what I’m reading.

Originally a comment by tigger_the_wing on Don’t you call me a basket case.

As a crippled old women who isn’t confined to a wheelchair, but uses one if I have to walk more than a few steps (because I prefer to avoid unbearable pain and nasty falls), and who spends most of the rest of my time in bed (because, until I get a better wheelchair, it’s the only place where I can recline and raise my legs), I find the ‘confined to’ phrase ludicrous. Since I can transfer from my bed to my wheelchair, and back; and from my wheelchair to and from the toilet, the shower, and my vehicle, I don’t regard myself as ‘confined to’ anything.

It’s just wheelchairs and beds which get that weird description.

I have never been described as being ‘confined to’ my reading glasses, or my sticks. Are people with hearing difficulties ever described as being ‘confined to’ their hearing aids?

I was ‘confined to’ home for fourteen months by the CoViD pandemic, until I was vaccinated. I’ll accept that usage, because I was unable to leave. But all other tools are just that; tools. We use tools in order to be able to do things which able-bodied people can do unaided. That doesn’t mean that we’re ‘confined to’ them!

Yes, there are people who have to use their wheelchair whenever they are out if bed, and cannot get out to stand, even briefly. They likely (although not necessarily) need help with transferring to a toilet. But they get into bed when it’s time to go to sleep.

That said, I don’t have a problem with people who use that phrase. It’s been around for a very long time, and few people have had any reason to reflect on it. I also understand that many people have a problem with the word ‘cripple’, although I don’t.

I only have a problem with words which are said in a way which is intended to hurt. I’ll only nitpick phrases when it’s important for clarity. If I hear a shop assistant asking a colleague to help ‘the lady confined to a wheelchair’ I won’t be bothered. Far too many people grew up with that being the only way to describe a wheelchair user, and have never heard any other way to say it. It’s almost a single word, confinedtoawheelchair.

Florida judge got creative:

Former Hillsborough county circuit judge Jared Smith denied a 17-year-old girl access to an abortion in January, citing her low school grades as justification for his ruling that she lacked the maturity to make the decision for herself.

So she’s not mature enough to decide to have an abortion but she is mature enough to push out a baby??? And then raise it?

It’s a massive catch-22, isn’t it. You’re too young and clueless to decide not to have a baby, so you have to have a baby you don’t want to have, which will obviously go very well for the baby and the mother and anyone who may be around to pick up the pieces.

There is adoption of course but surely judges aren’t ruling on abortion cases while assuming the unwilling girls and women condemned to have babies they don’t want will all have the babies adopted? Surely?

They probably are, which reduces the female people they condemn to unwanted childbirth to machines for the production of infants for other people.

Non-binary government boffin Sam Brinton got lucky with that second stolen bag:

The nonbinary Biden administration official facing up to five years in prison for allegedly stealing luggage in Minnesota now faces up to 10 years in prison for stealing another bag in Nevada, according to a police report obtained by Fox News Digital.

Samuel Brinton — who has served as the Energy Department’s (DOE) deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition since June — allegedly stole a suitcase with a total estimate worth of $3,670 on July 6 at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, according to a declaration filed by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) detective on Wednesday. The bag contained jewelry valued at $1,700, clothing worth $850 and makeup valued at $500.

(Makeup worth $500???? What do people do, put diamond dust on their faces?)

Living the nonbinary dream:

Thanks to latsot we can have hours of fun picking apart Stanford’s ElimiNation of HarmFul LangUage InItIaTive, which is “a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford.” I guess all the other bits of Stanford will go right on having harmful language.

It’s not that I don’t think there is such a thing as harmful language (although I wouldn’t use the word “harmful” to characterize it). It’s that…oh well, you’ll see.

At the end of the intro to the thingy on harmful language there’s a WARNING all in bold that the language ahead is…harmful. Or offensive. It fails to warn that some of it could be both. Proceed at your own pace, it says. Race ya!

So. Clearly it’s alphabetical. It starts with Ableist. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to call stupid ideologies “stupid.” But the EHLI has a whole long list of words; we could spend days just on that. Everything Not Permitted Is Forbidden. Make a note of it.

It’s in three columns: instead of; consider using; context.

Item one: instead of “addict” consider using “person with a substance use disorder”. Context (by which they apparently mean “why,” or “why the fuck”): “Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics.”

Why that’s not at all bureaucratic or obscurantist.

I get what they’re trying for, I think. Calling people drunks or junkies or addicts is dismissive. On the other hand, “addicts” is a good deal more neutral and clinical than junkies or drunks, and a blathery circumlocution might not be an ideal substitute. It’s also way more blunt, and sometimes bluntness is exactly what an addict needs. Addiction goes hand in hand with denial, so periphrasis is not always helpful.

Then we can’t use “addicted” figuratively because that trivializes blah blah blah.

But fortunately with the next one they lighten the mood.

Instead of “basket case” consider using “nervous” because “Originally referred to one who has lost all four limbs and therefore needed to be carried around in a basket.”

How is that a reason to use “nervous” instead?!?!

This is going to be hours and hours and hours of fun.

The BBC starts with a man who says he is a woman.

The diamond grass of Cathkin Park is glinting in the winter sun as Ellie Gomersall reflects on something intensely personal – her identity. It is a bitterly beautiful December day on the south side of Glasgow and Ms Gomersall, 23, is telling us about “coming out” as a woman.

You can’t “come out” as a woman. Coming out is a lesbian/gay thing, and that in turn is because being lesbian or gay has not always been socially acceptable, to put it mildly. It’s also, I suppose, because the majority is straight, so the working assumption about people is generally that they’re straight, so “coming out” is making it clear to that majority that the person doing the out-coming is in the not-straight minority. Other categories of people don’t have to come out because their category is obvious, written on their bodies.

But of course the priests of trans ideology like to call it coming out because that assumes it’s real. “Here is the hidden truth about me, that you didn’t know because I give every appearance of being a man. I’m not a man, I’m a magic special unicorny WOMAN. There, now I’ve come out.”

Ms Gomersall is currently president of the National Union of Students Scotland, although she is speaking to BBC News in a personal capacity.

But the fact that he is currently president of the National Union of Students Scotland is probably why the BBC chose him to talk to. What they talk to him about is how hard it is to get a gender recognition certificate.

The Scottish government – led by the Scottish National Party but also including ministers from the Scottish Green Party, of which Ms Gomersall is a member – wants to remove some of those hurdles, making the process quicker and easier.

The process, that is, of making it official and a matter of law that this man is a woman.

Ms Gomersall is a strong supporter of the legislation, which she says would make her life easier and more dignified.

But it would make the lives of countess women harder and less dignified, but Gomersall cares about Gomersall, not all those stupid pesky women.

She argues that gender identity should not be a matter for the state.

“I think ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me,” she insists.

That’s the ideology, but it’s bullshit. One, it’s a Cheats’ Charter; two, it’s not true – people are not always right about themselves.

It’s unfortunate that this fad is so narcissism-friendly. All it has, literally, is this bone-headed clueless idea that people are infallible about their own “identities” and self-awareness. We’re not! We can’t be, because we can’t see ourselves except through our own eyes. That’s a bias. We favor ourselves because we are ourselves. We can’t help it, although we can try to correct for it, mitigate it and so on. Pro-self bias is absolutely built in, so the fatuous claim that “ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me” is the opposite of the truth. Ultimately you are the last person who can be trusted to give an honest account of yourself; we all are.

Word it carefully now. Very very carefully. Take instructions from the BBC:

MSPs are debating final changes to controversial gender recognition reforms. The Scottish government legislation is aimed at simplifying and speeding up the process for trans people to change their legally recognised gender.

See how it’s done? The Beeb just assumes, with “the legislation is aimed at simplifying and speeding up the process,” that the “process” of declaring yourself the other sex should be simplified and sped up. Why? When declaring yourself the other sex is nonsensical, and when we’ve had years to expose all the ways this sort of declaring impinges on the rights of other people, especially women – why breezily assume that it needs simplifying and speeding up?

Because that’s the Approved View now, and the Beeb trots along with it like the dearest pony you ever saw. It also of course assumes that there is such a thing as “changing one’s legally recognized gender” [with gender meaning sex as well as gender-the-social category]. There isn’t, but it’s the done thing now to say there is, and rearrange one’s vocabulary to reflect that silly belief.

Supporters say the reforms will make the process less intrusive, bureaucratic and medicalised.

But what if the process is a bad thing in the first place? Why should we want it less intrusive, bureaucratic and medicalised? Let’s turn around and go the other way: make it impossible. Live and dress and lisp however you want, but don’t try to make the state put an official stamp on it.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The symbols of what did you say?

From where I sit, it is the women who support this legislation who find themselves voiceless:…

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. You must be sitting somewhere with your head up your ass because I can see FROM A WHOLE FUCKING OCEAN AWAY that women who have tried to question or slow down this fait accomplit have been demonized, vilified, threatened and, yes, silenced.

safe in the knowledge that the bill had a parliamentary majority. It would pass, and so too in time would the fractious debate.

What fractious debate? Your side was all “NO DEBATE!” You couldn’t afford full and open discussion. Trans activism never can. If you think the “fractious debate” is going to end with the passage of this bill, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. Disagreement and resistance will only intensify as its enforcement takes a greater toll on more women and girls. I get the feeling that you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

…I feel that there is a need to call out the populist tactics…

Way to simultaneously poison the well and step around the fact that, if described in plain, honest language, most people would likely oppose this bill.

…because of the actions of predatory men pretending to be something they are not…

Well the supposedly “non-predatory men”, TiMs, are also pretending to be something they’re not. They’re all lying about who they are, so how can any of them be trusted with their intentions? Short answer, they can’t. Refusal to swallow the fundamental untruth of “gender identity” makes it impossible to go along with any of this. You’re not going to change many minds, so you’ll be forced to steamroll over any resistance. And resistance there will be. You’ll be seeing more channeling of Sufragette Power than you’ve ever seen before. See point above about the end of “fracious debate.”

This bill is one of the most consulted upon in Scottish parliamentary history.

The amount of consultation says nothing about its quality or breadth. For a movement banging on continuously about “inclusion,” It’s funny how many women’s voices were excluded.

Those opposed to it do not want delays to improve it, they want to use them to dilute and defeat it.

Only if the dilution were to a homeopathic level of non-existence. Defeat is the only rational choice for a bill that cotravenes reality. You cannot legislate the impossible; the attempt itself is dangerously corrosive to the legitimacy, authority, and respect of any institution that dares try.

Jeremy Clarkson broke a record:

Jeremy Clarkson’s Sun newspaper column, in which he said he “hated” the Duchess of Sussex, has become the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s most complained about article, the regulator has said.

Ipso said the piece, which was removed from the Sun’s website on Monday at Clarkson’s request, had received more than 17,500 complaints as of 9am on Tuesday.

…

The number surpassed the total number of complaints the media regulator received in 2021, 14,355.

A whole year’s worth of complaints. That’s impressive.

More than 60 cross-party MPs have written to the Sun’s editor, Victoria Newton, to demand an apology and “action taken” against Clarkson for the column where he said Meghan should be paraded through the streets naked.

People are so politically correct these days. If an angry bullying man can’t take to the newspapers to say a woman should be dragged through the streets naked and pelted with shit, what are we coming to?

In their letter, they said Meghan had received credible threats to her life and that columns such as Clarkson’s contributed to an “unacceptable climate of hatred and violence”.

The letter, coordinated by the Conservative chair of the women and equalities select committee, Caroline Nokes, was signed by Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, Green and SNP MPs, including the Conservative chair of the Treasury select committee, Harriett Baldwin, Labour’s Harriet Harman and Caroline Lucas of the Green party.

That’s good. It’s good that they all get it.

The Sun has since withdrawn the column at the request of Clarkson, but a statement from him promising to be more careful in future has been criticised for not including an apology.

Also what about the Sun? It published that disgusting outburst instead of spiking it and firing Clarkson.

In their letter, Nokes and the other MPs tell Newton they “condemn in the strongest possible terms the violent misogynist language … This sort of language has no place in our country and it is unacceptable it was allowed to be published in a mainstream newspaper.”

What I’m saying. Bad that Clarkson wrote it and bad that the Sun published it.

After widespread outcry over the weekend, Clarkson issued a statement on Monday, saying: “Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.”

Ohhhhhh fuck off. Cowardly weasel. He didn’t “rather put his foot in it old bean.” This isn’t fucking Jeeves and Wooster. Isn’t it interesting that he doesn’t actually admit what he did, just burbles about “a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones.” He’s a sadistic bully and he’s a coward. Nice brew.

Nokes said it was “not an apology” and tweeting the letter said: “I welcome Jeremy Clarkson’s acknowledgment that he has caused hurt … but an editorial process allowed his column to be printed unchallenged.”

That. Let’s have the Sun’s apology, eh?

They’re fighting amongst themselves.

Sometimes I get the feeling we live in parallel worlds.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill sits on the edge of passing through the Scottish Parliament this week – and all it took was six years of undelivered manifesto commitments, two public consultations and one online apology for failing to deal with transphobia in the SNP from the First Minister herself. Not that it changed anything.

Oh no not public consultations! Obviously laws that contradict reality should be passed instantly with no public consultation at all.

Six VERY long years, where Britain’s chattering class lost its collective mind in service to a relentless campaign of anti-trans misinformation; a conspiratorial crusade that falsely claimed, among many other things, that child murderer Ian Huntley was actually transgender, and that Scotland’s LGBTQ+ community was trying to lower the age of consent.

Says a columnist for The National. If that’s not chattering class what is?

But more to the point, “a relentless campaign of anti-trans misinformation” is debatable at best. At worst it’s just a casual lie, which reflects how easy and automatic it’s become to call lucid feminist women rude names and accuse them of bad behavior.

For our queer and feminist communities, it has felt closer to an eternity.

And feminist?

Trans ideology is profoundly anti-feminist. This piece itself illustrates how, with its bullying and lies and taking it for granted that feminism is for everyone but women.

Having wasted no time in perpetually branding the legislation as “controversial” until it inevitably became so…

Read your own writing, pal.

The conclusion of the bill in the Scottish Parliament, whatever the outcome, will at the very least provide a degree of breathing space from the keyboard warriors and sock accounts that have made obsessive discussion of the lives of trans people an all-consuming hobby. Once they’ve tuckered themselves out anyway.

No. Wrong again. We really don’t care about the lives of trans people (more than anyone else’s life), we care about what trans ideology is doing to women and children and adolescents. The issue isn’t how anyone lives, the issue is law and policy and rights and telling the truth.

Throughout the process of bringing this bill through Parliament, the so-called gender-critical movement has been given near everything they wanted, with the exception of throwing the legislation out entirely.

…

Harmful opposition flourished in the space left by the Scottish Government’s inaction – and having pushed a vulnerable community onto the stage, the SNP made a quick exit and left us under the fire of a wealthy cohort of middle-class reactionaries who wanted to cosplay the rebel faction.

There it is. There’s that unabashed hatred of women. “Mummy said no!!”

It’s for that reason that any victory on Wednesday will be a bittersweet one indeed. The hurt caused by the cowardice of the Scottish Government won’t be made wholly right by the passing of this bill, nor will it bring back those lost to the violent rhetoric left to spread unchecked in the promise left behind.

Those lost? Who would that be? Name one.

Mike Pence tries to split the difference:

Former Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday that he hoped the Department of Justice would not bring charges against Donald J. Trump, calling the former president ’s conduct “reckless” but not criminal.

It’s not criminal to try to overturn an election in order to steal a second term? It’s not criminal to incite a mob to attack the legislature and then watch them do it on tv for hours before gently urging them to back off for now?

I kind of think Pence might be wrong about that.

Asked about facing potential criminal indictments that could stem from the House investigation into the Capitol riot, Donald J. Trump suggested he had little to fear because of a social media message he posted hours later urging the mob to stop the violence and return home.

His problem is that it’s well known via multiple witnesses what he was doing during those hours. He wasn’t doing his job, he wasn’t reading vital reports, he wasn’t packing his bags, he wasn’t even stealing more classified documents to take to Marlago – he was watching his fans smash up the Capitol on tv.

In a radio interview on Monday, Mr. Trump said that House investigators skimmed past his “fantastic” Twitter post, and also failed to consider why thousands had attended his speech just before the riot.

Ooh ooh I know this one – it’s because he told them to, and because they wanted to help him steal the election by doing an insurrection. I think the House investigators did consider that, quite intensely.

Aha. Levine is glad he transitioned late, because otherwise he wouldn’t have his children.

So……….