A variation on the Whig theory of history:

“The younger generations are always right” is the foundational belief and claim here. But is that true? Plenty of younger generations (it’s not clear how many Maugham thinks there are) belong to neo-Nazi groups, white power groups, Islamist groups, Brexit groups, pro-Trump groups.

And more generally and abstractly, what about the fact that people have time to learn more as they get older? What about the accumulation of experience and knowledge and information over time? Doesn’t that count for something? Of course that’s only as good as it is – one can accumulate bad information as well as good, but still, it’s not strictly a one-way process of becoming ever stupider and more wrong as one ages.

Ah yes. If you are a man, be sure to discount the views of that pesky stupid woman who lives with you and gets stuck with all the domestic work. What the hell does she know?! Bitch.

Ah yes, listening and learning, which he is so good at…unless it’s women talking. Also notice that his list of the ways his tribe is privileged doesn’t include “male.”

It seems that Emily Murphy was supposed to talk to a House committee today to explain why tf she is refusing to ascertain Biden as president.

Cool. So when is this happening exactly?

Oh.

Ok I do not understand. What do they mean an underling will “brief” i.e. answer the questions of the Committee next week? The committee summoned Emily Murphy, not an underling, and the time was today, not next week. What is this shit? Besides a coup? Maybe nothing; maybe it just is a coup.

Anne Applebaum notes that there are rules, and Trump and his rabble are breaking them in ways that no predecessor ever has.

Murphy is the head of the General Services Administration, the unglamorous bit of the federal government that actually runs the federal government. Part of her job—a part that no one has ever before considered controversial or even noteworthy—is to “ascertain” who has won the U.S. presidential election, and then to release the congressionally mandated funds that allow the winner to begin his transition. Usually, that process also unlocks cooperation between incoming and outgoing officials. Before leaving office in 2017, aides to Barack Obama had prepared elaborate explanations of the state of the world, including a 69-page playbook for how to manage a pandemic. They handed the documents over to Donald Trump’s transition team, which ignored them.

But the decision to bungle his own transition was Trump’s. The Obama team did not hinder him in any way, and the GSA certainly did not. Of course, many people were upset about Trump’s election at the time, and many suspected Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Those suspicions were more than justified: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would eventually show how Russian-controlled social-media accounts, coupled with the Russian security-service hack of the Democratic National Committee, sought to affect voters’ perceptions of Hillary Clinton. But they did not render the voting fake or the voting machines dysfunctional, and nobody in any senior post ever claimed that they had. Nobody—no civil servant, no political appointee, no politician—tried to stop the transition either. The rules were the rules.

But now it is 2020. For four years, the White House has been occupied by a team of people who do not care about the rules. The president and his family have disregarded rules about security clearances, rules about the use of private email for public purposes, rules about the intersection of political and government business. They have profited financially from the presidency while still in the White House. They have sought to use American foreign-policy tools for personal and political gain. While they did so, they accustomed everyone around them to accept new standards. Slowly, members of the Trump administration got used to tolerating blatant, bold-faced lies. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of lies—important lies, stupid lies, insignificant lies, lies about attendance at the inauguration, lies about economic growth, lies about a hurricane forecast in Alabama.

So people who work for Trump have had four years to get used to lying from the top. They’ve done a bang-up job of it, most of them. Chris Krebs refused and got fired for it last week, but most of them have become adepts.

But not everybody is Chris Krebs. Clearly, Emily Murphy is not Chris Krebs. Confronted with the reality of Joe Biden’s victory, and with the predictably mendacious reaction of the president, Murphy, along with an astonishing number of elected and appointed Republican officials, has chosen to stand by him too. “Friends” are now speaking to the national media on her behalf. One of these “friends” told CNN that Murphy is distressed: “She’s doing what she believes is her honest duty as someone who has sworn true allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and the laws that govern her position.”

Well, no. She is not doing her honest duty. She is behaving badly, dishonestly, unfairly. She is violating the Constitution of the United States of America by refusing to recognize that the election is over, that Trump’s lawsuits and legal games are frivolous, and that the transition has begun. But she, like so many others in the White House, seems to believe the exact opposite: that it is part of her job to support radical, norm-breaking, democracy-destroying lies. Like so many others in the Republican Party, she appears to think that election results do not need to be accepted; that legal votes can be challenged; that courts and political pressure can be used to change the result.

All for Donald Trump, a transparently rotten human being.

But she sounds perfect for Trump.

[Sidney] Powell had made headlines in recent weeks for her increasingly outrageous and unsupported claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, repeatedly vowing to “release the kraken” of evidence, only to refuse to produce it when asked by reporters. She has accused election officials in multiple states of committing crimes, and in recent days turned on Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who on Friday helped certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Her attack on Kemp, which also included the threat of a “biblical” lawsuit, appeared to unsettle some of Trump’s allies.

It seems ethically questionable for lawyers to accuse people of crimes without offering any evidence. I’m being polite; I think it’s a good deal worse than “ethically questionable.”

“Sidney Powell accusing Governor Brian Kemp of a crime on television yet being unwilling to go on TV and defend and lay out the evidence that she supposedly has, this is outrageous conduct,” former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Sunday.

And if Chris Christie thinks so…

It’s all quite melancholy, really, because the thing is, she was going to release the Kraken, at least she said she was. Newsweek November 17:

Sidney Powell, one of the attorneys on Donald Trump‘s legal team contesting the election results, has been on the media circuit lately. She visited The Rush Limbaugh Show yesterday and Mario Bartiromo on Fox News the day before. The appearance that’s really gained traction, though, happened days before on Lou Dobbs Tonight on the Fox Business Network. During that conversation, Powell repurposed a popular phrase that has since taken off on Twitter as a clarion call for the right while a source of mockery for the left.

“I’m going to release the Kraken,” Powell declared defiantly while saying she would expose [the fact that] the deck was stacked against Trump in the election by “Silicon Valley people, the big tech companies, the social media and even the media companies.”

And the Kraken is………………………….

a bunch of florid lies told by a hack lawyer who has now been disavowed by the very crooks she was hacking for.

On the one hand it’s funny, on the other hand it’s about as funny as the Reichstag fire.

One minute Sidney Powell is at a Trump team press conference spouting deranged conspiracy theories about the election, the next minute Giuliani is issuing a statement saying she’s not part of the Trump team. Probably the next item is Trump will do a presser holding Giuliani’s dripping head aloft.

President Trump’s campaign said in a Sunday statement that Sidney Powell is neither a member of its legal team nor a lawyer for Trump in his personal capacity.

Powell was a part of the campaign’s wild, conspiratorial Thursday press conference and baselessly floated unfounded conspiracy theories that included a claim that President-elect Biden won the 2020 presidential election thanks to “communist money” from the Venezuelan regime.

Which sounds funny, but we need to keep in mind that millions of damn fools believe all this shit. If Trump says it they believe it, and that’s scary.

As for the truth of the statement…

Ah. Eight days ago Sidney Powell was part of the “truly great team.”

They’re gluttons for punishment.

More from the “individualism run amok” file:

Yeah yeah yeah, we’re all impressed, but the point you’re missing here is that your house FULL of people is a risk to other people, people who are not you and not part of your “we.” It’s not tough or self-reliant or brave or clever to take risks that endanger other people as well as you.

It shouldn’t be a “liberal” monopoly to want to avoid spreading a lethal virus. Why do conservatives want to wave that particular flag?

Is Trump finally running out of road?

Donald Trump faced growing pressure from Republicans on Sunday to drop his chaotic, last-ditch fight to overturn the US presidential election, as victor Joe Biden prepared to start naming his cabinet and a Pennsylvania judge compared Trump’s legal case there to “Frankenstein’s monster”.

Despite Republican leadership in Washington standing behind the president’s claims that the 3 November election was stolen from him by nationwide voter fraud, other prominent figures, including two of his former national security advisers, were blunt.

So, in other words, no, Trump is still marching up that road with Republican “leadership” right beside him. John Bolton said things on tv, but who cares.

And another former Trump administration national security adviser, HR McMaster, told CBS’s Face the Nation that Trump’s efforts were “very corrosive” and warned that his actions were sowing doubt among the electorate.

“It’s playing into the hands of our adversaries,” he said, warning that Russia, for example, “doesn’t care who wins” as long as many Americans doubt the result, undermining US democracy.

But, again, Trump doesn’t care, Pompeo doesn’t care, Pence doesn’t care, the Republican senators and reps mostly don’t care.

Well whaddya know, Tory equality commissioner has a Tory idea of what equality is.

(Spoiler: it’s to stop whining and find some way to “circumvent” the obstacles that discrimination puts in place.)

Jessica Butcher, a successful digital entrepreneur, was last week appointed as one of four new commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) by Liz Truss, the minister for women and equalities.

The EHRC’s role is to enforce the Equality Act, Britain’s key equality law, and to reduce inequality and tackle discrimination. Commissioners help set the body’s strategic direction.

But in a series of speeches, interviews and articles, Butcher – who describes herself as an “old-school feminist” – has criticised many recent feminist campaigns, including on issues in which the EHRC plays a significant role.

Nah she’s not an old-school feminist, she’s just a Tory.

Butcher has also criticised a feminist “narrative of discrimination” for reducing women’s confidence in pursuing careers. She does not deny that gender discrimination exists, but in an interview last year, she suggested that women who think they have been discriminated against should find a way around it rather than complaining.

“Even if it was due to discrimination, the most productive reaction to that is not wounded insecurity, go cry to someone about how you might have been gender-discriminated against,” she said, “but it’s to actually go ‘well come on then, I’ll show you’ and take the onus to circumvent the situation in some way.

“You know, resilience, it should be about resilience, and I feel that the narrative of discrimination and victimhood undermines both that confidence and that resilience and also the individual onus to take ownership of how you put yourself forward, and to mould yourself, change yourself to the circumstances as required.”

No. Of course that’s what Tories think, but it’s not any kind of feminism, it’s Ignore Inequality and Just Work Harder conservatism. Here’s why it’s crap:

One, it’s unjust. Why should women have to make extra efforts to overcome sexist barriers? Why should anyone have to make extra efforts to overcome any form of “you’re not one of us” barriers?

Two, it leaves the system untouched. Why should “you’re not one of us” barriers remain in place forever, forcing all the underling groups to expend more effort and time just to get an interview or hired or promoted?

Conservatives like the system that way, because they’re conservative, but no one else does.

Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “With these appointments one can only conclude the government is more interested in undermining the credibility of the EHRC rather than ensuring we have an independent and effective statutory body with a strong understanding of structural inequalities. There are some experienced people working at the commission doing important work. They need commissioners who can be effective champions.”

Tories gonna Tory.

People are enjoying the smackdown.

SOMEbody is not so happy.

Judge smacks Trump down hard.

A US District Court judge Saturday dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign trying to invalidate millions of Pennsylvania mail-in votes.

“Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the context of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated,” US District Court Judge Matthew Brann wrote Saturday.

Plus, the case is crap.

“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened,” Brann added. “Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.”

It’s crap. Complete unmitigated crap. Crappity crap crap. A dog could do better.

“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more,” the judge wrote. “At bottom, Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”

This might become like the Dover ruling, something to read with vindictive pleasure.

Pennsylvania counties are supposed to certify the votes on Monday.

It’s over, Donald. Pack your nasty bags.

How to do better at pronouning.

Yes! That’s so important! Always get into the habit of interrupting people to tell them what to say. Life is drab and tedious without that.

What a fun afternoon that sounds like.

What if my authentic self is someone who doesn’t believe in specialty pronouns?

There’s another one of those Open Letters, this one from “the LGBTQ+ community” of Ireland.

For decades the transgender community has advocated, marched, and fought for equality, and inclusion. This fight has never once wavered in supporting movements that garner equality for all marginalised communities.

Well that’s a lie. “The trans community” doesn’t advocate or fight for all marginalized communities, it advocates and fights for its own. Individual trans people may have joined in, but the “community” has not, and it has gone way out of its way to shit on women.

Our work, our fight, our campaigns, have all been underscored by two things, intersectionality and solidarity. The transgender community has always worked in advancing the equal rights and acceptance of all without discrimination. 

Not true. Self-flattering bullshit.

For decades members of the transgender community marched in Pride, stood for women’s equality, all while our rights were left off the table.

Not true.

Even now, transgender people continue to work for reforms that will increase the rights of gay and lesbian parents in surrogacy and adoption. Never have transgender people sought to diminish the rights, or acceptance of others.

Ha.

Now, unfortunately, we see a rise in discriminatory organisations and vocal transgender exclusionary activists using Twitter and divisive antics to attempt to a drive a wedge in queer communities between transgender people and fracture our support from feminists. For our decades of solidarity, some seek to repay our community with a call for division based on falsities and bigotry. Let us say unequivocally that the statements of newly launched organisations that seek to defend biology or fight gender identity and expression do not represent the wider LGBTI+ community nor feminists in Ireland. More importantly, they are not organisations at all, they have no governance, no accountability, and are simply Twitter accounts. Further, they are not supported by the wider Irish community. Ireland has dealt with these pseudo-feminists before…

That’s more like it – that’s the real attitude to feminism.

Katherine Morgan says it’s white women’s fault:

The 2016 exit polls reported that 52 percent of white women had voted for Trump, though according to TIME, that number was closer to 47 percent.

…

The bookstore where I worked was similarly hectic in June: We received countless anti-racism book orders. And yet, despite all of the learning that supposedly took place via these books, in early November 2020 exit polls stated that among white women, Trump still held their support: An estimated 55 percent of white women voted for Trump. This is at least a two-point increase for this demographic since the previous election. As I sit with this number—more than half—I think about how one day at work I spent most of my eight-hour shift explaining to customers that we were out of So You Want to Talk About Race, because suddenly everyone wanted to talk about race, a subject that I had spent more than a decade talking about myself. It was suddenly essential, like the latest bag or pair of shoes. It had become an accessory, a badge of honor, proof of being a good white person. When I told one customer that her book was back-ordered, but there were an expected 20,000 books coming back into stock within two weeks to meet the unprecedented demand, she said, “But what I’m supposed to do now?” I wanted to tell her to read any other book—or, of course, to participate in any other active form of anti-racism—but I also needed my job.

Instead, I simply said, “We’re working on getting this sorted out. We appreciate your patience, and your eagerness to learn.” And I do appreciate their willingness to learn. The only question, especially given the continual support for Trump and other racist politicians by so many white women, is what do we do while we wait for it to sink in.

But why just white women? Why not men? Are men all voting Democratic?

As has been the case since 1980, women were more likely than men to vote for the Democratic candidate: 56% of women, compared to 48% of men, supported Joe Biden.

Well…ok…but white women are Karens. Case closed.

Trump is SULking, na na na na nah.

Used to was, we couldn’t get away from him.

The outgoing US president held endless campaign rallies, verbally sparred with reporters on the way to his helicopter and spent so long on the phone to Fox News shows that even pliable hosts had to gently but firmly hang up.

He’s that guy. He’s that guy who never shuts up, that guy who has no interest in anyone else, that guy who thinks his every word is enthralling.

But now he’s hiding.

For critics, it is evidence of a monumental sulk as Trump contemplates his imminent loss of power and exit from the White House. In their view, it is also a staggering abrogation of responsibility as the coronavirus pandemic surges to new highs, infecting more than 158,000 Americans – and killing in excess of 1,100 – every day.

Yes, but he does less harm by doing nothing than by doing anything. When he’s busy he just breaks things.

Trump reportedly spends mornings in the White House residence bingeing on television. Then he goes down to the Oval Office in the afternoon, moving between it and an adjoining dining room which has a big TV. He broods there until night, conferring with lawyers in increasingly desperate efforts to overturn the election even as Biden nears a record 80m votes….

For many observers, Trump’s retreat is the primal instinct of a sore loser. Biographers have told how he was raised by his father to be a “killer” and regard losing as a sign of unforgivable weakness. The family attended a church whose pastor, Norman Vincent Peale, wrote the bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking with advice to “stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding”.

…

Michael Steele, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “It’s Trump being a little petulant boy who didn’t get his way and is not getting his way, so he doesn’t want to be out in public and he doesn’t want to play any more. He wants to take his toys and go hide somewhere or create mischief some other way.”

For this relief much thanks.

Remember those two Michigan Republican legislators who visited Trump yesterday? One of whom sang a hymn rather than answer a reporter’s questions at the airport?

It seems they had a fun party at Trump’s hotel last night.

Also…

So, again, Trump puts money in his own pocket via government business…if it can even be called government business when the purpose of summoning the two loyalists was to steal the election. Nevertheless we know we paid for the whole thing, including their overnight in Trump’s expensive hotel.

More of the same pious mindless glurge.

“Everyone should be able to love themselves and be loved for who they are,” she says earnestly. Really? Is that true? No. Should Trump be loved for who he is? No. Should he be able to love himself for who he is? No.

Funny how feminism never claimed this. Funny how no human rights struggle claimed this, until the trans hyperbole train rolled into the station. There is no Right to be Loved (except possibly children’s right to parental love). Human rights aren’t about love and they can’t depend on love. This is probably too obvious to bother saying, and I’ve said it before anyway.

But why is it that the trans movement leans so heavily on this kind of emotive glurge? Maybe because it’s so unreasonable to begin with, to the extent that it demands belief and avowal that men are women if they say they are. Once you go for the quack bullshit assertion you might as well add more, I guess. “We are literally women because we say so, and you have to love us.”

From Brenda is a Sheep to Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, courtesy of Project Gutenberg:

Listen to the story of Jemima Puddle-duck, who was annoyed because the farmer’s wife would not let her hatch her own eggs.

Her sister-in-law, Mrs. Rebeccah Puddle-duck, was perfectly willing to leave the hatching to some one else—”I have not the patience to sit on a nest for twenty-eight days; and no more have you, Jemima. You would let them go cold; you know you would!”

“I wish to hatch my own eggs; I will hatch them all by myself,” quacked Jemima Puddle-duck.

So she went into the woods to do so.

Jemima alighted rather heavily, and began to waddle about in search of a convenient dry nesting-place. She rather fancied a tree-stump amongst some tall fox-gloves.

But—seated upon the stump, she was startled to find an elegantly dressed gentleman reading a newspaper.

He had black prick ears and sandy coloured whiskers.

“Quack?” said Jemima Puddle-duck, with her head and her bonnet on one side—”Quack?”

So she made him a grass lasagna breakfast, and he ate her the next day.

Just kidding. She lost all the eggs though.

H/t Tim Harris

Michigan Senator thinks he doesn’t have to answer questions.

She’s not joking; he really did that.