Soraya Chemaly has the best comment on the whole thing.
Keeper for the American Patriarchy Photo Collection
Matt Gaetz says he’s about to lead this phalanx of House Republicans into the SCIF to check out what’s going on with the whole impeachment thing
Republicans: Law and order! National security! America First!
Also Republicans: Storm the classified hearing, cell phones in hand!
House Republicans took their impeachment grievances to a more confrontational level on Wednesday, barging in to a secure facility during a closed-door witness deposition and refusing to leave until Democrats held open hearings.
The gambit—cooked up by the pro-Trump brawler Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and endorsed by House GOP leadership—derailed the closed-door deposition of Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official with jurisdiction over Ukraine policy, before it even started. And it left Democrats indignant that their colleagues had violated long standing rules about interviewing witnesses in classified settings.
Long standing rules long standing shmules, this is a fight. You don’t bring rules to a fight.
Cell phones, for example, are not allowed in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (also known as SCIFs). But the Republican members who barged into those facilities had taken their phones with them inside the room. Lawmakers and aides said that, as of noon on Wednesday, the SCIF was being swept for electronic surveillance devices because the Republicans brought in their phones, delaying the start of Cooper’s deposition. Democrats were also contemplating whether to bring in the U.S. Capitol Police in order to drag out the protesting members.
Welp, if you elect hoodlums to Congress, this is what you end up with. Never mind Mister Deeds Smith Goes to Washington, it’s Matt the Knife and Devin the Killer Go to Washington.
In a scheme that drew parallels to the infamous Brooks Brother riots that upended the 2000 Florida recount, Gaetz led about 25 House Republican lawmakers into the secure basement SCIF, where bipartisan members of the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry—and only members of those three committees—are allowed to go during the impeachment investigation.
According to Democratic lawmakers in the room, the Republicans blew past police officers to enter the room and began shouting once they got there, loudly denouncing the process and impeachment in general.
Which is to say they staged a coup. No biggy, just another Wednesday.
Close to two hours after they first went in, a core group of Republicans remained there, according to a tweet from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). The number two House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), was with them. Three hours into the standoff, the Republican crew remained—and they had ordered pizza from We The Pizza, a Capital Hill joint.
What do they want? Poor people are already poor; do they want to make them even poorer? Enslaved maybe? Do they want even more people of color in prison? To take away all health insurance from people who aren’t millionaires? Women forcibly impregnated throughout their childbearing years? Women literally chained to the stove? Fox News on every channel? Nuclear war? Global warming to happen even faster? What?
House Republicans have held—and even supported—the use of closed door hearings for past congressional investigations, including the select committee that they spearheaded to investigate the 2011 consulate attack in Benghazi. That larger inconsistency and the timing on Wednesday’s gambit struck some Democrats as telling about the direction that the impeachment proceeding is heading.
“When you don’t have the law or the facts you attack and disrupt the process,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). “And you may wonder why is it happening now? Because Bill Taylor gave a devastating opening statement yesterday. They’re freaked out. They’re trying to stop this investigation.”
So what they want is to protect the most flagrant criminal who has ever befouled the presidency and the country.
What a glorious cause.
Heather Cox Richardson underlines some things, starting with Bill Taylor’s public statement to the impeachment inquiry:
He confirmed that while the official American policy was to encourage democracy in Ukraine to help it fight off Russia, the Trump administration had a shadow foreign policy team, headed by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani, and including special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, the Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Trump did not want “to provide any assistance at all” to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. The president personally withheld money that Congress had appropriated for that struggle until Ukraine leaders promised to state publicly that they were opening an investigation into the company for which Joe Biden’s son Hunter worked.
This information devastates Trump’s position that there was “no quid pro quo,” (although, again, asking was itself a crime)… and Taylor kept proof in the form of a paper trail. This. Is. Huge. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham tried to push back by calling leaks from Taylor’s testimony “triple hearsay” and said “this is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution,” but Taylor’s statement was explosive even without hearing what he said behind closed doors.
Note, though, what Taylor said Trump wanted in exchange for the release of military aid. He didn’t demand actual dirt on Hunter Biden (again, there is no evidence that Biden did anything illegal), but rather he wanted a public declaration that Ukraine was investigating the company for which Biden worked. The information that Ukraine was investigating the company, dumped into the media, would swamp Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy.
This is important. Trump understood that the idea that Ukraine was investigating corruption was the story, not that actual corruption existed. This is precisely what happened in 2016 with the story of Clinton’s emails, which continually dominated the 2016 election coverage, and which we now know was a complete non-story. Trump wanted to skew the public narrative before the 2020 election, and he pressured a foreign government to help him do that.
His primitive little ferret brain is good at some things, and this is one of them – knowing what kind of rotting meat draws media coverage.
And on the same day, Mitch McConnell again killed a Senate effort to guard our elections.
The other big news today was that the Senate once again refused to pass measures to secure the 2020 elections. One bill they rejected was co-sponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and required on-line platforms to make “all reasonable efforts” to ensure foreign entities do not buy political advertising. It also would make buyers of the ads public. The other bill they rejected provided $1 billion to secure the 2020 election and require paper ballots for backup in case electronic voting machines produced unexpected results.
We must have rigged elections! It’s imperative! It’s the American way!
H/t What a Maroon
Word is that Taylor’s statement and testimony are very damaging to Dirty Donnie. The Guardian has some summaries:
In the 15-page statement, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine and longtime civil servant describes how he became “increasingly concerned” that the US-Ukraine relationship was being “fundamentally undermined” by withholding military aid for “domestic political reasons.”
Taylor added that he stood by his Sept. 9 text message to Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, in which he said it would be “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
He also said he was worried about taking the job as acting ambassador to Ukraine because Giuliani was gumming up the works.
The longtime diplomat said: “I worried about what I had heard concerning the role of Rudolph Giuliani, who made several high-profile statements about Ukraine and U.S. policy toward the country.
“So during my meeting with Secretary [Mike] Pompeo on May 28, I made clear to him and the others present that if U.S. policy toward Ukraine changed, he would not want me posted there and I could not stay.”
After accepting the role, Taylor said he realized that Giuliani – along with Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland and Rick Perry – controlled “an irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making with respect to Ukraine.”
Taylor said: “Although this irregular channel was well-connected in Washington, it operated mostly outside of official State Department channels.”
Which is a polite way of saying they had no business doing what they were doing.
he was told by an official at the National Security Council that Trump had insisted the Ukrainian president himself publicly announce a probe into Joe Biden and his son.
The acting US ambassador to Ukraine said: “President Trump did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelensky should want to do this himself.”
However, Taylor said that Trump had told Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, he was not seeking a “quid pro quo,” even as military aid to Ukraine hung in the balance.
At the risk of stating the obvious: if Trump demanded that the Ukrainian president make public announcements of investigations into Democrats before he would authorize the release of military aid, then his actions were the very definition of a quid pro quo.
Well. Trump is like a toddler: he thinks he can just say “No I didn’t” and it will all go away. He’s a liar and he’s stupid and he consults only his own wants.
“Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations – in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.
“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”
Meaning…Trump wanted to force Zelensky to make this public statement so that he would be trapped and have to do the dirty things Trump wanted him to do. It doesn’t get much more gangster than that.
A tweet from Teacher2Teacher, an account where teachers apparently share ideas and advice and the like:
⛄️ Using this “gender snowperson,” Ss learn about identity and language! (📸 via educator
@LexingtonDEI) #EdEquity #ChampForKids #SchoolCulture
From the graphic style it appears to be aimed at very young children. Is it really teaching?
Do very young children really need to be taught about “gender expression”? I’m not sure I think anyone does, but the older the children the more able they are to question what they’re told by teachers. Do they need to be taught about “gender identity”? Are they taught what “identity” is first, and then how that can be made to fit with “gender”? I don’t think it can, myself, but very young children tend to believe what adults in authority tell them.
Should very young children be taught that they can be girl, boy, both, or neither?
Should very young children be taught any of this crap?
I don’t think so.
I guess the star represents the genitals? Or is it meant to be a yellow star? And is that a skirt or a random rectangle? Is it supposed to balance the sideways baseball cap? “Look, you can be both – cap and skirt! Heart and yellow star! It’s all so exciting!”
McKinnon shared this extraordinary tweet last night:
Missgendering is a HUGE trigger for suicidal ideation. Every time u MISGENDER a trans person YOU become responsible for their suicide attempts. If u have ever misgendered someone and as a result they committed, then YOU are to blame for said person losing their life. #transrights
Seriously? Is that true even if the “misgendered” person is not present when you “misgender” zem? And how does anyone know the person who “committed” did it because YOU “misgendered” zem?
If both of those claims are true then talking to or about people at all becomes a terrible hazard. Maybe we’d better all just stop doing it?
Don’t forget, McKinnon is an academic, whose field is philosophy. McKinnon teaches philosophy to students, and also retweets (to endorse, one must assume) the nonsensical dreck above.
Trump claims he’s being lynched – yes, lynched.
So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!
But it’s not a lynching. It’s not a witch hunt, and it’s not a lynching. Trump is not a woman, and he is not a black man. He is not being burned alive, and he is not being hanged.
Even Republicans don’t like the “lynching” claim…except for Lindsey Graham.
President Donald Trump’s shocking comparison of the ongoing impeachment inquiry against him to a “lynching” provoked widespread condemnation from congressional members of both parties on Monday—with the notable exception of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who told reporters on Capitol Hill that the investigation into Trump is “a lynching in every sense.”
In every sense? So, including the literal one? Because…come on now Senator.
“I think it’s pretty well accurate—this is a shame, this is a joke,” Graham told a gaggle of reporters on Monday morning. “This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American. I’ve never seen a situation in my lifetime as a lawyer where somebody’s accused of a major misconduct who cannot confront the accusers, call witnesses on their behalf, and have the discussion in the light of day so the public can judge.”
Trump’s Monday morning tweet—in which he encouraged Republicans to “remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching”—is the latest escalation in the president’s increasingly hyperbolic reactions to the impeachment inquiry, which he has called a “coup,” a “scam” and, of course, a “witch hunt.”
Later on Monday, Graham doubled down on the comparison, calling the impeachment inquiry “literally a political lynching,” and accusing reporters of holding Republicans to a higher standard than Democrats.
There’s no such thing as “literally a political lynching.” That’s like saying “literally a figurative lynching,” which would be silly.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley defended Trump’s use of the word.
“The president has used many words, all types of language, to talk about the way the media has treated him,” Gidley told reporters outside the White House, adding that Trump “wasn’t trying to compare himself to the horrific history in this country at all.”
Oh really? Then what did he mean by the word? Why use that word if not to compare the impeachment inquiry to being hanged from a tree by a white racist mob?
Graham, a longtime defender of some of the president’s most appalling excesses, represents South Carolina, a state with a violent history of racial injustice. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal non-profit, an estimated 184 black people were the victims of lynchings in the state between 1877 and 1950. The number of those killed by white mobs in the Jim Crow South without the ability to confront accusers, call witnesses, and be tried by a jury of their peers tops an estimated 4,000 people.
We treat rich white guys much better in this country.
BREAKING: Jessica Yaniv has just been ordered to pay legal costs to the business owners Yaniv harassed at the Human Rights Tribunal. The estheticians do not have to handle Yaniv’s male genitalia now or ever again. Finally. Some good news.
This is HUGE: via @JCCFCanada
I wish he had to give money to all of them, and a larger sum of it (to pay for their wasted time, just for one thing), but still.
Dirty Donnie retweeted one Jessica Ditto linking to a National Review piece a couple of hours ago:
“Empowering half the world’s population to flourish in the market economy is the best way to boost growth.”
What the hell is that creepy photo and what possessed them to use it? Why is Princess Ivanka rising from a sea of lesser women, bathed in golden light? Why does she tower over them with a serene madonna smile? Why do they all look roughly similar to her? Why are they all young or youngish? Why are they all white or near-white? Why are they all coiffed and heavily made up? Where are the farmers, workers, cops, teachers? Where are the immigrants, African-Americans, peasants, intellectuals? Why are we being nudged into thinking the Ivanka-type woman is the only woman? Why is it all so Stepford Wives? And why why why are we being treated to this deification of rich thieving crook Ivanka Trump??
Here he is saying it (go to 2:20). He says a lot of other stupid shit too.
There are no words, just the photo of the cheater’s two stolen medals and his “rainbow” jersey.
A tiny yet significant item – Trump gives the finger to the woman astronaut who had the audacity to correct (in a tactful way) his assertion that she and her colleague were the first women ever to work outside the space station.
The Guardian says Trump told lie after lie after lie in that Cabinet meeting.
Trump bounced from one falsehood to another while speaking to reporters during his cabinet meeting at the White House.
Here are just a few fact-checks from reporters about the president’s 70-minute meeting:
Trump’s remarks in the Cabinet room are a stream of exaggerations, boasts and falsehoods….
For example, in his remarks about Doral: “Miami International, one of the biggest airports in the world. Some people say it’s the biggest.”
(MIA is not even in the top 20)
That stupid “some people say” thing, as if simple facts like comparative airport size can be decided by “some people saying.”
President Trump on Syria: “We’re having very good news coming out. The ceasefire’s holding.“
Note: U.S. officials have told NBC & CNN that the ceasefire is not holding in Syria.
Repeating it over and over doesn’t make it true. Contrary to what Trump says, the whistleblower complaint was factually quite accurate, according to the White House’s own rough transcript.
Lie after lie after lie after lie.
Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Is Taco Bell available?
I know normally the game is “what if Obama had done this,” but I think in this instance it’s more fun to play “what if Hillary had done something even vaguely approaching this?”
Like, let’s say the G-7 summit host contract was awarded to some resort after a thorough bid process pursuant to applicable government procurement regulations. Then some enterprising right wing news site “uncovers” that President Hillary Clinton’s former college roommate’s cousin’s dentist sits on the board of that resort. Scandal! The right wing erupts in fury and outrage! Fox News runs wall to wall coverage. Every conservative legal analyst soberly opines that this is EXACTLY the sort of situation that the Emoluments Clause was intended to prevent, and because Republicans care so much about the Constitution, they really have no choice but to impeach her. The Washington Post tries to be “balanced” by noting the “controversy,” but the New York Times dives right in, quoting anonymous FBI sources who are reportedly “troubled” by the allegations.
If you think I’m exaggerating, consider this: conservatives are currently trying to invent a scandal out of the fact that the lawyer who represents one of the Ukraine whistleblowers used to (pre-2000) work for the same public interest organization as the man who went on to be Hillary’s campaign manager. Two DC figures crossed paths once? They are “linked,” and obviously conspiring!
At this point, Trump could announce that he’s taking the U.S. government’s gold reserves and using it to make new toilets at every Trump Hotel, and GOP senators would nod and say “yes, that makes perfect sense and is utterly appropriate. Trump Properties have excellent experience with gold furniture and fixtures.”
Trump is currently busy pissing on the Constitution in public.
Even after reversing his decision to hold the June G7 summit at his Florida resort, Trump is still insisting that the property would have been the best place for the multi-nation event.
Reuters White House reporter tweets:
.@realDonaldTrump says during White House cabinet meeting that the G7 at his Doral resort would have been the greatest G7 ever, Democrats went crazy about that plan even though he would have done it for free. (Trump announced Saturday he would no longer hold the G7 at Doral.)
The Guardian continues:
The president is blaming Democrats for forcing his hand on the issue, but a number of reports have surfaced that Trump only changed his mind after hearing frustration from congressional Republicans about having to defend the decision.
But wait! That’s not the pissing on the Constitution part! That came a few minutes later:
Taking questions from reporters about his canceled plans to hold the June G7 summit at his Florida resort, Trump appeared dismissive of a constitutional clause forbidding federal officeholders from accepting gifts from foreign states.
The president said, according to the pool report: “You people with this phony Emoluments Clause.”
That’s it! That’s the pissing part. Trump calling a clause of the Constitution he swore a solemn public ceremonial oath to protect and defend, “phony.”
Peter Tatchell again nudges us to applaud his hostility to women:
Preventing trans women from competing in sport is denying their human rights. Most athletes have some form of advantage, such as fast-twitch muscle fibres, large hearts & lungs or extra long legs. Why single out trans competitors? https://cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/preventing-trans-women-competing-denying-human-rights-transgender-athlete-rachel-mckinnon-returns-defend-track-world-title-440713#YcXIv2c8K4qvKXlm.99
FOLLOW @MunroeBergdorf
As a professor of human rights, I say you are talking bollocks.
247 other people commented in a similar vein (I’m one of them); I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and didn’t find one in the opposite vein.
Rachel McKinnon has some deep thoughts for people who aren’t respectful of sport and fair play.
Masters women’s track cycling is a rare and special thing. It allows us to extend our competitive careers and not think so much about contracts or going to the Olympics. We’re a small community, and we should take GOOD CARE of each other.
Like, by not competing against each other if we’re not actually women? That kind of GOOD CARE of each other?
Think about the optics of your behaviors. My new friend, multi time Danish elite national champion is now a friend. We bonded. And she chose to wear one of my #sportisahumanright stickers on her jersey on the podium!! That’s a powerful, small action to show her support for me and what I’m doing.
Pat pat pat. His new friend, whose full name he can’t remember (or can’t be bothered to say). His new friend who went along with his pretense. She’s the good kind of woman, the one who doesn’t make a fuss and lets men do whatever they want.
But someone is characteristically and conspicuously off to the side, not sharing the embrace, instead putting her hand behind her back. I had hoped for better from her.
Do better people.
He had hoped for better from her – he, the selfish narcissistic asshole who stole her first place win by cheating his way into the race, he had hoped she would smile in a friendly way as he walked all over her.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Updating to add: there’s more scolding on the next post.
I’ll just let this photo to stand for itself. Two new friends, and a serious supporter of my racing, sharing the joy of achieving hard-won goals. Can’t wait to see Kirsten next year. …and then another who is somewhat less enthused to lose a race against me…off to the side. It’s traditional for everyone on the podium to put their arms around each other’s backs. It’s a group photo.
Hey, you know what else is traditional? For men to race against men. For men not to cheat their way onto women’s teams by announcing that they’re women in a political climate in which people aren’t allowed to respond with “No you’re not.” For competitors not to cheat. That’s what. Self-righteous lectures by a cheater aimed at the woman he cheated out of her win are not needed or wanted.
When one athlete purposefully put that hand behind her own back communicates something that matters. It’s bad sportsmanship.
I have a LOT more to say about this long mess of a week and how much transphobia was just EVERYWHERE.
Bad sportsmanship.
Says the cheating cheater after his successful cheating won him a prize he would never have won if he’d raced against other men.
We have a LOT more to say about this long mess too, and by god we’re saying it.
I have yet to meet a real champion who has a problem with trans women.
Real champions want stronger competition.
If you win because bigotry got your competition banned… you’re a loser.
Real champions may want stronger competition but that doesn’t mean they want unfair competition. Champion footballers age 12 no doubt want to play against the best age 12s, that doesn’t mean they want to play against the best adult players.
What a truly gruesomely self-serving self-flattering dishonest thing to say – that conceited selfish narcissistic piece of shit telling the women he’s doing them a favor by upping the competition when in fact he’s stealing their chances.
It’s not being a loser for women to race against women without having hulking Rhys McKinnon thrown into the mix. The loser is Rhys McKinnon insisting on racing against women.
Babes…those assholes are spending their day off harassing and stalking trans women…
…just leave them to their dad pathetic lives.
Do something more productive than argue with fuckwhistles.
“Fuckwhistles”?
We’re not the ones with the whistle or the dad issues, Rhys.
DOCTOR Rachel won his race against the women:
I’ll just let this photo to stand for itself. Two new friends, and a serious supporter of my racing, sharing the joy of achieving hard-won goals. Can’t wait to see Kirsten next year.
…and then somewhat less… https://www.instagram.com/p/B31KuybliJC/?igshid=6bg9xqlm7maw …
Louise Moody has a better photo:
Third place, Kirsten wore my
#sportisahumanright sticker as a sign of solidarity. We hugged, and are embracing here in celebration. Second place kept her distance and put her hand behind her back as her own sign… signifying something like poor sportsmanship.
Except that “second place” was actually first place, but Rachel stole her medal by cheating. Rachel has some nerve accusing the woman she stole a gold medal from of “poor sportsmanship.” Some.brass.nerve.
What’s DOCTOR Rachel up to? Accusing other people of “poor sportsmanship.” Yes really.
But first there was the rallying call to the troops, excuse me I mean the “babes.”
Babes, just ignore the random transphobes. Block and let them scream into the void.
Please?
The void. He thinks that if he blocks us what we’re left with is the void. Now that’s narcissism.
Many people claim to support trans women
But often they only support us until our lives impact them in any meaningful way
In my case, people literally say they support trans women…but not in sport
There can be no ‘but’
We are either full and equal women, or not
We are.
How? Why? Based on what? He might as well say “We are either full and equal armadillos, or not”
But facts. Facts, I tell you!
And babes, facts don’t care about your feelings: medical professionals (WHO, AMA), mental health practitioners (both APA’s), and sport (IOC) all say that trans women are *real* women, are really female. Cry about it all you want. Your feelings won’t change the facts that we are.
That’s hilarious, especially coming from a philosopher. Institutions saying things=those things are FACTS. Real, true, irrefutable FACTS, unlike your stupid fluffy FEELINGS. Medical professionals, by which I mean the people who write policy statements for institutions like the WHO and the AMA, say that trans women are real women, and so that claim becomes a stone cold fact.
Derp.
Also it has to do with who matters and who doesn’t.
There’s no need for me to change *your* misguided opinion on the matter. You *don’t* matter.
Sorry. You don’t.
So we can be swept away then? Like so much rubble?
He’s so trumpy.
Everyone who *does* matter already says we’re real women, really female.
My birth certificate, passport, US green card, etc etc all say I’m really female.
Note, again, the risibly unphilosophical treatment of various official certificates as guarantees of absolute truth.
This is why I refuse to debate, live or otherwise, whether trans women are *really* women.
That debate is over.
You lost. Your feelings don’t trump our rights and basic human dignity.
Get a better hobby. Obsessing and harassing trans women is not a good hobby.
Our feelings don’t trump his rights…but apparently his feelings do trump our rights. Why is that, exactly?
The thing is, the people who oppose trans women’s full and equal rights think that the ‘facts’ are on their side.
This is why they always come back to “common sense.”
That’s not an argument, loves. It’s the last refuge of the ignorant. It means you’ve already lost, bad.
No, we don’t always come back to “common sense,” and the accusation is laughable coming from someone who claims PR releases from institutions=absolute unarguable truth.
Coming up next: the “poor sportsmanship” follies.
