About that history conference where out of 30 speakers a mere 30 were men…

In organizing the recent Applied History conference, we invited a number of distinguished female historians to give papers, none of whom was able to attend. In the end, just under 24% of conference participants were women.

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) March 15, 2018

I’ve heard that before. What you do then is ask more.

https://twitter.com/drleatongray/status/974396073128222721

https://twitter.com/avoiding_bears/status/974385606381002752

https://twitter.com/drleatongray/status/974394574880890881

To historians at that!

https://twitter.com/KELoveland/status/974406096550006784

So many they forgot to ask.

Well I didn’t get a call?! Ladies? @bettanyhughes @wmarybeard @sixteenthCgirl @alexvtunzelmann @HallieRubenhold @SarahRoseCrook @sarahchurchwell @FernRiddell @katemond @KateWilliamsme @AmberButchart @Amanda_Vickery @theAliceRoberts @19Averil @HelenhCarr @carolinepennock no space https://t.co/KHmCjnW14U

— Prof Janina Ramirez (@DrJaninaRamirez) March 15, 2018

So many more… @ClerkofOxford @caitlinrgreen @hrcastor @RobertaStellon @Joanne_Paul_ @Hannah_Greig @DrLindseyFitz @Emma_J_Wells @TheDiasporaDiva @eeleach @SarahEBond @DrLindseyFitz @helenczerski @jackyklein28 @Lucy_Worsley @OlivetteOtele @RebeccaRideal. We were obvs all out.

— Prof Janina Ramirez (@DrJaninaRamirez) March 15, 2018

Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair thinks Trump may fire Sessions soon.

From the moment Donald Trump appointed Chief of Staff John Kelly last summer, he vented to friends and advisers that Kelly was too overbearing, preventing him from acting on his instincts and impulses, the things that got him elected president. To truly be himself, Trump turned to Twitter and Fox & Friends. But over the past week, even though Kelly is still nominally on the scene, his presidency has entered a new phase—one in which Trump feels emboldened to throw off the shackles that have thus far constrained him.

That’s bad. We don’t want Trump feeling emboldened. We want Trump feeling emfrightened; we want Trump feeling small and weak and out of place. We want him longing for the good old days on 57th Street. We want him thinking about quitting.

Speaking to reporters shortly after tweeting that he had replaced Tillerson at Foggy Bottom with hardline C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo, Trump indicated he would soon move against his remaining antagonists, many of whom he appointed with glee, in the executive branch. “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want,” he said.

Normal, halfway competent presidents don’t go about getting the Cabinets they want by trial and error, they do the work to get it right the first time. The fault for having the Cabinet he didn’t want is Trump’s, not anyone else’s.

One hire he seems to want is John Bolton, who wants to bomb Iran, so that should work out a treat.

But he also still plans to fire Sessions.

According to two Republicans in regular contact with the White House, there have been talks that Trump could replace Sessions with E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, who would not be recused from overseeing the Russia probe. Also, as an agency head and former state attorney general, Pruitt would presumably have a good shot at passing a Senate confirmation hearing.

And then he could fire Mueller.

That put me into a bit of a panic this morning, but friends on Facebook told me even firing Mueller won’t necessarily stop the investigation.

Regardless, though, the removal of Mueller wouldn’t necessarily stop the case in its tracks. Whoever was responsible for that firing could appoint another special counsel, for one thing; it was, in fact, the work of Archibald Cox’s successor, Leon Jaworski, that led to some of the most significant court findings in the Watergate scandal.

Even if there was no successor forthcoming, the case and investigation could and probably would continue on its own as a regular FBI inquiry.

Starting an investigation at the FBI is a formal process, requiring agents to demonstrate evidence of a criminal predicate to move to what’s known as a “full field” investigation, and, similarly, closing an investigation requires a formal decision to “decline” charges. The “Mueller probe” isn’t actually a single case; at this point there are multiple independent investigations underway, including into Paul Manafort and Rick Gates’ former business dealings, into the campaign’s separate dealings with Russian officials, and into possible obstruction of justice around Jim Comey’s firing.

Some of those cases were well underway before Mueller took over—it was, in fact, the early work of investigators that led to the guilty pleas last fall of George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn—and others have been launched since. All would and could continue without him. Without Mueller, the assigned FBI agents would return to the Washington Field Office and the prosecution would be placed, most likely, under the supervision of either the US attorney in DC or the Eastern District of Virginia, where the court cases are already playing out.

Perhaps the key lesson of Mueller’s investigation thus far has been that at every step, Mueller and his investigative dream team have known more and been further ahead in their process than the public anticipated or realized. At every stage, Mueller has surprised the public and witnesses before him with his depth of knowledge and detail—and he shocked the public with news last fall that Papadopoulos had been arrested, been cooperating, and pleaded guilty, all without a single hint of a leak. The news last week that Comey himself had testified before Mueller’s team weeks earlier continues the pattern that even amid the most scrutinized investigation in history, Mueller is moving methodically forward, with cards up his sleeve to play.

There’s no reason to believe, in fact, that Mueller—who has surrounded himself with some of the most thoughtful minds of the Justice Department, including Michael Dreeban, arguably the country’s top appellate lawyer, whose career has focused on looking down the road at how cases might play out months or even years later—hasn’t been organizing his investigation since day one with the expectation that he’d someday be fired and worked to ensure that this, his final chapter in a lifetime of public service at the Justice Department, won’t be curtailed before it has gotten to what Mueller calls “ground truth.”

So. Panic abated.

H/t Ken Cope

Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, telling us how “brave” the torturers were. “Enhanced Interrogation” is of course PR-speak for torture.

The Enhanced Interrogation Program saved lives, prevented attacks, & produced intel that led to Osama bin Laden. The techniques were the same as those used on our own people in the SERE program. No one should slander the brave men & women who carried out this crucial program. https://t.co/IXQuldr1R6

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 13, 2018

Hannah Arendt on Himmler doing the same thing:

The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted from the Armed S.S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any ordinary unit of the German army…Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler – who apparently was rather strongly afflicted with these instinctive reactions himself – was very simple and probably very effective: it consisted in turning these reactions around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!

Horrible news out of Rio:

Protests were held across Brazil after a popular Rio city councillor and her driver were shot dead by two men in what appears to have been a targeted assassination.

Marielle Franco was a groundbreaking politician who had become a voice for disadvantaged people in the teeming favelas that are home to almost one-quarter of Rio de Janeiro’s population, where grinding poverty, police brutality and shootouts with drug gangs are routine.

Midia Ninja/PSOL50.org

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemned the killings, while friends, colleagues and politicians paid tribute to Franco.

On Thursday afternoon crowds gathered outside Rio de Janeiro’s council chamber chanting “not one step backwards” ahead of a ceremony in honour of Franco inside. Many wept as her coffin was carried inside.

The spontaneous demonstration brought together union members, feminists, leftists and residents of the city’s poorer communities.

Camila Pontes, 30, a communications officer, sheltered from the hot sun under an umbrella. “I feel lost, without hope,” she said. “It is a very tough blow for anyone who fights for justice, for freedom, for equality.”

Franco was a gay black woman who defied the odds of Rio politics to win the fifth-highest vote count among council members when she was elected in 2016. She was an expert on police violence and had recently accused officers of being overly aggressive in searching residents of gang-controlled shantytowns. A member of a leftist party, Franco was also known for her social work in slums. She was in her first term in office.

God it’s just awful.

Read on.

Aaron Blake at the Post on why it’s so alarming that Trump cheerily admits he lies to heads of state government.

The first reason is that this is perhaps the one issue Trump has focused on for decades: trade. It would be more understandable for him to make things up on guns and immigration, but trade is supposedly the issue on which Trump has been entirely consistent for many years. The idea that other countries are taking advantage of the United States was a talking point long before he became a politician.

Yet he doesn’t know even a basic fact about it, so what does that say about his knowledge of other issues? Combine the ignorance, the lies, and the belligerence, and then plug in Kim.

What happens if Trump takes this approach — or the one from the meetings on guns and immigration — to his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un? Can a guy who can’t be bothered to understand the basics before talking to foreign leaders and lawmakers do the kind of homework required for very sensitive and complicated negotiations involving nuclear programs? And what if he doesn’t even try? What if he decides to wing it, as he did with Trudeau?

Thus far, Trump has shown no signs that he thinks that style isn’t working. And apparently, it’s still very much a part of his international diplomacy.

Scary enough?

Sigh.

ALL-MALE HISTORY CONFERENCE. This goes for the GUINNESS BOOK of the century! A team of 30 white male historians will discuss Applied History at @Stanford . What a shame. https://t.co/IXFQqi2eN2 pic.twitter.com/GBRNzIFMvP

— Ana Lucia Araujo, PhD (@araujohistorian) March 14, 2018

Luke Harding and Andrew Roth at the Guardian say that the Russian poisoning was not about the victims but all about the message.

One former employee of the Russian special services said nerve agents were used only if the goal was to draw attention. “This is a very dirty method. There’s a risk of contaminating other people, which creates additional difficulties,” he told the Kommersant newspaper, adding: “There are far more delicate methods that professionals use.”

In other words, novichok was a gruesome calling card. As those who organised the hit must have known, the trail goes directly back to Moscow. The incident even took place down the road from Porton Down, the government’s military research base, which swiftly tested and identified the toxin.

Why? There are various theories. To pick a fight with the UK while playing the victim card, perhaps; to motivate rich Russians to go back to Russia…to scare potential witnesses in the Mueller investigation.

Originally a comment by Maureen Brian on The allegations that convinced him are not public.

I am glad that Jerry Coyne got there because, as Ophelia notes, he has been both dismissive and pretty rude to people many a time in the past. So I’ll modify that: I am glad Jerry Coyne got there at last.

It is interesting to think of the interplay here between incident and pattern. We all have examples, either personal or told to us first hand, of describing an event only to be dismissed. We are told that it is minor, that we are making too much of nothing, that we should be flattered by Big Guy’s interest but whichever of those it is we should just shut up and go away.

Start from the other end, then. We describe a pattern of behaviour – I think here of @docfreeride – involving one person, involving many, which disparages us, puts us at a disadvantage, leaves us struggling to restore our own credibility as a functioning human, opting out of activities which we could do perfectly well and might even enjoy.

Remember Rebecca Watson’s video? The take-away message from that was not that she met a gormless oik in an elevator – we meet so many that the tale would not be interesting. It was supposed to be, “Guys, don’t do that.” A general and mildly expressed admonition, except that 50% of the brains on the planet had already blown a fuse. I now think that some of those fuses were blown quite deliberately to avoid addressing the issue, only to be followed by armies of bandwagon jumpers most of whom had no idea who Rebecca is let alone bothering to see the video. It was, though, actively encouraged by the great thinkers who are now coming to the realisation if a little late.

So, when wearing our “scientist” hats, we can argue that this interplay between incident and pattern is what counts. It doesn’t matter in tackling it whether the “incident” is sexual or simply obstructive, though the sexual ones can be truly nasty and will need a different response. Even Darwin, in a quite different era, realised this. He had his theory in the 1830s, remember, and did decades of research to back it up. He soon realised that where he saw repeats or correspondences, that was where he should be asking why. A point lost on one of his more famous devotees!

So we are in limbo. The men insist that the women fail to understand their own experience. I have been told that in so many words though not, of course, on this blog. What, all 75 years of it? Meanwhile, the women have given up on all but the best of men.

Then along comes Harvey Weinstein. Everybody knew but there was nowhere to go. Now suddenly the whole of Hollywood rises up against him.

Now, suddenly it becomes possible to say that people, both men and women, are capable of behaving badly. If they get away with whatever it is, they will probably do it again. I’ve seen it less with women but I do know that men carve those notches on their metaphorical bed heads and that men mimic each other. The question becomes not whether doing such-and-such is a good idea in itself but whether they can get away with it.

Well, now they can’t and it is good to see some of them asking themselves whether all the “rumour” they have so readily dismissed might be telling them something. It has, though, been a very long wait.

Oops.

A teacher who is also a reserve police officer trained in firearm use ‘accidentally’ discharged a gun Tuesday at Seaside High School in Monterey County, Calif., during a class devoted to public safety, school officials said in a statement. A male student was reported to have sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The weapon, which was not described, was pointed at the ceiling, according to a statement from the school, and debris fell from the ceiling.

Arm the teachers! Everyone will be safe then!

The teacher was identified by police as Dennis Alexander, who teaches math as well as a course in the administration of justice. Alexander is a reserve police officer for Sand City and a Seaside city councilman. He could not immediately be reached for comment but he has reportedly apologized for the incident. 

The Monterey County Weekly, quoting Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante, reported that Alexander had his last gun safety training less than a year ago. “I have concerns about why he was displaying a loaded firearm in a classroom,” Ferrante told KSBW. “We will be looking into that.”

Why did he fire a gun into the ceiling? To make sure it wasn’t loaded.

The incident comes amid a national debate on how to protect students from mass shootings like the one that took the lives of 17 people in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. Among the proposals advanced is training and arming teachers, an approach favored by President Trump, among others, but opposed by a majority of the teachers in the National Education Association, including many who said in an NEA survey that it would make them feel less safe.

I can’t imagine why…

https://twitter.com/noonanjo/status/974000437383847937?s=21

The new Jesus and Mo:

The first comment objects that that’s “punching down at transgender folks.” But is it? It’s reality that a good many trans activists on social media do threaten women (not men so much) with violence for putative crimes such as “misgendering.” Isn’t that “punching down”?

Oops, Trump’s pick to replace Pompeo at the CIA was involved in torture.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday condemned President Trump’s decision to nominate Gina Haspel to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), saying she was involved in “one of darkest chapters in American history.”

He put out a statement saying she needs to explain her position on torture.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration “squandered precious moral authority” to get intelligence, McCain said.

Haspel joined the CIA in 1985 and faced scrutiny for her role surrounding waterboarding and other interrogation techniques used on detainees at a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Haspel was “up to her eyeballs in torture, both in running a secret torture prison in Thailand and carrying out an order to cover up torture crimes by destroying videotapes.”

Progressive foreign policy groups are fighting back against her nomination, saying her direct role in the torture program should “disqualify her” from the position.

Trump, on the other hand, is a big fan of torture as long as we’re the ones doing it.

This is not at all chilling:

Russian state television has warned “traitors” and Kremlin critics that they should not settle in England because of an increased risk of dying in mysterious circumstances.

“Don’t choose England as a place to live. Whatever the reasons, whether you’re a professional traitor to the motherland or you just hate your country in your spare time, I repeat, no matter, don’t move to England,” the presenter Kirill Kleymenov said during a news programme on Channel One, state TV’s flagship station.

“Something is not right there. Maybe it’s the climate. But in recent years there have been too many strange incidents with a grave outcome. People get hanged, poisoned, they die in helicopter crashes and fall out of windows in industrial quantities,” Kleymenov said.

Fake news?

A number of Kremlin critics have met grisly ends in Britain in recent years. Boris Berezovsky, an oligarch turned government critic, was found hanged at his home in Berkshire in March 2013. The coroner delivered an open verdict. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB security service officer, died in 2006 after being poisoned with polonium-210 in the lobby of a Mayfair hotel, allegedly by Russian hitmen. Vladimir Putin dismissed accusations of Russian involvement.

In 2012, Alexander Perepilichnyy, a former banker who was helping Swiss prosecutors investigate a Russian-linked money-laundering scheme, died after collapsing in Surrey. A pre-inquest hearing heard that traces of a chemical that can be found in the poisonous plant gelsemium were later found in his stomach. The inquest is due to resume next month.

Stephen Curtis, a millionaire lawyer with close ties to the exiled Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, died when his helicopter crashed close to Bournemouth airport in 2004. Curtis is reported to have told a close relative that if he were to die, it would not be an accident. One of Curtis’s associates, Scot Young, who had business links to Berezovsky, was found impaled on railings after falling from his apartment in Marylebone, central London, in 2014. The coroner found insufficient evidence to rule it a suicide, and his family suspect he was murdered.

We get The Sopranos and The Wire, they get threats on the news.

Also…

John McEntee, who has served as President Trump’s personal assistant since Mr. Trump won the presidency, was forced out of his position and escorted from the White House on Monday after his security clearance was revoked, officials with knowledge of the incident said.

Oops.

But don’t worry! He’s ok!

But Mr. McEntee will remain in the president’s orbit despite his abrupt departure from the White House. Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign announced Tuesday that Mr. McEntee has been named Senior Adviser for Campaign Operations, putting him in a position to remain as a close aide during the next several years.

The brass won’t talk about why he was fired, but.

But a senior administration official said that many of the president’s top aides were shocked and dismayed by the abrupt departure, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said Mr. McEntee had been expected to travel with Mr. Trump — as he always does — when the president departed for a trip to California Tuesday morning.

So it must have been pretty bad then. Late night phone chats with Putin?

Mr. McEntee’s departure has several of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers worried about the effects on the president’s mood. The senior administration official said that the president has been in a “good place” recently, but said that it is hard to overstate the effect of the departure, along with that of Ms. Hicks. Both Mr. McEntee and Ms. Hicks have had offices just outside the Oval Office.

It’s a little bit like working with a grizzly bear.