Daily Kos reports:

This [is] a quick heads-up on the “1776 report”, which was released today by the White House, of all days, on MLK Day. It’s another attempt to re-write and white-wash history and prop up the modern white supremacist movement.

The report was written by the “1776 Commission”, a rag-tag group of mostly white and conservative “historians”; it states that criticism of the Founding Fathers’ slave ownership ‘has done enormous damage’ and has had a ‘devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric’. The report claims that the nation’s founders detested slavery even though many of them owned enslaved people.

So what’s the idea here? That praise of the “founding fathers'” slave ownership would do tremendous … Read the rest

39 hours 23 minutes.… Read the rest

JL at the Glinner Update on the theft of the McIver Baths:

The McIver Ladies Baths is in the beautiful Sydney suburb of Coogee. It was built in 1886 and has been for the exclusive use of women and children ever since. Screened from view by its cliff-foot location, the pool provides the perfect place for women to swim and sunbathe in peace and safety, free from male interest and male eyes.

Make no mistake, that’s an issue when it comes to swimming.

Recently the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Association (R&CLSA), which manages the pool, decided that access would be extended to (genuine) transwomen, ie those who’ve undergone sex-reassignment surgery. The information on the website was updated accordingly.

Oops.

Gwyneth Paltrow's 'vagina' candle reportedly explodes in UK woman's home https://t.co/1BtKRUnsPD pic.twitter.com/f8KYB6e9fQ

— New York Post (@nypost) January 18, 2021

Makes ya think, don’t it.

The wording is deliberate, I think…on Google you see

Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘vagina’ candle explodes in UK woman’s …

And even when you see the whole thing you still flinch just a bit before you register the last word. Wicked but in this case appropriate, I think, given the preposterous recklessness of millionaire Paltrow telling women to shove her expensive candles up themselves*.

Plus it’s funny. Paltrow needs to be an object of ridicule.

Maybe she could team up with trans women of the “include us in your women-only swimming pools” type to create ever … Read the rest

Navalny news:

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny called on his supporters to protest after he was arrested at a Moscow airport Sunday.

“Don’t be afraid. Take to the streets. Don’t do it for me, do it for yourselves and your future,” Navalny said in a video posted to YouTube, the social media platform that has brought his anti-Kremlin message to the farthest corners of Russia. Navalny’s supporters say they will organize nationwide protests on Jan. 23.

A judge ruled to remand Navalny in custody for 30 days following his return from Germany, where he was recovering from an August poisoning that he blames on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities had warned that Navalny would be arrested for

She didn’t mean anything by it, and besides Trump told her to.

A Texas real estate agent who was part of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the US Capitol said on Monday she was just following the orders of Donald Trump even as she faced federal charges for her part in the insurrection.

“I have no guilt in my heart,” Jenna Ryan told NBC News. “I’m glad I was there because I witnessed history. And I’ll never get the chance to do that again.”

I certainly fucking hope not.

“President Trump requested that we be in DC on 6 January,” she said. “So this was our way of going and stopping the steal.”

…

“I listen to my president,

Trump is working hard on those pardons. Not the pandemic, not the vaccination program, not telling Putin to release Navalny, not helping with the investigations of the insurrection he made happen, but with mostly corrupt pardons.

On Sunday, Trump met his son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka Trump and senior advisers to thrash out a lengthy list of pardon requests, the Washington Post reported. The meeting took up much of the day. The president was personally engaged with the details of every case, it said.

With a normal president that wouldn’t need saying. With Trump it’s so rare as to need saying.

CNN reported on Monday that the final batch of clemency actions was expected to feature criminal justice

“Gender and identity reporter” Vic Parsons at Pink News tells us about a protest against those evil bitches who like to swim at a women and children only beach:

A “swim-in for trans inclusion” at the women-only coastal swimming pool in Coogee, Sydney, on 17 January saw trans and cis swimmers defy a transphobic policy the pool released last week and celebrate transgender pride and solidarity.

That is, there was a swim-in to pressure women who use the women-only coastal swimming pool in Sydney to agree that it can stop being women-only now, and to celebrate the pride and solidarity of men who take everything away from women.

Protestors held signs reading “Stop drinking JK’s pool-aid!” and “Let them swim”.

Allons enfants de la patrie…

This video from @NewYorker is incredible.

A man rifles through confidential Senate documents and says, “I think @tedcruz would want us to do this.” pic.twitter.com/GowauKXpaq

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) January 17, 2021

… Read the rest

The pardons are being a nice little racket for some.

Allies and associates of President Donald Trump have collected tens of thousands of dollars in fees from those seeking pardons from the President, The New York Times reported Sunday.

I assume Donald expects a cut.

The Times, citing documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers, reported that the lobbying for clemency intensified as it became apparent Trump had no standing to challenge his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. Those who monetized the lobbying efforts include a former federal prosecutor, a former personal lawyer to the President and a former top Trump campaign adviser, among others, the Times reported.

Nothing at all filthy or shaming … Read the rest

As it happened:

The moment Alexei Navalny was detained at passport control in Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport. Camera @LizaVereykina Producer @LizaShuvalova pic.twitter.com/2TLZF02Zge

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) January 17, 2021

… Read the rest

Navalny has gone home to Russia and been arrested on arrival.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained after defiantly flying back to Moscow on Sunday, his spokesperson said, months after he was left in a coma when he was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.

Facing the threat of his arrest on touching down, the prominent Kremlin critic boarded a plane in Berlin, Germany, where he was evacuated for treatment in August from a hospital in Siberia on the insistence of his family.

The plane, which was originally headed for Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, was diverted to the capital’s Sheremetyevo Airport shortly before landing, Navalny’s press officer Kira Yarmysh confirmed in a tweet, without explaining why the

News from Afghanistan:

Two women judges working for the Afghan Supreme Court have been shot dead.

They were killed by unidentified gunmen on their way to work on Sunday. The deaths are the latest in a string of assassinations targeting journalists, activists and other political figures.

The women were shot dead in an early morning ambush, which also saw their driver wounded.

The incident happened in the Qala-e-Fathullah area of Kabul and no group has said it carried out the attack.

No group has said it carried out the murders.… Read the rest

Guy says “Arrest me” so they do.

BREAKING: New York man arrested for role in US Capitol chaos. He’s accused of jabbing a bat at a police officer. A childhood Facebook friend tipped feds. Some of his social media posts ….. are well……. pic.twitter.com/RTzTRuUtem

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 17, 2021

More:

NEWBURGH, Orange County (WABC) — Police arrested a man from Orange County after he implicated himself in the siege on the U.S. Capitol.

Edward Jacob Lang, 26, posted pictures on social media including one that said “This is me.”

So FBI agents turned up and arrested him.

There’s not a whole lot of intellectual fire power in this “rebellion” is there…… Read the rest

Originally a post by Bjarte Foshaug at Miscellany Room.

As a part of my ongoing efforts to study the rise of authoritarianism I recently finished reading This Is Not Propaganda by Peter Pomerantsev. Here are what I take to be some of the main points.

Where the totalitarian movements of the 20th century used to peddle some official story (an ideology, a philosophy, a world view etc.) that purported to be true and back it up with appeals to supposedly objective facts and rational arguments, the new authoritarians have adopted a more “postmodern” approach. Rather than claiming the truth for themselves, the likes of Trump, Putin, and Erdoğan are content to put so much conflicting information out there that … Read the rest

A space for women and children:

There are few things I find more calming than being near water. Drawing a hot bath or driving to the beach early in the morning feels a bit like turning the volume down in my head, like cutting off anxiety’s dripping tap at its source.

When a friend first took me to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney I was scared of being denied entry, but quickly became enchanted with the place, returning over and over. Known simply as the “women’s baths” among friends, the ocean pool just south of Coogee beach has operated for over a century, providing a space for women and children to swim and spend time, sheltered from both stronger

Another “expert” lecturing us from a great height:

To the small group of cis women worried about sharing spaces with trans women: you’ve almost certainly already been doing so for most of ur life. The online trend of anti-trans hysteria is new, not trans women existing in th world we all share (under patriarchy we all experience)

— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) January 15, 2021

Over history, ideas of who is a Real Woman/who is not has been weaponised to justify slavery, forced sterilisation, rape, genocide.

Feminism rejects oppressive definitions of women. Womanhood is no longer only afforded to bodies that are white, wealthy, fertile, appealing to men

— Sally Rugg (@sallyrugg) January 15, 2021

It never was. There was never … Read the rest

Contemptible to the bitter end.

For now, Trump is undecided on whether he will pen a letter to Biden to leave in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Some of his advisers have encouraged him to think about continuing the tradition. Early in his presidency, Trump liked to show off to visitors the letter he received from President Barack Obama…

Tradition shmadition. Other people have to pay him all the respect, but he does not have to reciprocate.

Initially, Trump had planned to depart the White House a day early. But he now plans to leave on the morning of January 20. His departure aboard Marine One from the White House South Lawn will likely be visible

Trump likes to brag about grabbing them, but he doesn’t like men he compares to them.

Mike Pence, Trump’s fanatically loyal vice-president, appears to have borne much of Trump’s fury. Trump had been badgering Pence to refuse to certify Biden as president – something which is almost certainly illegal.

Pence, having stood by Trump as the president bragged about sexually assaulting women, defended white supremacists, paid off women who said they had had affairs with him, strong-armed a foreign government to interfere with the presidential election and had hundreds of children locked in cages at the US-Mexico border as a result of his hardline immigration policies, defied Trump at the last.

“You can either go down in history as

I love these people who document their insurrectionist activity on social media.

A Texas real estate agent who took a private jet to the Capitol last week and called it “one best days of my life” was charged Friday for participating in the violent insurrection.

Jenna Ryan, a Frisco, Texas real estate broker and life coach, has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds after documenting her two-day excursion to D.C. on social media.

So kind of a mediocre life coach then. I think I won’t be seeking her out for coaching.

Ryan went on a PR offensive after the riot, telling Spectrum News that she “answered