If tweets can get tenured academics bullied out of their jobs then why can’t they get presidents scolded out of theirs?

The last 12 months have seen one controversy after another over the tweets of George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. In a series of incidents, he has made statements that led to calls for his dismissal. In several instances, the university has criticized him. Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters have said that his comments have been distorted and that his academic freedom has been attacked.

On Thursday, he announced on Twitter that he was leaving his tenured job at Drexel. “After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and

Jennifer Rubin at the Post says it’s a stunt.

The move by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) marks a major escalation in conservatives’ challenges to the FBI’s credibility as the agency investigates whether any Trump associates committed crimes. Another Republican, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), joined in the letter to the Justice Department.

Their letter makes what is called a criminal referral to the Justice Department, suggesting it investigate the dossier author, former British spy Christopher Steele, for possibly lying to the FBI. It is a crime to lie to FBI agents about a material fact relevant to an ongoing investigation.

This is an outrageous political stunt, one with no legal ramifications and obviously designed to take the heat

In case we still haven’t had enough farcical distraction yet, here’s another installment:

More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate. The committee is

Don’s attempts to make that Wolff guy go away aren’t working out for him.

The author of a scathing new book about President Trump said on Friday that the president’s attempt to block its publication would not only help with sales but would also confirm the book’s key finding: Mr. Trump is unfit for office.

Speaking on the “Today” show, Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” called the administration’s attempt to block the book “extraordinary” and dismissed the president’s criticisms of him out of hand.

“My credibility is being questioned by a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth at this point,” Mr. Wolff said.

Or … Read the rest

Walter Shaub, former Director of the Office of Government Ethics, on Twitter this morning:

THREAD (4 tweets): 18 U.S.C. § 208 makes it a crime for a federal employee to participate in a particular matter in which he/she has a financial interest. An investigation is a particular matter. A subject of an investigation has a financial interest in the investigation. /1

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 5, 2018

The subjects of any investigation of the Trump campaign’s communications with Russian officials potentially include any member of the campaign who communicated with Russian officials in 2016. /2

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 5, 2018

Jeff Sessions was a member of the Trump campaign. He communicated with Russian officials in 2016. He

Barry Duke at the Freethinker tells us that Donnie sent a mash note to a risible prosperity gospel preacher a few months ago.

[Kenneth] Copeland revealed on Facebook at the end of December 2017 that he received a letter from the deranged Trump in August. Trump wrote:

Melania and I send our warmest wishes as you celebrate 50 years of ministry. For half a century, you have devoted your life to faith and humanity. Your enduring commitment to spreading the word of God has influenced the lives of people across the United States and around the world.

We hope your heart is filled with joy, knowing your efforts to spread a message of hope are an inspiration to people who

One item from the Times story on Bannon and the Wolff book needs to stand on its own.

The book presents Mr. Trump as an ill-informed and thoroughly unserious candidate and president, engaged mainly in satisfying his own ego. It reports that early in the campaign, one aide, Sam Nunberg, was sent to explain the Constitution to the candidate. “I got as far as the Fourth Amendment,” it quoted Mr. Nunberg as saying, “before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”

Not a child in school itching to go outside and run around. Not an undergraduate too hungover to pay attention. Not a random asshole on Twitter. A grown-ass adult … Read the rest

The Times says it’s all over between Don and Steve.

President Trump essentially excommunicated his onetime chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, from his political circle on Wednesday, excoriating him as a self-promoting exaggerator who had “very little to do with our historic victory” and has now “lost his mind.”

In a written statement brimming with anger and resentment, Mr. Trump fired back at Mr. Bannon, who had made caustic comments about the president and his family to the author of a new book about the Trump White House. While Mr. Bannon had remained in touch with Mr. Trump even after being pushed out of the White House last summer, the two now appear to have reached a breaking point.

The Post says the working class is protesting in Iran, to the alarm of the mullahs.

“The rebuke both from the urban poor and more religious cities in Iran should be a wake-up call” to the Iranian leadership, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

In the past week, there were echoes of the mass demonstrations that flared in 2009 after reformist political candidates were defeated in disputed presidential election: women pulling off headscarves, fist-pumping crowds, chants against Khamenei.

But unlike that earlier, largely middle-class movement centered in Tehran, the recent demonstrations are drawing heavily upon lower-income youths in religious cities and rural towns. In some cases, protesters have attacked

Originally a comment by iknklast on Aw, another rift.

forgotten men and women of this country

Honestly, I am so sick of this phrase. No one has forgotten these people; they would never let us. They make more noise, and get more attention than any other group. Bernie Sanders suggested putting up a pro-life Democrat to make these people happy. Every pundit across the spectrum has been saying for at least the past 5 election cycles that these are the people we should be pandering to, instead of “identity politics”, which means, in translation, we should be continuing to ensure that white midwesterners who are Christian and anti-feminist, who are pro-life and pro-Jesus, should continue to run the country … Read the rest

Frederick Crews, whose latest book is the wonderful Freud: The Making of an Illusion, has a review-article on a new book about “recovered memory” and a criminal trial.

Until now the work has been almost entirely ignored by reviewers. Yet it comes with the strong endorsement of a world-renowned psychologist and memory expert, Elizabeth Loftus, and a leading expert on coercive interrogation methods and false confessions, Richard A. Leo. If they are right, Mark Pendergrast’s 391-page The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment can erase the shame of both Penn State and Sandusky, who languishes in solitary confinement, for 22 hours a day, in a maximum-security state prison.

Pendergrast is an independent