Oh guess what, the cladding on Grenfell Tower that went up like a torch wasn’t supposed to be there.

The cladding used on Grenfell Tower, which has been widely blamed for spreading the blaze, is banned in the UK on buildings of that height, Philip Hammond has said.

The chancellor told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: “My understanding is the cladding in question, this flammable cladding which is banned in Europe and the US, is also banned here.

“So there are two separate questions. One: are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials? The second question is: were they correctly complied with?

“That will be a subject that the

What qualities does one need to be a good leader? Prudence Gourguechon discovered that it’s not easy to find definitive answers to that question.

Although there are volumes devoted to outlining criteria for psychiatric disorders, there is surprisingly little psychiatric literature defining mental capacity, even less on the particular abilities required for serving in positions of great responsibility. Despite the thousands of articles and books written on leadership, primarily in the business arena, I have found only one source where the capacities necessary for strategic leadership are clearly and comprehensively laid out: the U.S. Army’s “Field Manual 6-22 Leader Development.”

That makes sense. They really need to know.

The Army’s field manual on leadership is an extraordinarily

People are walking away.

Six members of the group that advises the White House on HIV and Aids have quit their posts – claiming that the Trump administration does not care about the issue.

In a letter of resignation that was published on a US news site, the experts claimed the government had no meaningful policy on tackling Aids, failed to listen to advice from those working in the field, and actually promoted legislation that harmed individuals living with the disease.

Other than that, everything’s great.

“We have dedicated our lives to combating this disease and no longer feel we can do so effectively within the confines of an advisory body to a president who simply does not care,”

Inside Higher Ed reports:

The Department of Education last week outlined changes to civil rights investigations that advocates fear will mean less consistent findings of systemic discrimination at colleges.

Under the Obama administration, certain types of civil rights complaints would trigger broader investigations of whether a pattern of discrimination existed at a school or college.

But Candice Jackson, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, told regional directors for the Office for Civil Rights in a memo that the Department of Education would no longer follow those guidelines. In detailing the latest civil rights shift under Secretary Betsy DeVos, Jackson wrote that the department was setting aside existing rules and empowering investigators with more discretion to clear case backlogs

Let’s look back at a little history: the FBI and the Kennedy brothers versus Martin Luther King.

Beveryl Gage starts with a typed anonymous letter sent to King in late 1964.

The unnamed author suggests intimate knowledge of his correspondent’s sex life, identifying one possible lover by name and claiming to have specific evidence about others. Another passage hints of an audiotape accompanying the letter, apparently a recording of “immoral conduct” in action. “Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure,” the letter demands. It concludes with a deadline of 34 days “before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”

“There is only one thing left for you to do,” the author warns vaguely in the

Newt Gingrich spelled out the core issue while chatting at the National Press Club:

By the way, technically, the president of the United States cannot obstruct justice. President of the United States is the chief executive officer of the United States: if he wants to fire the FBI director, all he’s gotta do’s fire him.

https://youtu.be/tztFP8e0UFU

And yet, as many many people rushed to point out, that’s sure as hell not what Gingrich was saying when it was Bill Clinton in the cross-hairs. At that time he said the opposite.

So, is it bullshit, or is it true?

Clearly as a matter of outcome, it depends on who has the votes. As a matter of brute fact, it depends on … Read the rest

Mueller and the FBI aren’t the only ones investigating Trump.

Not only did he allude through a tweet on Friday that he is the subject of an internal investigation by special counsel, but on the same day, an independent federal agency commissioned under Congress also said “grave concerns” were prompting an investigation into federal civil rights enforcement within his administration.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan agency charged with advising the president and Congress on civil rights matters, unanimously approved a comprehensive two-year probe into the “degree to which current budgets and staffing levels allow civil rights offices to perform” their functions within the administration, said the agency in a statement.

The federal watchdog group became concerned

Via Women’s Liberation Front on Facebook:

Sometimes a pregnancy half fails. The membranes rupture before viability and an infection sets up shop in the uterus. Medically, the pregnancy has to end; whether the fetus is still alive or not does not matter. If an infected uterus is left unevacuated, the bacteria will eventually spread to the blood stream and it will be fatal. This is fact.

At times the body offers a consolation and goes into labor. It doesn’t seem like it at the time but it is more than a small mercy. When the uterus does not start contracting the patient has to choose: drugs to induce labor or a surgical procedure called dilation and evacuation (D&E). It … Read the rest

Christine Berry on “deregulation” and Grenfell Tower:

In the wake of the horrifying Grenfell Tower disaster, people are starting to ask questions about why reports on housing safety were sat on and ignored. And the finger is being pointed towards the government’s ‘war on red tape’ – more specifically, towards a little-known policy called ‘one-in, three-out regulation’.

Oh that – the Republicans and Trump have been promoting that here, too. For every new “regulation” aka protection, you have to remove three. Wham, just like that – no questions asked about whether the three removed are actually a life or death necessity or not.

[H]ere’s a quick primer on what people are talking about when they talk about things like

Rod Rosenstein issued a strange statement last night.

“Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated,” Mr. Rosenstein said in the statement.

He did not cite specific reports. The Justice Department released Mr. Rosenstein’s statement after 9 p.m., a few hours after The Washington Post reported that the special counsel was investigating the business dealings of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. That report was attributed to unnamed American officials.

Asked about the impetus for the statement, a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Rosenstein

I just saw on the BBC that three victims have been named, and one of them is Khadija Saye. The artist Khadija Saye.

It’s been a real journey, tears shed, highs and lows, but mama, I’m an artist exhibiting at the Venice Biennale and the blessings are abundant!

Her Facebook cover photo is also unbearably poignant:

Perhaps the view from the flat she shared with her mother on the 20th floor.

Isaac Shawo age 5:

Syrian refugee Mohammed Alhajali

 … Read the rest