So that’s one bit of good news.

News: @JoeBiden tells me he spoke with Dr. Fauci this afternoon, asked Fauci to stay on in his position at NIAID, and also to serve as a chief medical adviser for him.

Clip coming up on @CNN on @CNNSitRoom

Full interview w Biden/Harris at 9 pm ET

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 3, 2020

… Read the rest

You mean there’s a limit???

AP reports:

The official serving as President Donald Trump’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press.

snicker

That is, a spy Trump tried to plant at the Justice Department has been told to gtfo after she tried to bully staffers into helping her spy.

Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the

… Read the rest

I avoided it at first because blegh, but let’s take a look at that letter of former Ellen now Elliot Page’s.

The third paragraph:

My joy is real, but it is also fragile. The truth is, despite feeling profoundly happy right now, and knowing how much privilege I carry, I’m also scared. I’m scared of the invasiveness, the hate, the ‘jokes,’ and of violence. To be clear, I am not trying to dampen a moment that is joyous and one that I celebrate, but I also want to address the full picture. The statistics are staggering. The discrimination towards trans people is rife, insidious, and cruel, resulting in horrific consequences. In 2020 alone, it has been reported that at

… Read the rest

Another shining example of trumpal excellence at Voice of America:

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal watchdog, disclosed Wednesday that it had found “a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” at the parent agency of the Voice of America under the leadership of the CEO appointed by President Trump.

Since taking over the U.S. Agency for Global Media, CEO Michael Pack has turned it upside down, sidelining top executives, firing network chiefs, and deep-sixing requests for visa extensions for foreign staffers. Most notably, Pack had two senior political aides with records of strongly pro-Trump ideological statements investigate journalists for perceived anti-Trump bias and push for sympathetic news coverage of the president during the campaign.

The finding is

… Read the rest

Chase Strangio is distraught over the Tavistock ruling.

Yesterday a court ruled that trans youth under 16 and possibly all trans minors likely cannot consent to gender-affirming care even where they (1) request the care; (2) have the support of their parents or guardians; and (3) their doctor deems it necessary.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) December 2, 2020

It’s interesting and typical and a big part of the problem that CS resorts to hyperbolic emotional language at the outset. How “terrifying and sad and scary” – as if puberty blockers were ventilators and trans young people were being forcibly deprived of them.

This care is deemed medically necessary, safe and effective by every major medical association BUT has been the

… Read the rest

Philip Bump at the Post:

Over the length of a 46-minute video posted to social media Wednesday, President Trump read and riffed on a prepared script lambasting those who had the audacity to suggest that receiving fewer votes than his opponent meant he shouldn’t serve a second consecutive term in office. It was the functional equivalent of one of his beloved campaign rallies, both in the sense that it offered the same meandering range and, quite obviously, the same relief for his frustrations. It was also clearly no small undertaking; the numerous cuts in the final product suggested that what was offered to the country was a subset of what Trump had to say to the camera.

In other … Read the rest

The Military Times is not impressed.

The idea that the U.S. military would oversee a new nationwide presidential election — ordered under martial law by President Donald Trump — is “insane in a year that we didn’t think could get anymore insane,” a defense official tells Military Times.

Yet retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn promoted that exact idea Tuesday evening when he tweeted a press release from an Ohio-based conservative political organization.

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1333916403389370369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1333916403389370369%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.militarytimes.com%2Fnews%2Fyour-military%2F2020%2F12%2F02%2Fcalls-for-martial-law-and-us-military-oversight-of-new-presidential-elections-draws-criticism%2F

Actually let’s just skip the vote entirely and let the military make Trump Dictator for Life. Why not?… Read the rest

Stand With Mueller writes:

A week after receiving his pardon from “President” Donald Trump, former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn promoted a call for the “president” to “temporarily suspend the Constitution” and put the country under martial law.

On Tuesday, weeks after the election Trump lost, Flynn shared a press release from the right-wing We the People Convention imploring Trump to implement martial law. The statement drew a connection to what Abraham Lincoln did with his presidential authority during the Civil War.

“Then, as now, a President with courage and determination was needed to preserve the Union,” the statement says. “Today, the current threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much

… Read the rest

Oh INteresting.

Ivanka Trump was deposed Tuesday by the DC attorney general's office as part of its lawsuit alleging misuse of inauguration funds, according to a new court filing.

— Kara Scannell (@KaraScannell) December 2, 2020

DC attorney general, so Trump can’t pardon her ass out of there.

Scannell reports for CNN:

Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter and adviser, sat for a deposition Tuesday with investigators from the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds, according to a court filing.

In January, the DC attorney general’s office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by “grossly overpaying”

… Read the rest

Seattle has a celebrity visitor, all the way from the Arctic.

This snowy owl has been wowing residents and birders in Queen Anne.* It is rare for the owls to be seen in this region, and the owls always create a stir in Seattle, where with their striking appearance they can hardly be missed. Their color evokes their usual home in the Arctic. Snowies are the largest of owls, with a wingspan that can reach nearly 5 feet. They also are among the heaviest, weighing in at about 5 pounds. 

I went to see her today. Google actually had the address – apparently she really likes that particular chimney so that’s where she spends the day – which made … Read the rest

To the surprise of no one –

Private Eye has named the Guardian trans activist 'misogynist' who Suzanne Moore complained about (a complaint that wasn't dealt with), because he called her an insecure bigot after she asked him if they could be civil with each other. His name is Owen Jones pic.twitter.com/GRW5pIEaxY

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) December 2, 2020

From Moore’s “Why I had to leave the Guardian” piece last week:

By 2018, the atmosphere was poisonous. A fellow columnist at The Guardian replied to a message I sent about being civil at the Christmas do with: “You’ve prompted the most sickening transphobia, for which you have never apologised, you called islamophobia a myth and you publicly abuse leftwingers.” This person

… Read the rest

Whatever.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, as long as a Senate Republican joins him in the long-shot effort, sources tell your Huddle host.

Sure, and I plan to be a billionaire with the power of flight by next Tuesday.

Brooks confirmed his plans in a phone interview, adding that he is still considering objecting to the vote-counting process even if no one joins him — though he acknowledged that would be more of a symbolic protest. Brooks, echoing President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud without providing evidence, argued that the election was “badly

… Read the rest

Glosswitch pointed out one perverse aspect of the trans juggernaut.

https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/1333926726817239040

We know that being trans is highly fashionable, and also energetically encouraged from many directions. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t also attract hostility and persecution, but we do know there are plenty of cheerleaders around. I hadn’t quite noticed the paradox that those cheerleaders also insist that being trans (or at least being dysphoric) is agony, but of course they do and of course it is a paradox. Maybe a lot of the putative agony is manufactured, precisely by the biggest cheerleaders for the trans juggernaut. “You’re awesome and stunning and brave and also very likely to kill yourself – welcome aboard!”

I’ve been assuming the shouts about agony … Read the rest

Of course they did.

Sweeping data released by the Small Business Administration on who benefited from pandemic relief programs raises questions about the equitability and distribution of loans intended for small businesses, an initial analysis by NBC News shows.

The analysis found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.

Does that sound corrupt? Just a little.

After months of litigation, the SBA released the dataset Tuesday night on every small business that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or Economic Injury Disaster (EIDL) loan.

…

Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were

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The Guardian has more on that furious plea to stop the lies:

One of Georgia’s top election officials has made an impassioned plea to Donald Trump to tone down his rhetoric disputing the election results, saying the president is “inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence”.

He wants to though. He would love to see violence erupt because of his lies. I’m completely serious: he does, he would, that’s what he is.

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, also issued the stark warning that if Trump does not rein in his supporters then “someone is going to get hurt”.

…

Sterling, the voting systems manager for the Georgia secretary of

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He really mad.

He’s the voting implementation manager in Georgia.

WATCH. https://t.co/aU1oaAArLQ

— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) December 2, 2020

… Read the rest

Trump is getting a lot of money from this country-destroying grift of his.

President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $150 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election to shatter fundraising records set during the campaign, according to people with knowledge of the contributions.

As we know, 60% of that money is for him, to pay off campaign debts, not for the purpose it says on the label.

Much of the money raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the president to use on political activities after he leaves office, while some of the contributions will go toward what’s left of the legal fight.

Oh and for future … Read the rest

Suzanne Moore asks a crucial question in a post on the Tavistock ruling.

Again, we must ask what is causing this misery for girls and why suicide rates are rising. Why are female bodies such an uncomfortable place to be?

That question needs to be thrown back to society and not always located in the psyche of the individual. This is why I find parts of trans activist discourse so totally conservative. There is no analysis of how gender operates, of how bodies and definitions do not exist in isolation, how the notion of a true self may itself be false.

Very likely is false, from what I’ve read of psychology and philosophy. The self isn’t a thing, and … Read the rest

Giuliani is curled up on Trump’s lap begging for a pre-emptive pardon.

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giulani, discussed with the president as recently as last week the possibility of being granted a “pre-emptive pardon,” according to the New York Times, which cited two anonymous sources.

Pardon for what? Not known, but best guess is that whole Ukraine thing. The Times wrote:

Such a broad pardon pre-empting any charge or conviction is highly unusual but does have precedent. George Washington pardoned plotters of the Whiskey Rebellion, shielding them from treason prosecutions. In the most famous example, Gerald R Ford pardoned Richard M Nixon for all of his actions as president. Jimmy Carter pardoned thousands of American men who illegally

… Read the rest

The Tavistock ruling part 2.

The Tavistock deals with cases referred to it from across England and Wales. Until 2011, puberty blockers were only available at GIDS for those aged 16 or older.

In the year 2019-20, of 161 children referred to GIDS, three were aged 10 or 11 and 95 under the age of 16.

95 out of 161. Eeeeesh.

Diagnosis of gender dysphoria involves children demonstrating at least six of a series of behavioural traits as well as an “associated significant distress or impairment in function, lasting at least six months”.

Ah yes behavioral traits, like wearing the “other” clothes for example. The patterns include:

• A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence … Read the rest