The purge is expanding.

Johnny McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

McEntee, a 29-year-old former body man to Trump who was fired in 2018 by then-Chief of Staff John Kelly but recently rehired — and promoted to head the presidential personnel office — foreshadowed sweeping personnel changes across government.

“Sweeping personnel changes”=a purge.

Trump has empowered McEntee — whom he considers an absolute loyalist — to purge the “bad people” and “Deep State.”

There it is again. This is a random employee of Trump’s, … Read the rest

Lisa Nandy is really digging in on this “self-identification is a right” nonsense.

"Self identifying is a really, really important part of the right of people to say – I know better than a psychiatric assessment who I am."@lisanandy says a person convicted of raping a teenage girl, who self identifies as a woman, should be accommodated in a female prison. pic.twitter.com/jynnIIPjZC

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) February 21, 2020

Sure, people have a right to say “I know better than a psychiatric assessment who I am.” What they don’t have is a right to impose that claim on anyone else, a right to live according to that claimed knowledge in all circumstances without question, a right to lie on official … Read the rest

Yes how dare women think they can ever withdraw from the male presence, even in a rape shelter? They’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

We are extremely disappointed by the City of Vancouver’s intent not to fund our public education work and the message it sends to the women who seek out a women-only group as part of their resistance to male violence.#VanCityCouncil #fail #women #womenresistance #womenonly pic.twitter.com/GPqltxw7ty

— VancouverRapeRelief (@VanRapeRelief) February 20, 2020

… Read the rest

Truth matters:

As she delivered her sentence, Judge Amy Berman Jackson delivered a defense of facts, accusing Roger Stone of disregarding them in his case.

“The truth still exists. The truth still matters,” Jackson said. “Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t, his pride in his own lies are a threat to the very foundation of this democracy.”

Despite America’s current divisions, Jackson said that the condemnation of Stone’s disregard for the truth “should transcend both parties.”

I don’t know why the Guardian decided to downgrade that into “facts.” Truth includes facts but that’s not all there is to it.

House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said Roger Stone’s sentence was “justified” and warned that a presidential pardon in the

Updating to add the conclusion: 40 months.

The Guardian live is following the hearing in Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s court.

The federal prosecutors and Roger Stone’s lawyers argued in court over whether the former Trump associate had obstructed his own criminal case by posting about it on social media.

As a reminder, Stone was slapped with an expanded gag order last year after he posted an Instagram appearing to show Judge Amy Berman Jackson and the crosshairs of a gun.

Jackson warned in court today that the post could have incited violence against her and merited a sentencing enhancement, denouncing Stone’s behavior as “intolerable.”

Awww just a bit of boyish fun.

Under questioning from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, federal prosecutor John Crabb defended the original

None of this is how it’s supposed to be.

Trump is tweeting while Stone’s sentencing is in progress. If Barr doesn’t resign after this, he has no credibility with anyone – DOJ, courts, the public. Hard to see how he can remain in place IF he cares about DOJ & the rule of law more than power & politics. https://t.co/pGCMDH6Ai4

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 20, 2020

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1230530810081677320

The Judge wants to know who wrote the 2nd sentencing memo DOJ submitted in the Stone case, the one the reflected Trump’s views not the law & the facts. Can’t think of a legit reason for a prosecutor to decline to answer the court’s question. https://t.co/VePHLMbKJO

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 20,

The sentencing hearing for Roger Stone is happening now.

Jackson spent much of the first hour of the hearing criticizing Stone’s actions.

Stone’s actions “led to an inaccurate, incorrect and incomplete report” from the House on Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign, Jackson told the court. She also said she believed Stone’s threats to witness Randy Credico deserved a stronger sentence.

In other words Stone’s actions meant that the Mueller report couldn’t nail Trump. The perjury did what it was meant to do.

Stone also potentially threatened her on social media, the judge said.

“I suppose that I could say Roger Stone didn’t intend to hurt me … it’s just classic bad judgment,” Jackson said, then dismissing that idea.

Pride parade shuts down a lesbian event. Makes sense.

A lesbian event has been removed from Sydney, Australia’s LGBT Pride after a vocal minority protested the participation of a popular lesbian YouTuber with critical views towards transgender self-ID.

Arielle Scarcella runs an LGBT-centred YouTube channel with over 630,000 subscribers.

She has also spoken out against self-ID laws which have enabled biological males to be transferred to women’s prisons after the commission of serious offences, such as sexual assaults. In 2018, Scarcella collaborated on a video with Blaire White discussing how lesbian sexual preferences that do not include an attraction to biological males who transition to female were not “transphobic.”

Les-Talk was originally planned to be one of the events

It takes the breath away:

Queensland police have revealed that a man who killed his wife and three children by dousing them with petrol and setting them alight had a history of domestic violence and was known to them.

Not just murder but murder by extreme agony.

But in comments that have shocked domestic violence campaigners, the force says they are keeping an “open mind” about suggestions the 42-year-old Rowan Baxter had been “driven too far” and are appealing to people who knew the couple to come forward to understand his motives.

…

On Thursday, Det Insp Mark Thompson confirmed domestic and family violence orders had been granted against Baxter, saying there had been “a number of engagements of

Jane Clare Jones reads another piece by another trans activist, this one by

Torr Robinson, a person with they/them pronouns who is the Trans Officer for London Young Labour and one of the founders of the recent pledge defaming Woman’s Place and calling for us to be expelled from the Labour Party.

Is it a good piece? It is not. Does it contain surprises? It does not.

The piece is called For Trans Liberation, and this idea is summoned throughout. There is, however, no specification about what Torr is calling for liberation from, or what the specific demands for liberation are.

There never is. There is never any explanation of what “trans rights” are, either. There is … Read the rest

Oh gee, some House Republicans are unhappy about Blagojevich’s commutation.

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich profusely thanked Trump for commuting his prison sentence in a press conference today.

He would, wouldn’t he.

“We want to express our most profound and everlasting gratitude to President Trump,” said Blagojevich, appearing alongside his family. “How do you properly thank someone who’s given you back the freedom that was stolen from you?”

Says the guy who wanted to sell Obama’s Senate seat for $$$.

But others are less thrilled about Blagojevich’s commutation, considering he was caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat.

A group of House Republicans from Illinois released a statement yesterday calling Blagojevich “the face of public corruption” in the

Sure, Hogan Gidley. Whatever you say.

“The president is against aggressive sentencing,” whether it’s Alice Johnson or Rod Blagojevich, spokesman Hogan Gidley says on Fox News. pic.twitter.com/uxLnm6mFn4

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 19, 2020

Aaron Rupar at Vox 9 days ago:

President Donald Trump is campaigning on criminal justice reform efforts that reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders, while suggesting he’d like the American justice system to work more like ones in authoritarian countries where drug dealers are executed after “fair but quick” trials.

Well, exectution is a reduced sentence in a way…

Just days after his Super Bowl ad and State of the Union speech highlighted his support for legislation that makes a modest effort to reduce prison sentences

Mo transitions.

J and M on Patreon… Read the rest

Who is Joe Grogan? According to his Twitter bio:

Assistant to the President & Director of the Domestic Policy Council Tweets may be archived: http://wh.gov/privacy

Which is kind of creepy since he apparently thinks of most of us as an occupying enemy.

Just landed in California. POTUS power swing through occupied territory. ⁦ https://t.co/3juICy6NHN

— Joe Grogan 45 Archived (@joegrogan45) February 19, 2020

Power swing? What does that mean – that Trump and his goons will be shooting at people?

God I wish this were over.

Brendan O’Neill is wrong about most things but not about the hot new trend of pretending reality can be altered by saying a magic word or two.

Imagine if a politician went on TV and said ‘The Earth is flat’. Or ‘Man didn’t really land on the Moon, you know’. We would worry about that politician’s fitness for public life. Well, Dawn Butler has just done the trans equivalent of that. She appeared on Good Morning Britain yesterday and said babies are born without a sex.

There are a lot of things you could say that about. Babies are born without a language. Babies are born without a religion. Babies are born without a driver’s license. Babies are born … Read the rest