The Government Accountability Office, which is a non-partisan arm of Congress, says Trump broke the law.

President Donald Trump’s White House violated federal law by withholding military aid to Ukraine, a top government watchdog announced on Thursday, dealing a blow to the administration’s case against impeachment as the Senate prepares to put Trump on trial.

…

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the GAO concluded in a report released Thursday morning. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB

Yet another one.

The red haze of fury that immediately descended prevented me from noticing the staggering rudeness of simply cc-ing Stock on an email to others as opposed to communicating with her directly. I guess that’s because the latter would require apologies? I guess it’s just simpler and quicker for the bullies in charge to discuss it among themselves and cc the people they’re bullying?

I find this simply enraging. Preemptive “on second thought no” a mere week beforehand, on the basis of utterly spurious “health and safety issues” – which by the way are immediately nullified by the suggestion that a “transgender speaker” should be invited.

And all this in aid of the new and preposterous … Read the rest

Pink News reports:

The Argentinian football club Villa San Carlos has signed its first ever transgender player for the top women’s league, Primera Division A.

Funny how it’s always for the women’s league.

As well as being the first for the club, Argentine striker Mara Gomez, 22, will also be the first transgender woman ever to play in an official Argentine FA tournament.

Gomez previously played for Toronto City* and the amateur league side Malvinas, where she won two league titles and became the club’s top goalscorer.

A picture of her standing next to another of the team’s newest acquisitions, Ludmila Angeli, went viral as a piece of the country’s footballing history.

Possibly because Gomez towers over Angeli.

“Being

This country is a sewer.

Fearing potential violence, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is declaring a state of emergency and is banning firearms and other weapons on the Capitol grounds in Richmond ahead of a gun rights demonstration planned for next week.

“Gun rights” fanatics are planning to converge on Richmond next Monday to complain about efforts to pass gun control laws, because hey, why would anybody ever want to control guns.

The event, hosted by Virginia Citizens Defense League, is expected to draw thousands of armed demonstrators, some from out of state. Organizers have said they hope to hold a peaceful event.

Can you imagine? Hundreds of random people armed with guns converging on one spot in one city?… Read the rest

Now there’s more.

Welp, here's another 390 pages of Lev Parnas messages, posted by the House: https://t.co/0x2GU1xaHe

Starts off with a fun one to Parnas from a Trump PAC official: "What should I send Don to tweet?"

A tweet from Jr. soon materialized. pic.twitter.com/DN5WEfR5Kg

— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) January 15, 2020

Many of these messages haven't been translated. Biggest batches appear to be Parnas's messages with Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin, awaiting translation.

— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) January 15, 2020

Apparent discussion of attempt to fire Yovanovitch:

2/10/19: Toensing: "Is there absolute commitment for HER to be gone this week?"
Rudy: "Yes not sure how absolute Will get a reading in morning and call you. Pompeii [Pompeo] is now aware of

On another subject…

Just saying.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on All the poles are reversed.

If there is no difference between a cis woman and a trans woman, if “trans women are women” – then it shouldn’t make any difference.

But of course, there is a difference.

Anyway the more I see these stories, the more this runs through my head:

You’ve heard of TERFs, you’ve heard of SWERFs, now introducing the hot new radical feminism, WERFs.

That’s right, Women Exclusionary Radical Feminism, for when you want to call yourself a feminist but think the only women whose voices matter, are those women who have penises.

Do you think it is okay to threaten 60 year-old-women with baseball bats while still claiming … Read the rest

More from The Festering Sewer Dispatch:

On Monday, President Trump retweeted a fake image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer in Middle Eastern garb standing in front of an Iranian flag. The badly-photoshopped image showed Pelosi wearing hijab and Schumer with a turban on his head. “Democrats 2020,” the text on the bottom of the image read.

Hur hur hur.

Telling Trump he can’t unilaterally commit an act of war is not the same as embracing the target of the act of war. It’s a little more complicated than that.

The fake image was just one of the anti-Pelosi messages the president retweeted on Monday, many of them using the same hashtag: #NancyPelosiFakeNews. Bot Sentinel

The Daily Beast has the least cryptic reporting I’ve found on the Parnas Papers so far.

On the eve of a Senate trial to remove President Trump, House Democratic investigators have released a trove of documents obtained from the phone of Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s who was tasked with carrying out key parts of the plot to pressure the new president of Ukraine to do political favors for Trump.

…

In one exchange from March 2019, Robert F. Hyde, a Trump donor and Republican Congressional candidate whose involvement in the Ukraine saga has not been previously detailed, sent texts to Parnas that implied he had access to people spying on Yovanovitch in Kyiv, according to the

Breaking news.

NEWS tonight: Records turned over by Lev Parnas to House Intel show Parnas communicated with a GOP congressional candidate who said he had former Ambassador Yovanovitch under physical and possibly electronic surveillance in Kyiv

— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 14, 2020

I have to wonder what business a congressional candidate – of any party – had surveilling an ambassador. I would wonder the same about a member of Congress.

Will go down with ‘do us a favor though’ https://t.co/FmUkKEs0ae

— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) January 14, 2020

Um holy sh*t. This certainly makes it sound like Parnas and co. were actively tracking Yovanovitch's movements. This could explain why Yovanovitch was moved out of Ukraine so quickly. https://t.co/4rBRB06ZGN pic.twitter.com/5Gc8WcGPih

Let’s look at this one again.

3. Two cis women debating trans equality is like two men debating women’s equality – paternalistic and inappropriate. We are not the voices that should be centred.

You see what she’s doing there. It’s what the “activists” do…including, so often, so bafflingly, women. They pretend the magic of “trans” makes men the subordinated party as opposed to the subordinating. They pretend the magic of “trans” makes women Privileged in relation to men. They pretend the magic of “trans” flips the terms and makes women the people who oppress and dominate men.

I will never understand it. Never. I can see thinking that men who are acutely uncomfortable being men have an unhappy lot, … Read the rest

Take a moment to feel compassion for a guy who wants to be a criminal genius but is constantly hampered in his quest by a stupidity so profound it can’t be measured. Poor schmuck can’t keep his story straight from one day to the next.

President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran’s increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.

The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.

Which isn’t much of a condition, because how likely is it that Trump would ever say no?… Read the rest

Oh, look, it’s “Jessica” Yaniv getting handsy again.

Caution in case you’re at work: there’s a lot of “fuck” and “fucking.”

J. Yaniv just punched me in the back of the head. Just spoke to police. Luckily there are two security cameras directly overhead at the courthouse. I need an advil. pic.twitter.com/3hfm2CfYhq

— Keean Bexte (@TheRealKeean) January 14, 2020

… Read the rest

Gwyneth Paltrow is mocking us.

So Gwyneth has made a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina because, well, of course she has. It is priced at a comparatively bargain £58…

Hadley Freeman isn’t making it up, they do sell it.

$75 US. That’s quite pricey for a candle, even a scented one. Maybe harvesting the scent has high overheads.

Whole religions have been founded trying to answer the big questions: what is the meaning of life? What is reality? How can we cope with the concept of mortality? Goop is a quasi-religion in itself, from its messianic head figure, its deluded self-belief, its ludicrous claims and its overflowing bank account accrued from the desperate and vulnerable, estimated